As Thomas worked on his new rifle, the people working at or visiting the inn didn't pay too much attention to him at first. Seeing someone sitting around poking the air in front of them with their finger was not an unusual sight. Every individual within AoG, players and NPCs alike, had access to the system and could grow stronger. Most simply chose not to. They were all aware of what someone touching something only they could see in the air meant. What started to get Thomas strange looks was the sheer amount of time he spent poking the air. No one should need hours upon hours to spend a bit of experience.

He paid no attention to the time or his surroundings. He'd already finished the preliminary design of the rifle so he was currently working on the design for the basic rounds that the rifle would fire. He decided to make the basic bullets out of an iron base. Originally he'd been planning to use plain lead but his research had shown him that lead wasn't magnetic, something he hadn't known before. Remembering the time he'd tried to use Magnetic magic on Ancient Lead would have made him blush if anyone else knew about it.

His next thought was copper jacketed lead... except copper also wasn't magnetic. Since the two most common metals used in the manufacturing of bullets were not susceptible to the magnetic fields his rifle would be generating, the only cheap option left was plain iron. He had briefly considered using purified iron or Origin Steel but decided that leaving even little scraps of that material laying around was a bad idea. So the final solution was simply to make the whole bullet out of plain iron. As for the casings, he planned to check around and see if he could find some brass in the city. After all, Breidset was one of, if not the, largest trade cities he had been to so far.

For the time being, he only designed the basic round for the rifle. He didn't see a point in designing other rounds yet, not until he saw what the basic round could do. With the power the rifle should possess, even the basic round should easily kill any monster he'd come across so far. Except maybe the Trolls, unless the rifle could directly obliterate their heads. After some testing, he would decide on how to design the specialized rounds. He put the final touches on his design, for now, and finally focused his attention back on the world around himself.

When he did he was surprised to see that he was no longer sitting at his table with just Snowlily. Selena, Lexiana and the two guards had joined him at some point. Looking somewhat abashed, Thomas smiled at the women, "Good afternoon."

Selena was the first to speak up, though she scoffed, "It's early evening. Seems like you were too busy to notice." She eyed him a bit, "We also didn't see you at breakfast like usual."

Thomas just shrugged his shoulders, "Sorry, I had something important to take care of."

Selena kept eyeing him for his lack of any real explanation. Not that he actually owed her one. He simply ignored her probing look and flagged down a waitress to order dinner for himself and Snowlily. Even though he hadn't put in a full day of work at the forge, he still felt like he'd accomplished a lot for the day. Tomorrow he would be able to quickly and efficiently build his new rifle. Given the complex and precise nature of the parts for the weapon, he'd decided to simply create it piece by piece with his Transmutation. He had zero confidence in his ability to hand forge any of the pieces. If he had a proper machine shop it might have been a different story.

As the group ate their dinner together, Lexiana decided to speak up. She looked across the table at Thomas and asked, "How much longer do you think you will be working on your stuff?"

Thomas pondered for a moment before giving a shrug of his shoulders, "Probably two more days. Why?"

Lexiana smiled at that. Dungeons slowly changed over time. If he was to work too much longer then her knowledge of the first floors would become out of date. She decided to explain what she had been up to the entire time Thomas had been working, "While you were making stuff, I decided to scout the dungeon and find the quickest routes to the lower floors. So far I've scouted down to the twenty-ninth floor. I would have gone further but I'm concerned that I'm too weak to take on the thirtieth-floor boss alone."

Thomas smiled as he listened to Lexiana, "Thanks. That will save a lot of time."

He really did appreciate her effort. The monsters on the upper floors would provide very little experience and trying to find the way down to the next floor blindly would waste a lot of time. With Lexiana guiding the group down to the thirtieth floor using the most direct route a ton of time and effort could be saved. With her help, they could probably reach the thirtieth floor in just the first day.

Lexiana smiled after she received Thomas's thanks. It was the first time she'd done something that didn't outright annoy or bother him. It made her effort feel rewarding. Well, aside from the monetary rewards she'd started getting from defeating the stronger monsters on the lower floors. Thanks to her scouting her financial situation had changed quite a bit. She no longer needed to worry about her day to day necessities and even had a surplus of funds that she could save for later or spend on upgrades to her gear. All-in-all, things were looking up for her.

After dinner was finished everyone retired to their own rooms to get some sleep. Thomas felt especially tired since he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. The excitement of having access to the internet within the game had kept him going but at this point, it had worn off. Now he was just exhausted. Once he was inside of his room, he fought off his exhaustion and focused on expanding his inventory a bit more. With each rank his inventory gained the progress for expanding it slowed. Still, he went through a few cycles of spending the majority of his mana and then recovering it with Serenity before calling it a night.

After breakfast with everyone, Thomas and Snowlily made their way to the Adventurer's Guild. Thomas occasionally stopped at food vendors to buy a few snacks and drinks. Either himself or Snowlily taking a liking to the scents wafting along with the gentle breeze. After they arrived at the guild, he rented a workshop as usual. Though this time he got room number four, directly across from his usual room number five. The room he was assigned didn't really matter though. Each room was designed to be identical. They all contained the exact same items.

It took no time at all for Thomas to get the forge going and place a couple of purified Mithril ingots into the flames. The only time the forge would be used today was to heat up the ingots so he could pound Magnetic element mana into them. He worked quickly and before too much time had passed, he'd pounded the Magnetic element mana into four purified Mithril ingots. He wasn't entirely sure just how many he would need to complete the rifle so he made sure he had plenty to work with.

Once the last of the ingots had its embryo pounded into it, Thomas started his real work. The mangled Mithril was quickly reshaped from beaten lumps back into pristine ingots. From there he opened his blueprint program so he could see the various parts he would need to make as well as the directions for their assembly. He selected the first ingot and started to break it down into smaller pieces. Each piece would be used in the creation and assembly of the smaller parts for the rifle. The small pieces soon became items like the trigger, trigger guard, firing pin assembly, springs, the extractor, the bolt assembly, the magazine box, magazine follower, and many more small pieces that would need further assembly later on.

As he made each piece he made sure that they all fit together like they were supposed to. He didn't want to have to make any changes to the parts during the final assembly of the rifle. For once, he planned on creating a true Magitech device. Doing so on such a large and complex weapon was going to take a fair amount of his mana so he couldn't afford to have to waste any by using his Transmutation to fix mistakes. Once he was certain that all of the pieces would fit together properly, he moved onto the next step of the process.

The next piece he created was larger since it was the entire body of the rifle. Thanks to Mithril being so lightweight he could make the entire rifle out of solid metal and still have it weigh less than its real-world counterpart while still being more durable. That was the beauty of magical metals. Well, it wasn't entirely solid. The forend, pistol grip, and stock of the rifle were completely hollow. The current plan was to fill out as much space as possible with amalgamated mana crystal to provide an inbuilt power source for the magnetic enchantments. One giant mana battery to rule them all.

Up next was the barrel for the rifle. This part was the one he had to be the most precise with. If he got any part of the barrel wrong it could cause some serious problems. The entire interior of the barrel had to be the exact same diameter from beginning to end. Additionally, the rifling of the barrel had to be precise to ensure that the bullet would fly true and wouldn't end up tumbling through the air. To be sure he had enough mana and focus before making the barrel, he took a short break. Petting Snowlily was an excellent way to relax his mind and give it a break before he would need to push himself to his limits.

Once he felt comfortable and relaxed, he returned to his work. The next piece of Mithril was selected. His mana flared as he got to work with his Transmutation once again. The Mithril slowly changed shape into a straight barrel with an inner diameter of twelve point seven millimeters. The interior was also shaped with thin rotating grooves that would cause the bullet to spin thus stabilizing it in flight. Thomas worked slowly and carefully, constantly double-checking everything with the plans inside of his blueprint system. A single millimeter of difference inside of the barrel could cause a terrible result.

He moved slowly and took care. The other parts only took a few minutes each to make but he spent an entire hour working on just the barrel. By the time he finished, he was drained both mentally and of mana. He took the time to examine the barrel in his hands to make sure there was nothing obviously wrong with it. To his sight, it looked perfect. He gently set down the barrel and rejoined Snowlily to rest on the ground and recover. A few snacks, some Serenity, and plenty of head patting later, he was ready to return to work.

Thomas produced a few more parts so that he could completely assemble the rifle. When completely assembled the rifle was a behemoth well over a meter long from tip to butt. Thanks to the fact that the body was mostly hollow and the whole thing was made of Mithril it weighed a delightfully light six kilograms. For comparison, a regular rifle made of steel would weigh at least twice as much if not more. Though, modern rifles did use composite materials to try and lower their weight.

He examined every detail of the rifle and compared it to the plans inside of his blueprint system. With everything looking proper he went through the process of cocking the rifle. He gripped the knob on the cocking lever and lifted it ninety degrees to unlock it. Pulling it back compressed the spring for the firing pin and locked it into place with a subtle click when he pulled it back far enough. After cocking it be pushed the lever foreword and back into place then lowered it back down to lock it there. After gently squeezing the trigger there was a soft click as the firing pin was released and the compressed spring shot it forward until it came to a hard stop.

Obviously the rifle was still quite a way away from being completed. The firing pin still needed to be enchanted, the hollow space needed to be filled with mana crystal, the magnetic rings needed to be made, and a few more things needed to be done before the rifle could be considered complete. Not to mention the need for ammo to be made. With so much still needing to be done, Thomas returned to his work with a smile on his face. He couldn't wait to see how powerful the final result would be.