Amie laid out the clay for frames, while Dominic formed clay to make new cylinders. Instead of six shots, these would only hold five, but that allowed them to be smaller, for an overall less bulky weapon.

Reloading slightly more often was a drawback for a revolver, which already had limited ammunition. But most things didn’t take five shots to die, much less six.

The young mage watched carefully as Dominic customized a pair of pistols for her hands, and then handed him a piece of elephant tusk to make handles.

"Ivory will look good. Don’t worry about the sockets, the spell gems are too large for the smaller weapons." She explained.

Dominic nodded, and then took the time to add a few decorative details to the frames before he cast the [Clay to Steel] spell.

Then, he quickly assembled the weapons and carved the grips to test fit them before enchanting.

They would have to be removed for what came next, but before he started the enchanting, Dominic assembled the ten pistols from the last batch of castings so that he had top-tier weapons to offer the adventurers.

He put away the bucket of oil he had been using, and took out a bucket that had a level twenty Ogre Core ground into it.

He could tell already that his headache was going to be a migraine by morning, but he slowly portioned the bucket into twelve smaller containers and saturated all of them with mana for the process.

Amie wondered why he needed all twelve ready at once instead of doing them one after another, as he usually did. But she didn’t ask any questions as Dominic carved a few final details into the pistols and then stepped back from the forge.

"Stand behind me for a second." He instructed.

Amie moved so she was technically behind him, but still had a clear view of the forge. She wasn’t going to miss this process when it was clearly different from what she was used to seeing.

Dominic took a deep breath, and then the forge filled with dragon fire.

The heat singed her eyebrows, and she quickly dumped water over her head covering, so her hair didn’t burn.

She had to close her eyes against the heat, and so missed what came next. But she could hear the pistols being dropped into buckets, and then Dominic cursing as he realized that he had scorched his own clothes by using [Dragon Flame] indoors.

But the pistols were finished, except for the need to attach the Ivory handles to the ones made for Amie.

"Sorry about that. I forgot how intense that gets indoors."

It was actually much more intense than he remembered. Twice, possibly three times as intense, in fact.

However, the results were beautiful.

[Dragon Breath Revolver of Swiftness] Rare Grade, Level 20. Adds fire damage to all attacks, increases attack speed, 1 mana per shot to reload.

While Amie recovered, and bemoaned the loss of her eyebrows, Dominic attached the handles to her new revolvers, and then flipped all the window covers on the forge open to let the heat out.

"You are insane." She noted.

"But in the fun way. Here you go. I hope you have a particularly bountiful hunting excursion because those are not cheap." Dominic agreed.

Amie stared at the two gleaming silver pistols in her hands, with their bright white pearl grips. There was no question about it. Those two weapons were worth more than everything else that she had ever owned, combined.

"And you plan to sell these?" She asked, gesturing to the others.

"Well, I will keep two, they’re shiny. But that leaves me eight of them to sell."

He had already made mana revolvers at this quality for himself, but they had taken much more work, as he couldn’t use Clay to Steel well enough at that time, and they gave mana on hit, instead of adding fire damage.

The others were sure to sell. He could give Bella a discount on a pair, and there were other gunslingers among the Adventurers. At least one or two of them would want a Rare Grade mana revolver.

Amie shook her head. Unless they had rare items to trade, a level twenty rare grade pistol could buy an entire Merchant Caravan, including the contracts for the guards for the season.

Expecting some random adventurer from the Guild to buy one was completely unreasonable.

But that appeared to be Dominic’s default state of mind. He didn’t understand market pricing at all. There were no weapons like this on the market, so they were virtually priceless and irreplaceable.

Even if you wanted to commission another one, you could travel entire countries without finding a craftsman capable.

"You should save those for visiting Royals. They’re... unaffordable." She suggested.

"Oh, that’s a great idea. I will sell them to the Royals. They can afford them, and they can get good stuff that nobody else has, like new Rare Grade blueprints. I have gotten a few rare blueprints as drops in the past, but they’re challenging to come by. Brilliant suggestion."

From the back porch of the Manor, Elder Manif and Alexis listened as the faint voices from the forge carried through the still night air.

"Your Highness, you might be the luckiest woman on the planet." The Elder whispered.

"How so?"

"You’re the only person in the world who is guaranteed never to be set against him. Have you identified those pistols in Acolyte Amie’s hands?" He replied quietly.

Alexis shook her head.

"They’re level twenty rare grade weapons."

Alexis smiled. "The same as he made for the Royal Guard, only theirs are rifles, and the pistols they carry are uncommon. It appears that your young Acolyte is in deep debt to the Duke."

Elder Manif scoffed. "Young Acolyte, my ass. That is a tiny monster in human skin."

Alexis decided not to follow up on that comment. If the Elder believed that it was safe enough to let her work with Dominic, then she was trustworthy. She also didn’t sense any sort of romantic interest from either of them, and the little mage wasn’t the flirty sort, so she didn’t object.

But seeing the girl staring lovingly at her new weapons, Alexis could understand what the Elder meant.

Just like Dominic, there was something broken in that girl’s mind.

If they were going out hunting together, she would have to ensure that someone was with them so that the pair didn’t go feral in battle and wander away.