After dinner, Vid greeted Michael and the others, then went alone to the eighth floor of the castle, pacing back and forth in the empty corridor.
"I need an Alchemy Laboratory... I need an Alchemy Laboratory... I need an Alchemy Laboratory..."
In the painting on the wall beside him, Silly Barnabas was still entangled with a few Trolls, sometimes forcing the Trolls to dance, sometimes getting beaten up, and most of the time remaining motionless, not reacting even when seeing someone pacing back and forth in the corridor.
Vid felt that the image of him suddenly warning him back then seemed somewhat unreal.
The door to the Room of Requirement appeared, and Vid glanced back at Silly Barnabas before pushing the door open and walking inside.
This was a very large circular room, with shelves filled with various books related to Alchemy along the walls, and various Alchemy Materials were stored in numerous Crystal Bottles, some ordinary, some emitting strange glows, and others jumping around inside the bottles.
On the operation table was a long array of implements, peculiar glass containers with bubbling green liquid, and a cauldron cooking several brightly colored ores.
Where the fireplace should be, there were two smelting furnaces, one of which was burning with a copper pipe extending like an elephant's trunk, connecting to a nearby circular container.
There were already two people in the room—
Fred and George were lying on the floor, writing and drawing on a huge blueprint, with some seemingly out-of-place items beside them, such as woolen hats and old vests.
"What are you doing?"
Vid walked over and sat down, casually picking up the blueprint on the floor to have a look.
Fred rubbed his nose and grinned, "Hey, look! This is why we want your help."
"Isn't it a neat little thing?" George said excitedly, "Caps or vests that can defend against Evil Curses! Although it might not be very useful, it's quite effective against some minor evil curses!"
"But our Ancient Magical Runes aren't very good, even though we have ideas, there are a few places we don't know how to implement..." Fred explained why they needed Vid's help.
"Also, I now think that if we could make it resist Muggle weapons too, that would be even better!" George said.
"Hmm... let me take a look..."
Vid said, carefully pondering the twins' design ideas on the blueprint.
Actually, he had considered things like an Anti-Curse Hat long ago. Even if not for selling, helping his friends gain some extra safety was quite nice.
But later Vid abandoned the idea, as he realized such items could only defend against minor magic that wouldn't cause much harm, rendering them practically useless.
Moreover, for an Anti-Curse Hat to be effective, its owner needed to provide some subjective initiative—meaning they needed to stare directly at the face of the person casting the curse at the moment of being hit, so the curse could reflect back.
This limited its usefulness even further.
So in the original work, this was just a joke product for the Weasley Brothers.
But most people in the Magic World were rather weak, and only a few mastered the Iron Armor Spell, so during times of war, these products sold quite well.
The blueprint in front of Vid at this moment didn't differ much from the Anti-Curse Hat in the original story in terms of effect. The Magic Text design had some flaws, which Vid quickly corrected.
However, such Anti-Curse equipment, its effectiveness was rather disappointing, and its defense against Muggle firearms was only marginally better than nothing.
Originally Vid had given up because of this, but after that experience on the island, he had new ideas.
"This kind of defense is too ordinary, but perhaps we can do something with the materials?" Vid said.
The twins exchanged glances, then in unison asked, "How?"
Vid asked, "Have you observed honeycombs?"
"Of course!" George said, "All the honeycombs I've seen have the same structure, the same pattern, perfectly designed to the point of amazement."
Fred nodded in agreement, "I've heard that honeycombs on the other side of the Earth are the same, like they were designed by some god, it's simply unreal."
"Hmm." Vid casually drew a hexagonal honeycomb on the paper and said, "A honeycomb structure uses the least materials to create the largest diamond-shaped container, very strong."
"Moreover, this mesh structure can distribute and bear external forces from all directions, its stability and sound and heat insulation properties are excellent, and thanks to saving materials, its overall mass is relatively light."
Vid was very familiar with the honeycomb structure because his wardrobe space could be stably and continuously expanded thanks to using this structure to draw Magic Patterns.
Now he applied the same concept to Anti-Curse equipment, speaking fluently without pause, while rows of Magic Text and drawings fell onto the paper.
"So you see, if we make the Anti-Curse Hat or Anti-Curse Vest—preferably a vest, for a better defense performance—internally using titanium-copper alloy, shaped into a honeycomb structure, and then cast the Iron Armor Spell, it could..."
"Wait, wait!" Fred raised his hand and asked, "What is titanium-copper alloy?"
Vid paused, then said, "It's an alloy formed by adding a small amount of titanium to copper, with high strength, high elasticity, good elongation, widely used in Muggle Society."
George looked at his brother, "I haven't heard about it at all... how about you?"