Listening to Merlin and Gwen, Peter tightened his grip on the backpack in his hand.
"Thanks, but don't worry. No one will bully me again." He thanked them gratefully, then spoke with determination.
Gwen assumed he intended to take Merlin's advice and learn how to fight, and she could not help feeling happy for him.
But Merlin frowned as he looked at the backpack Peter was clutching tightly.
"I'll send you the coach's email later. Until you get stronger, don't do anything impulsive," he warned.
"Okay, I'm going to the restroom first." Peter gave no indication whether he had taken the advice to heart. After speaking, he slung the backpack over his shoulder and quickly left the hall.
After Peter left, Gwen looked at Merlin in surprise. "You learned how to fight too? Since when?"
During the vacation, she had either stayed home or gone swinging through the skies above Apple City on her web lines. She had been busy the entire time and had not spent much time with Merlin.
More importantly, during one of their dates, she had stood him up to catch criminals, so she had felt a little awkward facing Merlin.
"After I watched the movie alone..." Merlin raised an eyebrow.
Gwen: "..."
"Just kidding. I wasn't angry. That movie really did look good. It would've been a shame not to see it."
"Then... how about we watch another one this Saturday?" Gwen tilted her head as she invited him.
"This Saturday..." Merlin apologized. "I might be a little busy lately." He gestured to the side. At some point, people from other tech companies had gathered there and were arguing with Stark Industries' technical agents.
Electromagnetic Pulse interference emitters, Atomic Guns...
As a top student, Gwen naturally understood what the technologies behind those two weapons represented. Although she understood, she still could not help feeling disappointed.
"All right. Looks like you've been doing a lot of incredible things lately too."
"Shit, Milen, don't be such an asshole. Let us take a look already."
"No, I haven't finished looking yet!"
Stark Industries' technical agents had not been the only ones to witness the astonishing scene. Tech companies such as Hammer Industries and Osborn had noticed it as well.
They had simply been a step too slow and let the people from Stark Industries beat them to it.
Besides technical agents from the tech companies, there were also reporters from several newspapers at the venue.
Seeing them tugging at their ties as they argued, Merlin quickly walked over.
"Hey, gentlemen, I brought an exhibit this time. Perhaps you'd be interested in taking a look." As he spoke, he pointed toward his exhibition area.
When they saw Merlin, the agents who had been arguing immediately straightened up and resumed their professional demeanor.
"You're Merlin Shaw, right? I'm from Hammer Industries. Here's my business card."
The others handed over their business cards as well.
To be honest, they had never expected such a huge surprise from the Midtown High School Science Fair.
As a landmark high school in Queens, Midtown High School had solid teaching resources and had produced many outstanding students.
Each Science Fair always featured some eye-catching little inventions, but compared to this one, they were not even on the same level.
Technologies that many laboratories had failed to break through despite spending hundreds of millions had been displayed here.
Under Merlin's guidance, the many technical agents all came to his exhibition area. Seeing this, the other students and teachers gathered around curiously as well.
Before long, Merlin's exhibition area had been surrounded by layer upon layer of people.
"This is a Miniature Electromagnetic Pulse Emitter. I'm sure everyone is familiar with this." Merlin pointed to his exhibit and began his introduction.
"Electromagnetic Pulse?" Everyone was indeed familiar with it. It had even been used in war, such as when the North ganged up on the South.
In recent years, Eagle, always eager to stir up trouble, had deployed many of them as well, setting the local residents back a hundred years overnight.
This was a soft-kill area attack method. Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs were mainly used in future information warfare.
Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs came in two types: nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs and non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs.
By comparison, non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs had a much smaller radiation range.
They worked by compressing an energized coil through implosion, generating an instantaneous electromagnetic pulse that destroyed electronic equipment within its effective radius.
But after Eagle took the lead in using them, other countries began taking precautions and established three layers of shielding defenses at long, medium, and close range.
As a result, non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs had only one advantage left in warfare: they did not harm personnel.
Of course, under certain circumstances, they were also useful for disrupting network communications.
Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs, on the other hand, were far more terrifying. They had only been detonated in space when Eagle and the Soviet Union carried out their Star Wars plans.
More accurately, though, those had been nuclear test explosions. Besides producing massive amounts of gamma radiation, the detonations had also unleashed powerful electromagnetic pulses.
At the time, one-third of the satellites in low Earth orbit had been destroyed.
Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs had been inspired by that phenomenon.
Merlin had learned about this through a book published by Liu Cixin.
At present, Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb technology was not particularly mature, let alone miniaturization.
Cost and practicality also had to be considered, but future development would definitely focus on extensions of electromagnetic pulse weapons.
The technical agents showed interested expressions.
"First, let me explain the purpose of my research into electromagnetic pulse weapons. I mainly designed this to make police arrests more convenient."
"It is mainly intended for scenarios such as vehicle interception and communications disruption."
The Miniature Electromagnetic Pulse Emitter sounded like something out of future technology, but it was not practical on the battlefield.
With grounding, shielding, and filtering in place, electromagnetic pulses would be greatly weakened.
Instead, it was more effective for intercepting vehicles in cities and destroying electronic equipment during infiltration.
"After solving the size issue, this Miniature Electromagnetic Pulse Emitter also solves the problem of area attacks. The Pulse Bullets inside can precisely strike a single target."
"The Pulse Bullet contains cylindrical explosives, with a coil of wire wrapped around the outside."
"The bullet must first be fully charged. After it is fired, the cylindrical propellant inside detonates instantly. Since the explosion begins from one end of the explosive cylinder, the detonation point produces an intense detonation wave."
"The shock wave can also..." Merlin smiled, then continued his explanation.
"The wavefront propagates toward the front at a speed greater than the speed of sound in the medium, while the explosives in the reaction zone behind the wave continuously detonate under high temperature and pressure."
"As the explosives detonate from left to right, the linear magnetic field formed by the spiral wire on the casing causes the ruptured casing and the coil to short-circuit."
"As it moves at high speed, the magnetic flux inside the coil is continuously compressed, producing an increasingly powerful induced current that is ultimately fed into the virtual cathode tube at the end."
"In the end, it will produce an electromagnetic pulse with tremendous destructive power!"
Before you continue