Andrew got to work on the branches first thing the next morning, laying them out across his workbench. Earth, water, air, and what he suspected was lightning, two each chock full of their respective mana affinities. They would conduct mana significantly more efficiently than anything else they had on hand, by virtue of the sheer density of elemental affinity. Alternatively, he could siphon the affinities in these branches out across several other tools, increasing their base efficiency. Time was their scarcest resource though, and Andrew already had a good idea of what he would make with each branch.

He set the lightning branches off to one side. He simply didn't have the time to experiment with new mana types, they would have to wait. He set an air branch aside, he would find Po later and siphon the air affinity into his prosthetic. The giants had fairly low mana reserves across the board, though their strength and vitality was obviously quite considerable. He shifted the other air branch into a new pile. He would have to siphon it out of the wood and into a piece of metal before anyone could safely use it. The highly combustible mana type was highly volatile, even more so when combined with already combustible materials like wood, but it would be good weapon material. He pushed the water branches into the same pile as the first air branch, he would siphon the affinity from those into their water mana accumulation barrels. Less mana, more water, win-win all around. Water mana expulsion tests weren't particularly effective and other than that it was mostly used for fire resistance armor enhancements. He pushed the two remaining earth branches into the pile with the other air branch. They were the easiest to adapt into an effective weapon. The branch itself could be used in the weapon's construction and he was confident that earth mana expulsion in high enough quantities would be a very effective weapon.

Okay, take care of the easy stuff first. Air into the prosthetic, water branches split between three barrels each, Lightning wrapped up and in the cart. Then the fun stuff.

Andrew's morning was spent doing just that. Po was easy to find, the battering ram attached to his left arm was not quite as easy to remove though. After nearly an hour of Andrew cursing and about fifteen minutes of work with the tailoring team, the prosthetic was removed and infused with fresh air affinity. Poes went from two shots an hour to six. The water branches were siphoned into the water barrels within the next hour, and the remainder of the day Andrew worked to convert the remaining branches into potent weapons.

Now, what to do with the air branch. I could spread it out across ten or so grenades, increasing their explosive potential but also likely altering the combustion point. A bit dangerous. I could make a hand held version of Po's air cannon, or I could try and make use of the air mana's weight reducing properties to…. What? Increase mobility somehow? We definitely don't have the time to be messing around with testing something like that, and anything with that much air mana concentrated in it is going to be a major hazard in the upcoming battle. It'll have to be another air cannon. Easy enough.

"Hey Carter! Can you put something together for me?" Andrew had the smithing team hammer together several of the thin rectangular armor plates to form a roughly two foot long, two inch wide, half inch thick rectangle of metal, while he himself hammered together a couple of the same armor plates to form a narrow half inch thick, half inch wide, two inch long rectangle. As the metal cooled Andrew got to work with a fresh, unaffinitied piece of wood, carving his best approximation of a rifle stock with a channel carved through the center for the metal plate to sit in. When the metal was cool enough to touch, Andrew took the two separate pieces and empowered them together, joining them so that the thin rectangular piece he made connected to the flat bottom of the longer metal plate, forming a stubby little pistol grip. He siphoned all the air affinity from his remaining air branch into the piece of metal and set it aside. Then he bored a connecting channel on the underside of the wooden stock where the trigger hand would typically rest and hammered the two pieces together. The end result was a rough, short rifle, with a single continuous infused piece of rectangular metal running from where the palm rested on the grip to the relatively stubby rectangular barrel. He flipped the rifle and pressed his palm against the exposed metal on the grip, activating his auto mana inscription skill to infuse the smallest air mana accumulation circle he was capable of producing where the palm would rest while firing. Then he ran his palm down the exposed flat upper face of the 'barrel', inscribing a battery, trigger and chain of expulsion runes configured to accelerate and slightly drop the air expelled air mana, in an effort to combat it's natural rising tendency.

Once he was done Andrew wrapped the upper barrel of the weapon with leather scraps to protect the delicate inscriptions, leaving only the final expulsion rune exposed. It took him a little while to find the best way to secure the leather smoothly to the barrel, and he was tempted many times to simply infuse the whole structure together. He was specifically avoiding that with this project though. Mana tended to flow uniformly through empowered items, and a wooden stock infused with leaky air mana seemed liable to explode in the user's hands with the slightest spark. Not ideal. The weapon was configured to release every bit of mana in the metal each time the trigger was activated, so it's range and power would vary based on how much mana was fed into the accumulation circle on the grip. All in all the project consumed the entire remainder of his morning and afternoon. The entire rest of the evening was spent making small tuning adjustments to the expulsion runes, mending and re-carving tiny alterations on the expulsion rune's programmed projectile drop so that it would fire in a straight line for a long as possible. When he was finished the rifle could eat a hundred points of mana and turn it into a little bullet of air mana capable of snapping the branch off a tree at about three hundred feet.

The projectile left welts on Arges, their only volunteer, at about that range. Andrew wasn't comfortable shooting him with it at closer ranges, despite his disgruntled insistence that a small hole would be perfectly worth it for testing purposes. The projectile seemed to accumulate additional air mana as it traveled, but conversely expand outwards into a looser less concentrated blob with lower speed and accuracy. Punching holes wasn't exactly Andrew's original intention for the weapon anyway, and their other form of accuracy testing was far more entertaining. The steadily accumulated air mana was highly volatile. When fired over a campfire at the same range they were rewarded with a modest fireball, capable of inflicting light burns several feet away, also on an indignant and insistent Arges, who in turn seemed increasingly fascinated with the weapon.

A quick shooting competition was quickly organized as the evening's entertainment, several campfires were set up at various ranges, and each person in camp took a turn or two firing little explosions over them. Sam, Bailey and Nate all had previous firearms experience and they easily outstripped the rest of the camp in speed and accuracy, despite their collective insistence that the lack of proper sights and appreciable recoil made it a far cry from an actual rifle. Bailey had a number of archery related skills already, so she excused herself from the final face off to determine who would use the rifle in the coming battle. In the end it came down to mana pool and regeneration. Sam was capable of firing denser shots with greater speed, so the rifle was handed over to him to practice with.

Andrew dedicated most of the following day to replicating the rifle construction process with minor alterations to accommodate earth affinity and mana instead. The projectile drop on concentrated earth mana was significantly more pronounced than the upwards drift of air mana, and the mana's density loss at further ranges was significantly more of a factor as well. Andrew spent most of the following afternoon tweaking the expulsion runes, but the weapon was just significantly less effective at similar ranges. It left welts at around the same range, but was entirely incapable of exploding, a significant downgrade. It's power increased rapidly as the range shortened however. The afternoon's tinkering was an excellent distraction from Andrew's growing concern. The scouts were expected to arrive sometime today at the earliest. Andrew tested the earth rifle extensively into the evening, and eventually had to call it a day when the moon was high and the scouting team was still unseen.