Power Index

Although Pandora's visit had delayed him somewhat, Richard ultimately completed the dissection of the Silver Rabbit and prepared the materials for his next stage of research.

In the afternoon, Pandora left, and Richard began his formal research.

According to Richard's reasoning, since the Silver Rabbit had previously been able to fire hundreds of powerful wind blades, there should have been some source of magical power within its body. Yet after searching through it, he found no organs beyond its normal anatomy. However, every internal organ showed an extremely high energy response.

"So the energy used to release spells has always existed within the internal organs? Or was it killed before, having only just been magically altered, it had time to develop an organ similar to a mana source?" Richard muttered to himself. "In that case, it might still be useful."

With that said, Richard began processing the Silver Rabbit's internal organs.

Following the knowledge recorded in the Chapter of Munro, he first performed simple preservation, then hardening, followed by shaping, inscription...

Before long, the Silver Rabbit's internal organs had all turned into hard, stone-like objects, their surfaces engraved with incomparably intricate magical patterns. The energy within had been completely sealed away and would erupt only when triggered through a special method. Once it did, it would unleash terrifying destructive force.

In a sense, the Silver Rabbit's organs had now become single-use spell items.

As the name implied, spell items were tools Wizards used when casting spells. The most common were spell staves, spell rings, spell pendants, and other items that amplified a spell's power. There were also spell scrolls that released spells instantly, explosives capable of unleashing terrifying power, and so on.

The White Jade Shards Richard made were also spell items. However, the current White Jade Shards could only withstand Zero-Ring Spells, were not very powerful, and were single-use. Clearly, they were among the lowest-grade spell items.

Thus, the spell items Richard had made from the Silver Rabbit's internal organs were stronger than the White Jade Shards.

As for how much stronger, that required numerical comparison.

Out of habit from his memories, Richard preferred to apply the system from Modern Earth when measuring power, such as joules and explosive yield.

A joule was simply a unit of thermal energy. One joule, or 1 J, represented the energy needed to vertically raise an object weighing one newton—1 N, equivalent to 0.1 kilograms—by one meter. Converted into the common unit of household electricity, one joule was one three-million-six-hundred-thousandth of a kilowatt-hour. This amount was obviously tiny, but it was the most fundamental unit.

Besides joules, there was explosive yield.

Explosive yield generally referred to blast yield, also known as "TNT explosive yield." It was specifically used to measure the power caused by an explosive detonation, converting that power into the destruction caused by the explosion of an equivalent mass of TNT. One gram of yield was equivalent to 4,184 joules of energy.

Of course, yield values were difficult to understand from the numbers alone, so actual examples made things clearer.

For example, an ordinary grenade on Modern Earth had a yield of roughly 100 g, equivalent to the force of 100 g of TNT exploding. Within a radius of five meters, it could severely injure or even kill unprotected people. Within a radius of fifteen meters, it still had a certain lethal effect. Its Power Index was 100.

The mainstream tank shells on Modern Earth had a yield of around 5,000 g, equivalent to 5 kg of TNT. They could easily destroy a three-story building and penetrate roughly 800 mm, or 0.8 meters, of homogeneous steel plate. Even if a living target was not directly hit by the shell, it still had a very high chance of being severely injured or killed within a radius of twenty-five meters. Their Power Index was 5,000, or 5K.

The well-known Tomahawk Cruise Missile on Modern Earth had a standard-model yield of roughly 500,000 g, equivalent to 500 kg of TNT, or 0.5 tons of TNT. Its power could penetrate any surface vessel and collapse most fortifications and bunkers. After striking a target, objects within a radius of one hundred meters would suffer severe damage, and unprotected people in that range would suffer fatal blows. Its Power Index was 500,000, 500K, or 0.5T.

One level higher were nuclear weapons. The Little Boy Atomic Bomb, the first Atomic Bomb used in actual combat and dropped on Nagasaki, had a yield of 13,000,000,000 g, equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT. After its explosion, it directly caused the deaths of nearly one hundred thousand people and almost destroyed the entire city of Nagasaki. Its Power Index was 13,000,000,000, 13,000,000K, 13,000T, or 1.3M.

The Power Index had no unit. K, T, and M were the four tiers of Richard's power system.

Generally speaking, the power of Zero-Ring Spells was only at the first tier, the unitless level. For example, Flame Impact had a Power Index of roughly 5, equivalent to one-twentieth of an ordinary grenade's yield. It was about as powerful as a large firecracker and would not inflict any fatal injury on a person at all.

Furthermore, spells such as Wind Repulsion had a Power Index below 10. Even when cast in layers, they only reached the teens or twenties. This showed that there was ample reason for low-tier Zero-Ring Spells to be called tricks.

By comparison, the explosion of a Liquid Oxygen Cluster could reach over 100. When seven or eight Liquid Oxygen Clusters fused into a large Liquid Oxygen Cluster and exploded—like the kind Richard had used twice during the beast tide—its power reached the second tier of the Power Index: K, around 1.0K or 1.1K.

The spell items Richard had now made from the Silver Rabbit's internal organs were all quite powerful, and some were even absurdly powerful.

Specifically, Richard had used the Silver Rabbit's five lung lobes, 2 Kidneys, 1 Liver, and 1 Heart to make a total of nine spell items.

The five lung lobes each had a Power Index of roughly 200, equivalent to two ordinary grenades. The 2 Kidneys reached 350, while the Liver reached 500. The Heart was the most outrageous, reaching 3K. Yes, 3K—stronger than the explosion of a large Liquid Oxygen Cluster and close to the power of a Main Battle Tank shell on Modern Earth.

Richard suspected that this was most likely due to the Silver Rabbit's tremendous potential. If the Silver Rabbit had not carelessly been killed by him, it might have grown over time into something more than ten times stronger than it was now. At that point, it would no longer spit out hundreds of wind blades with each open mouth, but thousands, even several thousand, directly forming a wind-blade tornado. Just thinking about it was terrifying.

Of course, the Silver Rabbit's fate now was to be made into spell items.

At night, the lights in the laboratory swayed. Richard stood and stretched his body, put away the spell items he had made, and walked out the door.

In the days that followed, Richard repaired the damaged windmill, Mixed Feed Shaft Kiln, and Shallow Pool. He also built two more crude technological structures that simply could not exist in the current world. Then came a peaceful life: learning new spells, researching their principles, and the like.

Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, a month had gone by.