Chapter 348 A Cool But Useless Failure

Li Jiajun took this plain, even somewhat ugly-looking pistol and walked to the wide open space in the backyard of the factory building.

He prepared to conduct a field test to see how effective this small firefighting pistol actually was in combat.

The ground in this backyard clearing was packed earth, and there were no flammable materials around, making it very suitable for this kind of small-scale open-flame test.

In order to simulate a real, complex fire situation with multiple ignition points as much as possible...

He deliberately found an open spot and began scouring the ground for combustible materials.

First, he pulled a large pile of discarded newspapers and cardboard packaging boxes out of a nearby rusty trash can.

Then, he found some discarded, dried-out rotten wood and wood shavings.

Li Jiajun intentionally divided this trash into several independent piles of fire.

Each fire pile was separated by a distance of three or four meters, scattered across an area of about a dozen square meters.

In this way, he could maximize the test of the firefighting pistol's cluster munition's automatic target-seeking and precision strike capabilities when facing multiple fire sources.

After finishing all this...

He pulled a cheap plastic lighter out of his pocket.

With a "click"...

An orange-red flame flickered out.

Li Jiajun squatted down and lit the piles of trash one by one.

The dry paper and wood chips ignited instantly upon contact with the open flame.

After a short while, the orange flames began to leap upward, and plumes of black smoke rose.

...

Looking at the clusters of flames burning brightly before him...

Li Jiajun nodded with satisfaction.

He slapped the dust off his hands, then stepped back a few paces, putting a distance of about twenty meters between himself and the fires.

He raised the gray plastic pistol in his hand, which looked like a children's toy.

He didn't use a standard three-point alignment aiming technique like one would with a real gun.

This was because he had absolute confidence in the target-seeking logic he had inherited from the "twin-tailed scorpion" drone.

As long as it was within the effective range, the bullet could find the target on its own.

Everything was ready.

Li Jiajun took a deep breath and then pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Bang!

A dull and brief soft sound.

The sound wasn't loud; it wasn't even as loud as the snap crackers set off during the New Year.

An entirely gray, unremarkable-looking bullet was ejected from the muzzle.

The bullet wasn't moving very fast, tracing a clearly visible parabola in mid-air.

Just as it reached its highest point above the fires...

A sudden change occurred!

A faint "click" of a mechanical spring release was heard.

The shell of the mother bullet instantly disintegrated in mid-air, automatically splitting apart!

Immediately following that...

Over a dozen miniature bullet pellets, only the size of a fingernail and shimmering with a metallic luster, whistled out from the mother bullet like a disturbed swarm of bees!

The visual effect was absolutely maxed out!

The moment these tiny pellets detached from the mother bullet, their tails emitted a faint blue glow.

That was the sign that their internal micro-sensors and propulsion systems had been activated.

They didn't scatter like headless flies.

Instead, relying on the target-seeking logic inherited from the twin-tailed scorpion delivery drone's cargo bay—a logic so mature it was practically perverse—

These pellets circled in the air and instantly locked onto the heat sources radiating from the ground below.

They began to trace elegant and lethal arcs in the sky, like falcons with their own consciousness, precisely seeking out the combustible materials within the designated range.

A dozen or so silver streaks of light wove together in mid-air into a tight net that let nothing through.

Then, from incredibly tricky angles, they plunged precisely into the burning piles of trash!

...

Pshhh!

Pshhh!

Several faint sounds, almost inaudible, came from the fire piles.

This was the sound of the pellets releasing the fire-extinguishing spray via their internal micro-explosive devices after hitting the targets.

Li Jiajun stood in the distance with an expectant smile on his face, ready to admire the perfect scene of the fire being instantly extinguished.

He could almost see the mixture of carbon dioxide and ultra-fine dry powder compressed inside the bullets, spreading like flower petals from a celestial maiden, completely blanketing and suffocating the flames.

However...

What happened next caused the smile on his face to freeze, bit by bit.

The awkward part happened.

Because he had scaled down the twin-tailed scorpion drone's cargo bay proportionally to the size of a bullet...

This resulted in each individual micro-pellet containing a pitifully small amount of fire-extinguishing spray.

After those few faint hissing sounds...

All that emerged from the fires were a few insignificant wisps of white smoke.

That miserable bit of dry powder and carbon dioxide didn't even have time to fully cover the flames before being blown away by the heatwave generated by the combustion.

The fires on those trash piles, after a brief and negligible disturbance, showed no signs of weakening; instead, they burned even more vigorously.

It was as if those high-tech cluster bullets had just given the fires a slight tickle.

They were essentially useless and couldn't put out the fire at all.

...

Li Jiajun stood there in a daze.

He watched the piles of trash still burning cheerfully, the corners of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

'This...'

'That's it?'

'I'm all hyped up, and this is what you show me?' The thought surfaced in his mind.

Theoretically perfect target-seeking logic.

Visually cool ballistic splitting.

Yet when it came to the most critical firefighting stage, it fell completely flat.

Li Jiajun felt his cheeks burning slightly.

He shook his head, speechless.

He walked forward, too lazy to even look for a fire extinguisher.

He simply raised his large feet, clad in labor-protection shoes, and with a few well-placed stomps, he crushed out the still-burning piles of trash.

Black ash and charred paper scraps flew everywhere as he stomped.

Li Jiajun looked down at the few wisps of blue smoke still rising from the embers, then at the strange-looking plastic pistol in his hand.

He couldn't help but mutter, "I guess I really can't be too lazy."

He only now realized what a foolish mistake he had made.

Scaling down the twin-tailed scorpion's technology directly wasn't wrong in itself.

But he had completely ignored the core issue of payload.

After reducing the volume, this thing was simply of no great use.

He estimated now that the total amount of fire suppressant filled in all the pellets split from a single bullet could only put out a tiny flame from a lighter.

In the face of a real fire, this thing was meaningless, other than putting on a fancy mid-air show.

Li Jiajun shook his head helplessly.

It seemed that to truly achieve efficient firefighting, he still had to rely on the big guys.

This kind of opportunistic little gadget ultimately couldn't make the cut.

In his heart, he mercilessly labeled this weapon, which had been born less than half an hour ago, as a "failure."