Leyden Jar

Toward evening, the sky above the royal palace rapidly darkened. The entire world took on an eerie amber glow, heralding the imminent arrival of a heavy rainstorm.

In the square before Richard's Palace, a palace guard held a strange kite made by the craftsmen, watching the sky overhead with a tense expression.

With a rumble, muffled thunder sounded among the clouds, and a cool gust of wind suddenly swept across the square.

The guard turned to the side and saw Richard nod. He gulped, gathered his courage, and sent the kite aloft.

This was no ordinary kite, but one meant to draw lightning. A short length of gold chain hung from it, fine silver wire had been woven into its string, and at the very end was attached a strangely shaped bottle.

This was the method Richard had come up with after three consecutive failed experiments—using a kite to capture lightning. In truth, many people had entertained this idea, and some had put it into practice. In the history of Modern Earth, in June 1752, American scientist Benjamin Franklin flew a kite with a copper key into the sky alongside his son. When the kite was struck by lightning, the current was successfully conducted down through the wire on the kite string, proving that lightning was also a form of electricity. From then on, Franklin became famous.

This was elementary school textbook knowledge on Modern Earth, and there was no difficulty at all in carrying it out. The only issue was how to store the lightning that had been conducted down. Richard's choice was the Leyden Jar—the bottle hanging from the end of the kite string.

The Leyden Jar had been developed in 1745 by the Dutch scientist Musschenbroek in the history of Modern Earth.

The earliest Leyden Jar was simply a glass or ceramic bottle, with tinfoil attached to both its inner and outer walls. The tinfoil inside the bottle was connected by a metal chain to a metal rod inserted into the bottle, with a metal ball roughly one centimeter in diameter at the top of the rod. Through the principles of a capacitor, this structure could store a certain amount of electrical charge and release it when needed.

Though its structure looked simple, the current it released was powerful enough. During an experiment in Paris on Modern Earth in 1748, the current discharged by a Leyden Jar made more than two hundred monks holding hands all jump at once.

So this method would absolutely meet the requirements.

Thinking this, Richard looked toward the guard.

The wind in the square gradually strengthened, and the kite in the guard's hands rose higher and higher until it reached the sky.

With a crackle, a flash of lightning streaked across the sky. The darkened land abruptly brightened, and a huge, blurry Black Shadow swept past within the flash before the thunder arrived.

The guard jumped in fright, but he still gritted his teeth, held his breath, and controlled the kite as it continued to rise.

The howling wind grew fiercer, and flashes of lightning flickered frequently among the clouds.

Suddenly, with a deafening rumble, a bolt of lightning struck the kite in the sky.

With a boom, the entire kite was ignited, turning into a ball of fire. Flames rapidly spread downward along the kite string.

The guard's face went pale in an instant, and his eyes widened abruptly. Staring at the flames, his hand loosened beyond his control, and the Leyden Jar hanging from the end of the string immediately fell toward the ground.

Edward, standing nearby, saw it and cursed before charging forward. He viciously kicked the guard, then threw himself out and caught the Leyden Jar with both hands just before it hit the ground.

The next moment, Edward's eyes widened as well. He watched with his own eyes as a blue arc of electricity traveled down the kite string and entered the bottle in his hands. A faint numbness spread through his body, while every hair on his body stood on end uncontrollably, filling his heart with immense fear. It was fear of the unknown, leaving him unable to move for a time.

After a long, long while, the numbness in his body faded and his raised hairs settled back down. Edward took a deep breath before finally moving again. He shot the guard beside him a fierce glare, then ran quickly toward Richard in the palace with the Leyden Jar in hand.

The moment he entered the palace, torrential rain poured down behind him. In an instant, all of Heaven and Earth turned into a vast expanse of white, and the only sound reaching his ears was the endless patter of rain. Edward paused in surprise, feeling slightly fortunate, then turned to Richard and carefully handed over the Leyden Jar. "Prince, everything has been taken care of."

"Mm." Richard accepted the Leyden Jar and gave a slight nod. Without saying more, he turned and left.

Edward quickly called after him, "Prince, you didn't eat lunch, so for dinner, you..." Before he could finish, Richard had already climbed the stairs to the second floor and vanished from sight.

Edward watched him go and smiled helplessly, muttering to himself, "Sigh, are you going to go another whole day without eating? If you don't eat tomorrow morning either, that really will be another full day. Sigh, being a Guard Captain is truly difficult..."

The next morning, before dawn had fully broken.

Yawning, Edward walked past the palace dining hall. He casually glanced inside, then suddenly widened his eyes. Richard was in the dining hall, eating breakfast.

What?! Edward rubbed his eyes hard. Once he confirmed that he had not seen wrong, he entered the dining hall with disbelief and greeted him, "Prince, you... why are you up so early today?"

"Mm, I just couldn't sleep." Richard answered calmly. He used a dining knife to slice white bread, spread sour jam over it, and put it into his mouth.

As Richard ate, his brow remained tightly furrowed, as though he were pondering something.

The test he had conducted the previous night with natural lightning and a Leyden Jar had naturally failed. Otherwise, he would not have been sitting in the dining hall eating breakfast so early.

The previous night, following the description in the Chapter of Munro, Richard had made his second attempt to scientifically unravel Life Reshaping. After entering Astral Projection, he had gone to considerable effort to make his consciousness body awaken his physical body. He then released the current in the Leyden Jar into that body, hoping to strengthen its bioelectric current, enter a "Highly Activated State," and thereby "Open Source of Magic."

The Leyden Jar's current was indeed strong enough. For an extremely brief moment, Richard clearly felt some miraculous change occur within his body, but... it lasted only an extremely brief moment.

Because a Leyden Jar was a capacitor, the current it released was one-time only. Once used, it was gone. Thus, once the stored charge was exhausted, the "high-energy activated state" vanished instantly, his body returned to normal, and opening a source of magic was naturally out of the question.

As expected, if I want to truly unravel this second Life Reshaping, I can't take shortcuts. I have to genuinely put some effort into it, Richard thought.

He took another bite of white bread thickly spread with sour jam, though it tasted like wax in his mouth. By then, Richard had already made his decision.

Obtaining a stable, powerful electric current was not actually difficult. Even in this current world of the Middle Ages, it could be done with simple materials. The main problem was that the process was cumbersome. He had never wanted to go through too much trouble, which was why he had tested things like fruit batteries. But since none of those worked, he could only use the most cumbersome, troublesome, yet most direct method.

He picked up his cup, drank the water inside, gently wiped his mouth with a napkin, then raised his head and instructed Edward, "Bring the palace craftsmen here."

"Now? Here?" Edward was slightly taken aback.

Richard nodded in confirmation. "Yes."

"Uh, yes, Prince." Edward hurried out after hearing that.