“Young miss, I apologize for my sickness, but I don’t think you need to come here,” Albert complains as he coughs and barely can move from his rocking chair. He is overlooking the fireplace while reading a book in his hands.
I shouldn’t come here, but I can’t stand it. There is nothing but chemistry and romance in the library. I have climbed every single book rack, and all I see are those books. There are some leftover journals from the last war that my father wrote, but those are them. Materialmancing isn’t a relevant subject in my home. I have drawn the basic parts of the M4, but I doubt it will be adequate.
“I wish I could, but my home doesn’t have too many subjects regarding gunsmithing, and right now, you’re my only source,” I say to Albert, giving my own reason. I need to make my M4 almost perfect on the first attempt, at the very least.
There is one stack of books right beside where I am sitting down, which is on the wooden floor. In front of me is an open book about gunsmithing, it’s a thick book with many references to basic gunsmithing, so, perfect for a beginner like me. It doesn’t read like scientific papers, and that’s a plus.
Reading the book, at the very least, I can tell that there is a way to make firearms better. For example, I need to make the gun barrel to be durable enough without adding chrome into it because I don’t have any. I also need to make sure that the thickness of the barrel is perfect so it doesn’t blow up on my face.
For now, I find that combining a liquid metal called Joktril with Aluminum will make a pseudo-steel alloy. Basically, aluminum alloy with the strength of steel alongside with properties of anodized aluminum. The method of doing so is by putting the aluminum into the joktril and letting it submerge for 24 hours.
“Do you have Joktril?” I ask Albert.
“What do you need Joktril for?” Albert squints his eyes in suspicion at me.
“Gunsmithing?” I reply.
“Wait, you can make a gun? Can you even make a bullet in the first place?” Albert asks in doubt.
“Yes, this is the example,” I give Albert the 5.56x45 NATO cartridge that I manufacture earlier.
Albert observes the bullet. He puts it really close to his eyes. “Hmm, not bad for the first time, why do you make a bullet this small, though? This won’t damage anything.” He comments, which is reasonable, considering most firearms in this world use black powder instead of smokeless powder.
“Recoil management. The MH rifle that my father owns kicks like a mule,” I reply.
“Sound decision, but there’s a smaller rifle, right?” Albert comments. “Anyway, your father is paranoid about your security, if you want to know.”
“Why? There is a shitton of mercenaries outside,” I point at the window, the number of soldiers, both from the kingdom itself and the mercenaries that my father hires are not to be messed around with. Unless the country is unstable, then I really have no legitimate reason to worry at all.
“Helen, language!” He shouts.
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, personal defense is better than nothing, am I right?” Albert comments.
“That’s why I want to make a custom rifle,” I say.
“I don’t recall an MH rifle is copiable by design, unless you have a lot of mana capacity, even then, you don’t have permission to copy the design, right?” Albert says.
“Who said I will copy MH's design?” I say.
“Who’ll you copy then?” Albert asks.
“Stoner’s,” I reply with a very straight face.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Stoner? Who is Stoner? I never ever heard a gunsmith named Stoner,” Albert says.
“Something that I found in my father’s archive, I’ll probably use his design.”
Albert nods, then he looks at me in fascination as if he is approving something out of what I just said. Well, it will only be a matter of time before I find out what he means by his continuous nod at me. He then forces himself to stand up from his rocking chair. He then sneezes loudly.
“Let’s see how Mr. Stoner uses his gun then,” Albert comments.
“Albert, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to stand up like that,” She says.
“Nonsense, let me help,” Albert says.
I then show him one of the blueprints that I have drawn on a very big parchment paper. It’s the barrel of the rifle, alongside its twist and its length. The drawing of the barrel is so precise, even to its millimeters and its thickness. It’s fully accurate.
“Oh my, this is quite a complex gun, isn’t it? Let’s just use temporal blueprint for that,” Albert says as he opens his own status screen. He shows his status screen to me and it looks pretty much same as me, but with unknown details.
Albert
Race: -
Level: 25
HP: 87%
MP: 100%
Class: [Archer][MaterialMancer]
Skill: [Reflex][Focus][Dead Silent][Material Manipulation III]
General Health Status: Sick
“Let’s see, is this the gun barrel?” Albert points his hand at the gun barrel of the rifle.
I nod.
Albert then stares at the drawing of the gun barrel. Unlike me, he doesn’t feel tired at all, the only interruption coming from him is the cough coming out of his mouth. Eventually, he scans the barrel, and he spends a tenth of his magical power. How much magical energy will I need to pull the same feat?
“For a barrel, are you sure you didn’t overengineer it?” Albert asks.
I shake my head, “It’s Stoner’s design.”
“Ah yeah. Mr.Stoner must have been a very smart fellow,” Albert adds.
“Indeed he is,” I nod.
The M4 is a variant of the AR-15 style rifle, if not downright the same rifle created by Eugene Stoner. For me, he’s one of the most important figures in modern firearms, because he’s the person that designs a firearm that the United States Army uses for more than fifty years. The other person is probably Mikhail Kalashnikov, which is equally as important, but he’s on the other side of the iron curtain.
Albert then grabs a steel rod and put it in his left hand. Slowly, the barrel loses its thickness with a hole appearing in the middle of it slowly. It doesn’t take too long until it turns into an 18 Inch M4 barrel that is ready to accept a new gas block and put in a complete part of the rifle.
“That’s not as exhausting as I thought it would,” Albert sneezes, “Next!”
The blueprint for the barrel suddenly disappears and I put my finger on the hardest part. The lower receiver contains many small parts, and Albert immediately flinches a bit once he reads the blueprint. Even a small part will cost a lot of mana to just scan because some things are quite precise.
“Helen, if I were you, I’d make this kind of thing if I were older,” Albert says as he scans the part for the bottom receiver. “Do you want it to be made from steel, or do you want to use Aloktril?” He asks
“Aloktril?”
“Aluminum Joktril, shortened to Aloktril, it’s pretty popular among gunsmiths,” He answers.
“Yeah, just use Aloktril,” I answer.
Albert grabs another container near his chair, different from the previous one that he used to store the steel dust. This time, it’s for gathering aluminum dust. He grabs an aluminum ingot from the sack that I brought and turns it all into aluminum dust. He then made the smaller parts of the lower receiver of the M4.
He made the screws, the springs, the fire switch button, and the big part of the lower receiver. The metallic part molds slowly in his hands, and eventually, turns into a solid part. I assemble the lower receiver one by one to make sure that they will work.
“That’s done, what’s next?” Albert says.
Albert
Race: -
Level: 25
HP: 87%
MP: 70%
Class: [MaterialMancer][Archer]
Skill: [Reflex][Focus][Dead Silent][Material Manipulation III]
General Health Status: Sick
“Are you sure you are not tired yet, Albert?” I ask.
“Nonsense, give me the rest of the design, I’m curious about Stoner’s design. This rifle is not like something I have ever seen before in my entire life,” he says.
I laid down the rest of the rifle’s blueprints, which consists of more than ten parchment papers for each part of the rifle itself, from the grips to the bolt carrier group. It contains as many screws and springs as the lower receiver, if not more.
“Helen, I’m afraid this will take more than a day to create,” Albert comments, after seeing all of the blueprints laid down on the floor of his house. “Still, the sooner we start, the better,” Albert encourages me to help, and I will help him.