Richard left, heading straight north, and finally by nightfall, he arrived at a small town called "Linghua Town."
In the town’s inn, Richard paid two silver coins for a nice dinner and secured a comfortable room.
However, when night deepened, Richard didn’t rush to rest but was researching something in his room.
What he was studying was a topic he had been contemplating—storage technology for Free Energy Elements.
The origin of this technology traced back to the Black Spirit King’s Treasure, and although the treasure had been completely deciphered on the East Coast, the related technology was still being assimilated to this day.
Richard’s purpose in studying this technology wasn’t to create more or larger Free Energy Element Energy Storage Containers. In his view, with the Black Spirit King’s mask and the Energy Storage Short Wand, his needs were largely met.
His aim in studying this technology was to try miniaturizing, individualizing, and automating the Energy Storage Containers.
He wanted to do this to better address the threat of powerful Wizards on the Main Continent.
He now had two primary methods of attacking Wizards. One was the Destructive Gloves, and the other, shooting Magic Bullets.
The Destructive Gloves were powerfully lethal and could instantly kill Third-level Wizards, but they had an obvious drawback—the energy they consumed was too great, making them impractical for routine combat.
By comparison, shooting Magic Bullets was more flexible when dealing with ordinary enemies. They could unleash a powerful destructive force in a short time, successfully killing unprepared enemies with less energy consumption, convenient for use.
However, Magic Bullets also had drawbacks that could not be ignored, mainly reflected in their limited environmental applicability and unstable performance.
Magic Bullet shooting was highly effective in confined, smaller spaces, against unaware and immobile enemies. But in more open areas, against prepared enemies ready to dodge at any moment, its effectiveness dramatically decreased.
This was mainly because, once Wizards fully accelerated and continuously shifted positions, Magic Bullets would have a hard time locking on to targets. If there were not one but two or more Wizards, targeting would be even more difficult.
To solve this problem, he had an idea.
That was to modify the Magic Bullets to have certain Spell Effects that would produce stronger destructive capabilities. Most importantly, through the action of Magic Runes, the Magic Bullets could actively track enemies to a degree, automatically lock on the targets, and complete the attack.
In other words, he wanted to transform the Magic Bullets into Miniature Magic Tracking Missiles.
Reaching this objective would be no easy feat, indeed it could be said to be very difficult.
Just the challenges laid out before him included choosing the right materials, decoding Wind Magic, lock-on tracking, increasing power, and many other difficult issues.
Of course, mastering the Free Energy Element storage technology was a must.
He certainly didn’t want to have to charge and activate the many Magic Runes on each Miniature Magic Tracking Missile during every battle.
If that were the case, it would be better to continue using Magic Bullets or the Destructive Gloves.
What he wanted was for the Miniature Magic Tracking Missile to achieve a level of intelligence and become an intelligent Attack Magic Tool. One could simply take it out and directly use it to achieve the desired effect.
If he could accomplish that, then he would have no fear of most Wizards on the Main Continent, not even in a war of attrition.
And reaching this goal wouldn’t mean the end for him but merely a phase in his grand plan.
Based on knowledge gained from the Black Spirit King’s Treasure, he had already formed a relatively complete and grand plan for the future.
Once the development of the Miniature Magic Tracking Missile was successful and the grand plan commenced, he planned to dominate the world’s Wizards not in terms of strength but in terms of combat thinking, crushing them by an entire dimension.
Through this method and the furtherance of his grand plan, he was preparing to delve deeper into unraveling the world’s secrets, ultimately attempting to close in on his ultimate purpose: figuring out exactly what this world was all about.
Of course, for now, he needed to start from the beginning, from the very basics.
In the room at the inn, Richard sat at a wooden table, gazing into the air of the room, and with a flick of his finger, he released a Wind Magic spell.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
Air flowed in a special direction within the room, speeding up until it formed a strong wind.
Amid this strong wind, Richard sat calmly, turned over his hand, and held a delicate Shellless Magic Bullet with the nail of his middle finger, letting it spin in the blowing air.
One could see the Shellless Bullet wobbling, seemingly about to be blown away at any moment, yet it seemed as if some mysterious force on the nail was binding it, preventing it from leaving the fingertip.
Richard stared at the Shellless Magic Bullet, watching it closely while thinking.
This was his simulation of a wind tunnel test.
In other words, he was studying the impact of air flow on the Shellless Magic Bullet.
Usually, such wind tunnel experiments would take place in specially constructed wind tunnels, testing model objects, most commonly applying to aircraft, such as rockets, airplanes, and so forth.
This was a very important step in the development process of new rockets and airplanes. Therefore, at the end of World War II on Earth, France nearly came to blows with the United States over seizing Germany’s large wind tunnels and the technology they contained.
What Richard was doing now obviously couldn’t compare to real wind tunnel experiments on Earth; it was merely a Wind Magic simulation to approximate the conditions. Since he only had a concept for the production of the Miniature Magic Tracking Missile and had not yet finalized it, the simulated wind tunnel test was just to expand his thinking.
Thus, Richard watched the Shellless Magic Bullet in the strong wind, pondering continuously.
The Shellless Magic Bullet on his fingertip began to change in his mind, bit by bit; its size grew, it became longer, thicker, looking like an arrow with many Magic Runes emerging on its surface...
After a long time, Richard retracted the Shellless Magic Bullet from his nail, lightly set it down on the table, and the strong wind in the room gradually dissipated.
His lips pursed slightly, and after a moment Zhang He spoke, "Volume definitely has to increase, multiple Magic Runes are needed, Wind Magic to control flight, plus specialized Spells to lock on to targets and adjust posture. Upon successful impact, the projectile has to unleash more power than the improved alloy 315. All of this should be supported by Free Energy Elements, so the storage technology for Free Energy Elements must meet several requirements:
The first is stability; it must ensure there will be no spontaneous leakage; the second is controllability, being able to release the Free Energy Elements under specific stimuli; the third is..."
Talking to himself, Richard’s mind flashed with numerous ideas of creating Energy Storage Containers.