Dix wasn’t really surprised by the revelation that there were no guns on Mantra, but he was curious why it was that way. “Is there a reason why?”

Roanoak snorted. It was a surprisingly horse-like sound to come out of the human looking torso. Well, humanoid torso. He explained, “Just like the Hall of Iron, I made all the weapons in here. I’ve spoken to people from a great number of worlds, studied the things they brought with them, and the things they made on Mantra. I’ve changed my appearance to match that of other races so that I can use their weapons and tools as they did. There were entire centuries that I spent learning to make one type of weapon, forgoing work on all others. My entire existence is dedicated to making things.” Suddenly he seemed to half collapse, as if his strings were cut, but his joints had locked. All the tension went out of his muscles, and his head bowed, just staring at his hands. “And at this I failed.”

Dix had a thought pop unbidden into his head. They look like such big, strong hands. The image of a sad rock giant came with it. It was surprisingly similar to the image of Roanoak in front of him.

Sighing, the god continued his story, “Two hundred and forty three years. That’s how long I spent making guns in an attempt to make them functional on Mantra. There was even a gunsmith from your world that I had helping me for a number of years. No matter what I did, or what I tried, none of the guns I made worked with the system. See, all of the weapons you have seen in the Halls of Iron and Wood work with the system. What I mean is that as you get stronger, so do the weapons here. But guns? They never change. They don’t get stronger. There is no increased damage, penetration, or bullet speed. Most importantly, there are no skills. Which makes them pointless. By the time a human gets a class they already have the base defences to shrug off getting shot by any gun of any caliber.

“The next thirty years I spent figuring out why guns do nothing, but bows, and even crossbows, work just fine. What I figured out probably should have been obvious, but no one had ever thought to think why certain things worked. They just did.

“Statistical application. A gun has no way for any of your stats to apply. With a sword you have to swing, or thrust, putting your strength into the blow. Bows need strength to pull back the string, as do crossbows. That tension that you put on the string requires strength, and applies that same strength in turn to the flight of the arrow. But guns only apply the force of the chemical explosion. There is no way to apply any statistic to that. And the bullet itself, you never touch it. If you don’t touch the projectile, how are you supposed to apply a skill to it?

“After my studies I tried again. I thought that maybe I could make them magical instead. Maybe try a focusing crystal aligned down the barrel, with spring loaded bullets. These of course would not have the chemicals or casing, just the bullet itself. It worked, after a fashion, but I could never get it to perform as well as I hoped. The damage was very low, and scaled terribly. The fact that it was actually very difficult to use didn’t help. And it still had no skills for its use. Eventually I gave up. Guns just won’t work with the system.” Once more Roanoak sighed, and fell silent.

After a short while Dix walked over and patted the lavataur on the shoulder. “I’m sorry to have reminded you of something that pains you.” Normally Dix would probably have ignored the pain of another person, especially a god, but Roanoak had been good to him. All the help with weapons, skills, and information had been invaluable, and Dix paid his debts.

Roanoak shook himself, then gave a firm nod. Standing abruptly, he announced, “Come. It is time to find your destiny amongst the greatest of ranged weapons!” He was a little over the top at times, but Dix still liked the guy.

Dix was unsure of how long it took to gather the weapons he would use in his next test, but the process was remarkably similar to how it had been with the melee weapons. Once more Roanoak had walked him through endless aisles of weapons, talking about all the different weaponry and their uses non stop. The centaur’s unending speech was almost meditative, putting Dix into a light trance as they wandered through the racks. At the end of it, Roanoak led him out of the maze of racks towards an archery range. He was also carrying a wide variety of weapons again.

Dix was surprised at some of the choices that had been made. The huge variety of throwing knives was definitely a given. A selection of spikes, axes, darts, and stars rounded out the selection of thrown weapons. Utility options included bolos, nets, and ropes. For some reason whips were considered ranged weapons, so those were added as well. Crossbows of all sizes, from arbalests to small snap out hand crossbows. Slings. And the bows. Longbow, recurve, compound, and even mixed forms. The arrow selection was absolutely staggering. Roanoak was festooned with so many quivers he looked like the world's weirdest christmas tree. At least he came with his own light show, so no one needed to untangle the light strings.

The range itself didn’t seem, at first, to be as useful as the training dummies in the Hall of Iron. The main area had the normal selection of stationary distance targets, surprisingly done with concentric white and red circles. One side had a series of windows and doors that had goblin and orc targets popping out like some sort of fantasy Hogan’s Alley. Near that were also moving targets, as well as a series of swinging rings. There was also a narrow alley with targets scattered around all over, some high or low, both walls, and some dangling in the air. The opposite side had many of the same things, but interspersed with an obstacle course. The progression one would need to follow in the training was obvious, if incredibly difficult.

While he was looking over the range, Roanoak spoke from behind him, “Do not worry about using the entire thing for each weapon. You should only need the stationary targets to get the sub skills necessary for the generals. When you find the ones you really like you can start using the other sections to see if it is something you can actually use in a fight.”

Sighing, Dix got started.

Bows seemed like a good place to start. While he was somewhat familiar with archery, he was by no means an expert. All he had really done was some basic target shooting. After looking over the options that Roanoak had laid out for him, he grabbed a short bow and a quiver of arrows. It would be the easiest to start with. He didn’t bother with a bracer because he was hoping that the pain of the string slapping against his forearm would help with increasing his pain resistance. It took a few shots before he got the hang of it again and started actually hitting the target. After about twenty shots he felt something click in his head. Suddenly the short bow was easier to use, his grip more proper, and his draw smoother. It also seemed to increase his accuracy. He took a few more shots, finishing the quiver, and generally just feeling better about its use, before he wandered back over to the table for the next bow.

Grabbing the longbow next, he paused briefly to look at Roanoak. The centaur looked to be mumbling to himself, although Dix didn’t hear anything. “Is there any need to have a sub skill, or the weapon skill, before I start working on actives?”

Roanoak startled briefly, then responded, “Huh? Oh, not really. Most likely you won’t get an active skill until you have the sub skill at least, but trying for both the passive and an active at the same time usually speeds up the acquisition of both skills. You should also know that some active skills are much easier to acquire than others.” The god paused for a moment, seeming to look down and mumble to himself again for a moment, then looked up and said, “A little later, after you get the general skill for bows at least, we will try a bit of an experiment to get you some other skills you might like.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let you know when I get to that point.”

With the longbow, Dix decided to start working for some active skills. Most likely he wouldn’t get anything really interesting yet, but it was still worth a try. If nothing else he would at least get some practice at trying to make skills. And he didn’t really think he would spend a lot of time with a bow on Mantra.

Once again it took him a few shots to get somewhat used to the weapon. After that he tried to focus. Carefully aiming at the bullseye, he slowed his breathing. In, out. In, out, release. Missed. Repeat. In the end it took 12 more shots in the same fashion to get the longbow skill, and 5 more after that for what he could only assume was Aimed Shot. It took a fair bit of time to build the skill up to its activation, but it was worth it. The arrow was always dead on, and drove deeper than any other arrows he had shot. Once more he emptied his quiver, practicing all the while, before he headed back to the table.

With the recurve bow he focused on accurate shots, and then made them faster and faster. He was going to try for some sort of faster shot. The sub skill came fairly quick, but the active just didn’t seem to work. Instead of changing bows, he just grabbed a second quiver, slinging it over his shoulder. Prior to starting again he rethought what he was supposed to do to gain an active skill. It only took a moment to realize what he had forgotten. Visualization. All he had been doing was firing as fast and accurately as he could. There was the intent to make a quick shot, but no visualization of what that would look like. Once more he slowed his breath and focused. Slowly he thought over how a quick shot skill should look and feel. He needed to see something, and have an arrow instantly appear there. No need to think about how the arrow would get there, it should just be there. Keeping that image in mind, he once more started firing as quickly as his eyes moved. Each time he looked at a new target he would draw, fire, nock a new arrow, repeat. When he finally felt the skill, he only had a couple arrows left in the quiver.

With the rest of the bows he skipped working on new active skills, and just focused on getting the passive sub skills that he needed to open up the general weapon skill. He had a sneaking suspicion that getting a lot of weapon skills was a very useful thing, beyond just having the ability to use all those weapons well. Sure Roanoak was a god of crafting, and delighted in people using the things he made, but there seemed to be something more to his insistence on gaining so many general weapon skills than that. For some reason he thought asking wouldn’t be the right way to go about learning whatever it was that the god was driving him towards. With that thought he wandered over to the table, grabbing the last unused bow. The minute he picked it up he felt the knowledge in his mind and muscles of how to use it. Maybe not well, but certainly much better than he had used any of the other bows on the first shot. It was his Bow skill. When he had previously gained the general weapon skills for the melee weapons, he hadn’t been paying attention to what he was thinking and feeling at the time, so it had seemed to him to be more of an epiphany, rather than new knowledge being planted inside him. Who knows, maybe that’s all an epiphany really was.

With his latest skill acquired, he was ready for Roanoak’s experiment. The centaur seemed to have been periodically mumbling to himself throughout all of the training, but at Dix’s sudden smiling look, he nodded and stood. “You have the Bow skill now? Excellent. Come, let’s start.” With that he raised his arm, and a huge longbow flew to his open hand from somewhere in the labyrinth of weapon racks, along with a quiver of suitably large arrows. Walking over to the firing line for the stationary range he drew and nocked an arrow, then looked at Dix. “I will show you another skill that you can acquire. It is harder to learn, and oftentimes people seem to need other skills before they can unlock. However, I do not think they are actually necessary.”

“So we are experimenting on whether or not those earlier skills are actually necessary to be able to learn whatever this skill is? Sure, I can do that. Will seeing you use the skill make the visualization aspect easier?” Dix was curiously optimistic about the whole experience. Roanoak’s whole demeanor had changed from when they had first met. Before there was just the simple joy of finding someone who truly enjoyed the things that he had made, but now there was an insistence, a push, to do better. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it almost gave him the feeling of being a favored pupil. Someone who was being pushed harder than anyone else, because the teacher knew he could do better than the rest. Considering the things that Roanoak was pushing him to learn could not only help him stay alive in this new world, but also grant him a chance to thrive and grow powerful, he was very apt to do whatever was asked of him.

“Yes, this will help. Watch carefully.” Having spoken, Roanoak looked down towards the target, and drew his bow. He held the draw at full extension for a moment, and then the head of the arrow suddenly burst into flame. Shortly after that, a ball of flame rapidly started growing around the arrowhead. When it was about three inches in diameter Roanoak loosed it. After streaking down the range, it slammed into the target and exploded. The flaming orb of the explosion appeared to be about twelve feet in diameter at its apex, and left burning chunks of the target raining down in the aftermath.

All Dix could say was, “Woah.” After a moment he added, “I can’t wait to be able to do that.”

So saying he stepped up to the line himself. With the incredibly fresh, and impressive, memory of Roanoak’s exploding arrow, visualization and intent were actually quite easy. As he focused on trying to get his arrow to burst into flames there was a bit of a tingling, burning sensation throughout his body. It wasn’t unpleasant per se, just very odd. It was not unlike the pins and needles feeling of having one of your limbs waking up, simply less intense and painful. After a moment's reflection, he realized there had been a similar type of feeling each time he had been trying to make his active skills. The previous times, however, had been more of a tightening, and straining of his muscles. Stamina for the earlier skills, mana for this one? Gods, I hope it’s mana and not my health. That would suck. With a bit of mental gymnastics he added that tingling feeling to the visualization, and suddenly there was heat washing over his hand that was bracing his bow.

Looking down, he saw his arrowhead had caught fire. For the moment it was just a small flame, but he knew he could do better. More. The flame grew, but it was still just a flame, not an orb of fiery death. I need a container for the flames. And then I need to fill it. The flame that was burning from the arrowhead curled at the top, wrapping around into an orb. He could tell it was empty for the moment, and started filling it in his mind, pulling on that tingling feeling at the same time. Fill it until it almost bursts. Like a water balloon, but fire. For a moment, the orb bulged violently on one side, and he yanked back on what he assumed was his mana. Sadly this caused the whole thing to collapse, but at least it didn’t explode on him. Panting, he slowly released the draw on the bow, and bent over to stabilize himself.

After he had calmed down he straightened up to try again. At no time did he turn and catch the look of utter shock on Roanoak’s face. This time he changed things up a little. He formed the orb to hold the explosion, and then drew the arrow. He visualized it as filling a syringe. The draw pulled the mana into the reservoir of the orb, and would be perfectly full when it reached full draw. And when the arrowhead punctured through the inner wall on impact, it would explode violently. Dix wasn’t even aware that he had released the arrow until the target blew up. It wasn’t as large as the one Roanoak had fired, being only about three feet in diameter, but it did have a fairly substantial shockwave. But who cares, he had Exploding Shot!