Chapter 108: Kill Radius

"Blast radius?" Dong Junwei wondered.

"Yes, you could also call it the kill radius."

"You want to make it bigger?"

"Making it bigger is good, but it would also be heavier, less convenient to carry, and for those lacking strength, throwing distance becomes an issue." Chen Mu said.

"We have Lu Shanshan; we could consider letting her lighten the grenade's weight, making it easier to throw."

"That idea is indeed not bad." Chen Mu nodded: "But we must keep the balance; Lu Shanshan's ability reduces an object's mass, not its gravity, and reducing mass also reduces kinetic energy and inertia—if it's too small, I worry we won't reach the impact threshold to detonate."

Dong Junwei pondered briefly and then understood Chen Mu's meaning.

For a thrown object, lighter isn't always better; once it becomes too light, its lethality disappears.

At the same egg size, a stone and a foam plastic— the latter's inertia might even fail to overcome air resistance, resulting in essentially no range.

Chen Mu added: "But that's not what I meant."

"Huh?"

"Increasing the kill radius doesn't have to rely on your ability; perhaps I can do it too."

Dong Junwei didn't grasp it at first, but quickly realized: "You mean, add something inside?"

"Yes."

Chen Mu nodded: "In reality, people also put iron nails or beads inside explosives to boost destructive power; if we combine our abilities, achieving that effect shouldn't be hard."

As he spoke, he rested a stone in his right hand, gradually melting it into a bowl shape, while his left hand took a small piece of stainless steel from his weapon and held it in his palm.

About a full minute.

Chen Mu opened his left palm, and tiny stainless steel beads clinked as they fell into the stone bowl in his right hand.

Afterwards, he sealed the stone back into a ball, like wrapping a glutinous rice ball, only slightly larger in volume than before.

"Will this work?"

"We'll know if we try."

After Dong Junwei's "processing," the stone grenade exhibits an interesting phenomenon: upon detonation, the original stone vanishes completely, not scattering but disappearing entirely.

This sounds like it violates the first law of thermodynamics.

Tang Jing once joked, saying that if Dong Junwei's ability ever grew strong enough to process the entire Earth into a giant bomb, could it make the whole world disappear together?

Of course, that was just a joke.

In fact, even now, no one has fully figured out the pattern of Dong Junwei's ability.

"Stone" is merely a broad term.

In fact, it comes in many varieties.

Geologically speaking, the stone people see on the surface is mostly sedimentary rock, but the term "sedimentary rock" itself is a category named by origin, and beneath it lie various subclasses; if we insist on getting down to chemical composition, it becomes even more complex.

Take this storage room as an example.

The so-called "stones" that the Qiming crew usually come into contact with have roughly two sources.

One is cement residue, the other is various dust particles, mainly yellow sand.

Ordinary silicate cement used in construction mainly consists of calcium oxide, silicon dioxide, iron(III) oxide, etc.;

while yellow sand is primarily silicon dioxide.

In fact, the cement mortar on the indoor floor surface is essentially a mixture of cement and yellow sand.

Therefore, trying to determine the exact composition of the stone in one's hand under current conditions is nearly impossible.

And as for which component Dong Junwei's ability affects, or the differences in effect among components, that may remain unclear for a long time.

But this doesn't prevent everyone from using this simple, cheap grenade.

Chen Mu made several enhanced grenades in a row, preparing to go outdoors to test their effect.

By then, everyone had already gotten up one after another.

Hearing there was a new weapon, everyone wanted to take a look.

After breakfast, they picked a time when Little Yellow wasn't around, and everyone went outside together.

The original door gap had been sealed, and on one side a passage was opened for people and carts, fitted with a heavy iron door that requires several people to open; if the internal bolt is latched, it's nearly impossible to force it open from outside.

This door cost Chen Mu a great deal of effort, but he had no choice but to make it.

Otherwise, once he left, the people inside would be effectively trapped to death.

On the open ground outside.

Chen Mu had everyone retreat to a safe distance, then he held an enhanced grenade and looked around for a suitable target.

Soon.

A green worm crawling out of the grass caught his attention.

He walked to about 10 centimeters away, then without a word threw it toward the worm.

The worm wasn't large— thinner than an earthworm— Chen Mu, as expected, missed; it landed a few centimeters away.

The grenade hit the ground and emitted a booming explosion.

At the moment he threw it, Chen Mu had already opened a plastic shield large enough to cover his whole body.

Through the shield, one could see that this blast's effect was clearly different from before.

Previously, the grenade's blast had almost no visual effect, usually just leaving a scorched mark at the explosion site.

But this time, countless steel beads gleaming with silver light sprayed in all directions, like heavenly maidens scattering flowers.

Safety distance is the primary test datum.

Otherwise, it would be another version of the M-388 nuclear rocket launcher, where the kill radius exceeds the range— whether it can kill the enemy aside, firing it would mean certain death for oneself.

The shield proved necessary, as two steel beads bounced off it, making a thumping sound.

Although the remaining force was small, it was obvious that a 10-centimeter throw was still too close.

After the first grenade exploded.

Chen Mu stepped forward to check the condition of the blue worm.

Only then did one see that on the side of the worm's body facing this direction, several tiny steel beads had been embedded, making one's scalp go numb.

Although these injuries were not enough to kill it for the time being, death was already just a matter of time.

Next.

After several rounds of experiments.

Finally, the effective killing radius of this grenade with added steel beads was set at 15 centimeters, but a distance of 20 centimeters could still cause injury, depending on the quality and quantity of the steel beads as well as the grenade's own explosive power.

The smaller the volume, the larger the object's specific surface area, and the greater the air resistance it experiences.

Therefore.

At this point, throwing 20 centimeters, compared to throwing 20 meters after scaling up proportionally by 100 times, the former is somewhat more difficult.

At this distance, the demands on arm strength and accuracy are already relatively high; aside from Wei Dalei finding it easy, even Chen Mu has to exert all his strength to manage it.