Guns!

At dawn the next day, Diago saw several wounded Dwarven miners retreating from Firewatch Ridge. Clearly, the mine had fallen.

"It was a bunch of green-skinned Orcs and Dark Iron Dwarves, with some Tauren too. God knows how those bastards got mixed up together!" a relatively intact Dwarven miner said wearily. Ofist and Skrang listened to his account in confusion, but neither of them seemed to understand what had happened either.

The members of the Thorium Brotherhood treated the wounded in some disarray, and Masley Bearhide joined the rescuers. In fact, he had already started working before daybreak. Having only recently restored their faith in Khaz'goroth, the Thorium Brotherhood had few priests of Titan the Forger, making a healer especially valuable to Thorium Point at present. Even without specializing in restoration, Masley's healing spells remained irreplaceable to the wounded.

Diago stayed beside Masley for a while, found there was little he could do to help, and returned to the workshop. He lit the small furnace, then began preparing to make his guns. Deep within him, a sense of urgency and danger hung over his heart like the ever-present gloom of Searing Gorge, pressing down until he could barely breathe.

To own a gun! That was something almost every man dreamed of, but before his transmigration, his homeland's strict ban had made that dream impossible. Diago had once owned an old hunting gun back home, handed down from his grandfather's generation-a muzzle-loader that fired four lead pellets at a time-but even that had eventually been confiscated.

After graduating from university, he had subscribed to a pile of magazines such as Weapon Knowledge and Small Arms, but that was little different from satisfying his hunger with pictures of food. Now that he had transmigrated and his Goblin Engineering skill was maxed out, not making himself a good gun would feel like cheating himself.

Besides, in this world of lurking dangers, a good gun was undoubtedly the best guarantee of protecting himself and staying alive. As the saying went, a weapon was a warrior's second life. A fine weapon could undoubtedly help you live a little longer, and Diago certainly wanted to live to a ripe old age.

He planned to follow the Thorium Rifle's choice of materials and improve upon its design. The reason this rifle had never been mass-produced and issued to Ironforge's mountaineers was not a flaw in its design, but its high cost. For Diago, however, that problem did not exist at present: he had practically swept away nearly half the Thorium Brotherhood's stockpile.

Although the Thorium Rifle was only rare quality, many firearm schematics in Diago's head were better, such as the Corehound Sniper Rifle and the Gyro-balanced Khorium Destroyer. Yet every one of those epic-quality designs required large amounts of expensive, scarce materials. Some materials could no longer even be described as scarce-they were practically unique in the world. The Blood Elves' legendary weapon, Thori'dal, Wrath of the Sun, for example, was even inlaid with a Fallen Starheart Shard. Supposedly, it needed no arrows at all: every time its string was drawn and released, it would fire a highly concentrated beam of starlight on its own.

But Diago currently had only a dozen or so dark iron bars, two or three thorium bars, and one mithril bar. He did have a large pile of ordinary metals, but making an epic weapon with those? Was that possible?

Nevertheless, even though the Thorium Rifle's design was already extremely mature, Diago still decided to overhaul it. He had always been deeply dissatisfied with the appearance of Azeroth's weapons, especially during the period after The Burning Crusade launched. Every weapon was gaudy and as dazzling as could be. He found it hard to imagine how a Rogue holding two such glittering weapons could disappear without a trace using Stealth.

Thus, the rifle ultimately adopted the M1 Garand Rifle's layout and appearance. Once the ammunition problem had been solved, this design was no longer a castle in the air. He chose a semiautomatic design because the enemies he would face belonged to the age of cold steel, and close combat would be the norm. The M1 Garand's rate of fire and eight-round capacity should more or less meet his needs, while its en bloc clip could also be changed quickly. He would not find himself fumbling to reload with the bolt locked open on an empty chamber as an enemy reached him. He had considered the classic AK rifle design, but the materials at hand could not guarantee that it would withstand the AK's high rate of fire without damage, so he had to abandon the idea.

Although a semiautomatic rifle was less accurate than a bolt-action rifle and had a much shorter range—as far as he knew, the M1 Garand's effective range was 730 meters, though in practice hitting a target beyond five hundred yards without a scope was difficult—he did not believe his forging skills could rival a precision CNC machine tool. He estimated that he would be perfectly satisfied with four hundred meters, since that range would already give him an overwhelming advantage over ordinary Dwarves' guns and bows.

Diago remembered that, before his transmigration, the English Longbowman with the greatest range—do not bring up the Shenbi Bow; that was a crossbow—could shoot roughly 350 meters, with an absolute limit of four hundred. However, its power relied more on covering an area with arcing fire than on direct shots. Firearms, meanwhile, generally had an effective range of no more than ninety-one meters, or one hundred yards. If you were hit beyond that range, you could only call yourself unlucky.

In Azeroth, Dwarven guns had roughly the same range, and the Night Elves were little different. These natural-born marksmen, who favored bows, had an astonishing rate of fire, but their effective range generally did not exceed seventy meters when shooting at a low angle, almost directly. Marksmen using magical weapons had greater range. Some epic- or even legendary-quality bows and guns could rival the M1 in range, and also possessed many fantastical effects unique to Azeroth, such as additional fire or frost damage. (All right, let us forget the miserable forty-five-yard range Hunters had in the game!)

After preparing the various materials, Diago began making this world's first semiautomatic rifle, but he had clearly underestimated the difficulties he would face. Before his transmigration, he had merely been a pseudo-military enthusiast. Although his job title had been engineer, that was transportation engineering-in plain terms, he built roads-and he knew almost nothing about manufacturing guns. Even his knowledge of the M1 had come from looking things up on Baidu out of personal interest. That limited knowledge could only provide a general design concept; making the gun would depend more heavily on the Engineering skills in his current body's memories.

He chose a barrel caliber of 7.62 millimeters (.30 inches). Although small-caliber rifles were light, had little recoil, were easy to control during automatic fire, and offered good automatic-fire accuracy, the melee fighters faced by Azeroth's Hunters mostly wore plate armor, some of which even had magical defensive effects. Even cloth-wearing classes such as Mages and Warlocks generally protected themselves with Ice Armor or Demon Armor. Small-caliber rifle shots would barely tickle them and would struggle to penetrate at all. Besides, Diago believed his strength was sufficient to handle a large-caliber rifle, making those advantages of small-caliber rifles unnecessary for him. Had he not needed to consider maneuverability and the durability of the rifle's metal components and barrel, he would even have wanted to use a 12.7-millimeter (.50-inch) caliber.

Since muzzle-loading was no longer necessary, Diago removed the Thorium Rifle's flared muzzle. The barrel used a two-layer composite design, with heat- and wear-resistant dark iron for the bore, wrapped in an outer layer of extremely strong and tough thorium. Since components such as the bolt and trigger needed to conduct arcane energy, he made them from an alloy of mithril and thorium, which had good magical compatibility.

Grand Smith Burninate proved enormously helpful in working these metals. His familiarity with them completely resolved Diago's hidden concerns. With his selfless help, Diago's greatest headache-how to handle the metal seams in the barrel-ceased to be a problem, and his double-layered barrel concept became a reality rather than a dangerous invitation to a burst barrel.

Making a firearm was delicate work. The barrel alone took Diago about a month, and manufacturing the other components did not go smoothly either. His dreams were rich, but reality was meager. Although his Engineering skill had reached the highest level, in this real world he was still a novice who had barely made any engineering items.

Goblin Engineering was clearly not as simple as it had been in the game, where a wrench, a screwdriver, and a forging hammer could handle everything. Forging hammers alone came in large, medium, and small sizes, and could also be divided into long and short hammers. Hammering techniques included light blows, heavy blows, patterned blows, side blows, and backed blows. Tongs for gripping workpieces included pincer tongs, gripping tongs, pointed tongs, broad tongs, wide-mouth bent tongs, and narrow-mouth straight tongs. There were also axes, chisels, drills, and all manner of other tools for cutting workpieces.

There were even more kinds of wrenches: open-end wrenches, adjustable wrenches, box-end wrenches, multipurpose wrenches, striking wrenches, socket wrenches, socket drivers, cross wrenches, ratchet wrenches, hook wrenches, hex keys, square keys... all told, there were some forty varieties. Of course, making an M1 rifle would not require all of them, but it was still enough to leave Diago dizzy and utterly bewildered.

Making molds, casting, forging, grinding, and adjusting the M1 rifle's precision components all required meticulous care. Not a single error was permissible, or the parts might fail to fit together, or the gas seal might prove inadequate-in simple terms, scorching powder residue might blast into his face when he fired. Beyond that, measuring the various fluxes and additives and controlling the heat were serious tests of experience and judgment. Worse still, some finished parts proved unsatisfactorily weak, and a few even developed cracks after stress testing, leaving Diago intensely frustrated.

Even so, Diago did not lower his standards. As an obsessive technical geek, he demanded that his creation surpass most Dwarven guns and reach at least rare quality. To achieve that, he had to rework parts again and again, even discarding failed pieces and starting over. Fortunately, most of these parts were small, so they did not waste too much material. Yet through these repeated attempts to put theory into practice, and through each successive failure, Diago's Engineering ability grew rapidly, like spring shoots. The theoretical knowledge that had existed only in his mind finally became almost instinctive techniques and skills. He was no longer an all-talk braggart whose ambitions outstripped his abilities, but a true Engineering master with superb craftsmanship.

Nevertheless, repeated failures gradually pushed his material consumption beyond his reserves. Many materials used in the failed parts could not be reclaimed, forcing him to draw more from Bornnait once again. Although the old Dwarf said nothing about it, Diago felt deeply ashamed. After all, the Dark Iron Dwarves had already lost their last mine, and this was the last of their stockpile. He silently resolved that before leaving, he would repay them by thoroughly purging that motley bunch of Twilight cultists.

By comparison, making the stock and handguard was relatively simple and took only a few days. He selected fine ironwood, which did not grow locally in Searing Gorge-in fact, because of the heat, no trees grew here at all. It came from distant Kalimdor. Harvesting this precious timber from the Ancients of War in Felwood was no easy task for the smugglers; they risked their lives doing it. Neither the fallen Satyrs nor the Night Elf Sentinels who guarded nature would allow such a thing. To process the wood, he even made a special trip to fetch the desperately bored Masley Bearhide from the wilderness. The Druid's spells proved enormously useful here. The magically treated wood was harder than steel and exceptionally sturdy, yet still elastic and resilient. Diago even dispensed with the buttplate meant to prevent the stock from splitting and provide extra cushioning.

Drawing on the experience he had gained making the rifle, Diago also made a handgun, this time using entirely Earth-based technology. He chose the simpler, more reliable revolver design, which would not jam. As for a dud, he only needed to pull the trigger again. To be honest, he was not particularly confident in the reliability of his own ammunition. Even before his transmigration, ammunition manufactured in Third World countries for the AK family, renowned for its reliability and ruggedness, had varied widely in quality. Thus, he based this handgun on the classic Smith & Wesson M500. In Diago's view, power had to be the first consideration for any firearm. He believed this handgun, capable of killing an elephant, would give plate-armored fighters a very big surprise after they finally managed to close in on him.

However, great power also brought great recoil, making this handgun extremely difficult to control. With thorium added to it, the gun weighed over eight pounds; calling it a hand cannon might have been more appropriate. Even with Diago's current arm strength, he had to practice for a long time before he could handle it proficiently.

After finishing the guns, Diago began making ammunition. After hundreds of experiments, he had become quite proficient at manufacturing cartridges, which made the process relatively quick. Over three weeks, he used the ammunition press to turn out more than five thousand M1 rifle rounds and over a thousand handgun rounds in one sustained effort. With the Felcloth Bag, he was not worried in the slightest about being unable to carry them.

Meanwhile, Diago also asked Grand Smith Burninate to forge a bayonet from the remaining thorium and dark iron scraps. He knew his forging skills fell far short of his Engineering. Neither the M1 nor the M500 was known for its ammunition capacity-the M500's cylinder held only five rounds-so he could hardly leave himself without a fallback. For this last life-saving measure, he did not try anything unconventional, instead choosing an Azeroth-style design based on the spearhead of Stone Crow. He made some modifications around the handle so it could either be held in his hand or mounted on the rifle.

The energetic Druid clearly thought little of Diago's efforts. In the eyes of the Night Elves, bows were the only ranged weapons, and something as ugly and inelegant as a gun should clearly never have been invented. Thus, during the early stages of Diago's gunmaking, Masley had visited a few times out of curiosity, but later lost interest in the dull, repetitive forging, grinding, and test-fitting. After drinking almost all the tavern's stock, he began roaming all over the mountains to "commune with nature."

Thus, when Diago appeared before Masley Bearhide two months later, armed to the teeth, the Night Elf was utterly stunned by this murderous-looking human. Although he had no idea how powerful these weapons, so completely unlike Dwarven guns, might be, their deliberately matte-finished barrels, sharp black bayonet, and clean, hard lines radiated cold menace that sent a chill through him. He was intimidated almost at once-he did not understand them, but they certainly looked formidable. After watching the M1 rifle shoot through a thick wooden board from fifty meters away, he immediately abandoned any thought of testing its power himself. Although Druids had thick hides and tough flesh after transforming into great bears, and a single shot might not kill him, no one wanted a few extra bullet holes in their body.

As a top-level Leatherworking master, Diago had made all the leather fittings for his weapons himself: the bayonet sheath slanting across his chest, the ammunition belt around his waist, the quick-draw handgun holster beside his thigh, and the rifle sling on his back. The style was entirely Wild West, yet showed distinctive craftsmanship-rugged without being rough, simple without being simplistic. Even a Night Elf with exacting aesthetic standards could find no fault with this unique Tauren style.

Note: Do not say that the technology of this era could not make this rifle design possible. I once watched an instructional video over fifty minutes long showing a flintlock rifle being made entirely by hand, without CNC machine tools or forging presses. It took about a week, with just a father and son using blacksmiths' hammers and some simple tools. They even cut the rifling-all seven grooves of it. Yes, you read that correctly: an odd number. The M1 Garand only had four, I think?

Besides, do not underestimate the ingenuity of Azeroth's people. Over thousands of years, the manufacture of Dwarven guns has accumulated a sufficient technological foundation. Judging by the construction of Dwarven guns shown in various pictures, they have hammers that cock upward, with no flint clamped into them, and a raised nipple directly opposite the hammer. These should be the characteristics of muzzle-loading percussion guns. In the history of firearms development, percussion guns were only one step away from breechloaders. And judging by Hunters' firing animations in the game, almost all their guns are breechloaders; I have never seen a Hunter hold a gun muzzle-up to load powder. In other words, this M1 was, at most, one step ahead, moving from manual operation to semiautomatic fire. Besides, in a world with magic, never casually say, "That is impossible."

As far as I know, automatic rifles appeared during The Burning Crusade. There was an uncommon-quality green gun, apparently called the Gnomish Assault Rifle. I cannot remember the name precisely; could someone help me confirm it? An assault rifle! Could it be called an assault rifle if it was not automatic?

Of course, do not assume that owning an M1 makes you invincible. Limited by its materials, this gun only qualified as blue, rare quality thanks to its rate-of-fire advantage. Although it was somewhat more advanced technologically and came relatively close to epic quality, its power ultimately could not surpass those powerful purple, epic-quality weapons. Spells, divine magic, skills... supernatural powers were far too strong in this world.

Speaking of bows, do not assume that making one was simple. Ancient bows had extremely exacting material requirements, using six kinds: wood, horn, sinew, glue, silk, and lacquer. Their production schedule was also extremely strict: the bow stave was split in winter, the horn worked in spring, the sinew prepared in summer, and the materials assembled in autumn. Sometimes the bow then had to be stored for another year. The process was complicated, and even an experienced bowyer could need two or three years to finish a fine bow. Also, do not bring up archery competition ranges. Those involve modern compound bows, which are entirely different from ancient bows.

Finally, my figures may not be completely accurate, since online sources themselves contain plenty of disputes, but they should be broadly free of obvious errors. Number crunchers, please do not scrutinize them too closely.