"Ryen, can we try a test run?"
Ganyu asked softly. Ryen pressed his lips together and replied:
"We should test it, yes... but if something goes wrong, it could turn into a massive explosion."
"Still... if we don't test it, we'll never know exactly how it functions."
With that, he turned and walked over to the firing port, drawing out an enchanted bow and arrow.
"Everyone, pour a bucket of water at your feet. That way, even if there's an explosion, you won't take much damage."
Everyone nodded and did as he said.
"Do we need to summon the Ender Dragon first?"
Xiao asked in a deep voice.
Ryen shook his head.
"No need. Let's try a dry run first. If everything goes smoothly, then we summon the Ender Dragon."
No one said another word. Everyone prepped their water safety zones, eyes fixed tensely on Ryen.
He took a deep breath, pressed the button beside him, and fired an arrow.
The next moment, the complex machinery activated.
The sound of TNT igniting echoed around them.
Ryen's expression darkened.
"The timing's off!"
"Ryen!!"
Ganyu cried out and tried to rush forward to pull him back.
But Ryen reacted instantly, pulling out his katana, and with a flash, teleported to Ganyu's side.
BOOM—
A violent explosion tore through the End, shaking the entire dimension.
A flood of TNT rained down from above, completely engulfing the area.
Everyone instinctively gripped their Totems of Undying.
The massive explosion lasted more than ten seconds.
It felt like the whole world was trembling.
When the chaos finally settled, everyone looked down.
The once-flat terrain of the End island was now completely cratered—
a landscape full of pits and scars, bleak and desolate.
Ender Pearls, remnants of fallen Endermen, were scattered everywhere.
Only the obsidian pillars and bedrock remained untouched, as if they had never been affected.
Ryen glanced down at the platform under his feet.
The upper section remained intact, but the launching area below had been severely damaged.
Seeing the destructive aftermath, Rosalyne and Tartaglia couldn't help but shudder.
Just watching that blast had made their hearts race.
They could only imagine what kind of destruction Osial had faced days ago.
That thing must've had a full mental breakdown.
This is peace-time technology?! From a so-called "non-combat world"? Unreal!
"Sigh..."
Ryen let out a deep breath.
"Failure. We'll have to start repairs again."
Ganyu and Hu Tao each held one of his hands, looking at him with concern.
"Failure is the norm in experimentation,"
Lisa said cheerfully, not at all disappointed, and smiled at Ryen.
"As long as you're safe, that's all that matters."
"Back when I was studying at the Akademiya, I succeeded in over a thousand experiments—
That's how I earned the title Genius Witch."
"But only I know… behind those thousand successes were tens of thousands of failures, and countless dangerous moments."
"At the very least, we now know why the Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon failed— the timing was off."
"Let's readjust the redstone circuits and the timers. We still have plenty of materials."
Hearing Lisa's words, Ryen felt a little better.
The Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon was never something that could be built perfectly on the first try.
No one got hurt this time— and that was already the best news they could ask for.
Putting aside his frustration, Ryen smiled at Lisa.
"You're in quite a good mood. Has this rekindled your old passion for research?"
Lisa shrugged.
"Studying redstone tech is way more fun than the experiments I used to run. Let's keep going!"
The group picked themselves up and resumed their efforts.
They ignored the passage of time and continued refining the cannon.
That entire day, explosions echoed across the End, one after another—
occasionally mixed with Ryen and the others' sighs of helplessness.
Sometimes the timing system was miscalculated.
Sometimes the redstone circuit malfunctioned.
One of the worst failures even caused a third of the cannon to collapse in an instant.
The amount of materials consumed forced Cloud Retainer to frequently fly down
and gather fallen redstone components from the ground below.
No one knew how much time had passed.
Eventually, Ryen and the others stood before the heavily modified Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon.
Compared to its earlier form, the cannon now looked massively bloated.
For starters, its size had nearly doubled, covering an area over a thousand meters wide.
The wiring underneath it was a dense web, and various modules had been nested together—
looking like a giant, tangled ant nest from below.
It had become so complicated that just looking at it made one dizzy.
To be honest, even if someone asked Ryen and the others to rebuild it from scratch,
they wouldn't be able to—
So many parts had been improvised mid-build that they'd forgotten half the steps themselves.
"That's… twenty-seven failed attempts now…"
Ryen let out a long sigh and said helplessly:
"If it fails again this time, then we'll just—"
Lisa didn't let him finish. She grinned brightly and cut him off:
"Then we keep going!"
~~----------------------
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