Jaeger left Lorcan's personal forge with a sense of satisfaction at what his future axe would become. The smith had spent an hour going over the details and options involved in recreating his axe. Lorcan said the recreation phase would take a few hours, but he told Jaeger to come back the next day because he would have to gather the materials first and that might take longer.

He spared no expense and ended up spending most of his current wealth. Since he had his new Armory item, he wanted his axe to be as good as possible. Spending so much money on a single weapon was something he'd never done before, but unlike in Beseria, he didn't have to worry about fighting others for bounties; here there were more than enough. With that, Jaeger headed for the guild's main building in search of Lisette. She'd parted ways with him and told him to meet her near her desk when he was done.

“Up here Jaeger.”

Lisette was leaning over the railing on the second floor, waving to him. Jaeger made his way to her, stalking up the stairs. When he met her, she was sitting at a table with Jin, enjoying something from a steaming teapot, an mug left for him.

“How’d everything go with your smith?” Lisette said over the rim of her cup.

“Is he not partaking of Master Erryon’s services?” Jin asked.

“No, there is an Outworlder blacksmith he has chosen. The man is a true giant with skin the color of dark steel. Master Erryon told me that if he weren't an Outworlder, he would have been promoted higher than Master. Apparently, the Blacksmith Guild has a different attitude than we do when it comes to their Outworlders.”

Jaeger poured himself a cup, and took a sip; it was a spicy blend of something hot, he liked it.

“Why does his being an Outworlder matter?” Jaeger asked.

“Some guilds are reluctant to cede power to Outworlders. They still see you as negative influences at worst and people with undeserved abilities at best, given to you by chance. That's an outdated view. The Adventurers' Guild does not subscribe to that view, and as long as you can pass the enrollment process, we don't care where you come from or who you were.”

“Will I have to deal with this problem in other places?”

“No. Oddly enough, this is a guild-only issue. The nobles and the government could care less if you are an Outworlder. In fact, people won't be able to tell your one unless you volunteer.”

Jin had been content to sit and sip from his cup as they talked, but when he saw that the conversation was getting far off topic, he chimed in.

“So you have your blacksmith set up, and I can only imagine that he's decided to make your axe. So do we bind your magic item or not? I don't want to rush you, but if we're not going to do it today, I'd like to know.”

“We’ll still bind it today.”

“All right, what are you going to do with your secondary axe?”

“I'll keep it for now, but I won't bind it.”

“I hope not, it's a serviceable weapon, but I think your new one will be better. What will you be binding?”

“I have two ranged weapons I’ll be binding.”

“Oh, a bow or crossbow? Or is it something unique to your world?”

“No. I’ve a pistol and a rifle.”

Jin sat back disappointed.

“Why do you want to bind them? Don't misunderstand, do what you want, I won't object. But those weapons will not remain useful against higher level enemies, you might be wasting two points.”

Lisette laughed lightly at this before setting down her teacup.

“Don't play with the healer Jaeger, let's go down to the training arena and you can show him what your weapons can do.”

Jaeger finished his cup and stood.

“I wasn’t playing with him Lisette.”

“No, you were deliberately vague, it seems a certain cat is rubbing off on you.”

Lisette left, leaving Jaeger and Jin behind. Jaeger had a brooding look on his face as he considered what she had said, which was only broken when Jin stood up with a groan.

“Well, let's not keep her waiting, I'm very interested to see what your weapons can do. I hope I won't be disappointed.”

“You won’t be.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

With that, the pair caught up with Lisette and quickly made their way to the training arena. Once inside, Lisette set up the privacy zone and grabbed a seat.

“You're all good at showing off your weapons. I'm just here to enjoy the show.” She had just leaned back and called out lazily. “Oh, and when you set up the targets, make sure to keep a damage report, that's what Jin will need.”

With that, Jaeger went over to the magic range and set it up. He set targets at various distances and adjusted the target's defenses to unarmored human. He made a note to come back to this area later; from his brief look, the settings contained options for most known races and monsters; it would be useful to know how his equipment worked against other enemies.

With the setup done he waited for the targets to position themselves and then spoke.

“The closest three dummies will be damaged by my pistol ranging from the weakest shot to the strongest and then the furthest three will be my rifle at the same damage range.”

He took a deep breath and then, in a single motion, quickly drew his pistol and fired at the first target. He felt a familiar recoil, saw a flash followed by a puff of smoke, and heard the target fall. The smoke dissipated quickly, proving to be only a momentary distraction. When he saw it, the target had a circular hole in it.

He prepared again, but this time he took aim before firing. As he did so, a bright arc of light shot out of his pistol, with no recoil for a few to many seconds. But as soon as the recoil hit, a veritable cloud of smoke surrounded him. He took a few deep breaths into the cloud, feeling as if he'd just run a fast sprint; there was a hint of black powder in the air that he felt linger in his mouth before dissipating. As he waited for the cloud to dissipate, he moved around it, finding his vision unobstructed, looking for its edge and timing it's stay. With his loping gait, he was able to take four steps in each direction without leaving the smoke, and it lasted long enough for him to go each way; that would be good for short distance relocation, he thought.

Finally, as the smoke cleared, he caught a glimpse of the target - this time, a chunk of the top was missing. It looked like something had carved a smooth section out of it.

For the last target, Jaeger prepared himself and actively tried to overcharge his pistol. The bronze filigree running across it began to glow and rearrange itself into runes he could almost understand, the meaning on the tip of his tongue but unutterable. The weight of the pistol seemed to increase as he charged it.

He felt it when the charge was full, and he stopped channeling his mana. Instead, he aimed down and fired at his target.

A blinding beam of light shot out of his pistol, and once again, for too long, he felt no recoil. Until he did. When it hit, he had to strain his arm not to lose the pistol, and a haze of smoke enveloped the area around him. It was darker than before and he knew it would be bigger, but exploring it would come later. For now, it took everything he had to keep his knees from buckling and his breath from coming in like the bellows of a forge. For a moment, a headache and ringing in his ears began, both of which slowly faded, gone as quickly as they had come.

As the ringing faded he heard voices speaking.

"Lisette, you could have warned me. I was expecting a crossbow or maybe some fireballs. Not this.” An exasperated Jin said, before yelling with an exhausted voice. “Stop laughing and do something about this smoke already.”

A high-pitched laugh rang out in response.

“By the Goddess. You should have seen your face, priceless.” More laughter, that quickly turned to wheezing. “Ah. Haha. Oh, Goddess, my stomach. Ha. Heh. Okay, okay, I'm fine. Phew, all right. I can't... I can't do anything about the smoke. It's... it's an effect and it's pretty resilient. I could actually counter it, but it would require too much investment for a benign effect.”

“But what about Jaeger? He's in there, and judging by the strength of that magic, he might be suffering from mana exhaustion.”

Jaeger's breathing had finally come down from bellowing to just barely audible, so he called out.

“I'm fine. Just a little winded. To answer your next question, I can't do anything about the smoke either. It'll go when it goes.”

“My next question was whether your rifle is similar in damage type to your pistol.”

Taking off his tricorne, Jaeger wiped his forehead, the shot taking more out of him than he expected. The last time he had been in such a bad situation, he hadn't realized how strong the aftereffects were. Wiping it away, he replaced his hat and spoke.

“The rifle is stronger on average and with more distance, but yes, the type of damage is the same.”

A whispered conversation took place outside the haze of smoke before Jin called back.

“Then there is no need for you to demonstrate it. I can check the records from the targets and get ready myself. As soon as the smoke clears, we can start preparing.”

A few minutes had passed while all this was happening, and in an instant the smoke was gone. Dissipated completely, leaving nothing but a faint trace of black powder in the air; which quickly dissipated.

“Oh. That was interesting and the smell was unusual.”

Jin said as he and Lisette walked over to Jaeger. He made a quick check of the bounty hunter before going to the targeting device and going through its records. Meanwhile, Lisette did a more thorough examination of Jaeger. She asked him how he felt, if anything ached or hurt, and checked his hands for burns or damage. Apart from a lingering ache as if he'd pulled a muscle hard, he felt fine.

“Good, because I don't know how much you saw, but that last move was impressive. It looked like something that would have a strong backlash.”

“I felt real drained after using it.” He stopped and considered her before he continued, his voice lowered. “Between you and me, I couldn't do more than stand after using it. It drained me almost completely, left me breathing hard and sweating.”

She nodded.

“Do you have a headache or ache in your hands?”

“No. I had the start of a headache though.”

“That move must have pushed you to your limit. Headaches, at least after heavy magic use, are a sign of mana exhaustion. It happens when you use all your mana and then draw more. You must have hit your limit or close to it and then recovered enough to get out of it.”

Jaeger had no answer to that, he just added it to the list of things to watch out for. He had overcharged his gun some time ago and didn't feel like this, he wondered why, but then answered his own unspoken question. He had been extremely injured then, maybe he had felt mana exhaustion. What's a headache compared to broken bones and he had drunk from his horn soon after. He decided to mention this to Lisette.

“Well, then your horn is really valuable. Basic healing won't work on mana depletion, so helping with that makes your horn a unique item. Don't give it away though, even if it's tied to you, an Archmagus might decide that if he can't have it, no one can.”