Thomas stood in front of the area that Rockbeard was letting him use and started to get his priorities in line. He had two things he really wanted to make. The first was a way to travel quickly by water. The second was an experimental weapon. He had a pretty solid idea of what item he wanted to make for traveling and didn't expect there to be much of an issue making it. The weapon though, that would be experimental and might run into issues. He could also afford to not make the item for traveling faster. That made the decision a little easier. He would start with his new weapon and if he had enough spare time he would make the travel device.

With his decision set, Thomas opened his blueprint system and pulled up the blueprint for his new weapon. While leaving it up he pulled an iron ingot out of his inventory and activated his Transmutation ability to start reshaping it. The iron moved like clay and followed his desires. It slowly reshaped until it became a simple mold that could create two bullet casings at a time. Two rather large bullet casings with a diameter of twenty millimeters. Larger than a twelve-gauge shotgun shell. The mold would make a nice solid shell casing with a relatively thick wall. With the mold ready he got a crucible and dropped a pair of regular iron ingots into it.

The blower kept the flames hot so they could quickly get to work on liquifying the ingots. While they melted down he got to work on the next part. He retrieved a nice Origin Steel ingot and started to reshape it. The ingot slowly deformed reshaping into a twenty-two centimeter long pipe with an inner diameter of twenty millimeters and an outer diameter of twenty-five millimeters. A simple and thick smoothbore barrel, much like what a shotgun would have. Once the barrel was fully formed, he snapped it off of the remainder of the ingot and smoothed out the spur sticking from it.

He ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the barrel and smiled. It was a rather large bore and would pack a lot of power. He held the barrel in his left hand while picking up the remainder of the ingot in his right. With his Transmutation, the ingot began to deform until it became a solid cylinder of steel that matched the outer diameter of the barrel. This would make up the backstop and tray for loading in his shells. He formed a halfpipe that stuck out of the bottom half of the backstop with two clips on the end that stuck out.

On the bottom of the barrel, he cleared out exterior section that matched the halfpipe of the backstop, including two clips at the very end. When placed together the backstop could slide back and forth allowing for shells to be easily loaded into the back of the barrel. After making sure it's a perfect fit he covers the halfpipe with the steel he previously moved and locks it in place. Now just by pulling it back, like pulling on the side for a semi-automatic pistol, he could swap out the shell loaded into the gun.

Thomas picked up the last of the Origin Steel and used Transmutation to reshape it into a small bar with two struts at the ends. This would rest across the backstop and hold it in place while the weapon was being fired. He set the bar against the backstop and adjusted it into a position near the center. While holding it there he adjusted the struts so that they rested against the outside of the barrel. The struts had small holes in them that allowed Thomas to use his Transmutation to rivet the struts to the barrel. He made one adjustment to the backstop by creating a small shelf the bar could rest on when it was locked closed.

Thomas lifted the lock, pulled the backstop open and smiled down at his work. It was nothing special but it was a good start. He slid the backstop back in place and dropped the locking bar down to secure it closed. He pulled out another ingot of Origin Steel and started to reshape a section of it into a gun handle. He snapped it off the remainder of the ingot and smoothed out the spur. Once it was set he fused it to the back end of the barrel. He gripped the handle of the new gun and lifted it up to examine it.

It was ugly as hell. It had no enchantments, no magic, nothing. It was simply a mock-up of where he wanted to go with it. What he had to do was work it some more and make it slightly more complex. He used Metal Magic, Transmutation, Origin Steel, and his Blueprint system to add some mechanics to the mock-up and bring it more in line with his vision for the weapon. Now, when he lifted the locking bar it would automatically push the backstop open. Inside of the backstop was a small spring that would pop the spent shell out automatically.

While working on the mechanical portions of the new gun he hadn't forgotten about the melting iron in the forge. At this point, he had half a dozen iron shells sitting on the table near him. He picked up one of the shells, set it on the bullet tray, and pulled the safety bar down. The tray slid into the back of the barrel and set the bullet shell right into the barrel. He then lifted the safety off of the back of the backstop causing the backstop to slide out. With a soft metallic clicking sound, the shell was ejected into the air. With a simple swing of his hand, Thomas caught the empty shell and smiled.

The mechanics were sound and simplistic. He didn't bother making a trigger for it just yet. He wasn't even sure if he would need one. This was going to be a magical gun and would be using mana to fire. No firestone powder or projectiles would be involved with this weapon. He adjusted the grip of the weapon until it felt comfortable in his hand and examined all of the mechanical details. The easiest part was done now. Next was adding in everything he had designed to make the weapon a true monster.

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Thomas set the gun to the side and got himself the remains of the ingot used to make the handle. He reshaped the ingot into a pipe with an inner diameter of twenty-five point two millimeters and an outer diameter of thirty millimeters. Wide enough to fit around the barrel of the gun. With the pipe formed he created a hacksaw blade using his metal magic and slides the pipe into five even pieces. These rings would be a major part of the weapons functionality.

He set everything down so he could mix up some enchanting medium. It was time to get into the magical portion of the magical gun. With the engraving tool in one hand and a small hammer in the other, he got to work. He started by carving a line down the center of the interior of the ring. This would rest against the barrel and be connected to the main mana line. At 90­° angles, he carved horizontal lines that looped around from the inside of the ring to the outside. He repeated this process on the remaining four rings. The carved sections would let the rings connect to the main mana line no matter what orientation they were in and provide mana to their enchantments.

When he finished the interior of the fifth ring he immediately started on carving the actual enchantment on the exterior. The intent behind the circuit looking lines was very simple, 'Amplify'. As in amplifying the power of anything that goes through the center of the ring and increase it as much as possible. As an added bonus he added a function to make it spin clockwise around the barrel of the gun. Because, why not?

For the next ring, he carved a similar circuit-like pattern. The intent was vastly different though. For the second ring the intent was 'compress and spin'. The first ring would pass power to the spell being fired. The second ring would compress the spell tighter and start it spinning. Spinning projectiles were more accurate. At least... physical ones were. He had no idea if it would have any effect on spells but he doubted it would hurt. The second ring would also rotate around the barrel, only in the counter-clockwise direction.

The third and fifth rings became additional amplification enchantments while the fourth ring became another compress and spin enchantment. The way he imagined it was that when the shot was fired it would pass through the five rings. The first would amplify the power of the shot. The second would compress it and start spinning it. The third would amplify it even more. The fourth would compress it more and spin it faster. And the fifth would amplify the power one last time before the spell left the barrel.

He set the rings down and retrieved the gun. Starting from the handle, he began to carve thick lines while making sure they were completely filled with the purified mana crystals. There was no proof but he felt like the thicker the enchantment lines were the more mana they could channel. From the thick lines on the handle, he carved two smaller lines on each side creating a total of four lines that traveled down the entire length of the barrel. Four lines would feed mana faster and act as redundancies. Even if three of the four lines somehow ended up severed, the last one would still be able to provide mana for the weapon to fire.

He carved additional lines along the back of the weapon to connect to the tray where the shell would be laying. He looked over his work and smiled to himself. The mana lines had no intent to them, they were essentially powerlines for the enchantments carved into the rings and the shells. He had one other thing he wanted to add to it but it couldn't be done inside of the shop. Too many eyes.

He picked up the first amplification ring and slid it down the barrel until it was half a dozen centimeters in front of the handle. To keep it from sliding back further he just used Transmutation to create four small retaining walls in between the mana lines. He repeated the process on the other side of the ring locking it in place and acting as a spacer for the next ring. He picked up the next ring, a compression ring, and slid it onto the barrel until it rested against the spacer. He locked it in place and repeated the process again and again for all five rings.

He used his hand to gently rotate each ring and smiled as they moved smoothly. He took a deep breath as he gripped the handle in his right hand and slowly began to feed mana into it. He needed to check to make sure it was at least powering the enchantments. His mana flowed easily and lit up the lines filling them with mana. The four lines on the barrel lit up and flowed beneath the fire rings. The rings lit up and slowly began to rotate as they powered up. He watched them closely and grinned. Obviously, he had no idea if they were actually performing their expected function. However, they should work since they lit up. Just how effective they would be remained to be seen.

He looked up and saw a surprising scene. The smithy was empty and the sky outside was pitch black. He'd been so focused on his work that he had completely lost track of time and had worked through the entire day without stopping. His eyesight moved to a very grumpy looking Snowlily that was giving him a death glare. He instantly felt guilty. He hadn't stopped for lunch. Just remembering that he forgot to eat caused his stomach to growl in protest and demand that he get it something right that moment.

He knelt down to get closer to Snowlily's level, "Sorry about that. If this happens again feel free to give me a good hard bite to remind me that we need to eat. I didn't mean to get so absorbed in my work."

Snowlily nodded and growled. Like she was swearing to never miss another meal again even if it meant biting his entire leg off. Thomas grinned and climbed to his feet. He quickly packed everything away and cleaned up his workspace. Once the coals in the forge were banked he left the shop with Snowlily following close behind, "I'll make sure you get to eat until your full tonight okay?"

Snowlily woofed at him and wagged her tail happily as they walked to their inn. She was going to do her best to eat him broke!