Forged Legacy

Chapter 133 - Every Shot Stronger Than the Last

Jagged splinters erupted from the oak tree, his bullet creating a deep crater in the trunk. The unexpected force almost made him drop the gun, barely holding on with two fingers at the edge of the grip.

“Holy!” Harvey yelped. He was lucky that church was seemingly never-ending here in the trial. Otherwise, dozens of faces would be peering out of windows or running to their yards to see what the commotion was.

[So powerful!]

Harvey put the still-smoking gun in his spatial ring and made a beeline for the garage. He knew he was probably already being watched by the many gargoyles atop the belltowers, but didn’t want to explain himself to any angels flying over to investigate. As the rolling garage door rumbled closed behind him, he moved back to his workbench and let his eyes adjust to the dim light shining through a window.

Before anything else, I need to finish the grip.

[I don’t think that’s going to be enough. Your hammer has those kinetic absorption arrays, right? Could you do something like that with the gun?]

Aftershock isn’t absorbing explosions…

His initial thought was to dismiss the idea, but it started to make sense the more he thought about it. The problem was finding a good way to release the energy productively. Dampening and absorption alone would be fine for a shot or two, but they could only absorb so much before the runes filled with dangerous amounts of energy.

Aftershock solved that problem by releasing it all in bursts of lightning, but Harvey wasn’t planning on pistol-whipping anyone. Theoretically, he could transform the energy into some sort of projectile or healing burst, but that would only act as an exhaust valve rather than improving the weapon.

If possible, he wanted every array he inscribed to provide the best possible improvement his equipment could withstand. With the hundreds of runes he knew and millions he didn’t, it just didn’t make sense to waste essence conductivity and space on a bad fit.

Improving something starts with understanding how it works. What does a gun actually do?

[Blow holes in people.]

Not that, Harvey scoffed internally. Essentially, it provides a framework that can ignite an explosion, then direct the resulting force to push a bullet towards a target. Every other detail is all about doing that one thing better.

[So we need to find a place where essence can improve those mechanics?]

Exactly.

Harvey mulled it over for a long time, looking through the materials in his spatial ring and past experiences for inspiration. Aftershock plopped onto the workbench, and he traced his fingers over the intricate array he’d painted weeks earlier. His mind lingered on one of the fire resonance crystals scattered in a rainbow mound inside his ring.

A bullet is just a chunk of metal packed with explosives. What if we make the explosion bigger?

At once, his plan clicked into place. He’d ring the barrel with arrays to capture the recoil, converting it into fire that would flood the chamber the instant the hammer struck the firing pin. Every shot would feed the next, driving the bullets faster and faster.

[Should make the bullet fly faster. I think it’s a good idea]

The two got to work. Harvey still had the ink for the first half from previous experiments with the concept, so all he needed was the fire ink. Campfire and Wildfire ink wouldn’t cut it for this array, but he had plenty of fire resonance crystals. Bleeding himself again so soon would make him a little woozy, but he already knew there wouldn’t be an attack today since the System seemed to respect the concept of the Sabbath.

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Plopping the inkwell on the table, he wrapped his hand around a knife. Warmth trickled down his palm just as the door to the house swung open.

“Harvey? Mom wants AHHHH!” Eleanor shrieked when she saw the bloody knife. “What are you doing?”

“Hey! Nothing, I’m just…”

“I know things are a little crazy right now, but cutting isn’t the answer!” she continued, rushing over to try and snatch the blade from his hand. He could feel her straining as hard as she could, the tendons on her forearms bulging from her skinny frame. Harvey stayed steady as a rock, his F Grade Strength easily overpowering a few measly profession levels.

“Calm down, Ellie,” Harvey laughed. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“You’re not slicing yourself to fill a creepy cauldron with blood like some edgy demonic witch?”

“Ok, maybe it is what it looks like,” he conceded. “It’s not demonic though. I just need to infuse my blood with a few of these fire crystals so I can finish inscribing my gun.”

Eleanor stared at him with a blank look, confusion briefly overpowering her panic. “What the heck does any of that mean?”

“Blood need rock so gun boom bigger. Geez, how did you get into law school when you barely understand English?” Harvey mocked.

“Shut up!” she scoffed. “Mom and Dad want everyone in the living room for a family meeting.”

“Why are you telling me? We’re in our 20’s now, sis.”

“You’re so annoying,” she huffed, turning back towards the door.

“I’ll be there in a minute, I can’t really stop now that I’ve started,” Harvey assured.

“Mom! He can’t pause his weird magic crap!” Eleanor shouted.

“It’s like those stupid video games all over again,” he heard the muffled voice of his mother sigh in the distance.

Harvey just laughed, cutting deeper into his palm as the inkwell roared to life. Fiery hues of orange and red danced within the dice-sized crystal, emitting a subtle glow that reminded him of the mine back in Veils End. Those essence crystals were a pure power source. Completely unattuned as far as he could tell. This was different in that the energy within was almost exclusively that of raging flames.

Dropping two into the cauldron, the war of wills began. Unlike the dragon, which carried the natural survival instincts of a once living being, the will of the resonance crystals was nothing more than the base nature of the energy within. The firestorm tried to consume his blood, the bowl, and every atom of oxygen trapped beneath the barrier sealing the inkwell from the outside world. Its hunger disappeared as Harvey and Julius suppressed it, once again infusing the Imprint of the Tempered Heart to turn his blood into the iron that would contain the raging inferno until it could be turned on his enemies.

It only took a few minutes for the duo to weave the raging sea of red into his blood, at which point the inkwell flickered, and he poured his creation into a bottle.

Item: Inferno Ink | F Grade | Uncommon

Ink mixed from the blood of Harvey Thorne and fire resonance crystals. Legacy and Will have greatly condensed the flaming essence within, letting the pressure build until it can erupt into an all-consuming inferno.

Resonances: Fire, Pressure

Recommended Inscriptions: Flame Burst, Fire transmutation

Perfect, Harvey smiled. His family wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer, right? He had to be close to another Profession level, and finishing the last inscriptions on the revolver might be just the push he needed to hit Level 42.

Tiny feet slapped against the tile, and he saw his little brother standing shirtless in the doorway, sipping applesauce from a pouch. “Hi, Harvey.”

“Did Mom send you to come get me?”

Max just nodded, staring at him for a few seconds before suddenly realizing the garage looked completely different. Bewilderment almost made him drop his applesauce as he walked up to the Workbench.

“What doing?”

“Making some paint for my art project later,” Harvey answered as he stood up and grabbed his brother’s hand.

“I paint too?”

“Sure, buddy. We can get you some,” Harvey chuckled. Pulling Max back inside before he could get into trouble, the two washed their hands before finding an open seat on the living room couch. His parents, brother, and sister were all still wearing their church clothes, making Harvey wonder just how long the sessions were now that they’d reached Heaven’s free trial. Without a sun to help, keeping track of time was impossible.

“How nice of you to join us! You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a hole in our tree, would you?” Cassandra asked.

“There’s a hole in the tree?” Harvey gasped, grabbing the leather armrest and lunging to his feet. “They aren’t supposed to have those!”

“I know! How did it get there?”

“No idea. For I have been sequestered in my workshop, toiling away all the morn,” Harvey sputtered, ramping up his terrible Shakespearean accent to a 10.

“Quit fooling around,” Steve commanded.

“I shot it with my new gun,” Harvey obliged.

“Oh my lord,” his mother sighed.

“What? I needed to test it out, and it was the only good target I could find!”

“This really isn’t a great time, Harvey,” his dad urged. Something in his voice made him shoot right down, sitting at attention. Coming home had helped him let loose again, but the look on the others’ faces showed they were all too scared for jokes.

“I’m sorry,” he replied somberly. “What’s going on?

“I think we need to talk about what we heard at church today, and what we’re going to do about it moving forward,” Cassandra said.