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A vacuum wasn't necessarily useful for his purposes here, but the mere idea that he could so trivially manipulate air pressure had been enough to get the gears turning in his head even more. Because for instance, what if he did the opposite? Instead of creating an airless chamber, what if he purposely captured air and began compressing it?

It seemed relatively simple to do. Just materialize an open box, then seal it off. From there, he could shrink the hollow space inside, causing the air molecules trapped within to be pressed closer and closer together.

Theoretically, he could do this as much as he wanted. The only problem, he thought, would be in how much air pressure the iron itself could withstand. At some point, the air pressure would likely grow too powerful for the chamber to contain, and his iron would tear itself apart with explosive force in order to release said air.

And therein lay the foundation of his idea. A compressed air explosion. If it worked, then he was pretty sure that he would be able to find all sorts of uses for such a technique in combat.

He wasn't entirely sure it would work that way, though. Thus far, he hadn't found the occasion to actually test it.

And now that he did, he was abruptly more concerned with Voreese's safety than with the experiment itself. He supposed she'd be fine as long as he didn't soul-empower anything, but that would also lessen the value of the experiment. In a real fight, he would almost certainly want to employ soul power.

Ah well. Maybe it was better to take things easier the first time, anyway.

He was already materializing an open iron chamber by the time his spare thought processes were finishing that internal debate. He needed it to be large enough to shoot an Amir-9 out of it, and since there was no soul power to threaten Voreese, he figured that he could go a bit overboard with the physical specifications.

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Of course, there was also the option of the orbital technique. He could simply coat the freshly materialized shield in iron and then launch it like he'd done so many times before. But that didn't seem like it would be very good practice. He already felt quite comfortable with that technique.

And frankly, he felt like that would be overdoing it. That technique, more or less, had been what killed the Beast of Lorent. While Hector didn't want to underestimate his good friend Roman, he also didn't want to turn the guy into a bunch of meaty chunks.

So he decided to try something new, something that had been rattling around in a brainstorming thought process for a little while now.

A heat-assisted pressurization chamber.

With the advent of his ability to manipulate temperature, Hector had been trying to think of less conventional ways that he might be able to make use of it. One of the things he learned when reading up on the physics of heat was that it could increase the pressure in a given system.

He couldn't exactly claim that his understanding of it was complete, but from what he'd been able to discern, higher temperatures caused particles to move faster, making them bump into each other and thereby increasing pressure when in a contained environment. That was why heat caused things to distort and expand.

And when he got to thinking about pressure, that started giving him other ideas. Because, for example, wasn't it possible for him to create a vacuum? Quite easily?

All he had to do was make a simple iron cube, then hollow out the middle. There would be no air inside.

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"Hmm. Maybe." Hector held off on launching the next shield as he weighed his options. It might be kind of annoying if he ended up having to go hunt down a lost shield, but... maybe that would actually be a good exercise in an of itself.

First, he'd have to get a shield past Roman, though. And if this was suddenly a competition, then it wouldn't really be fair if just lobbed one on the opposite direction or something.

"Alright," said Hector. "I'll step it up a notch. But you have to warn Roman that I'm about to go harder."

'I do? Why? Wouldn't it be funnier as a surprise?'

"You're the one who specified 'healthy' competition."

'Yeah, but the first one could just be a prank. The healthy part could come after.' She drew herself up a little, looking suddenly a bit haughty. 'And frankly, Hector, I don't think you'll be able to get one past him, even without warning. So I'm giving you the advantage.'

"Just warn him, please. It's only fair."

'Ugh, fine.' She paused. 'There, he's been warned. Now hurry up. I'm not getting any younger over here.'

For a second, Hector just took her at her word, but then he decided to consult Garovel, who confirmed his suspicions. "No, you didn't."

'Wow, I can't believe you checked up on me. Where's the trust, man?'

"The same place the truth went, probably."

'Okay, okay, I warned him. For real this time. Satisfied, you little party pooper?'

After consulting Garovel a second time, he was. He gave her a nod.

Regarding how to proceed, Hector had a few choices. Simply upping the scale of the trebuchet might do the trick, but it would require entirely new refinement of the contraption's structural integrity. Most likely, it would collapse in on itself or worse several times before he got all the ratios correct. And while that might make for a fun exercise, he wasn't convinced that it would be enough to get past Roman. Voreese did seem pretty confident in him, after all.