Magical Items and Charms

"You've had this gun for at least two years, haven't you? And you haven't maintained it. The rifling is nearly worn smooth—it's practically a smoothbore now. The action and hammer are rusted too. That will seriously affect its accuracy and might even cause the barrel to burst. As someone who uses guns, you can't possibly not know that, can you?"

Old Neil, dressed in a Black Robe, still sat beside his mottled desk, holding Angel's .45-caliber Revolver. He opened the cylinder, aimed the chambers toward the Gas Lamp on the wall, and peered down the barrel.

Angel sat across from him. Seeing her weapon criticized as worthless, she hurriedly defended herself.

"This gun was secondhand. It was already like this when I got it. If it had been new, I would have maintained it properly. I never would have let it get this bad."

"What I mean is, you should have come to replace it sooner."

Old Neil set down the Revolver, glanced at Angel, and suddenly squeezed a trace of a smile onto his stern face.

"When you run out of bullets, come collect more. And don't use your guns until they're in this condition. The others replace their guns two or three times a year. Most of the old weapons we take back are practically as good as new. Guns, like bullets, are consumables. Consumables!"

He emphasized the last word.

Angel's lips moved as if she had a thousand things to say, but in the end, all that came out was, "You're right."

She had come to Blackthorn Security Company early that morning. Besides reporting in at headquarters as Dunn Smith required every day, her most important reason was to replace her Revolver.

She had thought she would be given a hard time over it, but Dunn had readily approved her request to change guns. He had even offered to equip her with a Nighthawks badge and apply for a Weapon Usage Permit for her.

"Miss Granger, you wouldn't want to be stopped and questioned by a police officer while carrying a gun on the street, would you?"

Dunn had asked Angel that while writing the approval slip.

Pushing the strange thought from her mind, she handed over the slip in her hand. "One .45-caliber Revolver, forty bullets of the same caliber, and one Special Operations Department badge."

"When you came to collect bullets last time, I was already a little curious. Why does a girl like you use such a large-caliber Revolver?" Old Neil asked with a smile as he accepted the slip. He did not immediately head to the armory for the items.

"I believe pistols are essentially close-range weapons. Power and stopping power are more important." Angel answered honestly. That was why she had kept using the Revolver Cole Granger had left behind instead of replacing it with a smaller-caliber Revolver with moderate power and a six- or even seven-round cylinder.

"Mm, a very standard answer. Still, I'd prefer all of you to use weapons of the same caliber. That makes it easier for you to resupply each other with ammunition in combat, and it makes things easier for me, the one managing the armory."

Old Neil waved the slip in his hand and turned through the iron door behind him. Before long, he returned with a brand-new pistol, two boxes of bullets, and an iron badge about half the size of a palm.

The badge bore silver lettering reading "Ahova County Police Department" and "Special Operations Division Seventh Team," surrounding the Crossed Swords Flanking Crown emblem representing the police system.

The new Revolver was more finely made than Angel's old one. Its wooden grip had been carefully polished and was engraved with the Police Badge as well. Its metal parts gleamed under the swaying Gas Lamp light.

One box contained ordinary Pistol Bullets, while the other contained Demon Hunter Bullets, packed in a paper box and an iron box respectively, just as before.

After accepting the items, Angel signed her name in the record book Old Neil handed her, completing the handover.

"Will the old weapon be destroyed or stored away?" Angel asked curiously when she saw Old Neil place her old Revolver into a box beneath the desk.

"Usually, we send them to the Tingen City police for disposal at regular intervals. They dismantle and destroy the weapons to prevent them from reaching civilians or even ending up in the Underground Trading Market. Civilian weapons are already everywhere, but the procedure still has to be followed."

Old Neil kicked the box containing the reclaimed weapons as he answered.

"Of course, weapons damaged during the Beyonder incidents we handle are excluded. Sometimes, these weapons become contaminated with Beyonder powers, or even turn into Beyonder Items or Magical Items themselves. Giving them to ordinary people would be very dangerous. The Church has specialists responsible for dealing with them."

Angel caught the key point in Old Neil's words. "Magical Items?"

"Any item will likely turn into an object containing extraordinary power as long as it remains in contact with an Extraordinary Characteristic for a long time. We call this type of item a Magical Item. Even accidental contact with Spirituality Materials, or even a Beyonder's body parts, can result in an Extraordinary Weapon possessed of spiritual power."

Leaning back in his chair, Old Neil spoke slowly in the tone of a teacher.

"Most of these items are merely contaminated with power and cannot be used. But a small portion acquires an Extraordinary Characteristic and becomes a Magical Item with that characteristic. I hear there are Artisans within the Church who can deliberately create such combinations using ordinary Beyonder Ingredients, turning ordinary weapons into Extraordinary Weapons with Beyonder abilities."

Filtering out the tongue-twisting terminology and concepts, Angel seized on the key point in Old Neil's explanation: Extraordinary Weapons.

Then where could she buy one—she almost blurted it out.

Old Neil winked and said with a smile, "You want to ask where you can get one of those weapons, right? Every Nighthawk who has heard me talk about Extraordinary Weapons has asked the same thing."

"My answer is, you can't."

"As far as I know, all the Official Extraordinary in Tingen City put together couldn't scrape up a single Extraordinary Weapon—ah, Heart of Machinery is different. They have Artisans of their own and can make weapons with slightly weaker effects, but far less danger as well. Maybe you could try your luck at the Underground Market by spending a fortune, or find an Artisan from the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery to make one for you."

Filled with disappointment, Angel picked up the brand-new Revolver on the table and sighed. "Then it looks like I can only use an ordinary Revolver. At least it's free."

Old Neil immediately laughed. "I like young people who can find joy in hardship."

"But aside from Extraordinary Weapons, there are other simple and... inexpensive ways to improve your combat ability."

Seeing Angel's disappointment, Old Neil added this after all.

He reached into the inner pocket of his robe, felt around, and took out a small piece of Silver, handing it to her.

Angel accepted it and examined it closely.

The Silver piece was very thin, with Hermes Language incantations carved into both sides. This was a language commonly used in mystical rituals. Complex script and symbolic Symbols overlapped and intertwined, covering the entire surface of the Silver piece.

Simply holding it, she felt a profound, tranquil, mysterious power, much like what she felt when praying to the Goddess at the Goddess of the Night Church.

"This is a Slumber Charm. Just speak the activation incantation you've set for it—this one is 'Evernight' in Ancient Hermes Language—then pour spirituality into it to trigger it. Its effect is to make nearby people fall asleep, similar to Leonard's Beyonder ability."

Remembering how Leonard Mitchell had recited poetry during his battle with Mrs. Sharon, making people drowsy, Angel nodded in understanding. This should have originated from the same source as the Sleepless, perhaps even directly from the Goddess of the Night's power.

These pre-made charms could indeed greatly improve one's combat ability, because they were practically recreations of a particular Sequence's Beyonder abilities. Even if they had no offensive power themselves, using them unexpectedly could instantly tip the scales in an otherwise evenly matched battle.

Even if the Slumber Charm could not directly put Beyonders to sleep, as long as it could disrupt an opponent's thoughts for one or two seconds, it could play an enormous role in combat between Beyonders.

"The method for making charms is simple, similar to the process of making your special bullets. Carve the incantation onto a base material and infuse it with spirituality. They don't retain their effects for long, usually only one or two weeks, but once the effect expires, you can reactivate them by infusing spirituality again."

"You already have experience making special bullets, so I won't teach you from the basics. Take this charm. Choose suitable materials and copy the incantation on it, and you'll be able to make charms with the same effect."

"Thank you, Mr. Neil." Angel had not expected such an unexpected gain and hurriedly thanked him.

"It's only some basic mystical knowledge. As it happens, I need to teach the new Mr. Klein Moretti these things too, after Divination. Mm, you can study together."

Klein Moretti... He had only drunk the potion in the Alchemy Room next door this week and become a Beyonder...

Angel recalled the moment she had watched him drink the potion that day. Over the past two days, she had been busy making Storm Convergence bullets and constantly worrying whether all this was a test from the Nighthawks, so she had not seen this new neighbor again.

Knock, knock—

Someone knocked on the door. Both of them turned toward it, and a half-height top hat poked through the crack, followed by the face of a young man with short black hair.

"Sorry, did I just hear my own name?"

The newcomer was none other than Klein Moretti, whom Old Neil had just been discussing.

"Ah, we were just talking about you. I was planning to find some time to teach you how to make charms, and Miss Granger is interested too." Old Neil showed no embarrassment at being caught talking about someone behind his back. "Did you come to collect bullets for practice?"

Klein had already pushed the door open and walked in. Hearing that, he nodded. "Yes, sorry to trouble you, Mr. Neil. Same as usual, thirty ordinary Pistol Bullets."

"Alright, wait a moment." Old Neil got up again and went to the armory behind him to fetch the bullets.

"Practice?" Angel looked at Klein standing by the door and asked curiously.

The young man, dressed in a black vest and wearing a top hat, smiled as he explained, "A task from the captain. He told me to become familiar with using a pistol as quickly as possible. I collect thirty bullets every day to practice at the shooting range."

Holding her newly acquired Revolver, Angel's heart stirred.

"Is the shooting range nearby?"