Mid-July, 1989.
Marunouchi, Tokyo — Saionji Industries Headquarters, Basement Level 4.
An entire wall displayed a 3D internal refraction model of an Extreme Ultraviolet, or EUV, lithography lens.
Complex green light paths wove together into a vast, precise labyrinth. Several aspherical mirrors rotated slowly against the black background. Simulated by ray-tracing algorithms, Extreme Ultraviolet beams made nanometer-scale refractive jumps between lenses in dazzling trajectories.
Every line and every curve represented the pinnacle of human achievement in optical physics.
Dr. Klaus Weber stood before the screen.
He gripped a red laser pointer tightly. His withered lips trembled slightly, and his clouded eyes reflected the dancing green points of light.
From a dark, damp basement in the Jena factory to this black box filled with top-tier computing power, the tedious formulas he had spent a lifetime deriving had finally become this concrete industrial star map, thanks to the University of Tokyo's supercomputer network.
At the main console, Suzuki Emi sat in an anti-static swivel chair.
The lenses of her thin silver-framed glasses also reflected the sea of green stars.
At the bottom of the screen, a long green progress bar crawled slowly toward one hundred percent.
"Refractive index normal. Astigmatism is within threshold," she said.
Her voice was tired from an all-nighter, but her pronunciation was clear.
"Dr. Weber, the theoretical model works."
Dr. Weber exhaled slowly. His chest heaved. Behind him, his two students, Dieter and Frank, subconsciously clenched their fists.
Half a century of East German optical research had just been validated in the digital world.
But that wasn't enough. The model worked — nothing more.
Emi's finger hovered over the Enter key.
"Now, loading current industrial processing tolerance variables," she said.
She pressed the key.
Click.
The crisp keystroke echoed. The green star map on the screen collapsed in a tenth of a second.
A waterfall of red error data poured down like a broken dam, blanketing the entire wall. The piercing red light turned the dim room into a disaster scene. Shrill red warning boxes popped up one after another, stacking until they filled the screen.
Dr. Weber's fingers went slack.
Clatter.
The red laser pointer slipped from his hand. The metal tube hit the anti-static floor and rolled down a slight incline, vanishing into the shadows. The red laser dot jerked across the floor a few times before going still.
Emi took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger. Red veins stood out on her skin.
She put her glasses back on and stared at the screen full of red light. After two seconds of silence, she spoke.
"...Dr. Weber. After we substitute in real-world physical processing parameters, the actual manufacturing yield for this model is effectively zero."
Dr. Weber stumbled back half a step.
Dieter moved quickly and steadied his teacher's arm.
"Why?" The old man's voice was raspy and distorted. "The formulas are perfect..."
"Processing precision can't keep up," Emi said.
She tapped the keyboard and brought up the first set of magnified limit parameters. Crimson numbers flashed wildly on the screen.
"Optical path refraction in the extreme ultraviolet band requires mirror surface flatness at the atomic level. Our current digital simulations show that even a 0.2-nanometer bump on the mirror surface will cause severe distortion in the exposure pattern."
"Right now, even the top-tier CNC multi-axis machine tools in Japan and globally still have nanometer-scale tolerances in polishing precision. Current mechanical processing can't even polish the basic lens housing for this optical system."
"This is the first barrier."
Another keystroke.
A second set of red data took over the center of the screen.
"The second barrier: the light source."
"Extreme ultraviolet light with a 13.5-nanometer wavelength is easily absorbed by all substances. Existing mercury lamps or excimer lasers are far below the required power. The model requires a specialized EUV light source generator that can continuously excite plasma. It needs to use high-power CO2 lasers to bombard liquid tin droplets tens of thousands of times per second."
"No such stable light source exists in industry today. Without a light source, this set of optical lenses is just a pile of blind, non-functional hardware."
A third keystroke. The crisp sound echoed.
"The third barrier: materials."
"The silicon wafers that can handle this level of exposure, along with the photoresists, require extremely high purity and special chemical coatings. Current civilian and even military-grade silicon wafers will suffer irreversible thermal distortion and focus drift under continuous high-energy wavelength bombardment."
Three sets of crimson data.
Three towering walls of physics.
They stood across from the perfect theoretical blueprint, cruelly mocking humanity's current manufacturing limits.
The lab fell dead silent.
Only the hum of the exhaust fan continued.
Dr. Weber pushed Dieter's hand away and slumped onto a metal folding chair. The chair legs scraped the floor with a piercing screech.
This old-school scientist, who had survived a life-and-death escape, covered his face with both hands. Heavy, almost desperate breaths leaked through his fingers.
Dieter and Frank stood beside him, their faces pale as paper.
Perfect formulas they had spent their lives deriving were useless data in the face of real-world processing limits. For any researcher, it was a collapse of faith.
Red error points flashed uneasily around the room.
The crisp sound of leather heels on the anti-static floor came from the shadows behind the control room.
Click, clack.
Saionji Satsuki stepped into the light.
Her gaze lingered for a moment on the three sets of crimson, hopeless parameters on the screen.
"Is there a shortcut around these three walls?" she asked. Her voice cut through the exhaust fan's hum.
Emi shook her head.
"These are hard barriers of basic physics and materials science. No code or algorithm can compensate for atomic-level processing errors. The only way is to acquire the top-tier multi-axis machine tools, EUV light source generators, and specialized silicon wafers. But these technologies are scattered among different giants in Europe and Japan, and most are top-secret and not for sale."
Satsuki nodded slightly.
Fujita Tsuyoshi stepped forward and placed two heavy document folders on the stainless steel workstation.
Leather hit metal with a dull thud.
Satsuki lowered her eyes and opened the first folder.
It was the Breaking Hardware Barriers: Preliminary Budget for Overseas Mergers and Penetration report prepared by Emi and the think tank team. To acquire these three core hardware items internationally, they would need to use offshore capital pools and set up dozens of shell funds for piecemeal equity acquisitions. The figure at the end of the list ran into the tens of billions of yen.
Her finger tapped the paper lightly.
The price was steep.
But these three technologies were the final pieces to assemble a future money-printing machine. Monopolizing the upstream equipment would bring a strategic premium that dwarfed the current investment.
Next, she opened the second folder.
An urgent bill. The header bore the Saionji Construction emblem — Hokkaido Niseko 'Gokuraku-kan' Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse Phase I: Special Plant Air Transport and Constant Temperature System Maintenance Fees.
Two bills representing the extremes of money-burning overlapped in physical space. One was a technological barrier at the limits of human industry. The other was a massive trap to strangle the Seibu Empire. Fighting on two fronts meant the Saionji Family's massive cash flow would be cut nearly in half.
Her gaze paused briefly on the two long strings of numbers at the end of the bills.
Her gloved index finger tapped the stainless steel surface.
"Tap, tap."
With the slight sound of leather on metal, her brain switched to a Wall Street risk assessment model.
The hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore funds sitting in the S.A. Investment account in the Cayman Islands would remain untouched as a risk-resistant ballast.
On the domestic front, the massive interest-free cash flow generated daily by S-Mart and Uniqlo, combined with the average monthly net profit of 2.5 billion yen from S-Food's supply chain for the three major convenience stores, formed the first line of defense.
Stable income from real estate and entertainment — the Ginza "Crystal Palace" and the Akasaka "Pink Building" — was enough to offset the financial costs of the 30 billion yen low-interest credit line from Mitsui Bank.
Even with parallel operations on both fronts compressing this quarter's free cash flow to the limit, the group's overall monthly net profit base of 6.5 billion yen would still keep the debt-to-asset ratio firmly below a safe fifteen percent.
The cash flow stress test was complete.
If they crossed these three barriers, the Saionji Family could monopolize the foundation of future chip manufacturing. The return on capital would far exceed the current cost.
Her index finger stopped tapping.
The decision was made.
She pulled out a fountain pen.
The nib touched the paper. She signed her name smoothly on both documents.
Click.
Satsuki capped the pen.
She closed the two folders and pushed them toward Fujita Tsuyoshi. Then she looked up, her gaze cutting through the red light to the East German engineers who looked like they had seen a ghost.
Weber slowly lowered his hands from his face.
He looked at the expressionless young woman. His clouded eyes were bloodshot, and his withered mouth twitched.
"Miss Saionji..." Weber's voice was terribly raspy, like his throat was full of grit. "The processing errors are too large. Current industrial levels simply cannot cross them."
He lowered his head, his hands gripping the edges of the metal folding chair. He didn't know what Satsuki had decided yet. But in the East German system, a research project like this — no political benefit, no immediate profit, countless processing dead ends — had only one outcome.
"The theoretical model has been handed over to you without reservation. If the Saionji Group decides to cut its losses, terminate the research, and dismiss us..."
"The problems on the blueprints belong to you," Satsuki cut him off.
Weber froze. He looked up, staring blankly at her.
"Leave these three walls in reality to me."
Satsuki turned to Emi and laid out the next plan.
"Since we can't use code to compensate for physical tolerances, we'll use capital to acquire the physical assets that meet the tolerance standards."
"Emi."
"Yes." Hearing her name, Emi straightened her back and put her hands on the keyboard.
"Package and encapsulate the existing digital model. Prepare all the equipment external connection protocols. Leave ports for future connections to high-precision multi-axis machine tools and EUV light sources."
"Understood. Initiating data packaging and encapsulation protocol now."
Satsuki nodded slightly.
She turned back, her gaze sweeping over Weber, Dieter, and Frank before resting on Fujita Tsuyoshi.
"If we can't build the precision machine tools, we'll go to Europe and America to buy them."
"If we can't buy the specialized silicon wafers and light source technology, we'll swallow the companies whole."
"The Saionji Family will gather all the hardware puzzle pieces."
Weber's lips trembled violently. He couldn't believe his ears. For a physical barrier with no short-term profit, they were going to run cross-border acquisitions of industrial giants?
"But... that requires an incredibly vast amount of capital..." the old man's voice shook with disbelief. "This kind of bottomless investment..."
Satsuki looked down at him.
"Didn't I say it?"
Her cool voice cut through the exhaust fan's hum.
"As long as the targets can be met, there is no upper limit on the budget."
Weber stood there, dumbfounded.
Two seconds later, his clouded eyes filled with blood. His back, hunched in despair, snapped straight. His chest heaved like a bellows, and his heavy breathing was loud in the quiet lab.
The technical obsession he had suppressed for half a century was reignited by this irrational capitalist promise.
He finally understood: when the profit is high enough, capitalists really will pluck the moon from the sky.
He grabbed the notebook on the table, his fingers white-knuckling the red laser pointer.
"Th... Thank you very much!! Miss Saionji! We... we guarantee we will complete the mission!"
The raspy German boomed in the control room. Dieter and Frank also stood straight, the same fanatical fire in their eyes.
"We will push the chemical formula of the special glass to its absolute limit! As long as the puzzle pieces are delivered, this model can run at any time!"
A perfect transaction.
Seeing everyone's reaction, Satsuki nodded, satisfied.
"I look forward to your results."