Tired of my antics, Thomas sends me to the range with Gunther.

It's still a bad name.

Gunther sees me walk onto the range and holds up his hand, stopping me. "Before I allow you to hold a weapon, I must inform you of the rules when wielding a gun and the rules you will follow on the range," he informs me.

He pulls out a placard from who knows where and reads out the information on it.

"First, always treat a gun as loaded. Even if it isn't, treat it as such anyway.

Second, always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. In this case, that would be downrange, while hot, or the roof since it can absorb impacts. Never, and I mean NEVER, point it at the floor! The bullet will ricochet.

Third, always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

Fourth, always keep the gun unloaded until you are ready to use it.

Fifth, never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy.

Sixth, be sure of your target and what is behind it. You don't want to shoot a criminal and accidentally shoot a child behind him.

Seventh, you will understand the mechanics and handling of each weapon you will use. This is not technically a rule, but is recommended and required by Thomas.

Eighth, always use proper ammunition. We have live ammo, which can kill, and rubber ammo, which will make you wish you were dead. Extra ammunition that you will need Thomas to sign off on are poisoned, magic, blanks, and everything you could possibly think of.

Ninth, be sure that the barrel is clear of obstructions before shooting.

Tenth, if your gun fails to fire when the trigger is pulled, hold your shooting position for several seconds; then with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, carefully unload the gun.

Eleventh, don't rely on the gun's safety to keep it from firing.

Twelfth, be aware of your surroundings when handling guns so you don't trip or lose your balance and accidentally point and/or fire the gun at anyone or anything."

He puts the poster away before continuing his lecture.

"Now, while on the range, you will follow each of my commands. You will only use your weapon while the range is hot. I will announce if the range is hot or cold.

While the range is cold, you will unload the weapon and engage the safety. Finally, you will put a block in the barrel. The block will be provided.

Now, onto the weapon malfunctions…"

Ugh, this is going to take forever. At least he's thorough, but just dumping the information isn't fun. It would be more effective for me to just read this all from the Transcription skill.

————————————————————————————————————

I'm here, holding a pistol, eye trained between the sights and the target. Lectures of proper positioning of the pads of my fingers and how I shouldn't let my fingers fly after firing.

Keep my breath slow, lower heart rate, breath out…hold.

*BANG!*

Keep eye trained forward. Shoulders locked.

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*click*

Release magazine. Grab spare. Load. Aim.

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*BANG!*

*click*

I set the weapon down, disengaging from my concentration. I engage the safety, and put the orange block in.

"That was good. You hit five out of twelve shots," Gunther comments. "You've made considerable progress for having begun five hours ago. However, the System would not consider this skilled enough for the Firearm Proficiency skill. By this point, though, you should have received Aiming or Concentration."

"Maybe it just takes more?" I offer.

"Maybe," a voice says from behind us. I turn to find Thomas leaning on the wall. "On a different subject, wanna get dinner?"

"I will put away the nine millimeter pistol," Gunther says, then without input, takes the weapon and disappears into his own closet labeled, 'Range Master.'

I shrug and grab Thomas's shoulder. Snapping his fingers, light flashes and we appear in an alleyway. He starts walking, tossing the baseball he once launched through the stratosphere as he does so.

I keep pace with him in silence.

"I…may have lied slightly," he says after a moment.

"On what?"

"This ball. It wasn't launched only with Kinetic Energy Magic. You see, kinetic energy is a scalar quantity. That means, when dealing with the forces on the ball, you can only multiply what is already there. Normally, this isn't an issue when gravity is there.

But an object at rest as a net force of zero.

Force Magic is what happens when you project Space Magic onto Mechanical Energy Magic. I'm capable of both, and this allows you to move an object at rest."

"Okay, so?"

"This was just grinding on me. I complain about being accurate with what I do and say, then lie to you about a small part of physics."

I don't respond to that. It's not like I'm hurt; I just don't care.

Exiting the alley, we eventually find a hot dog stand.

We order. Thomas gets a plain hot dog, and I get every topping the vendor has. It's a slightly above-average hot dog. Not much more one can expect from a street dog.

[ Through repeated actions skill: Poison Resistance(Medium, Passive) has ranked up to Poison Resistance(Major, Passive) ]

Am I being targeted again? Like last time?! "Thomas, my Poison Resistance went up."

"Hmm," he hums. Very nonchalant for being told that I'm dying. "Yeah, Sophia told me that happened last time, too. I'd just wait, if I were you."

"What do you—" I never complete my question.

[ Through repeated actions you have unlocked the skill: Disease Resistance(Minimum, Passive) ]

[ Disease Resistance - Allows the user resistance to harmful biological agents with varied efficiency base on type of disease and skill proficiency. ]

"Disease…Resistance?" I mutter, slowly remembering my experiences over the past weeks. Shit, literally.

"Ding! Ding! Ding!" Thomas cackles. "Yep, nothing's better than street food that needs a trip to the hospital! Anyway, after last time, I saw that you ate some raw meat, and decided to test my theory. Little fun fact for you, since our immune system is working practically all the time, Disease Resistance is really hard to obtain.

Unless you get food poisoning in the short span of a month. Or get a very, very deadly disease.

If I remember correctly, you and Sophia overreacted quite heavily last time. Going so far as to berate the vendor."