Over the next four days, the weapons began to pile up in Dominic’s storage ring.

The soldiers who needed them were out of town already, and there hadn’t been a merchant caravan to sell the pistols to.

Amie had been a great help in the forge, and now she was handling almost everything related to the clay, with Dominic only stepping in for the [Clay to Steel] transformation, and any custom alterations that they wanted to make to the pieces.

"Can you make other weapons? Or did you train exclusively as a gunsmith?" Amie asked one afternoon as they took their lunch break.

"I was Pops’ apprentice and worked in the Cygnia Royal Weapon Forge. I can make tools, frying pans, even swords, spears and war hammers. It’s just that there aren’t many who can make guns, and a bit of draconic lineage really helps the process.

You see, I don’t have to precisely follow the formula to make things work. There is no construction ritual or need to build magic by layers as I assemble the weapons to get more complex effects.

There also is a much lower chance that I will fail.

That’s why the Royal Forge uses mana oil for all the apprentices. It’s something that they can do without needing any magical aptitude. The Journeymen in the city usually focus on higher grade and higher level pieces in low quantity.

I suppose you could say that I take the apprentice approach with rifles as well.

By the end of the day, I’ll have a hundred of them ready to distribute to the troops, all uncommon quality, which is the best of what the forge apprentices turn out.

That will probably be enough for our purposes, and then we can focus either on fancy stuff or something for the higher Nobles and the Elders of the Sect.

Was there anything that the Duskblade Sect was still short on?"

Amie smiled as she heard Dominic’s question. "There are always things that the Elders want. But they’ve been focused on getting the school ready.

I bet that if we called one over here, they would trade something good for one of these pistols we’ve been making. I know that you said that the Merchants’ Guild likes to buy them all, but the mages are going to love them.

Mana Pistols are somewhat rare, especially in the desert. But being able to shoot targets that charge you while you’re casting would be a huge benefit."

Dominic laughed. "It’s good the other way around as well. Shooting mages halfway through a grand invocation makes life a whole lot easier. Even the Royal Guards have started to use the tactic.

It probably wouldn’t be as effective against battle mages like the ones in the Duskblade Sect, who have trained in physical combat. But against academic mages, it’s glorious."

Amie laughed. "You know, the Sect jokes about that all the time. The academics have so much book knowledge, but no common sense. Most of them don’t even wear armour or train in how to handle weapons.

It’s like it never occurred to them that nobody was going to give them time to cast their grand spells.

The Sect doesn’t often get missions to deal with renegade mages, they’re less common than missions for a simple assassination or monster control. But nomadic Sects are always in competition with each other, and until we’re fully settled here, there is still the chance that someone will challenge for our right to operate the tower."

Dominic shrugged. "I am not against allowing another mage tower to go up. But there is no motivation for me to allow a challenge to the school when we have a perfectly good working relationship."

They were almost finished for the day when Elder Manif knocked at the door to the forge and waved at Amie.

"So that’s where you’ve gotten to lately. I had come to chat with Duke Dominic if he has a minute." The Elder explained.

"Come and take a seat. We’re just cleaning up for the evening." Dominic greeted him as he cleaned and polished a mana revolver.

The first thing that he noticed was that the Elder looked particularly uncomfortable with Amie handling the revolver, but she was quite proficient, and the weapon was unloaded.

So, it was more likely who than the how that was causing his nervousness.

After working with her for most of a week, Dominic had long suspected that Amie was not nearly as young as she looked, and not just because of the fully corrupted state of her trade skill core.

Seeing Elder Manif’s response to her lovingly polishing a revolver was the final confirmation needed that his new assistant was much more dangerous than she let on.

Elder Manif cleared his throat. "Right, where was I? Ah, I was hoping that you would be interested in trading some of your mana revolvers for personal tutoring. I am told that you never found time for proper training in your magical skills, and that you were interested in Materia gem creation."

Dominic smiled. "Most definitely. Particularly, the common gems for magitech orbs and creating spell gems. I know that the Sect has no problem supplying them, but it would make my life much easier if I could make what I needed for my experiments with Magitech."

Elder Manif nodded and took out a book. "Learning to create them isn’t hard. Do you know how to make Mana Crystals?"

"Yeah, the Second Prince of Cygnia taught me that much, but we haven’t seen each other since then to continue the lessons."

The Elder smiled softly. "Well, I won’t pretend to be as skilled as that particular Archmage. The second prince of Cygnia has accomplished more in the field of magic than any of the Elders, despite being a century younger than most.

However, I can teach you how to make the Materia Gems, as well as common magical gems for your Engineering. [Gem Creation] is a simple spell, though at lower levels the number of flaws in the synthetic gems is exceptionally high, and it may take dozens of tries to get a usable one."

Dominic shrugged. "Well, I can work around that. Just knowing how to do it is half the battle."