Of course there were magic guns. Why wouldn’t there be? He had a magic Erlenmeyer flask, so why not? Robin bent down to inspect the revolver.

He carefully took it out of the holster, holding it delicately by the end of the grip. The weapon was massive in his hands. It was heavy, far heavier than it looked. Robin stared at the golden runes for a moment before using Identify.

ΔU Bolt Single Action Army Revolver This weapon was once wielded by a researcher who attempted to inform authorities of the evil doings of the Mad Scientist and was murdered for his troubles, his weapon holstered. The ΔU Single Action Army Revolver absorbs energy from local ambient sources (including MANA) when the cylinder is opened, storing this energy in each chamber as a bullet. Only empty chambers can be filled with energy. The formation of each bullet takes one minute plus one minute for each bullet already carried within the cylinder. Normal and other magical bullets may still be used.

Robin’s jaw dropped. His mind started racing, considering the possibilities.

It’s a blaster! I hope it doesn’t have the same kickback, or I might not be able to use this without increasing my STR. I wonder what qualifies as energy? Would a fire work? Could I open it back up and stick it back into the Armoire for a while? Oooh, I’ll need to make sure that it never gets put into the satchel with the cylinder open, if that works.

Robin clicked the cylinder open, looking into the chambers within. There were no bullets in it.

This might be the best time…

He set the revolver inside the armoire and closed the door. He counted to sixty, feeling that he was being very patient, and when he said his last “Mississippi” he opened the Armoire and eagerly grabbed the Revolver, already used the the odd way the the extraspatial devices the had encountered just kind of shunted items into your hand. He looked into the cylinder and was excited to see a pitch black bullet in one of them.

Robin glanced back into the Armoire and was briefly startled by the corpses. They seemed to have shifted and come closer.

...No, the room got smaller. The revolver must have absorbed some of the spatial magic. Better not leave it in there again. I don’t want to know what happens if the magic runs out with all those corpses stuffed inside.

Robin stared at the bullet. What the heck would that do? He closed the cylinder and slipped it into the holster, and put the holster on his belt. It hung awkwardly, banging into his leg. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually.

Robin took one last look around the room, making sure he had gathered everything that might be useful. Everything stripped from the cabinets, the desks… That only left the crystal balls. Robin stared up at the transparent glass balls resting on small pedestals, placed on tiny shelves on the wall. Each had a series of wires leading to and away from it, with the wires soldered directly on to the glass.

He wasn’t going to be able to reach them on his own, and quickly dragged one of the desks over to the wall with the crystal balls. Hopping onto it, he pulled one of the crystal balls from the wall and was pleasantly surprised when the soldered wires popped off easily. It was the size of a grapefruit, and it was strangely warm in his hands. Robin focused on it and used his Identify skill.

Crystalline Eye of the Mother of Broods

Aw, no description? That means it’s just a component… darn. I was really hoping to be able to scry…

Robin popped the remaining seven crystal balls off of the wall, Identifying them, just in case. They were all the same thing.

At least I’ve got the full set. Maybe they’ll be useful later.

Robin hopped off the table and took a last look around before he left the room. He focused on Opal’s presence in his mind, willing her to follow him. She skittered down a wall and ran through the door behind him, immediately climbing onto the ceiling of the hallway.

He held the Machete of the Dark in front of him and walked down the hallway towards the elevator. He paused briefly in front of the first door he passed, but shook his head and kept walking.

I need to leave before the dungeon resets. I don’t want to have to fight through any more bugs than I have to… oh, crap. What if the Mad Scientist resets?

Will it still be Mister Lye?

He reached the elevator and opened the gate with the machete, tensed to dodge if something leapt out at him. The elevator was empty, though, except for the spider parts falling through the grate of the metal elevator wall, and he stepped inside. Opal skittered after him, moving to the wall behind Robin, and he pressed the button for the ground floor. He closed the freight elevator door, and the elevator chugged into motion, rasping against the spiders.

Robin watched the spiders slowly get scraped off the walls as the elevator painfully made its way up. It squeaked up at the same speed he was used to it moving, although it was much louder.

Might be a good time to spend that SP. Robin pulled up his menu.

STR

13

+

AGI

16

+

CON

15

+

BODY

15

+

INT

18

+

WILL

13

+

AURA

15

+

LOOKS

10

+

PHYSDEF

5

+

MENTDEF

2

+

ENERDDEF

1

+

SPEED

5

RECOV

10

+

REGEN

2

+

PHYSTAM

60

+

MENSTAM

62

+

MANA

10

+

RUN

7

+

SWIM

2

+

LEAP

3

+

SP

12

+

...I’m weak, physically. If I can’t fight these things they are going to flat-out kill me. Robin added all his points to STR, mentally willing the button to add them as fast as he could. He found that it let him put seven points in before the “plus” disappeared, leaving him at a total of twenty STR. He immediately received a notification, but didn’t read it immediately. This hurts when they do it in isekai stories… don’t pass out!

He waited for the rush that always happened in anime, but none came. He stood up straight, feeling foolish, glancing to see if Opal had seen. She stared directly at him with football-sized eyes. She saw everything. He waved awkwardly and looked away in a rather intentional way. He made a fist, brought his arm up in the classic “pumping iron” pose, and was momentarily surprised to find that he was still holding the machete; he had forgotten it entirely. He just hadn’t noticed the weight.

He… hadn’t noticed the weight at all. Robin slowly grinned. He didn’t feel different, but every gesture was effortless. It was less that he felt good, and more that he didn’t feel bad; every motion took less effort than it ever had before. Was it always this easy to breathe? After experimenting with the results, he was now confident in his decision for what to do with the last five points.

Robin mentally willed the notification to move to full size and read it.

Peak Human (II) You have reached the limit supportable by the natural human body in two of your attributes. Much like the heroes presented in fable, myth, and story, you approach the human ideal paradigm in physical form. +1 LOOKS per level, +1 BODY per level The bonuses to LOOKS and BODY will not take effect until LOOKS and BODY are brought to the maximum for humans.

The bonus to LOOKS is… weird. I guess that superheroes and images of Greek heroes are usually handsome, but… Still weird. Not going to complain, though. The bonus to BODY is amazing, and they’re both per level! Five points left…

INT is the closest to maximum, assuming the limit is twenty, and I might get another neat bonus for it. It also affects my MENSTAM, and that will be useful if I keep learning spells. I wonder what it will feel like to be as smart as a human can be. How do you quantify how intelligence feels, anyway? Body would be a good choice for the last three points. Might as well do those first.

Robin added three points to BODY. Like before, he didn’t immediately notice a difference in his physical form, but he was confident he had made the right choice. Now the fun part. Robin added his last two points to INT. The “+” beside it disappeared, and a notification appeared. He was immediately excited by the gold border. Woohoo! New title!

Peak Human (III) You have reached the limit supportable by the natural human body in three of your attributes. Much like the heroes presented in fable, myth, and story, you tread freely where others dare to crawl. +2 WILL, +2 RUN, +2 LEAP, +2 SWIM The bonuses to RUN, LEAP, and SWIM will not take effect until RUN, LEAP, and SWIM are brought to the maximum for humans.

Those last lines kind of ruin them… they won’t give me any effect aside from the WILL bonus unless I spend SP. Lame. And inconsistent! Why did Peak Human (I) give me the bonuses without maxing out the stat?

Robin watched a glob of green spider-remnants drip onto the ground with a splash. A little bit of it got onto his shoe, and he turned his foot to the side to scrape it off. It proved more difficult than he expected, and he had to move to the wall to get it off.

Stupid slimy spider guts…

Robin froze. After a moment, he slowly reached out and hit the “stop” button, then moved slowly to the center of the elevator and sat down, taking off and opening his satchel in front of him.

I can’t leave until the slime is dead.

Crap. Crap crap crapcrapcrap.

Robin calmed his thoughts and began to mentally lay out the facts.

My machete isn’t going to cut it (HAH!) and I don’t think Opal even has a way to attack it. The gun only has one shot, and that’s assuming I can hit with an unfamiliar and untested weapon. I think I’m going to have to use…

Robin reached into the satchel and sourly pulled two of the objects he had recovered from the desk of the Mad Scientist. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to use this yet… I wanted to find more stuff first.

The first object looked like a roll of duct tape. It only looked like something extraordinary when it was moved, as it left behind a small afterimage an inch or so behind it.

The second was a small, flat metal tube, exactly like a miniature tube of toothpaste. It had a long red cap with a point buried in it, and the front was bare except for the image of a silver crown.

As much as he was mentally groaning and complaining, Robin’s eyes were beaming his true excitement. He looked up at Opal, no longer fooling himself with his annoyance.

“Let’s get to crafting!”