Basic Experiment of Repulsion Cannon

"The wood borer ate him?" Bozi couldn't believe it. "Are you kidding me? Wood borers move so slowly."

Tom nodded. "No kidding. Cockroaches and ants, when they eat people, leave a messy mess. Their mouthparts are too long, so they can't reach the meat in some subtle places. I've seen a lot of that. But all the flesh on this corpse has been shaved off, and there's not a bit of flesh on the skeleton, so the bones don't stink. What's stinking is his head. The brain inside the skull wasn't eaten, so it rotted and smelled. That's why the smell of decay we smelled was so faint."

Now Bozi couldn't hold it anymore. He squatted down and vomited violently, taking a while before saying, "Damn it... Tom, you're getting more and more abnormal. How can you observe so carefully? That's a dead person, not a pig or cow... Ugh..." Bozi, who used to be mature and steady, couldn't stay calm around Tom anymore because he had been surprised too many times.

"In the apocalypse, humans are no different from pigs and cows. No, there's a difference. Pigs and cows are slaughtered and eaten by people, but we... From arthropods to mammals, it can be said that the vast majority of creatures are very interested in our flesh. If one day we find that plants also eat people, I won't be surprised at all."

"Is this retribution?" Zhang Guishu suddenly had a realization. "We've all been too greedy, so the heavens want to punish us..."

Tom smiled bitterly. "Uncle Zhang, I don't care how the heavens punish us. I just know I won't sit and wait for death. I won't take the blame for the sins others have committed. Speaking of this corpse, wood borers can't eat wood that's too fresh and moist or too dry. Only wood with moderate humidity, like the leather sofa frame here, which is damp and dark enough inside, and the moisture in the wood comes from the surrounding environment, is the ideal environment for wood borers to thrive."

Wiping his mouth, Bozi's face was still pale. "What does that have to do with this corpse?"

"Because wood borers eat by gnawing, their chewing organs are very fine. So when they eat, they secrete corrosive fluids to help erode the surface of the wood, so they can chew the wood. This corpse has been corroded, so the flesh has been partially stripped from the skeleton, and that's why wood borers can eat it so cleanly. As for the wear on the bones, it's the traces left by the wood borer's chewing organs."

"So this person was bitten to death in his sleep?" 

Tom shook his head. "That's not known, but I believe those hatched cockroaches were also eaten by it. Let's go, let's take a look at that big fat white one."

The three of them came to the body of the wood borer. Previously, wearing armor and the light being too dim, they couldn't see the full picture of this wooden rat. Now, with Zhang Guishu's light, they could finally see it clearly.

Its belly was blown open by Bozi's iron fist, so it hung there. Apart from the belly part, the whole body remained intact. Tom measured it and found that this thing was really big, with a diameter like that of an oil drum in the past. The surrounding wood had all been gnawed away by it, so it could move around inside the wood, making it impossible for Tom and the others to tell which way was which.

Because it gnawed holes in the wood, Tom immediately charged towards it after locking onto it, smashing the wood and knocking it out.

Tom took out a butcher knife and went to its head. The big white head they saw before was here, and the black dot in the middle was actually its mouth.

Tom cut open its mouth and carefully explored it, then followed it down and found a thin sac, inside which there were fresh wood shavings. At the end of the sac, Tom also found a large yellow gemstone.

Two gemstones or crystals in its body at the same time? This surprised Tom. Along the way, the mutant creatures they encountered without exception had a crystal or gemstone in their bodies. On the contrary, this guy not only had two, but they were also different colors. What was the reason for this?

After digging out the gemstone and looking at it a few times with Zhang Guishu's light, Tom confirmed that there was nothing special about it, which made him have a bold guess.

"The wood shavings it gnawed are stored in this sac, and the attack we suffered was indeed compressed wood shavings sprayed out, which indeed had great power. The structure of the wood borer's body is very simple, and it hasn't mutated any special organs to achieve a jet mechanism like air compression."

"What does that mean?" Bozi asked puzzled.

Tom shook his head. "I'm not sure yet. We've seen everything we need to see. Let's go back first. I need to think about it carefully. Maybe there will be new discoveries."

The three of them left the sofa hole and returned to the camp. For safety's sake, all the doors and windows were tightly closed.

That night, Tom spent the whole night in excitement, holding the red crystal and the yellow gemstone, and didn't sleep at all.

It wasn't until the next morning that he excitedly called Iron Scrap Old Man and Bozi, demonstrating his new discovery to them in the cardboard laboratory.

In front of them was a long iron box with a red crystal tied to the top and a large yellow gemstone tied to the tail, and a hole was opened at the head.

Tom touched the red crystal with one hand and held the large yellow gemstone with the other, closing his eyes for a while. There was only a muffled sound, and the iron target on the opposite side was knocked down with a "clang."

Bozi widened his eyes in disbelief at the scene before him. "Tom... is this the attack method you replicated from the wood borer?"

Tom nodded with a smile and opened a hole at the top, stuffing another piece of iron inside. "Exactly! You try it and see if it works."

"Give it a try, it varies from person to person. With your left hand holding the red crystal, imagine enhancing the power, but remember it's not your hand, it's the iron block inside that you're enhancing. Don't worry, I've treated both the iron box and the iron block as conductors, so they can transmit the crystal's energy. Then, imagine holding the gemstone in your right hand and wanting to make the iron block 'shine,' yes, shine. Just think about how Uncle Zhang Guishu lights up all over."

Bozi tried a few times but shook his head in disappointment. "It's not working. What you said is too complicated, and maybe I'm not suitable."

"No, I think anyone who can activate the ruby can."

"But I can't activate the yellow gemstone. Can you?"

"No, I can't either. But that doesn't stop me from imagining it. You try again. Don't keep thinking that I can't do it. You should think that I can, I can, I can make the iron block shine."

Bozi closed his eyes and thought for a while. Then, there was a muffled sound, and a hole appeared in the paper box wall in front of them. It wasn't clear if someone was hit, but there were exclamations outside. Tom's face changed, and he shouted, rushing out.

Arriving behind the paper box, they saw Rong Shu angrily looking at the snake meat pieces in front of him. Tom quickly went up to check his condition, and Rong Shu shook his head repeatedly, saying, "I'm fine, Tom. What are you messing around with inside? Look, you've smashed all the snake meat we were going to eat today."

It turned out that the iron block shot out by Bozi pierced the paper box and hit the snake meat hanging from Rong Shu.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness," Tom wiped his forehead. He decided that he must move the laboratory to a place where no one was around in the future, to avoid hurting innocent people.

"What are you doing?" Rong Shu asked.

Bozi looked somewhat excited. "Rong Shu, Tom is experimenting with a cannon. You saw the effect too."

"What cannon? Great, take me to see it!"

The others who were helping also felt excited and followed into the paper box laboratory.

After Bozi explained the method, the onlookers eagerly stepped forward to try it, but unfortunately, none of them succeeded.

Tom had someone call all the awakened individuals and asked them to test it one by one.

The result of the experiment was that among all the awakened individuals, only Tom, Bozi, and the two humanoid light bulb ability users were able to operate this iron cannon.

Although the others were somewhat disappointed, Rong Shu thought it was great. "We should be happy. The camp has another means of attack and defense, right? I've decided to have an extra meal to celebrate today and reward Tom. Oh, Tom, you haven't slept all night again, have you? Hurry up and rest. You're the treasure of our camp now. What if you get exhausted?"

Tom waved his hand. "Rong Shu, I'm fine. It's just one night. I still have some theoretical things to verify. You want me to..."

"Are you going or not? If not, I'll have Xiaotian bring over a bowl of Tian Geng soup to fill you up so you won't collapse."

Whenever the enhanced version of Tian Geng soup was mentioned, Tom was afraid and quickly surrendered, obediently returning to his own room to rest.

Tom woke up at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, feeling hungry. He was thinking of going to the back kitchen to find something to eat when someone brought it to him. It turned out that Rong Shu had ordered someone to keep some hot rice and marinated snake meat for him.

After eating, he went to the paper box laboratory. On the way, he heard that Bozi had taken people out for exploration.

As soon as he entered the laboratory, he saw Iron Scrap Old Man tinkering with his iron box, and Tom immediately pounced on him. "You're up. What's the operating mechanism of this thing? I want to improve it, but I dare not mess around. The structure inside is very simple, just a regular airtight device."

"I've been pondering it for a long time last night," Tom replied with a bitter smile.

Actually, he wasn't clear at first how the wood borer achieved the jet mechanism, so he tried various possibilities. After trying everything he could think of, he finally figured out the launching mechanism.

From the iron box to the iron block, they all had to be made into crystal energy conductors, transmitting the enhanced energy from the red crystal to the iron block. Then, a luminous idea was transmitted to the iron block through the yellow gemstone. Then... the two kinds of mental energy reacted, and as soon as the latter came into contact with the iron block, which was wrapped in the former's enhanced energy, a repulsive force was generated, pushing the enhanced energy along with the conductor iron block out.

Talking about it, this mechanism was similar to the repulsion between magnets. Tom was surprised when he discovered it. However, it was precisely because of such a simple and unreasonable mechanism that the effect of the wood shavings cannon could be achieved in the simple body structure of the wood borer.

Tom had just tested the principle of the repulsion cannonball and hadn't had time to summarize it. After a good night's sleep, his mind was clear, and he just completed this step.

This mechanism could be miniaturized and installed on the armor to make up for the lack of long-range attack in the old street armor. Of course, because the "bullet" itself had to be a metal block and had to be an energy conductor, it was decided that each conductor production required the use of blank crystal powder.

This was just an experimental machine. When it came to production, the internal space would be smaller, and the ammunition fired would not be iron blocks. Making them into the shape of firearm bullets was most consistent with aerodynamics.

In addition to the cannonballs, he thought he could make some minor adjustments to the wearing structure of the armor, making it easier to eject the chest or back armor at critical moments, achieving unexpected attack diversion effects, and facilitating emergency escape from the cumbersome armor.

Then, using large red crystals and large yellow gemstones to make a large repulsion cannon, with a whole iron barrel as the barrel, and larger ammunition. Although it was inconvenient to move, it was the best weapon for camp defense. Even if a mutant cat came, it could be killed, provided it could be hit.

This series of ideas was just ideas. For further design and production, he needed to discuss and study with Iron Scrap Old Man and conduct experiments to determine whether it could be achieved and how to achieve it.