Spirit City.
East Street Blacksmith Shop.
Duan Fan walked out of the blacksmith shop accompanied by a burly man over two meters tall, his body rippling with muscle.
The man treated Duan Fan with great respect and waved goodbye with a smile. "Take care, little brother. By the time you come back, we'll have every last piece finished!"
"Don't rush it," Duan Fan said. "Just make sure the quality is good."
The man nodded earnestly. "We'll make sure of it!"
Watching Duan Fan's figure gradually disappear into the distance, the man's gaze finally settled on the Spirit Hall Academy emblem on the back of Duan Fan's robe. His face was full of envy.
"Every Soul Master who gets into Spirit Hall Academy is a genius."
"Little brother's probably only awakened his martial soul recently. His Innate Soul Power must be sky-high."
"As for all those little things he had made, I've no idea what they're for."
"Probably doing something for his teacher. I've long heard the teachers at Spirit Hall Academy study all sorts of things."
"Why think so much? As long as there's Soul Coin to be made, that's enough!"
Muttering to himself, the burly man turned and went back into the blacksmith shop.
The little brother had just brought him another big order. He'd have to give it even more careful attention.
The quality had to be guaranteed.
And he couldn't take too long, either!
On the street, Duan Fan strolled unhurriedly toward Spirit Hall Academy.
"Now that I've got the barrel, all the parts are here. All that's left is to go back and put them together."
"Nearly three months, and I'll finally get to see my first gun."
"Making a gun doesn't seem to cost as much as I thought. All the parts for this one came to less than three hundred Gold Soul Coins."
"The labor was the most expensive part. The materials barely cost anything."
"That's mainly because the blacksmiths in Spirit City are all quite skilled. If they kept turning out unusable parts, who knows how many Soul Coins I'd have to spend."
"I ordered another batch of parts from the blacksmiths. Now that they've got some experience from the first run, they'll surely work much faster. I'll probably get a big batch of parts during the next break, and then I can assemble more M1910s."
"Once I get back and put the M1910 together, if the pistol works properly, I can start thinking about making rifles."
At the thought of soon owning his first gun, Duan Fan found himself walking faster and faster.
As he walked, his attention was suddenly caught by a shop on the side of the street.
It looked perfectly ordinary, without even a proper sign.
Duan Fan had been there before. It was a shop specializing in Soul Tools.
The shop mainly sold Space Soul Tools. It had other kinds, too, but they were extremely expensive and mostly useless.
The only things in the shop that interested Duan Fan were the Space Soul Tools.
But those were expensive, too, often costing tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins.
Duan Fan could afford one, but in the end, he'd decided against it.
"Having a Space Soul Tool would definitely make carrying things more convenient, especially a gun."
"But spending over ten thousand Gold Soul Coins on a junk Space Soul Tool really isn't worth it."
"I heard the academy will be holding a New Student Soul Fighting Competition soon. The top three will get generous rewards, including a Space Soul Tool."
"I'm determined to get that Space Soul Tool!"
After entering the academy, Duan Fan headed straight for his dormitory.
This was where the benefit of a single room showed: Duan Fan didn't need to hide what he was doing.
Other students lived in the same dormitory building, but they hardly interacted with one another. Duan Fan didn't have to worry about anyone coming over to disturb him.
Back in his room, Duan Fan shut the door, immediately took out the rest of the gun parts, and began assembling the Browning M1910.
This was Duan Fan's first time assembling a gun.
But his hands showed no sign of clumsiness. If anything, he looked remarkably practiced.
That was naturally thanks to [Firearm Manufacturing Mastery]. Duan Fan's mind held the experience of assembling guns countless times over.
It took him only a few dozen seconds to assemble the Browning M1910.
A complete pistol lay quietly on the desktop.
The pistol's slide was dark gray. Its hand-polished surface was covered in fine lines. It couldn't match the mirror finish of a machine-polished surface, but it had a rugged texture all its own.
The barrel protruded from the front of the slide, its mouth a dark hole. The edges had been cleanly beveled.
The walnut grip panels had been sanded smooth and warm, their curves fitting his palm just right.
Duan Fan picked up the pistol. It was a little heavier than he'd expected.
But that wouldn't affect his use of it. If anything, its solid weight in his hand made him feel more at ease.
"Finally finished. It looks fine on the outside. I'd better test it right away."
Duan Fan gripped the pistol in his right hand and pulled the slide back with his left. The recoil spring tensed, and then he released it.
The slide snapped back into place with a crisp click. The metal-on-metal sound was short and sharp, like a pebble striking a sheet of steel.
That crisp click was the most pleasant sound Duan Fan had heard in a long time.
Duan Fan turned the pistol over and examined it twice. The more he looked, the more he liked it, and the corners of his mouth had already curled into a subtle smile.
He'd waited so long for this moment.
From drawing the first blueprint, to visiting blacksmith shops all over Spirit City, to having the gun parts made—
All the waiting and uncertainty that had been coiled up inside him turned, in this moment, into something real and solid in his palm.
A pistol.
A real semiautomatic pistol.
Now that he held it in his hands, every bit of effort had been worth it.
Duan Fan set the pistol aside and took out a wooden box.
It wasn't big, just an ordinary box made of assembled cedar boards. It hadn't even been painted. He'd picked it up as a clearance item at a carpenter's shop.
He opened the lid. Inside, row upon row of bullets lay neatly arranged.
The brass casings shimmered a muted gold in the light filtering through the window.
The primer had been pressed into the base of each casing, and uniform steel bullets were snugly fitted into their mouths.
These bullets had been made alongside the gun parts.
They'd been finished even earlier than the gun parts.
Making bullets was much easier than making a gun.
A bullet had just four parts: casing, bullet, propellant, and primer.
The hardest part was getting the powder mixture right, and Duan Fan knew that by heart.
The Spirit City blacksmiths could easily handle all the other parts.
"I need to find somewhere to test this gun's power."
Duan Fan loaded the bullets and took some spares, then tucked everything into his roomy robe and left the dormitory.
The Soul Fighting Arena at Spirit Hall Academy had a special area for practicing Soul Skills, made up of individual rooms built from special materials. Students could enter them to practice their Soul Skills whenever they wanted.
That was where Duan Fan chose to test his gun.
Before you continue