Su Hao had an idea and immediately entered his pinball space to start simulating the structural design using small lights.
He began by projecting ten ‘Explosion’ runes and observed their structure. If the concept proved feasible, he would then scale it up to a hundred runes or even a thousand runes.
“The condition for simultaneous rune activation is that all runes need to be drawn simultaneously. The time it takes to draw each rune is not important; what matters is the moment they all successfully finish drawing. So…”
Therefore, Su Hao’s idea was simple. If the ten runes’ endpoints converged but remained independent of each other, he could use his blood energy to complete the connections at the endpoints. This would allow all the runes to be drawn simultaneously and activated together.
“So… a spherical structure!”
Su Hao projected a transparent spherical model and inscribed ‘Explosion’ runes on its surface. He encased the entire sphere with these runes and then disconnected the starting and ending points of the runes. After a bit of contemplation, he brought the disconnected points together at the sphere’s center, suspended without touching each other.
In this way, when blood energy filled the pathways according to the drawn patterns, all the runes would be in a standby state. By lightly touching them with his blood energy, he could simultaneously activate all the explosion runes.
The remaining issue was how to input the blood energy when the activation point was at the sphere’s center. He couldn’t just reach inside and activate it with his hand, could he?
So, Su Hao created an opening at the top of the sphere that led directly to its center. Then, he extended all the starting points’ patterns out to the sphere’s surface, forming a dense array of small dots, resembling a honeycomb. These dots served as input points for the blood energy. The broken endpoints at the sphere’s center served as activation points.
They were close together but didn’t touch.
To activate the runes, all Su Hao needed to do was touch the input points with his hand, infuse blood energy inside, and then converge it at the center of the sphere.
Su Hao gave himself a mental pat on the back for his genius imagination.
Then he realized a problem. “Um… there doesn’t seem to be a delay mechanism. Should I activate it with my hand and risk self-destruction? That’s not a good idea…”
He scratched his head, continuing to think about how to implement a delay mechanism.
While the bomb was still in his hand, he couldn’t directly complete the runes by hand. He would need an automatic mechanism to do so.
So, this bomb needed to be divided into two devices. One was the sphere composed of ‘Explosion’ runes, and the other was a small orb attached to the sphere’s center that could be automatically ejected.
By inputting blood energy into both devices simultaneously and setting the small orb to automatically eject after a certain amount of time, it would connect all the starting and ending points, triggering the explosion immediately.
When Su Hao immersed himself in this project and tinkered for an unknown amount of time, he finally settled on the final design.
“Well, let’s give it a try! First, I need to collect some gold wireworms!”
…
Ten days later, Su Hao looked at the basketball-sized metal sphere in his hand, wearing an inexplicable smile.
He went outdoors, placed his hand on the input point, and cautiously infused blood energy into the sphere. A few seconds later, the sphere emitted a “click” sound.
The device was activated!
Su Hao immediately stood up, turned around, and ran while keeping an eye on the metal sphere.
Five seconds later…
“Boom!”
A deafening explosion sent rocks and dirt flying. Some debris struck Su Hao’s face, making it sting.
“It worked!”
Su Hao rushed back, looking at the crater with a diameter of about four meters, his face filled with joy.
The power surpassed that of a typical grenade and could rival a Grandmaster’s strike!
And this was just the initial test version.
Su Hao stood by the edge of the crater, rubbing his chin with his hand, contemplating the next bomb’s improvements.
“There’s still plenty of space inside the sphere. I can try increasing the number of runes from 10 to 50. Moreover, I have a feeling that if the metal casing were a bit stronger, the explosive power could be even greater.”
So, when Su Hao created the second bomb, he added a ‘Hard’ rune to the metal casing. While a stronger casing wasn’t always better, if it were too weak, the explosive damage would be minimal.
As for adding steel beads to increase the lethality, that was a consideration for later.
Ten days later, Su Hao walked out with a larger metal sphere than the previous one, wearing an expression of eager anticipation.
Carefully activating the bomb, he quickly moved far away and took cover behind a large rock.
This time, the detonation had a ten-second delay, making it very safe.
“Boom!”
A deafening explosion echoed, leaving Su Hao’s ears ringing. His heart skipped a beat.
“Wow! Awesome!”
Su Hao arrived at the crater, looking at the deep hole with a diameter of over ten meters. Such power was something that even ordinary Grandmaster-level martial artists might not be able to produce. However, if a Grandmaster martial artist were caught off guard, even with armor, they would still be in trouble. With proper precautions, evasion or defense, they might survive.
“Hmm… Let’s reinforce it some more and try the effect of a hundred ‘Explosion’ runes.”
A bomb that could only harm Grandmaster-level martial artists wasn’t what Su Hao desired. He needed a colossal weapon that could solve all his problems.
“But… I’m running out of materials. I need to replenish them in a nearby small town.”
However, Su Hao’s conspicuous armor might raise suspicions. People might suspect him of being the “Silver Armor Rune Grandmaster” and attract the attention of the King.
So, he decided to fly outside the small town, hide the Winged Armor, and then disguise himself before entering the city.
As Su Hao flew in high altitudes, he could see the small town from a distance and began descending.
“Hmm? What’s that?”
Smoke was slowly rising from the town, resembling a fire.
Su Hao decided not to rush into the town but instead switched to silent flight mode, quickly ascended to the cloud layer above the town, and squinted through gaps in the clouds to observe carefully.
However, he encountered an embarrassing issue: he couldn’t see clearly.
A telescope should solve this, and Su Hao made a mental note to research it later. But for now…
Should he fly lower? What if he’s spotted?
Well, if he’s spotted, he’s spotted. Who could do anything to him? He could just fly away.
With that in mind, Su Hao quietly lowered his altitude, circling at around seven hundred meters.
This time, he could see what was happening below. In the center of the town square, there was a massive fire pit, surrounded by a large crowd of townspeople, silently watching the blazing fire.
Members of the town’s guard were throwing one book after another into the fire pit.
These were Su Hao’s books, “The Warrior’s Path” and “Rune Mastery Unveiled.”
Su Hao fell silent.
He flew out of the town, changed his appearance once again, and quickly altered his facial features. Then, he walked into the small town, heading straight for the central square.
After talking to several people to learn more about the situation, he discovered the truth.
“The Warrior’s Path” and “Rune Mastery Unveiled” had been declared banned books. No one was allowed to possess them privately. Once discovered, individuals were immediately arrested, charged with researching forbidden knowledge, and sentenced to execution.
Additionally, anyone who reported an offender and their report was confirmed would receive a reward of one gold coin.
As a result, many people were in a panic, and they hurriedly surrendered the books they had purchased, tossing them into the fire pit.
Some people didn’t care about their lives, and after a few typical arrests, the effectiveness of the ban was evident. While it might not eliminate all copies, and some might have transcribed it, it effectively cut off the channels through which these two books had become popular, turning them into private collections for a select few.
This wasn’t what Su Hao had intended.
Su Hao clenched and then loosened his fist.
He quietly turned and left to purchase the materials he needed.
After bringing all the materials back to his base, Su Hao once again soared into the sky and flew to other towns.
He needed to confirm whether all the human towns had begun these book-banning activities.
As he expected, in every town he visited, the banning of books had commenced. Numerous books were being unearthed and burned.
He could foresee that all his efforts would eventually become weapons for those in power to rule the world.
The results of what he had done were far from what he had envisioned.
In other words, he couldn’t change this world through his own efforts.
What could truly change this world were the people of this world. They were the true masters of this world.
Without flags stained with blood, how could they flutter in the wind for a long time?
Without the awakening of the common people’s consciousness, how could they truly hold their heads high in the world?
