Albert’s house is not what I expected from a gunsmith or a blacksmith. It looks more like a cabin for someone in the middle of retirement, or it’s maybe because I was in his front room, where he usually greets his guest.
“Woah, Albert, this is a nice house,” I adore the interior. It has one bookshelf. In front of it is a rocking chair, with a pillow on top of it, overlooking a fireplace. Next to the fireplace is a musket, as expected from a gunsmith.
Albert smiles as he puts his bag next to the bookshelf. “Welcome to my humble home, young miss. I hope this doesn’t disappoint you.” Albert then heads to the kitchen. I look around the entire front room. At first glance, it seems that this is his whole living room. It’s not bad, per se.
Lights from the window shine to the polished wooden floor, and reflected into a particular door in the room, probably his bedroom. I look at the bookshelves, there are a lot of books, and most of them are about materialmancy.
“Metallic Materialmancy: The Basics of Allomancies,” I read one of the book titles out loud. I then put my hand on one of the particular books that caught my attention. The title of the book is ‘Precision Metalshaping for Firearms.’ I grab the book from the bottom of the shelf.
It’s a heavy book and I put it on the wooden floor and opens the first page. Let’s see whether materialmancy is as same as machining, but using magic instead of electricity. If that is the case, then producing the most advanced firearm should be possible, as long as I have the material to do so.
So far, the only missing thing is plastic, even then, it can be replaced with wood in some cases. Smokeless powder is pretty much still pretty much unknown to this world, but it’ll not be that far-fetched, considering that Rachel accidentally made a nitrocellulose, whether intentional or not.
If this world has magic powder, I have no doubts that an explosive made from nitroglycerine also exists in one form or another. The goal here is to make the propellant for the bullet so it can get into higher velocity without fouling the barrel that much. However, Rachel’s special project would do well for now.
‘Magical energy requirement for materialmancy depends on the complexity and the size of an item,’ That’s the first sentence of the book, and it was a quote from the author of the book himself. Is this something that the author tries hard to emphasize? Perhaps. It makes sense, though.
My goal, for now, is to create a firearm comparable to this world, if not better. To do that, the magical powder might do the trick, but I need it to be stronger so it actually could push the bolt backward and put a new bullet into the chamber.
“Young miss, here’s your tea,” Albert put the tea on top of the coffee table in front of the fireplace. The tea is inside a white teapot, accompanied by two steel cups. “What are you reading?” He grabs a cup and then sits down next to me.
He immediately recognizes the book. “Precision Metalshaping for Firearms. That’s a book that I learned when I am way older than Miss Rachel herself, are you that interested in gunsmithing?” Albert comments.
I just nod.
“Well, young miss, you have to learn the basics first, but if you can master the basics, let’s move on to the more advanced manufacturing, one step at a time,” Albert smiles. He then walks to the kitchen again and returns with a piece of the metal tube without any hole in it. I assume that is a gun barrel material.
“Let’s start with the basics. At the very least, an apprentice gunsmith can drill a hole in the middle of a metal tube like this.” He then put the metal tube on the wooden floor. Albert then touches the metal tube and a hole starts to form on the tip of the tube. It’s as if a drill makes that hole, but I don’t see anything resembling any metal chips, or any metal dust.
The hole begins to deepen, and eventually, another hole appears on the other side of the barrel. “This is one of the basic techniques of gunsmithing, manipulating the removal ability of a materialmancer. However, it requires a specific blueprint and a container.”
I understand this blueprint thing, since boring a hole is more precise work than just bending a spoon. However, this container thing, I have no idea about it. “Is there any reason why we need a container in the first place?”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Where do you think the metal powder goes?” Albert asks me back. He then grabs a metal can from his pocket. It is a slim metal box that fits right into his pocket. He then opens the cap of the metal can. The metal can is filled with gray dust. “This is steel dust, the product of the previous drilling. You’ll need a container like this if you want to be a materialmancer.”
I will take note of that. However, if I touch a gun, shouldn’t every single small part of its blueprint got copied into my brain, though? “Albert, if I touch a musket, can I copy the whole blueprint into my brain?”
“Kinda? It’s not that easy. If it was that easy, I’ll make thousand of muskets similar to other gunsmiths. A lot of mana energy is needed to save a blueprint in your brain. Even then, if you somehow save it, there isn’t that much guarantee to get the perfect blueprint to actually craft the musket,” he said.
“So, I can’t duplicate your design?” I asked.
“Well, you can duplicate my design. However, copying a weapon’s design without someone’s permission is pretty much looked down upon. That’s just how it works nowadays,” Albert smiles. Yeah, I meant, I’ll be pissed if I know that someone stole my blueprint.
I then look at the internal of the gun barrel. There is also a rifling on it already made, just from that simple spell. That was amazing, no doubt. It’s like having an advanced machining machine, but it is integrated into your own body. “Sir, this is amazing, you also made the rifling at the same time?” I ask.
“Yup, you’re right.”
“After this, you’ll attach the barrel to the musket?” I ask.
“Not really. I still have to make the wooden frame and many other things such as the small parts which require more magical energy. And now, you’re going to learn the duplicate blueprint spell,” he says.
“Yess! Thank you, Albert,” I say.
“The pleasure is mine, young miss,” he says as he puts the barrel next to the fireplace. It looks like it will be attached to the wooden frame or something like that. However, how much magical energy do I actually need to use to create, for example, an FN FAL or an AK-47?
I also need to produce bullets, smokeless powder, and many other things. However, sooner or later, I’ll make one of these rifles for my personal entertainment. I don’t care if someone copies the design, modernization of firearms is inevitable.
“Alright, first of all, this is a very simple design blueprint. This is a design blueprint for a spoon,” Albert puts a piece of brown parchment paper on the floor. It has many lines, but it is indeed a spoon. There are two pictures, one in which the spoon is seen from the top, and the other in which the spoon is seen from the side. “I want you to open your material manipulation menu, and keep looking at the blueprint.”
I look at the blueprint. Suddenly, a notification appears.
[Add Blueprint for Object 1?]
I press the button. Then, a new menu appears, called “Object 1”. I wonder how babies that can’t read words would read these screens. Then again, babies probably won’t be able to comprehend firearms manufacturing.
Slowly, unlike before when the blueprint automatically appears, this time, the blueprint of the spoon is slowly drawn on the screen. It is just like when a scanner scans an object, it happens very slowly. Then again, I don’t have the setting to save the blueprint if I don’t draw the blueprint first, just like the previous spell.
Then, the spoon blueprint appears on my material manipulation menu. I then close the menu. I return to the previous menu. My eyes feel very heavy after reading and scanning the blueprint. The extreme sleepiness suddenly strikes my eyes.
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[Helen]
Race: Angelic Wolf-kin
Level: 1
HP: 95%
MP: 40%
Class: [Materialmancer]
Skill: [Material Manipulation I]
General Health Status: [Abdominal Puncture]
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Scanning costs that much magical energy? That’s surprising, and it is just a spoon. I wonder what’s the limitation of this spell. Now I begin to be doubtful whether I can duplicate my own blueprint for a gun barrel.
“Are you feeling tired, young miss?” Albert asks.
I wipe my eyes, “Kinda, what happens?”
“Well, it’s expected,” Albert smiles then shrugs, “I fall unconscious for trying too hard to scan a spoon. I am older than you are back then, young miss,” Albert says. “If you lose consciousness, you’ll lose some part of your blueprints, if not all, so don’t.”
“Why though?” I ask.
“Well, the blueprint is incomplete, and our brain enters a weird state where it tried to remember the blueprint, the result? Lost to around more than half of your progress,” he says. “Ask the healer for more information. Anyway, good work with your first spoon blueprint, young miss.”
I feel mixed about the spoon blueprint. If it takes this much just to scan a spoon, how much would it take to actually scan the blueprint of a gun receiver? The growth of my magical energy will take a long time to develop, will it not?