Varian's feelings were hard to describe at the moment.
It was as if he was trying to solve a puzzle for a long, long time and was getting frustrated by the lack of progress.
Then all of a sudden, he could almost see the complete picture.
He wasn't there yet, but he knew it was almost solved. The bulk of the work was over.
Now, all that needed to be done was to cautiously finish off the rest.
"Durasium, you say?" Varian asked, recalling his tour of the military region.
*** *** ***
"Then what is the S-grade facility?"
"The Kernel of the city."
The military officer Henry explained. "It's equivalent to the City's central hardware. It's responsible for gravity, defense and other things."
"Then shouldn't it be X-grade, Sir? If something happens and gravity changes, it'd be too problematic." An energetic girl asked.
Henry's stoic face flashed a smile. "Even thought it's only an S-grade facility, it's completely made of Durasium."
*** *** ***
"Yes. That same Durasium in military zone used to protect city kernel." Boo said.
Varian squinted his eyes at the thin grey metal sheets.
Now that he took a proper look, they were incredibly thin, almost only the size of a fingernail.
But according to Henry, the entire S-grade facility was made of this metal.
Varian felt it was strange. Given the thickness of the metal sheet, Durasium was obviously costly.
So, why were they using it for every test?
Was it to mitigate the explosion?
That was the best explanation Varian could think of. The fact that not even a bit of Durasium was left after every explosion test further reinforced his hypothesis.
That meant these bombs were way more lethal than they seemed.
When he conveyed the same to Boo, it paused for a moment and tapped its chins seriously.
After a while, it punched its palm and said. "How about we steal one and try it outside?"
"Huh?" Varian raised a brow. "You mean…"
"Yes, hehehe." Boo nodded with a mischievous smile.
*** *** ***
The technicians in the dome had their gazes glued to the screens with data readings of each and every ragnarok.
The men, women and machines gave their everything as they carefully went through each and every step.
Then a highly advanced machine would verify each and every ragnarok. Any defective products were disposed.
Of course, there were very very few disposed products.
"Huh? Y-382?" A technician looked at the green readings that suddenly turned red and frowned.
Tapping on the screen, a normal blue sphere was displayed. It didn't seem to have any defects, but the machine couldn't be wrong.
"My first defective product! My bonus is fucked!" Cursing under his breath, he ordered the disposal of Y-382.
"Hahah! Weren't you boasting a few days ago? Serves you right?"
"Fuck you guys!"
Amidst the little discussion, a drone picked Y-382 into its storage slot and reached the disposal room. There were only a few dozen spheres in the highly defensive room, and most of the explosives were visibly defective.
The drone entered the room, and exited.
Of course, no one saw the bomb being placed in the room.
But a machine couldn't go wrong…right?
*** *** ***
"If this explodes here, I'm dead." Varian said, half-jokingly and half-nervously as Boo showed him the blue sphere in a vacuum box.
"Hehe. That'd be funny." Boo chuckled.
"It'd be more fun if I use those black and white powers of that day."
"Nooo! I mean, I was joking, aha, hahaha." Boo shrieked in fear first, then awkwardly laughed.
Varian rolled his eyes and gestured for Boo to start the test.
They'd have obviously hacked the machine and the drone before getting this explosive.
Where and how do you contact proper explosive tests?
Well, they picked a deserted asteroid far away from both human and abyss patrols.
And then, following the procedure, Boo dropped ragnarok on the asteroid.
Pa!
The blue sphere crashed into the asteroid with a ting and…nothing happened.
"Huh?" Varian rubbed his eyes and looked at Boo with a desperate expression. "Don't tell me our luck is so bad that the bomb we stole is actually a super rare defective one."
Boo coughed lightly. "I didn't even let that machine make a judgement and stole the bomb. My bad."
So, the man and the ghost returned to the secret realm.
*** *** ***
"Are you fucking kidding me?" A chubby woman screamed at the screen with red readings.
"Hahaha! Karma is a bitch!"
A few minutes later, the ones responsible for their misery launched the bomb on the asteroid once again.
Pa!
The blue sphere made a small dent on the ground. And that's it.
"Fuck!" Varian cursed. "Boo, did you check the readings before changing them?"
"I did." Boo said in confusion. "The reading said this is a fine product."
Varian took a deep breath.
"Try again!"
Pa!
"Another has fallen!"
"Again!"
Pa!
"Fuck! It's the new genius this time."
"Again!"
Pa!
"It's the number one beauty of our little factory, granny, I mean, fairy Sha."
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Varian breathed out heavily as he stared at the irresponsive blue spheres with a gaze that bordered on frustration and rage.
He was almost there.
There's no way so many spheres could be defective. So, why?
What did he overlook?
Varian closed his eyes and thought back to every process after the explosives were taken out.
"Durasium sheets!" He clapped and turned to Boo. "These explosions need Durasium to occur. The explosion starts on contact."
"Ah?!" Boo was taken aback at first, but after some thinking, it nodded heavily. "That's the only explanation."
"So…what do we do now? Our intention to test out the bombs was to find their true destructive power without any suppression from durasium sheets. But the entire premise is invalid." Varian said with a bewildered expression.
"Um, master, we can check the mechanism durasium plays here?"
Varian thought for a moment, shook his head and then nodded.. "No, but yes. We'll try to figure out the mechanism, but the most important question is this: What happens if we throw a few hundred ragnaroks in a S-grade facility built completely of durasium?"