Chapter 415 - 279: Paper to Steel, Glue to Weld

Chapter 415: Chapter 279: Paper to Steel, Glue to Weld

Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.

So, the only way to know if a gun was any good was to try it out.

Admittedly, Peter’s gun was a bit crude-looking. But appearance isn’t the top priority for a weapon, and it’s not like Zog had any plans to give it a pink paint job and sell it to seven-year-old girls.

After all, one only had to look at the legendary "Demon Soldiers of the Empire’s Fall"—the Abe Cut—which looked like it had been sawed from a plastic water pipe.

Zog decided to give Peter a chance.

「And so, to the firing range.」

In reality, it was just an empty field with a target set up. The Shenke Affiliated Institute didn’t have a proper facility for testing firearms.

The target was a securely bound Earthworm, freshly captured alive by a Hunting squad.

Earthworms were a species of giant Insects. An adult male could grow to nearly two meters long, looking like a cross between a mantis and an ant. Its powerful mandibles could easily snap a tree trunk as thick as a human thigh.

It looked very much like a member of the Alien Insect Race, as if it had escaped from Galaxy Team.

However, its movements were sluggish and its reactions slow, so it wasn’t considered a particularly powerful Magical Beast. It was used as a target mainly because its shell was extremely hard. If a weapon could effectively damage it, that meant it could harm most Magical Beasts.

Peter stood about a hundred meters from the Earthworm, holding his completely handmade gun.

"Its effective range is that long?" Zog asked, a little surprised.

Take the Kolchak Revolver, for example. Hitting a target beyond ten meters required a great deal of skill. Beyond thirty meters, its accuracy dropped off severely, and whether you hit or not was pure luck.

Its power began to drop off past fifty meters, and at a hundred meters, it couldn’t even penetrate a standard, unenchanted suit of Plate Armor.

An Earthworm’s shell was significantly tougher than standard Plate Armor.

"Yes. In theory, my design has an effective range of up to two hundred meters. It’s just that the craftsmanship on this particular gun is too crude to achieve that ideal performance," Peter explained.

He had learned everything about the Magic used in the gun on the fly, at a night school in Deepwater City.

In addition to schools for children, the city also had night schools geared toward an older demographic.

Night school had no required curriculum; students could choose whatever subjects they wanted to study. The only downside was that classes were held at night so as not to interfere with people’s day jobs.

Peter chose General Magic and Basic Runes. Even though he had no aptitude for Casting, he firmly believed the fusion of Magic and mechanics was the way of the future. He had to learn it to fulfill his dream of becoming a master.

He was surprised the night school even offered such a course. The instructor was even a high-level Grand Mage; normally, it was difficult to even get a glimpse of a Mage of that caliber.

The students in his classes were a diverse mix of ages, ranging from sixteen to Sixty. Everything they had seen and heard in the city had made them increasingly aware of the importance of knowledge, so every course was packed.

The person who helped Peter craft the Runes for the gun was an old classmate.

Not "old" as in a long-time classmate, but "old" as in advanced in years.

He was sixty-two years old and had been a lumberjack his entire life.

It was only in night school that he discovered he had the ability for Magic Power Perception—in other words, the ability for Casting. However, his aptitude was so weak, he was basically unable to use any Magic.

If it weren’t for the Great Inscription Discovery Movement initiated by Little Morris, which vastly enriched the types of usable Basic Runes and significantly lowered the threshold for creating Runes, a man with his level of Magic Power Perception would have been unable to craft them.

So, all the Runes used on this gun were designed by Peter, who couldn’t perceive Magic Power at all, and crafted by the old lumberjack, who barely could. They had just managed to cobble it all together.

Zog wasn’t concerned with why it couldn’t currently reach its ideal performance; one look at the workmanship told him that was impossible.

He was more interested in why the design allowed it to shoot so far.

"Two hundred meters? How did you manage that?"

"Well, Mr. Zog, I was inspired by a paper on accelerating bullets with a Repulsive Rune. That got me thinking about using Traction Runes on the barrel to accelerate the bullet instead. You can only fit one Repulsive Rune in the back, and a small one doesn’t provide enough thrust. Traction Runes are different, though—you can engrave a whole set of them along the barrel."

Peter said, pointing to the Runes on the outside of the barrel.

Those Runes weren’t arranged in a straight line, but in an alternating, spiral pattern.

"In my initial tests, I tried a linear arrangement for acceleration, but that threw off the bullet’s accuracy. I then switched to a ring-like arrangement, which improved accuracy but required extra Runes. After that, I discussed it with people on a military enthusiast forum, and we concluded that a spiral arrangement, like a gun’s rifling, would be optimal. In fact, one of the forum members was the first to actually make this barrel."

"Whoa," Zog said, quietly impressed.

’Feilin’s military enthusiasts are this hardcore?’ Zog thought. ’The military buffs he knew were mostly guys who couldn’t get their hands on real hardware, so they got their fix by racking a door latch like it was a rifle bolt.’

’Looks like I’ll need to check out this forum and recruit some talent.’

With the explanation out of the way, the official test began.

Peter raised the gun, took his stance, aimed at the distant Earthworm, and pulled the trigger.

BANG! A loud report echoed as a large bullet, nearly 20 millimeters in diameter, shot out of the barrel.

If the caliber were any larger, you couldn’t call it a gun anymore. It would be a cannon.

’Is this based on the same idea as a shotgun firing a slug?’ Zog wondered.

’If it doesn’t kill it, the caliber isn’t big enough and the kinetic energy isn’t strong enough. Just keep making it bigger.’

Not that the approach was wrong, but Zog felt a little disappointed. In the end, it was still just a purely kinetic weapon.

However, the moment the bullet struck the Earthworm, the carapace wasn’t pierced. Instead, it was the bullet that shattered.