Vicente was in his training room hours later, finishing another hour of practice with his hammer.
After doing so, Vicente suddenly felt a different sensation in his body. He once again felt as if restraining chains had been quickly removed from him.
He ignored the muscle fatigue he usually felt when he had to train with the hammer and looked at the last piece of ore waiting for him to use it.
As the glowing red pentagram appeared in front of one of his hands, Vice focused all of the mana in his body on the approximately 150-kilogram piece of rock.
In an instant, he felt the weight of extracting metal from a piece of ore. Still, this sensation was much lighter than the one he had felt a few days ago when he had done it for the first time under Benson’s supervision.
Feeling a tremendous weight, but more than 80% weaker than the one he had felt that day under Benson’s supervision, Vicente quickly moved the metal particles in the ore into the center of the stone.
The stone violently shook as he did so, cracking at every corner and making noises loud enough to be heard by people outside the house.
After two minutes, Vicente saw the stone collapse in front of him, this time in a very different way than the first time in front of Benson. Instead of the stone splitting into two halves with a metal ball in the middle, the stone broke into more than 30 small pieces. In contrast, a large ball with a radius of 60 centimeters floated in the air.
Vice saw the remains of the mineral fall to the ground and looked at the metal object, which contained three different metals.
Noticing this, Vice quickly separated them into pure metal bars before flying them to the corner of this area, where several bars of different colors were gathered in six different piles.
These were the metals that Vicente had been accumulating since he began this special training Benson showed him, metals he had been saving for the moment he reached the peak of his first stage as a blacksmith.
Vicente was curious about making a new weapon, but being tired, he decided to meditate first and recover the mana he had used up in the last hour.
After feeling that his regenerated power was getting stronger and stronger, approaching the middle of the Senior Apprentice level, he didn’t hesitate to create some of those metal bars.
He quickly produced each component of a long-range rifle, forming them according to the new techniques he had learned, but much faster than he had done in front of Benson days ago.
Vicente also created some new bullets until 5 minutes after he finished his rest, he took the pieces of his gun and quickly connected them, forming a beautiful black rifle about 1.5 meters long.
This weapon was heavy, weighing about 15 kilograms.
But in the hands of a 1st-grade blacksmith, its weight felt like that of a pen.
Vicente picked it up and pointed it in the direction of the rifle scope he had in the training area. But when he assessed his weapon and saw the level it had reached, he didn’t have the heart to fire it from where he was.
Gulp!
‘If I do that, I’ll bring down the house and attract the attention of the local experts.’ He thought as he felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead.
But seeing that the weapon was nearly 100% efficient, Vicente felt it could withstand the full power of Senior Apprentices like him.
He quickly put it in a box and left.
…
After a few minutes, Vicente noticed someone following him as he left Millfall to test his weapon.
After noticing this, he increased his speed towards the forest on the outskirts of town until he was on a tree.
Vicente realized that the man watching him had momentarily lost sight of him and quickly lay down on a log, pointing his weapon in the direction he had come.
‘Let’s see who you are…’ He thought as he focused his mana into one of his eyes, keeping the other closed as he looked ahead.
Seeing a movement of leaves about a kilometer ahead, Vice moved his weapon and loaded it with ammunition.
‘Is it an assassin?’ He worried, but since he knew it was a level 3 Acolyte, he wouldn’t fight him directly to ask.
He would still have a hard time fighting level 3 Acolytes, so with a clean shot at such an opponent, Vice didn’t hold back in testing his new weapon. He put 90% of his mana in the weapon and pulled the trigger when the target was in the rifle’s sight.
BOOOOM!
A sound similar to a cannonball being fired came from Vicente’s gun as a six-inch bullet departed from the barrel of Vicente’s rifle.
This bullet rotated on its axis as it flew forward, glowing in seven different colors as it appeared to be on fire.
The air around it exploded as it flew, creating a rather distinctive sound that spread thousands of feet from the shot.
Vicente barely saw the bullet move. One moment, he was pulling the trigger of his gun. The next, the bullet hit the enemy’s neck.
When it hit the body of that level 3 Acolyte, the man chasing Vicente had no chance to scream or react. The bullet pierced his neck, destroying that part of his body until his body continued to run forward, his head spinning in the air, detached from his moving corpse.
Vicente saw the power of his shot and was impressed, noting that although he had misfired a little, he had succeeded with the destructive power of his weapon.
‘Phew! It had destroyed his entire neck, even the lower part of his head, and the upper part of his chest!’
He continued to look in that direction with only one eye, seeing what the rest of his body looked like for a second before he stopped moving properly and ‘flipped’ dozens of times across the ground, destroying several trees in the surrounding area.
Seeing that his enemy was dead, Vicente smiled and got up from where he was, looking at the gun in his hands with joy.
When he saw the smoke coming from the gun barrel, he closed his eyes and inhaled it.
“Ah, I love this feeling!”
With that, he walked towards the corpse, noticing that there was no one else in the area.
His expression quickly changed when he reached the headless body as he realized where this person had come from.
“Shit!”
‘The damned Symons family!’
He swallowed his saliva as he realized who was following him, feeling cold sweat drip down his back. .
Afraid of being associated with this death, he quickly destroyed this person’s entire body and left immediately after, ensuring he would return to Millfall without being seen by anyone else.
Fearing that this would lead to complications for his group, Vicente returned to his house, anxious to produce weapons so that his group would have something to count on in case the powerful Symons family turned against them.
‘Hell! Why did that bastard come after me?’
If remorse could kill, Vicente would definitely be between life and death right now!
Unfortunately, the milk had been spilled, and now he could only use what he had to contain the damage!
‘Shit! I’ll make about 10 weapons like this, and I’ll send them to Rory. Then I’ll go to Benson. If I can get the resources I need, I can produce weapons like this with 100% efficiency.’
According to Vicente’s calculations, even though his weapon could withstand the power of a Senior Apprentice, it was still only 91% efficient.
If his top Senior Apprentices used all of their power on this new rifle version, it would probably still be damaged, even though it could withstand a lot of the power of such people.
With this in mind, Vicente was eager to get his license from the Blacksmiths’ Association, an essential step for him to reach the peak of the 1st stage in his forging skills.
…
While Vicente was on his way, Marcus heard that someone had come to visit his beautiful fiancée this morning.
“Who is this bastard? Who dares to approach my fiancée?” He asked aloud to the man who had just told him about it after he left his training room.
“I don’t know yet, young master. But one of our men is already after this person, while others of us are investigating his identity.
By the end of the next day, we’ll have his name.” The man from earlier said.
“Very well. Find out who the bastard is. After that, I want you to bring him to me. I’ll teach him his place!” Marcus said, feeling his blood boiling and wanting to crush whoever it was.
He thought he’d made it clear to the local brats that none of them were to be around Shelby. But as it turned out, he had to show them who was boss in this town once again!