At dinner, Snowlily ate three full entree's and stuffed herself to the point of lethargy. Thomas just smiled at her antics and let her do as she pleased. It was his way of apologizing for making her skip lunch, even if it was an accident on his part. Once she was finished they made their way up to their room for the night. Thomas intended to do a little work in secret there. Things he couldn't do openly at the smithy.

Once they were inside their room, Thomas sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out his new creation. There was something he wanted to add in secret. He flipped the gun over so that he was looking at the bottom of the handle. His hands glowed as he activated his Transmutation for the umpteenth time. This time the handle slowly hollowed out, the metal shifting and changing shape as it was removed without affecting the exterior of the handle. He worked slowly until the handle became completely empty with walls only a couple of millimeters thick. All of the material removed from the interior of the handle was still attached as a big clump, he wasn't going to remove it just yet.

With the handle now hollowed out, he retrieved one of the medium-sized mana crystal cubes he'd created. Once again he used Transmutation to reshape the cube and have it flow into the handle and fill in the vacated space. As the cube reshaped to fill in the interior of the handle, he opened two small holes in the sides of the handle to allow the mana cube to flow out just a bit and connect directly with the carved enchantments. Essentially, he was creating a mana battery built into the handle of the gun.

Once the interior of the handle was almost completely filled, he removed the excess and reformed it into a much smaller mana crystal cube that he tossed back into his inventory. The excess metal that had been removed from the interior of the handle was also reformed a little to permanently cap the bottom of the handle and completely hide the mana crystal amalgamation within. Once the excess metal was removed and the seams fused closed, it was impossible to tell that anything had been changed.

By channeling his mana into the handle of the gun he was able to charge the mana crystal. It could provide continuous power to the amplification and compression rings and allow for continuous fire without draining his mana constantly. The problem was that after putting mana inside of the battery it would continuously supply that mana to the weapon until it was drained. He needed to design an off switch. He could do that tomorrow. For now, there was something else he had to do while he was alone in his room.

He dug inside of his inventory and pulled out one of the large shells he had made during the day. Despite being so focused on the gun he had still managed to make twenty shells which should be more than enough for his purposes. The shell looked similar to a shotgun shell only made out of iron instead of brass and red plastic. It was also solid, no place for a primer or anything like that at the base. It wouldn't be needed. He retrieved what was left of the amalgamation cube he'd used to fill the handle of the gun and started to reshape it into the interior of the shell. He filled the shell ninety percent of the way with the amalgamation then used the remaining ten percent to seal off the top of the shell and hide what was inside of it. Every shell would have its own mana crystal amalgamation core to act as yet another source of rechargeable power.

With so many sources of power, he would be able to precharge everything and not have to worry about using his own mana reserves unless absolutely necessary. This would be excellent for those times he was low on mana and would assure that the weapon could always be used. With the first shell completed he decided to stop for the night. Tomorrow he would work more on the gun and see about test firing it then. If the shell worked as intended then it would be worth the effort to make more tomorrow night.

Once Thomas arrived at the smithy the following morning, he got straight to work. The gun needed some modifications to make it function as he was envisioning. The first step would be installing a switch to cut off the flow of mana from the handle to the amplification and compression rings. To do so he installed a simple switch that looked like a safety on a more modern firearm. Across the safety, he drew an enchantment line. When it the 'off' position the line would be canted at an angle to break the flow. When placed in the 'on' position it would line up with the rest of the enchantment and allow the mana to flow freely. Because the enchantment was drawn on both sides of the weapon the safety had to go completely through it and incidentally turned it into an ambidextrous weapon.

The next part would be slightly more complicated as it required work on both the weapon and the ammunition. He started with the shell he'd completed in his room last night. He prepped everything he needed for enchanting and got to work carving an enchantment onto the shell. The enchantments intent was extremely simple, a Fire Arrow spell. As in a bolt of fire, shaped like an arrow, that could pierce and burn targets. A very common type of spell right up there with fireballs. After carving the main portion of the enchantment he started to work on the lines to power it. The lines all converged at the base of the shell right where the primer would be on a shotgun shell. There he didn't completely connect the lines, instead, he left a small section blank.

The idea was simple, now he just needed to create and install a trigger. The trigger was a simple bar with a flat piece that ran perpendicular to the trigger. When the trigger was pulled the flat piece at the top of it would come into contact with the back of the shell to complete the enchantment. The entire flat section was simply covered in enchanting medium to make sure that no matter the orientation of the shell the enchantment on the shell would always be completed.

With the current design, the gun worked in a rather simplistic fashion. With the switch for the powered rings flipped on the mana battery in the handle would provide power to the rings. If the battery was drained he could provide the mana himself through the enchantment lines carved on the handle. Each shell had its own mana battery that would be used when the trigger was pulled and the enchantment was completed. If the shells battery was out of power then mana could be provided through the trigger and the shell could be fired anyway. Both the weapon and the shells could run on either internally or externally provided power. Even if the battery in the handle and his mana were both completely empty, as long as he had shells with some mana still charged inside of them the weapon could fire.

As he was focusing on some additional aspects of the weapon, he felt a sharp pain in his calf and looked down. Snowlily had his calf in a death grip and was growling at him. Thomas laughed and stored the sensitive materials inside of his inventory, "Right. Lunch. Thanks for reminding me."

Their lunch was a simple affair at a local place. Once they had both eaten their fill it was back to work. Once back at work, Thomas spent the remainder of the day working on the fine details of the weapon. Adding in things he hadn't thought of, such as a spring that would automatically pull the trigger back when he let go of it. For hours he worked on adjustments, modifications, changes, and the occasional rework of something that didn't seem quite right. When he felt like he was close to being finished he checked every last part making sure they all worked smoothly. Even feeding mana into the battery within the handle and triple checking that the safety switch worked as he intended. Everything seemed to be in order. The last step would be to test-fire the weapon. Once that was done and the weapon worked properly then he would know the work was completed.

After leaving the smithy for the night, Thomas spent a large chunk of his mana charging up the mana battery in the handle of the gun. The large mana crystal amalgamation could store almost seventy-five percent of his mana reserves. The shell, being much smaller, could only store about fifteen percent of his maximum. Still, between just those two he had to use just about all of his mana to top them off. Once both were charged fully, he climbed into bed and got some sleep. Serenity was a big help in recovering his mana a fair amount before he drifted off.

The next day was the day of the test. Either it would work or it wouldn't. If it didn't, he would have to choose to either abandon it for now and work on his travel plans or abandon his travel plans and continue to work on the weapon. Today was his final day at Rockbeard's place so he would need to pick one option and stick to it. He barely tasted his breakfast as he contemplated the next step.

Once breakfast was over, he left the inn and made his way toward the city gate. He wasn't sure how powerful the weapon he'd designed would be and firing it within the city walls could have some serious consequences. Bilri was located in a relatively flat area and surrounded by farms. There were only occasional trees dotting the landscape here and there. Together, Thomas and Snowlily jogged for a few kilometers to get away from the farms and not risk blowing up perfectly good crops or farmers. He picked a spot with a few trees near each other as his testing ground. He looked around and smiled at the emptiness of the area. He needed to travel alone with Snowlily more often.

Thomas picked a random tree to be his first vic... target. He retrieved the new weapon from his inventory and looked it over. Thanks to his tweaks and changes, some purely cosmetic, it looked like more than just a large barrel with a trigger. He ran his fingers over it for a bit then flipped the catch bar on the back up to slide out the tray for the ammunition. The only finished one he had was the one he made previously, the Fire Arrow shell. He set the shell on the tray and pulled the catch down closing the tray and using the catch to lock it in place. There likely wouldn't be much recoil, but if there was the gun was sturdy enough to handle it with ease.

With the Fire Arrow shell loaded he made sure the safety switch for the rings on the barrel remained off. He wanted to see the power of the weapon before anything was added to it. Thomas lifted the gun and aimed it at his target tree. The tree's trunk had a diameter of about thirty centimeters where he was aiming. Without adding any additional mana to the weapon, he pulled and released the trigger quickly.

There was a soft popping sound that could only be heard from maybe a meter or two away as a bolt of fire, in the vague shape of an arrow, launched out of the barrel of the gun. The bolt streaked through the air and crashed into the tree creating a small explosion. The Fire Arrow itself made hardly any noise but the sound of exploding and breaking wood was rather loud. When the smoke cleared there was a clear crater that had been burnt black that took out nearly half of the trunk of the tree.

Thomas immediately pulled the shell out of the gun and checked the remaining mana within it. It was missing only a third of the mana he had invested in it. In essence, the shot he'd just fired was equivalent to a spell cast by him using five percent of his total mana. He would only be able to get three shots out of the shell before it was completely drained of its own stored mana. He needed to change his plans. He would need a lot more shells.

Thomas reloaded the shell back into the gun and flipped the safety switch. Mana quickly flowed into the rings around the barrel lighting them up and causing them to spin. He let it warm up for a moment and get fully charged before he pulled the trigger once again. Unlike the first time, there was no soft popping sound, there was a full-on sonic boom as a bright blue arrow of fire was launched out of the barrel of the gun. The arrow flew so fast that all he could see was a bright blue after image. The shot slammed into the tree and exploded with enough force to cause a hot gust of wind to ruffle his hair. With a loud groan, the tree toppled over and crashed into the ground. What was left of the trunk was a shattered burnt mess that poured smoke into the air.

System Notice: Please state the name of your creation.

Thomas thought for a moment and then said the first thing that came to mind, "Spell Cannon."