"To create a gun, we first need the frame," Ryn muttered.
He was hunched over a table, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in deep concentration. He was sketching something on a large sheet of parchment.
"So... that's what you're drawing?" Amilea asked, leaning over his shoulder.
"Yes," Ryn grunted, not looking up. "The anatomy of an S-Class grade."
He had burned 500 Glory Points to pull the exact blueprints of a high-performance shotgun from the System's archives. It was a steep price, but it would be worth it when he never had to attend another lecture for the rest of the year.
"Done," Ryn said, slapping the pen down. "Now we just need a blacksmith who can craft this masterpiece."
Amilea stared at the drawing—the complicated internal spring mechanisms, the firing pin, the barrel.
"Ryn... I don't think anyone in the Academy is going to want to craft this. It looks... weird."
"What do you mean? Who wouldn't want to craft the future?"
...
"GET OUT! AND NEVER SHOW YOUR FACE HERE AGAIN!"
A burly Academy blacksmith kicked Ryn out of the workshop, nearly hitting him with a discarded horseshoe.
"We've been at it for three hours," Amilea sighed, dusting off her skirt.
"Maybe we should just give up and try to make an enchanted spoon or something?"
She's right, Ryn thought. Should I just use points to manifest it? No, that's a waste. Wait... I remember now. The 'Hidden Master' trope.
In the story Ryn wrote, Leon had found a legendary blacksmith who had given up on life. Leon had won him over with a heart-wrenching speech about "determination" and "will."
"There's one more place to try," Ryn said, his eyes glinting.
"Not again," Amilea groaned, but she followed him anyway.
They arrived at a workshop that looked half-dead. Cobwebs covered the sign, and the forge was cold.
"Old man!" Ryn shouted.
A dwarf staggered out of the back room, clutching a bottle of high-proof alcohol. He looked like he hadn't seen a bathtub in a decade.
"Is... is this him?" Amilea whispered.
"W-what are you brats doing here?" the dwarf barked, staggering slightly. "Can't you see I'm busy being retired?"
Ryn unrolled the blueprints and shoved them under the dwarf's nose. "I need you to build this."
"Get lost! I don't care if it's a magic sword or a royal crown. I'm done!"
Amilea pulled on Ryn's sleeve. "Ryn, let's go. I don't think this guy can even hold a hammer."
Ryn didn't move. In the original story, Leon convinced this guy with a hero's speech.
Ryn didn't remember the speech, but he had a much more "Ryn-style" method of persuasion.
He grabbed the dwarf's shoulder and dragged him into a dark corner of the workshop.
"Look here, Old Man," Ryn hissed, his voice dropping into a cold, demonic register.
"If you don't do this, I will start by destroying every drop of alcohol in this building. Then I'll burn your workshop. Then I'll move on to you."
The dwarf's eyes widened in horror. "You... you wouldn't."
"I'm a big shot at this school," Ryn lied smoothly, letting a tiny flicker of his Demon aura leak out. For a split second, the dwarf didn't see a student—he saw a predator.
The dwarf's hands shook as he snatched the blueprints. "I-I'll do it. Just... leave. Get out!"
Ryn walked back to Amilea with a satisfied smirk.
"What did you say to him?" she asked as they exited. "He seemed so... motivated all of a sudden."
"Just told him I'm a big fan of his work," Ryn replied. "Now, we need Ash Powder and a metal slug. Do you know where to find those?"
"Ash Powder is used for Alchemy potions," Amilea said, still confused. "We can get that at the lab. And for the metal... I can find a pointed slug."
On the day of the presentation, Ryn returned to the workshop.
The dwarf was nowhere to be found—he'd likely bolted out of the city the moment he finished the job—but the "tool" was sitting on the table.
It was a beautiful white shotgun with elegant golden engravings along the barrel. It looked more like a piece of jewelry than a weapon.
"You really want to test it in class?" Amilea asked nervously as they walked toward the lecture hall. "We haven't even fired it yet."
"Trust me," Ryn said. "I wrote the laws of physics. It'll work."
Inside the hall, Lecturer Maxwell stood at the front, clipboard in hand. "Next! Leon Hart and Mira Silverstone."
The "Power Couple" of the Academy walked forward. They were holding a simple, glowing blue ball.
"Explain your tool," Maxwell commanded.
"It's an Infinite Kinetic Sphere," Mira said proudly. "Let us demonstrate."
Leon threw the ball against the wall. It hit the stone, bounced with incredible speed, hit the ceiling, the floor, and the other wall, gaining speed with every bounce.
"It will bounce forever unless it is stopped by magic," Leon explained.
"Pffft... Hahaha!"
The laughter erupted from the back of the room. Ryn was doubled over, wiping tears from his eyes.
An infinite bouncing ball? I really did a number on these two. They're supposed to be heroes, and they made a cat toy!
The entire class turned to glare at him.
"Mr. Ryn," Lecturer Maxwell said, his voice cold. "Since you find your peers' work so amusing, perhaps you and Miss Amilea would like to show us your... creation."
Ryn and Amilea walked to the center stage. Ryn could feel the "Heroic" glares of Leon and Mira burning into his back.
"This," Ryn said, holding up the white-and-gold shotgun, "is a Gun. It is faster than magic, requires zero mana, and can be used by anyone—even a those who don't have mana."
The room went silent. The other students looked dumbfounded. Even Amilea looked like she wanted to hide under a table.
"Don't worry," Ryn said, aiming the weapon at a heavy reinforced target at the end of the hall. "You'll understand the moment you hear the sound."
BANG!
The roar of the shotgun echoed through the hall like a thunderclap. Smoke curled from the barrel.
Every jaw in the room dropped. The target—a slab of enchanted wood designed to withstand mid-tier spells—had a massive, jagged hole blown clean through its center.
There was no mana residue. No elemental trace. Just pure, mechanical destruction.
Ryn lifted the gun and casually blew the smoke away from the muzzle.
"That," Ryn said, "is what I call a pass."