In my zeal to invent a modern gun, I might have overlooked the part where I needed gunpowder.

  Creating the gun itself took almost no time at all. I was able to make a solid barrel, stock, springs, firing pins of various lengths, and even replacement parts in case of catastrophic failure with the leftover iron dust. The trigger was a bit difficult to get right, since I had to find a reasonable strength for the spring it was attached to. There were a few areas where I had to use my imagination to fill the gaps in, but I think I had a pretty good working model by the time I was done.

  Once the weapon was ready for its first test run, I realized I had forgotten to leave enough dust to make any projectiles for it. It was quickly remedied by pulling some more iron from the earth and molding it to the right size. I started it off as a basic sphere, but quickly changed it to the more modern, silo-shaped bullet. If it were scaled up a few thousand times, it would fit right in on a farm. Well, it would probably sink a foot or two into the ground, thanks to its weight, but that’s besides the point.

  I created an earthen construct to operate my new (to this world) invention. It slid the projectile into my masterpiece creation and aimed at a nearby tree. I cocked the hammer and prepared to fire. The trigger was squeezed, and – nothing.

  It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize I didn’t include a way to actually move the bullet. Most modern guns worked off a powder that exploded, which shot the bullet forward at extreme speeds. I, however, had no clue where to even begin making something that would work as a workaround. However, something I have access to here that the people in my first life didn’t have was magic.

  The easiest way that I can think of to use my magic to create a working gun would be to enchant the stock of the gun to create a miniature fireball using Fire Magic inside the barrel. The fireball would then explode, causing the extreme pressure that would act as the propellant to move the bullet.

  I enchanted the gun, then poured a minute amount of mana into it, and watched as the bullet was sent flying.

  It went an entire inch before stopping. The damned thing didn’t even make it outside the barrel of the gun. The obvious solution was to add more mana.

  I used an elongated finger from my earthen construct to push the bullet to the back again and prepared for attempt number two of the enchanted gun. Given how little movement the bullet had in the first test, I felt that tripling the amount of mana I fed the enchantment would suffice. Doubling it might have worked as well, but the minimal movement was enough to encourage some aggression in the experimentation.

  I fed the enchantment and watched as the fireball inside the gun grew to the maximum size it could inside the contained area I allotted, then released the spell.

  The following explosion sent the bullet much farther than the first attempt, going an entire 8 feet before it dropped to the ground. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

  I tried firing it a few more times, then on the twentieth shot, the earthen construct’s “hand” started to sizzle slightly. It was then that I realized how much heat the fireballs were creating. I mean, it’s literally Fire Magic, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. I guess I was hoping that it would be able to handle a few more shots before it started heating up this much.

  “How can I get it to handle the heat better? Handle… handle… handle… The handle? The handle! I can make the handle out of wood that shares my Fire Resistance! With any luck, the wood should help prevent the heat from transferring too quickly to the golem. The golem, which represents the future wielder of the gun, doesn’t have Fire Resistance, so it’s a good marker for how hot things are getting inside the gun.”

  I didn’t have anyone to bounce my ideas off of, but Honey, who was a constant in the back of my mind, seems to share in my pleasure. We did a mental celebratory dance with each other before getting back to our respective tasks at hand. Or root, as it is.

  I created the handle out of a nearby root, adding an extra layer of bark to it. Then I removed the handle from the already-made gun and fused the two together. Before I released the handle of the gun from my grip, I made sure the connection was as secure as I could. There would be a lot of pressure coming from the barrel portion, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause an accidental explosion. The last thing to do was add the enchantment to the handle, and it was ready.

  I started with a small amount of mana again. When the bullet failed to leave the barrel, I slowly increased the amount of mana fed into the enchantment. When I reached the thirtieth shot fired, I used some Water Magic to pull a bit of water out of the ground and dropped it onto the gun. The barrel sizzled a bit, but the handle seemed perfectly fine. I could tell there was some heat being held in the handle, but it doesn’t look like it should be enough to cause harm to someone wielding it.

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  I held the water in place long enough to fully cool the experimental weapon down, then release my hold on it, allowing it to fall to the ground. A small puddle was made, but it’ll be absorbed by the earth soon enough.

  Now that I was confident in the heat aspect of the weapon, it was time to try getting it to fire correctly. In the last 30 attempts, I capped my mana input to only double the starting amount. This next attempt, though, I was planning on getting the fireball as powerful as I could.

  I added the mana to the enchantment, stopping just before the fireball threatened to escape its designated chamber, then released the spell. The bullet was sent sailing, and it reached the same 8 feet as before. Well, it was 8 feet and a few inches, but I think those few inches came from extra mana I added at the last second. It was an accidental overfill, born from my excitement at the prospect of success. A second firing, with the exclusion of the excess mana, resulted in the projectile reaching 8 feet on the dot. Literally, on the dot. I marked the location of my first 8-foot shot with a dot, and it hit the exact same place.

  “Okay, Fire Magic isn’t working,” I spoke aloud, using Sound Magic as my voice. “What else can I use to create a projectile? Could I use Lightning Magic to create magnets, then use the magnets to create a sort of rail gun? Hmm… Maybe. I’ll pocket that idea for if I ever need to take down a city wall or something. What about creating a high-pressure pocket of water to- No, wait. Water doesn’t compress very easily.”

  I continued talking out my ideas to myself, using Sound Magic. When I ran out of ideas, I started just creating music. One of my favorite songs when I was a human was Moonlight Sonata. The piano notes were relatively easy to recreate using magic, and it fit the mood of the sun setting over my forest rather well. I played Beethoven for a while, then moved onto some Billy Joel, specifically, Piano Man. I was always crap at remembering lyrics to songs, but I had the piano parts down pat.

  I continued on well into the night, listening to the chorus multiple times over. I was starting to get pretty good with the Sound Magic now, enough that it almost felt like second nature. Realistically, all there was to it was vibrating the air using pockets of compressed air. I had to create various sized pockets of the compressed air, and released them at different intervals and intensities to get the right sound. At first, it was very mentally taxing. The conversation I had with Loki and his gang required my full focus. But now, I could almost speak like I had an actual body with vocal cords and everything.

  “Wait. Pockets of compressed air! That’s it! Instead of creating an explosion using Fire Magic, I can create pockets of compressed air using Air Magic, and release the compressed air to propel the bullet forward. It’s exactly like my old paintball gun!”

  I ditched the first gun model and pulled up more than enough iron dust to create a second model. There was enough of the stuff under me that I was beginning to suspect there was an extensive deposit under me. In fact, I’ll just grow an extra long root down there to see just how much-

  “No! No more distractions! Get your ADHD self under control, damn it!”

  I shook my metaphorical head and got to work.

  I recreated the basic frame of the gun using just metal. This time, though, I made the handle completely hollow. This would be the chamber for compressing the air. The difficult part of this would be in determining just how far I can take the compression. If I don’t compress it enough, then the projectile won’t get very far. If I compress too much air, then the gun might explode. After all, I want this to be…

  “What do I want this to be? Do I really plan on making this kind of thing publicly available? Do I want to give this to a friend? The only way I can do that is if someone visits me, and it’s been a while since that happened.”

  I pondered existence for a bit before getting back to my crafting, only slightly dejected. In the end, I’m only making this to see if I can. This sort of technology has world-changing potential, and I don’t think I want it to come from me.

  On the inside of the chamber of the gun, I did my best to create an enchantment of durability. Basically, I threw a bunch of mana at it and told it not to explode under extreme pressure. I can only hope it worked.

  The second enchantment I made was on a one-way valve that I created using a plug with a spring and a lever attached. Before any mana gets added to the equation, the spring and lever work together to keep the plug in place. When the trigger is pulled, the plug gets shoved into the chamber where the air gets compressed, releasing the air and sending the bullet flying. At least, that’s the idea.

  The actual enchantment itself is a combination of Mana Condensation and Air Magic. The air gets compressed and shoved through the one-way valve, which remains closed under pressure. The more mana that gets fed into the enchantment, the more air can be compressed into the holding chamber.

  The crafting process was a bit eye-opening as to new ways to combine my magics. The finished product took multiple concepts I have learned over my short life and combined them into something that has potential to be very deadly.

  I picked up the weapon, using the earthen construct from earlier, and fed some mana into the enchantments. Something must have happened with the durability enchantment attempt, as I felt it draw on some of the mana I was providing.

  The mana started to compress the air and shove it into the chamber. As I added more and more mana to it, more air was shoved in. However, the rate at which the air was being added was slowing down tremendously, and the draw from the durability enchantment was starting to pick up. When the two enchantments started to equalize, I decided that was enough and stopped feeding it. I aimed the weapon at a nearby tree, pulled the trigger, and felt a sharp pain.

  “For fracks sake! Yup, nope, that one was on me. Damn, that hurts!”

  I think that’s enough proof of concept. Now get this bullet out of me!

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