Chapter 254 - Genesis

Looking at the item, Shiro sighed in relief. She had concerns that her technique may not be as good as before but her worries were for naught. As long as her mana control was good, she could essentially brute force her way through the process.

Storing the item away, she disassembled the alchemy table.

"Now then, with that out of the way, it's time for weapon manufacture." She grinned. Since she was going to the elven continent that was potentially filled with level 100 enemies, she had to make sure her weapons were up to date.

It was clear that she couldn't rely on her sniper all the time since it only showed its true power if she aimed at someone for a long period of time. Outside of that, it was weaker than her shotgun.

The problem with this was that she was in a slightly awkward spot. Her level was too high for the conventional guns to be useful but she was too low levelled for the high tech guns to be within reach.

But, it wasn't as if she was completely out of ideas. She could move parts around and upgrade her pistols but that had its own risks. It was akin to installing a motor on a bike. Depending on how powerful the motor was, it could break the bike easily if one was not careful.

Flexing her fingers, she created the normal hand cannons that she would use. It was in its base form and had no modifications such as mana coils.

A normal hand cannon that she created right now was enough to heavily wound a level 60 boss such as the thunder lord but couldn't kill it. The gun would need some modifications before it could compare to her physical strength with all of her strength enhancing skills stacked on top of one another.

'I could change it into a Rail Cannon type hand cannon but it would become too bulky. In that case, I should just make a shotgun. But that's not what I want. I need something that's small and fast. While it can't do as much damage as the shotgun or sniper, it should be something that can take care of small fry or anyone within a few levels of me. Nothing less.' She thought to herself.

The second option that she had was to capitalise entirely on the fact that her current race and class had a huge affinity with elements.

She had a skill that could fuse elements with her nanobots but that was only a temporary buff that wouldn't last for long. She needed something similar to a skill component that would enhance her weapons.

'Right now, I have six elements that I can use. Fusing glacial would only slow them down and freeze a small portion. Depending on the potency of my ice after fusing, it would either become extremely helpful or useless.'

Should she use her glacial element, the best situation would be one where the bullet froze their body and remaining force shatter that ice, taking out a chunk of their flesh. But that was the BEST case scenario.

If their resistance was high, unless it was ice that summoned straight from her hands, it would barely affect them.

Lighting, on the other hand, would increase speed and penetration power. But the problem was that to fully utilise the lightning with a charging chamber, the hand cannon would simply be too chunky to use properly.

'Metal might work if I focus on reinforcing the hardness of the bullet and its sharpness. But the downside would be that the bullet may become quite heavy.'

This left Shadow, Dark Star and Light element.

Shadow was enhanced by Calamity's will so it contained a corrosion effect as well. A perfect candidate for eating away at her enemy's armour. But, it wasn't enough to kill them in one hit.

Dark Star was similar to shadow was that was also set aside. Which meant that only light was left.

The main problem with this is that light didn't have enough 'weight' behind it to penetrate the armour. Sure it is also very hot but should they have reflective material or resistances to magic, her light bullets would be rendered ineffective.

"Wait a minute, what if I fused my gun with race skills and element skills? If I can find the right balance, I'll have a weapon that is the result of fusing the benefits of both my classes." Shiro muttered with a smile.

Glancing through her skills, she realised that she only had one race skill that was suitable for the current predicament.

Fae Illusions.

A skill that can make physical illusions. If she were to use this, she could reverse the element that appears along with changing the location of her bullet to trick her enemy.

But there was one more fearsome usage that could completely change the fight.

Invisibility. If she was to erase her bullet's presence using this skill, it would become the best sneak attack. One that was undetectable.

"If I wanted to enhance this, I'll use shadow element to increase the stealth and add a corrosive side effect. Hmm… I can probably also incorporate another element if I was careful…" She muttered and started to tinker away at her hand cannon.

Creating skill ch.i.p.s along with several intricate components, she spent the next few hours estimating the balance she needed in the gun for it to work at optimal power.

Too much or too little of a component would cause the entire gun to malfunction. In essence, she was creating a new blueprint for a weapon. Unlike the other blueprints that she had stored in her database, this wasn't refined by countless scientists nor was it tested time and time again to ensure that it works.

She had to do all of that by herself. A tedious process but one that ignited the creativity within Shiro's heart.

While Shiro was completely immersed in her work, Lisandra used this time to practice condensing her mana. When she saw Lyrica's performance, despite being buffed by Silvia, she saw that Lyrica's mana control was much better than her's.

Lyrica could condense her mana into a thin blade that increased her cutting power by several folds. While she could do the same, Lisandra knew that the sharpness of her mana blade was inferior to Lyrica's.

Her pride as a level 60 made it impossible for her to take this sitting down and thus, urged her to improve her mana control at a greater pace than before.

Without even knowing it, Shiro had sparked a rivalry between Lyrica and Lisandra, one that would push Lisandra to greater heights.

As for Yin… she was just eating mana crystals. She learned absolutely nothing.

3 hours later, Shiro had completed the first prototype.

"Unnamed Hand Cannon Mark 1. Where shall I test it?" Shiro muttered and looked around. In the end, she decided to do it in the room. Pressing her palm against the wall, she layered the walls under several layers of mana barriers and ice to increase its hardness.

Creating a metal target, she aimed her hand cannon and pressed the trigger.

*BANG!!!!!

"Ah..."

Looking down on her hand, she saw that the gun and blown up and completely eradicated her hand.

"Well sh*t." She muttered, activating life fire and regenerated her hand.

Scratching her head, she sighed and sat back down to tinker away at the hand cannon.

Mark 2 – Failure.

Calibrations regarding the charging chamber were too weak.

Mark 3 – Failure.

Overall chassis couldn't hold the power. Must lower the power stored or increase the power of the chassis.

Mark 4 – Failure….

Mark 5 – Failure…

Mark 6…

Mark..

As she continued to experiment, two days had passed.

"Hais…. Unnamed Hand Cannon Mark 251. Testing." She sighed tiredly. Despite her excitement, it was still frustrating to constantly make tweaks only for it to not work in the end.

Pressing the trigger, she half expected it to blow up and launch shrapnel's at her face much like Mark 149. That one caused her to almost throw the gun out the window in anger as it had targeted her face.

*BANG! CRACK!

Widening her eyes, she looked at the metal dummies that had been eradicated.

". . . mark 251 success." She muttered as her lips curved into a smile.

"All that's left is to find the golden ratio and enhance its power to the limit."

Thankfully, this only lasted a few hours.

"It's done." She smiled.

The gun was coloured a metallic dark grey with deep red energy flowing through the gaps. An energy chamber could be seen along the side of the barrel while the bullet chamber had mana circuits carved into the surface which enhanced the bullet's power.

"Since this is a new weapon made from a combination of both classes, I'll name you Genesis." Shiro grinned and caressed the gun softly.

[Genesis LVL 60 Hybrid Hand Cannon – Orange]