“Today. Today, I’m finishing this fucking thing.” Daniel stared at the workbench in frustration. He’d gotten almost everything done, but there was one part that was far harder than the rest and worse, required both of his most precious materials.
His earlier problems with trying to make some kind of gun-based weapon had been resolved by a change in perspective. He’d been trying too hard to find physical workarounds for his lack of knowledge when magic could provide the answer.
The barrel of the weapon, for example, could use rifling to help the projectile spin and gain accuracy and range. Alternatively, he could use the far-shot bow formulae he’d picked up in another trade and just make a smooth tube. Technically this worked as while ammunition could only benefit from the enchantment of one ranged weapon when fired, nothing else on what he’d taken to calling a blast bow had a conflicting enchantment.
That had been difficult but not impossible to make, since he’d combined both hammerite and wolf bone for the barrel. In hindsight it seemed the second material didn’t add anything, suggesting the bone’s material bonus effect didn’t universally apply depending on what you used it with. Still, he was satisfied as with the self-repair affix, the barrel would be both durable and allow for a range of tolerance for what kind of ammunition he could use thanks to the hammerite.
The two other parts he’d completed included the general frame of the weapon and what would be used to ignite the ammunition. For the frame, he’d experimented with wolf bone and the feathers due to their relative abundance. Again, the wolf bone didn’t do much other than provide mass, though something interesting happened with the feathers. He’d hit a more difficult enchantment than he’d expected, which was due to him needing to adjust the physical properties of the feathers beyond what was normal. The result was adding a feather-like texture to the surface of the weapon and a reduction of its overall weight.
As for the striker, he’d used the firestarter base he’d lucked out on from his trips to the Hunter’s Guild slaughterhouse along with the self-repair and lightning affix. Choosing these two prevented him from combining multiple materials or using monster parts, but he only needed one. Andorite.
This material was proving to be Daniel’s bane, but its effect couldn’t be worked around with the current design. He’d just managed to make the device that would fit in the frame, an internal section that would cause a spark for the ammunition, and the trigger he could grip in human or cat form connected to it. While it was a level 2 item, andorite gave it level 3 durability. Combined with the self-repair affix, it should be able to survive the explosion needed to propel his ammunition without needing a lot of time to repair between shots.
That same principle was required for what Daniel called the receiver, either correctly or incorrectly. He intended to use both hammerite and andorite to make a durable box that could accept ammunition of various sizes. The good news was that since the spineshard backing he’d make for the ammunition destroyed itself in the explosion, he didn’t have to worry about ejecting what was left afterward. He’d still cobbled together a makeshift bolt action since the ammunition being spring-fed from the bottom had to be protected lest they discharge when he fired the chambered round. For the same reason as the trigger, he’d opted to give it the self-repair affix in the second slot. It was less a complex design from an automatic weapon and more a bomb chamber that would only open towards the barrel when properly loaded.
So, it’s kind of like a cannon instead of a gun I guess, Daniel thought as he tried to think of any way to make his design simpler. He’d already failed to make six receivers, eating into the precious metals he’d made so many bags of holding for. There were enough for two, maybe three tries left. The main issue was the cumulative difficulty of everything going on resulting in the hardest enchantment yet. Multiple materials, two affixes, an average material level of 2.5, and intricate manipulation around the bolt mechanism when it was time to fully form the end result. He’d gotten to that point on the third try, only to see his half-formed project go up in smoke.
Gradually increasing the difficulty of what he’d been enchanting had been enough to allow him to improve, but he’d finally hit a point where determination alone wasn’t working and grinding wasn’t feasible. He started to reach for the remnants of the ingots when he paused. I should be able to do this, he thought, perplexed. It’s difficult, but this is a task on my level. A little above it, actually, and Arpan was increasing the level of material without having nearly as much difficulty. There’s something else I’m missing.
The actual process of enchanting was relatively simple, as far as Daniel knew. You picked the base enchantment, added affixes, and locked that and the form you wanted the item to take before feeding the material mana. That charged it up, and then the item physically transformed when ready. He’d already figured out the last step wasn’t strictly necessary because of Padri’s assistance with the boots, though he wasn’t sure if the Craftsman could help him with this project.
And if I do get his help, it’ll just be another crutch. Daniel pulled away from the metals and picked up a roll of fur. Despite how much he had, he’d already depleted around a quarter of his stock as well as a sizable amount from Temir for the city. When he’d started, a bag of holding with self-repair and patchwork would take him just over an hour. He’d had no way to time it since his phone didn’t have a clock anymore, but he had started to get faster. Quick Mind put it to around 54 minutes as he thought back. Why?
As far as he knew, getting better with enchanting meant a higher success rate. Sure, he’d gain some time on the drawing out process as his manipulations grew practiced, but the major limiting step should have been infusing the item with mana. The same base conditions should have given him the same completion time, yet he was growing more efficient after making over a hundred of the things. If he was going to finish the blast bow without wasting hundreds of viridian in rare materials, he had to figure out why.
He began making a new bag of holding, but did something different. Daniel kept his hands on the fur, zeroing in on the mana flow to it. With his better senses, he’d figured out the tether between the item and himself came from his hands, both of them, even if he only initiated the process with one. Considering he used those to form the final product, it made sense.
Daniel wanted to know what the mana was actually doing. It wasn’t just building a charge in the item. He’d made level 1 gear from level 5 ore back in the Thormundz, and the heliorite should have had enough magic on its own to power whatever he made. Despite this, the mana cost of each item didn’t change, only its time and difficulty. All of the bags he’d made had also cost the same amount of mana despite the time needed shortening.
But the average rate of mana flow isn’t changing either, he thought, once again benefiting from an insight from Quick Mind. Paying close attention, distance didn’t change anything either and the rate of flow was fast enough that the extra travel distance was negligible. Still, I’m losing mana faster since I’m doing this faster. It’s gotta be the concentration of mana I’m feeding this item. The width of the river instead of the speed of its flow.
He reached the halfway point of the enchantment and reflexively did something so minor, he’d just now picked up on it because of how much attention he was paying to the mana flow. A very slight change in the rate, an acquired instinct he must have picked up subconsciously after so many repetitions because it made things easier. Perform any task dozens or hundreds of times and you’d find and quickly forget you were using such shortcuts.
Daniel blinked, cut the flow of mana, and allowed the material he was using to dissolve. No way. Are all those bags of holding I made for Aurus actually paying off? He began again, pointedly keeping the mana flow to the fur nice and even. He couldn’t do it perfectly, but despite the occasional flaw he’d accomplished his goal: sucking at enchanting again. The bag was far more difficult to make this time, and he risked failing due to the attention he was putting into doing this incorrectly. By the time he reached the midpoint slowdown, he was barely holding it together and decided to scrap another set of fur.
He checked his Encyclopedia, scrolling through any relevant entries he could reach through hyperlinks, but there wasn’t any new information. It looked like something he had to figure out himself as the truth he was seeking was hidden by the text’s ambiguity, like how the Empathic Link with Hunter reset at dawn. Or, for that matter, that he was supposed to be able to sense mana. Really could have used a heads up about that earlier.
On a hunch, Daniel began to enchant a third and final bag with one change, he dropped the self-repair affix and added lightning instead. It would give the bag resistance to lightning damage, something that was fairly useless save for what he was trying to do. On paper, the enchantment should go just as smoothly as the others since all the difficulty modifiers were the same. Switching out one affix for another shouldn’t make a difference.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
It did. Even with his practice, the bag of holding took him one hour and one minute as well as noticeably more mental effort. Faster than the first bag he’d tried to make under these conditions, but slower than with self-repair. He’d learned enough to make a tentative conclusion but made one more test. Keep everything the same, but use the moth fur instead of the wolf fur and drop the item level by 1 to keep the level disparity the same.
One hour, three minutes. It’s like everything has a different magical signature, or pattern. There’s a right way to infuse mana based on the combination I want. It’s got to be deeper than just adjusting the rate and concentration. Maybe I was right about mana having affinities? Also, this assumes my material is the same every time. If I don’t use things processed by Craftsmen, that’ll complicate things. Mass changes things too, since that prolongs the duration and increases difficulty.
He didn’t have time to dive deeply into each aspect. The enchanting had held up his team long enough, delayed Hunter’s return long enough. All he needed to do now to finish his preparations was isolate more shortcuts for the patchwork and self-repair affixes, which he could do by making yet more bags of holding. If those could be applied to the receiver, it should dramatically improve his chances. It was already early afternoon and he hadn’t seen anyone or eaten anything today, but he kept going, driven.
I don’t know if I can decrease the mana concentration for the receiver, he thought as he tried making another bag with just the patchwork affix. But if I can, I should slow it down. If I can handle more mana at a time when I’m more familiar with an enchantment, I should be able to do the reverse when I’m learning something.
From that bag, he learned that the halfway delay was specific to self-repair as it didn’t help this time, as well as several other things he hadn’t consciously noticed before that hurt the otherwise familiar enchantment. Next, he made another bag with moth fur. This was to try and isolate patchwork, seeing what did and didn’t work, since he couldn’t isolate what the materials felt like without using patchwork for either.
All the while, Quick Mind and his magically heightened wisdom and intelligence were pulling serious weight. It was only when he struggled that he could appreciate what had changed, just like how he could lift hundreds of pounds but wouldn’t notice until a boulder tried to crush him. Gtoll had been right all along, he hadn’t been training his attributes correctly until after he’d fought him. Even now it felt like he could improve on what he was doing, if only through variety. Either way, Daniel was able to pick up on several shortcuts by nightfall that improved his efficiency.
He debated repeating the bags to find more, knowing he couldn’t have gotten everything, but decided to make an attempt. If the enchanting process could be slowed down and made easier by flexing his familiarity with the affixes, he should be able to do it. The third attempt had almost succeeded on its own and that was before Daniel was consciously improving the mana flow and not relying on force of will.
Pulling out a scrap sheet of paper, Daniel drew several lines and began marking the general location of where each slight improvement was based on the different factors. He’d at least partially researched the affixes, which left the two metals and the base enchantment unknown. It was risky to do this without delving into them, but he didn’t have the material to waste and he wasn’t sure if he could keep the mental image of the receiver exactly the same in his mind. Would the slightest of variations make for a new pattern?
He also wasn’t sure by how much he could slow the process, if at all, but that didn’t matter. He knew the amount mana the receiver would take from when he’d almost succeeded and could calculate the average rate with Quick Mind during the process. From that, he could anticipate when he was about to come up on a shortcut and take it, hopefully improving his chances of success. Daniel had said he’d finish this today, and he meant it.
The red and dull blue metals sat stacked together, waiting for him to initiate the process. He considered keeping his hands on the material at all times, but as the hammerite was naturally magical and above his level, he couldn’t. Instead, he closed his eyes, disabled all the auras around him, and made sure Keen Senses was off. If this run didn’t work, he would have to rely on anything he picked up for the second attempt. Beyond that, things would get difficult as he’d have to bargain for more material.
About fifty minutes into the process, he had to stifle his excitement. He was indeed able to slow down the enchanting speed, something he hadn’t tried before. When Daniel had compared between items before, the longer enchants had always seemed more difficult, but time didn’t exactly correlate to difficulty as he’d first assumed. This time, he could feel the difference. A third of the way in and the “health” of the enchantment was doing well. Still falling, and he was giving it his all to make it work, but he knew he’d reach the final stage.
When it came, he got nervous again. Nothing he’d discovered would help him with this step directly, only set himself up better for it. The receiver began to form from the metal, flat top first. This would fit into the space he’d made in the frame once he’d fed the trigger mechanism into it. The hard part was two thirds of the way down when he would reach the bolt-operated section. Generating multiple sections that moved and interlocked with each other was a huge difficulty spike. Put in video game terms, he had to hope the health of his enchantment was good enough to tank his way through when the boss’ hair started glowing.
He winced when the moment came and tried to slow the process even more, but either he’d hit the minimum or he couldn’t do anything now that the item was fully charged. The mental image of the receiver wavered a little and he desperately held on, fearing that it would turn out like something being 3D printed. One significant bump was all it would take to ruin a project.
The knowledge of what he’d have to do to get back to this point, of what was riding on this, gave him the will to hold on. Despite the hunger and having spent an entire day mentally taxing himself, Daniel was able to push through. He gasped as the receiver cleared the difficult section and continued moving. All that was left was the opening to accept the magazine and the small lever he’d made to retain it. Compared to everything else, it was nothing.
The metal part clanked onto the table as it finished. Daniel wanted to shout in celebration before eating half of their kitchen, but he couldn’t stop now. Most of the blast bow had already been assembled, though he had to fit the trigger into the receiver and then add it into the frame. Hammerite’s material bonus aided here as well, since Daniel could manipulate the shape to a small degree after it had been enchanted.
He put his finger on the trigger as soon as it was slotted in. The firestarter was normally like a lighter from his world, but he’d bent both the flame end 90 degrees towards the trigger and lengthened the neck. With the lightning affix altering its elemental output, it was now perfectly positioned to hit the back of the ammunition he fed into the receiver.
The magazines were nothing special, simple boxes with springs he’d purchased rather than made to push ammunition up. He’d loved to have somehow integrated a bag of holding into it but those required him to physically pull things out. Daniel held his breath as he loaded the blast bow, pulling back on the bolt to allow a round to be pushed into the receiver. If he’d made a design mistake, this would be when he would find out.
Nothing happened, which could have meant anything, though the bolt returned to its resting position without issue. He pointed the finished blast bow, which was about a meter in length, towards the ground and fit a bag of holding over the end of the barrel. Items could fall into them just fine, but the bags would retain whatever was in there despite the will of gravity or momentum.
With the same trepidation as someone turning on a home built computer for the first time, he fired. What he’d loaded was a simple round, a basic bullet of wolf bone without any special enchantment fit into a back section of level 1 spineshard ammunition.
The bullet would be damaged by the explosion but should survive intact enough to do damage since it was at a higher level than the material generating the propulsive explosion. The final size of each round was about twice as wide as his thumb and as tall as his hand, which was also as large as his receiver would allow to be fired. If the explosion needed to propel the ammunition was too much he could fine tune things by reducing the overall mass, and adjusting the relative primer:bullet ratio, but all he cared about now was a successful test fire.
The blast bow kicked in his hands as the back half of the loaded round detonated. It was loud, muffled slightly by the receiver but enough to give him away on a hunt. The recoil itself wasn’t too bad, but only because he was strong enough to keep the weapon steady. The rest of the ammunition in the magazine had also been unaffected, the receiver and magazine together shielding the spineshard primers within from the elemental energy. He wanted to check the bag for the slug but had one last test he’d do before celebrating.
Acting quickly, because the others in the house had been alarmed by the sound, Daniel pulled on the bolt to load another round. He did it just like he thought he would during a hunt, not easing it but using his full might to yank back. If there was a chance it could jam, he wanted to know now.
The bolt returned to rest position, and he touched the trigger again. A second explosion. Khare wormed into the room from the ceiling of the lower floor and composed themself, acorn eyes zeroing in on his weapon. They’d have marked it if they could have, so they made an orange wedge appear over Daniel instead. “Functioning?”
Daniel took the bag off the ground and peered in. It had been one of the ones made today and was mostly empty, save for two vaguely bullet shaped pieces of wolf bone. One had a small crack in it, but both had survived. Even if pieces had broken off and hit the barrel on the way out, self-repair would keep it from getting permanently damaged.
“Fucking yes!” Daniel cried, venting his frustration and letting joy take its place. “Khare, I’m going to be honest, I can’t make you a lot of these.” He hid his smirk as the gestalt’s head fell. “Buuuut, I think you can have at least one, maybe. Later, though. I’m wiped out.” The gestalt made a grasping motion towards the blast bow and Daniel nodded, handing it over. “Be careful though, only fire into the bag.” He moved it onto the ground next to Khare for emphasis.
A disappointed look crossed Khare’s vine face as they tried to operate the weapon, but after Daniel showed them how the bolt worked, they quickly emptied the rest of the seven round magazine. “Powerful,” they commented, having struggled to keep the weapon aimed properly.
“Yeah, a lot harder to handle than a bow after firing, isn’t it?” Something large began to move downstairs and he cursed under his breath. Two steps forward, one step back. “Sorry Khiat!”