Ryden carried several bags of clothes and food next door to his friend's house.
He had relied on their care before. Otherwise, if he'd been left to cook for himself, he might have starved to death more than once.
The one who opened the door was the little "Black Pearl" beauty, Sherry.
"Oh, Brother Ryden, come in! You bought so many things!"
He patted her head.
Sherry really was good-looking.
Ryden had no prejudice.
After all, Storm from the X-Men was also a Black beauty-and she was stunning, with a dangerously explosive figure.
Aunt Laura appeared at just the right moment.
Seeing how much Ryden had brought, she was surprised, then genuinely pleased. The kid hadn't looked down on her family after making it big.
He was still the same kind, lovable boy.
What a good child.
She pulled him into a warm hug, her impressive chest pressing against him, then took the items and told him to sit in the living room while she went to make tea.
In the living room sat a literal mountain of muscle.
A Black man whose presence alone felt oppressive.
Uncle Brad.
He was sitting on a solid birch chair, shouting at Terrence, who was doing push-ups on the floor.
"Keep going, you sissy! When I was your age, fifty one-armed push-ups were nothing!"
Then he noticed Ryden.
"Oh! Ryden's here! Haha, long time no see, kid! I heard you've made it big lately! Not bad, not bad!"
A palm the size of a fan slapped Ryden's shoulder.
It felt like getting hit by a truck.
Brad squeezed his shoulder with approval.
"Haha, you're sturdier than before. Still not enough, though. A real man needs muscles everywhere! Sit!"
Ryden shook his head.
This fitness-obsessed uncle was just as savage as ever.
"I train every day," Ryden said with a laugh. "But just for health. Moderation matters. I won't overdo it."
He paused.
"Oh right, Uncle Brad. I bought you some vodka. You'll definitely like it."
"Oh?"
The moment alcohol was mentioned, Brad completely forgot about tormenting his son.
He turned and stomped toward the kitchen, each step shaking the floor, followed by Aunt Laura's faint complaining.
Ryden looked down at Terrence, who was half-dead on the floor.
"Haha, Terrence, you really are a sissy. Already done? Where's the stuff I bought?"
Terrence lay there panting.
A hundred push-ups at one per second had nearly killed him.
"You bastard..." he gasped. "You're the sissy... I need a break. Getting into West Point is brutal."
"Anything worth climbing is hard," Ryden said casually. "Same as my studying. You're killing muscle cells, I'm killing brain cells. Same difference."
He grinned.
"I brought plenty of food. You're lucky. If your nutrition can't keep up, forced training will just wreck your body."
Terrence felt genuinely moved.
Even a jerk like Ryden still treated his friends right.
"Haha, guess even you have generous days," Terrence said weakly. "Come on. Your stuff's in my room. Seriously, every time you buy things, it's a mountain. Can't you buy less?"
"I calculated the weight," Ryden replied smoothly. "It's exactly the maximum you can carry. That is less."
The follow-up stab landed perfectly.
"You... you're really a wicked bastard," Terrence said, both annoyed and amused.
"Thanks. It's all thanks to competition."
They continued trading insults.
Mutual damage.
Three large bags were filled with parts, some of them basic raw materials.
Wires, diodes, LEDs-Terrence had no idea what half of it was.
"Alright, sorry to bother you. Help me carry these back," Ryden said, visibly excited. "My experiments can continue."
Aside from sleeping, experimenting and reading were what interested him most.
"Take it easy," Terrence said seriously. "Don't blow the house up again."
There was a precedent.
No one wanted to wake up from a nap only to find themselves flying through the sky.
"Haha, relax. Since when did you become such a nag?" Ryden teased. "You haven't really turned into a sissy like Uncle Brad says, right?"
"Screw you! You're the sissy!"
Terrence grabbed a bag in each hand, lifting sixty pounds without breaking a sweat.
Back in the lab, all the parts were neatly arranged.
Ryden put on his goggles and began soldering with intense focus.
Precise work consumed an enormous amount of mental energy.
The parts even included batteries and copper coils.
Magnetic weapons.
Technology that shouldn't exist until the twenty-first century.
By using electromagnets to strengthen the magnetic field inside the barrel, a bullet's acceleration could be pushed to its limit, massively increasing kinetic energy and lethality.
If a traditional gun took one second to hit a target three hundred meters away, a magnetic-enhanced weapon could cut that time in half.
Dodging would become nearly impossible.
If a normal bullet could punch through concrete once, electromagnetic enhancement could tear open a large hole, with destructive power comparable to brutal explosive rounds like dum-dums.
Copper wires were embedded throughout the pistol casing on the worktable.
Current flowing through copper created a magnetic field.
The greater the current, the stronger the field.
And a stronger field meant greater bullet acceleration.
But simple electromagnets weren't enough.
Precise guiding systems were required.
If the magnetic field pushed in the wrong direction, the bullet could fire backward and kill the user-or explode inside the barrel.
Wiping the sweat from his face, Ryden exhaled slowly.
Electromagnetic weapons were truly dangerous to design.
No wonder creating new weapons required not just imagination, but terrifying theoretical foundations.
Otherwise, you'd die before finishing the experiment.
Even Nobel, the father of dynamite, had suffered countless failures before succeeding.
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