Chapter 107 – Don’t like where this is going.

“I should just activate it?”

“Yeah, do it as many times as you can.”

“Okay, boss.”

Bernir and Roland were standing outside in the backyard. Agni was in the background chasing his own tail while the two were performing some tests.

While holding a meter-long iron tube Bernir started to insert mana into it. This tube had a couple of mana stones attached to them and they lit up the moment the runic components were activated.

“Hm?”

Bernir could feel that a quick burst of high pressure was released from this tube but nothing besides that. The initial activation made his hand jerk due to the blowback. He looked at Roland as if he was wondering if this was all.

“Continue.”

Roland replied while watching his assistant activate this metal tube six times before reaching towards his forehead.

“Six times before the first headache?”

“Yes Boss, ouch this stings, I don’t know how you do it.”

Bernir started to rub his template as a similar sensation of when a person ate ice cream too fast washed over him. He wasn’t sure why Roland gave him this tube but he figured he would disclose the information soon.

“Good… now…”

Roland took the tube back and inserted something into it before giving it back to his assistant. Bernir peeked inside but couldn’t really make out what his boss placed in there.

“Okay, now point it at the dummy and activate it again.”

After getting a low-grade mana potion Bernir looked at a straw dummy that he had made a day before. Roland ordered him to fashion one made from wood for testing some new items. The dummy looked more like a scarecrow as Bernir didn’t really have any experience in making ones before.

“Sure, activating now!”

He held it out with two hands this time around and also gripped it harder as he was now used to the knockback. The moment he activated this tube again he could see a round marble shooting out of it and going in the general direction of the straw dummy.

The moment this large marble connected with the dummy a small explosion occurred. This caused Bernir to jump back and fall onto his butt while Roland just observed it while standing next to him.

“Hm, not bad… but I think you need some aiming practice…”

One side of the dummy had been blown away by this explosion. Roland was just testing a new weapon that he intended to give to his assistant. Bernir had a meager mana pool which didn’t allow for much runic equipment. Due to this Roland decided to go with the disposable item route, scrolls to be specific.

This design was a smaller version of his runic grenades that he once used against the bandits. That time around he just threw the round casings which had his scrolls inside them. Now he wanted to design a sort of launcher so that Bernir would be able to defend himself from attackers.

First, he needed to test Bernir’s mana capacity and how many times he would be able to use his new weapon. Then he would just need to come up with a design that was easy to aim with. Things like grenade launchers from his own world came to mind but here a person wouldn’t need a trigger but just to inject some mana.

It looked like six shots would be the limit for Bernir before he would need to drink a mana potion. Thus an enlarged cylinder with six chambers for ammo would need to be made. He could always just give Bernir regular spell scrolls for protection, but having a weapon like this would help with aiming and a faster rate of fire.

Roland was a bit surprised that no one came up with such a design. Most people still preferred to just use regular spell scrolls while holding them out against their enemies. Maybe due to the lack of gun-related technology, no one was interested in innovating in that direction. From what he knew only large cannons like on the merchant ship he made the trip here existed.

They were mostly relegated to siege weapons or defenses on castle towers. If you took into consideration that high level archers could outperform modern-day firearms then it made sense. His assistant on the other hand wasn’t so good at throwing bombs, thus something he could steady his aim with could be a lifesaver.

‘I guess no one really cares about making weapons for the non-combative classes…’

“Okay, that should do it. Think we can move on to producing a prototype.”

Roland wondered if there would be a market for such items. This weapon made sense to him who could actually produce the ammo himself. But for an adventurer paying one large silver or more for one mini grenade would quickly bankrupt them.

“Aye boss, but you shouldn’t forget about the guild. Don’t forget the letter arrived.”

Roland grabbed the prototype rod that would be used for the launcher barrel. He wasn’t really sure if he wanted to make it a six-shooter or just a single. Bernir could just pop the grenade in through the top for a quick reload which would simplify things but also make them slower.

He was not someone that had ever been interested in guns that much, so he could mostly just borrow his ideas from the media he consumed and the current world’s technology.

“Yeah, I remember.”

‘Did the guild master get those items for me?’

The bald guild master had promised to find him the manufacturing details for mana alloys along with how to build the smelter for it. It had been a couple of weeks since then but only now had word reached them. There was also a possibility that he wasn’t able to procure it and he would just give him the same sales pitch as before.

“I’ll go there today, stay here with Agni and train up those skills.”

Bernir had also finally advanced to the tier 2 Armorsmith class. From what Roland was told the item that he had to make was a half-plate armor. Half-plate armor was similar to plate armor but lacked some parts like leg protection and a helmet.

When asked about the time limit Bernir was surprised. He was apparently allowed to take his time and only when he was done the final product was tested by the class up system. Roland wanted to file a complaint to the people that made this system. He always received a timer and had to rush through things. The reason for that was probably the rarity of the classes that he went for. Bernir chose the most generic one which made the tests quite easy.

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It was still a tier 2 class though and with it, Bernir was the proud owner of the Armorsmith class. Now finally he would be able to craft the armors that he always dreamed about. With the added skills this would become easier.

Roland had also taken in some knowledge that Bernir had to offer. He was the son of a dwarven blacksmith that had also been an armorsmith apparently. Thanks to this Roland could learn a couple of smithing techniques that he wasn’t clued in. With this more advanced tier 2 class and heightened dexterity, it was easy to replicate what Bernir was proficient in.

“Aye boss, I’ll use these if anything happens so you don’t need to worry.”

Bernir pointed to his hip where he had a couple of card-sized scrolls. The weapons weren’t ready so the best defense for Bernir were the magic scrolls. Roland wished to miniaturize this grenade launcher as much as he could, make it more portable like a real gun. For that, he needed to further his compression skill.

‘Just too many things to do…’

Roland had been having trouble focusing on one thing lately. Agni needed further training as his level didn’t go up much since he evolved into the larger form. He also was working on his golem design and still decrypting the runic code that would be the basis for it.

Then there were his own skills and the defenses for his home, plus he also needed to be making weapons and earn money to support himself and his assistant. At least with Bernir helping him out now, he wouldn’t need to focus on armor as much.

The only downside to this was that the corresponding skills for armor crafting wouldn’t be going up as much. He intended to combat this by making some armor parts together with his assistant, with some help he would be able to create more improvements and do it faster.