Second World Online

The brief sensation of falling into emptiness always marked the transition between worlds. When the colorful pixels solidified once more, my senses were assaulted by the scent of old metal, oak wood, and the residual gunpowder lingering in the air.

I had returned to the form of my Albino Elf avatar. I stood in the back room of the "Waterwheel" workshop in Silvergrass Village. The specially designed white military mantle still wrapped my body perfectly, yet I immediately removed the rear cape so it would not hinder my work in the workshop.

The first thing I did was not light the furnace, but open my inventory interface. I had to see directly how severely the Game Masters at Chronos Tech had castrated my artillery build through this morning’s emergency patch.

I pressed the slot that stored the [Sulfuric Shrapnel Bomb].

Before the patch, one inventory slot (Stack) could hold up to 99 of those copper bombs. But now, my eyes could only stare blankly at the red number blinking in the corner of the slot.

[Sulfuric Shrapnel Bomb] x5 (MAX STACK).

Status: [Volatile Item]. Weight: 15 Kg each. Warning: Carrying more than 1 slot of this item will inflict an extreme movement penalty (Encumbrance) of -50% Agility.

"Five pieces. Maximum stack is only five pieces," I hissed, rubbing my face with one hand. "And the weight has increased fivefold. Brilliant. If I force myself to carry twenty bombs like last night, my agility will be equivalent to a paralyzed turtle."

Not only that, I read the additional description from the system Patch Note that appeared on my screen.

[Structural Damage Hard Cap Active: Non-magic physical explosions cannot produce more than 1,000 HP/second of damage to objects with Building/Structure status.]

I snorted cynically. "So if I stick three Breaching Charges on a steel gate again, the gate will only feel warm, huh? Truly a cowardly nerf."

I closed the inventory screen and shifted my gaze to the corner of the room. There, inside a large wooden barrel lined with tin, still remained dozens of kilograms of high-grade gunpowder that I had refined with my own hands. That gunpowder could no longer be used massively to create area bombs.

Annoyance crept back in, but I forced it to sink.

I walked limply out of the back room and sat in the wooden chair behind my shop’s cashier counter. Because no customers had yet come to this remote village in the late afternoon, I crossed my legs onto the table, opened the internal browser panel of the Second World Online system that was connected to the real-world internet, and began reading a cyberpunk science-fiction novel in overlay mode.

For half an hour, I sank into the reading. The village atmosphere was extremely quiet; only the sound of the waterwheel outside could be heard.

However, as the novel’s plot presented a shootout scene using high-technology firearms, a crazy idea suddenly sparked inside my head.

My ruby-red eyes immediately widened. I lowered my legs from the table with a hard thud.

"Wait a minute," I muttered to the empty room. "Gunpowder is classified as a Volatile Item. Bombs are limited in quantity. But... does the system also limit gunpowder if it is used as a propellant to launch a very small projectile?"

The physics laws of this game’s engine were extremely realistic. If an explosion in a sealed space produces thrust, then I did not need to throw the entire bomb at the enemy. I only needed to direct the explosion to launch metal from a barrel.

"A firearm," my eyes sparkled wildly. "This game is set in a Medieval Fantasy era, so automatic firearms do not yet exist. But what about ancient muskets (Flintlock/Matchlock)?"

My boredom and frustration instantly evaporated, replaced by the enthusiasm of a pioneer. I leaped from the cashier chair and ran back into the workshop.

I immediately opened my internet browser, but this time not to read a novel. I searched for historical blueprints and the mechanical anatomy of long-barreled Musket rifles from the early 17th century in the real world.

"Wrought-iron smoothbore barrel... trigger with matchlock (burning fuse) or flintlock (flint stone) system... breech chamber... touch hole..." I muttered those terms while stoking the charcoal in my steel melting furnace.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

The raw materials were extremely easy. I had iron blocks, carbon steel, oak wood for the stock, and flint. The main problem was barrel precision. In the real world, making a perfectly straight rifle barrel required industrial lathes. But in Second World Online, my [Advanced Blacksmith] skill functioned as a substitute for those lathes. As long as I knew the concept, the system would smooth the manufacturing process.

I began working.

On the first attempt, I formed the iron barrel too thin. The system immediately gave an indicator that the barrel would burst under gas pressure. Failed.

On the fourth attempt, I had difficulty joining the iron barrel to the wooden stock because I did not possess the Advanced Carpenter skill, so I had to use manual rivets that ruined the balance.

On the seventh attempt, the flintlock mechanism failed to spark fire into the touch hole because the design of my lock spring (sear) was miscalculated.

Yet I did not give up. Sweat soaked my Elf forehead. I continued heating metal, forging, hammering, and adjusting. Every failure was valuable data absorbed by my mechanical brain.

Finally, on the tenth attempt...

Click.

The sound of the steel trigger striking the flint rang sharply, sparking a small flame exactly onto the priming pan. The design was rough, nearly one and a half meters long, weighing four kilograms, yet functionally... this was a real Musket.

Ting! [System: Synthesis successful!]

[Era Anomaly Warning: You have assembled a weapon that surpasses the current civilization phase of the server!]

[Congratulations! You are the first player to create [Primitive Smoothbore Musket] (Epic)!]

[You have obtained Extra Title: ’Pioneer of Black Powder’]

[Title Effect: Early firearm accuracy +10%, Chance of barrel explosion -20%]

I let out a long breath, staring at the dull black-barreled rifle with its rough wooden stock in my hands. An Epic golden glow enveloped it. This rarity was not obtained from expensive materials, but from its status as a weapon "that had never existed" on this continent.

[Primitive Smoothbore Musket (Epic)]

Type: Ranged Weapon (Firearm). Base Damage: 1,500 Physical/Piercing Damage. Armor Penetration: 30%. Weaknesses: Reload time 15-20 seconds. Poor accuracy beyond 30 meters. Vulnerable to wet weather. Ammunition: Lead Ball & Black Powder.

"Hah! You want to limit my explosions? I’ll turn those explosions into dragon-slaying bullets," I laughed softly, feeling as if I had just found the biggest loophole in the GMs’ patch.

Because the system had already recognized this weapon, I quickly cast bullets. Utilizing Refined Lead from my inventory, I made marble-sized lead balls.

Now, it was time for a test-fire.

I slung the musket onto my back and stepped out of the workshop, heading to the side of the shop that bordered directly on a small empty rocky cliff. I placed a target in the form of a thick wooden barrel twenty meters away.

"Okay, how do I load it?" I furrowed my brow, staring into the barrel muzzle.

Because rifles of this era did not yet use modern integrated cartridge casings (Muzzleloader), loading had to be done from the front end of the barrel.

I opened a video tutorial browser in my vision and played a military history video from UTube.

"Alright. Stand the rifle upright. Pour enough gunpowder into the barrel hole..."

I took a small handful of gunpowder from a leather pouch, guessing the measure, then poured it into the barrel.

"Then, insert a scrap of cloth wadding... insert the lead ball... and push it to the bottom with the ramrod."

I pulled the ramrod from beneath the barrel, thrust it inside, and packed the bullet and powder tightly. Finally, I sprinkled a little fine powder onto the priming pan beneath the flint.

"Done. The reload is truly torturous," I complained. On the battlefield, standing still for fifteen seconds to reload a rifle was the same as suicide.

I raised the heavy rifle. The wooden stock pressed against my shoulder. I aligned my eye with the crude iron sight at the end of the barrel, aiming it at the wooden barrel.

"Let’s see your destructive power," I muttered.

I pulled the trigger.

Click! FSSSHHHH! BLLAAAARR!

The explosion that came out was not like a neat rifle shot, but like an enraged cannon. The tremendous kickback brutally slammed my right shoulder.

Not only that because I had poured in too much gunpowder, the gas pressure in the breech exceeded the tolerance limit of my wrought-iron barrel.

The musket barrel burst!

Iron fragments and fire sprayed toward my face. I was hurled backward; my back slammed into the outer wall of the workshop with a heavy thud.

[-850 Physical Damage! (Recoil/Misfire)]

"Ugh!!"

Even before I could finish my groan, my vision instantly turned black and white. A strange floating sensation seized my consciousness. The rural background music cut off, replaced by a very soft bell sound.

Giant red text appeared covering my eyes.

[YOU HAVE DIED.]

I gaped at the text in ghost mode. "Dead?! I died?!" I shouted in disbelief.

Then I remembered. My main build, the Mad Alchemist, the absolute "Glass Cannon." I had allocated nearly one hundred percent of my status points into Intelligence and Dexterity. My Vitality value was completely neglected. My avatar’s base HP total, without food buffs, was only 120 points.

The damage from the rifle explosion earlier was 850 points. That was pure Overkill on myself.

"Ridiculous! This is the most humiliating death in my entire gaming history!" I covered my ghost face with both hands, groaning in frustration. The Conqueror of Ironhold, the slaughterer of hundreds of elite players, had died pathetically from a homemade firearm explosion in the backyard of his own shop.

Fortunately, Silvergrass Village was a Safe Zone. Moreover, the system recorded my death as an accident, not a death from PvP or PvE combat.

In ordinary PvP or PvE death cases, the death penalty was extremely painful: forced reduction of one level, possibility of dropping items from inventory, and a respawn (revive) time locked for one to two hours.

But because this was an accident in a Safe Zone, the punishment was far lighter.

[Death Penalty (Safe Zone Accident): Reduction of 10% EXP from the current level bar. Item drop deactivated.]

[Your Respawn Time: 60 Seconds.]

One minute of waiting in the darkness. I could only curse inwardly at my own stupidity for not using a measuring tool when loading high-grade gunpowder.

Sixty seconds passed.

Light returned to my vision. I respawned at the nearest Waypoint, which was the square of Silvergrass Village.

Several farmer NPCs who were passing by looked at me in confusion, seeing an Elf in a white military uniform suddenly appear from empty air with a face full of soot and silver hair standing in disarray.

I lowered my face in embarrassment and ran quickly back to my workshop.

"The measure must never be guessed again," I growled, massaging the shoulder that had felt dislocated before the system reset my body.

Arriving beside the shop, I picked up the remains of the Epic rifle that had now been destroyed into twisted scrap iron. Instead of being discouraged, my crazy smile only grew wider. "Failure is the mother of innovation. Moreover, that death earlier was empirical proof that the damage of my rifle barrel far exceeded my own defense!"

I hurried back into the workshop. I remade the rifle barrel; this time I thickened the walls of the breech chamber twice over using a mixture of Black Steel so it could withstand the gunpowder explosion pressure.

In addition, I also created a small brass casing (Powder Measure) whose chamber capacity I had calculated with mathematical precision for one optimal shot. With this measuring tool, I would never again pour excess gunpowder (and blow up my own face).

Half an hour later, the [Primitive Smoothbore Musket V2] was ready.

I returned to the side of the shop with a cleaned face. The wooden barrel target still stood intact in its position, because my earlier shot had completely failed.

This time, I loaded the rifle with mathematical precision. One brass measure of gunpowder. Cloth wadding. Lead ball. Ram with the ramrod. Pour priming powder. Cock the trigger.

I raised the musket again, locking my foot stance to absorb the kick.

"Focus."

Unconsciously, my class’s passive Sub-Skill [Focus] activated. The system still read this Musket as a ranged weapon equivalent to a bow, so my archer skills were still triggered. My eyes locked onto the target once more; the world became silent. I also chanted the skill [Lethal Shot] for additional Critical Damage and armor penetration on the projectile.

"Combination of bow skills with a firearm. Let’s see if the algorithm cries," I grinned.

I pulled the trigger.

Click! DOOOMM!

A flash of fire burst from the muzzle, accompanied by thick white smoke. The kick remained rough, but this time I could absorb the recoil and the barrel remained intact.

In the distance, the thick wooden barrel that was my target was not merely punctured. The barrel shattered into pieces as if struck by a miniature cannonball. Even more insanely, the rocky cliff wall behind the wooden barrel was also punctured half a handspan deep by the lead projectile shot.

[-4,500 Physical/Piercing Damage!] [Lethal Hit! Armor Ignore!]

I lowered the still-smoking rifle. My eyes sparkled with excitement. "Crazy! The damage is crazy! With the additional kinetic velocity from the gunpowder propellant, the penetrating power of my Lethal Shot skill rose to twice that of the Titan’s Ironbark bow!"

No Level 40 Heavy Knight anywhere would be able to block a lead bullet coated with Armor Ignore. Their golden shields would be pierced like wet tissue paper.

However, my euphoria decreased slightly when I remembered the reload procedure that still took 15 seconds. To use it practically on the battlefield together with Yuuki and her companions, a Muzzleloader rifle (loaded from the front of the barrel) was extremely troublesome and turned me into a stationary target vulnerable to being killed.

"This is not yet perfect," I rubbed my chin, my technical brain spinning rapidly searching for solutions from historical literature.

"Breech-loader rifles... integrated brass cartridge casings... firing pin... Bolt Action," I muttered about the revolutionary firearm evolutions that occurred in the late 19th century.

Creating a Bolt Action rifle inside a medieval blacksmith workshop was nearly impossible for an ordinary player without the help of precision industrial lathes. The screw system had to be one hundred percent gas-tight; otherwise, the explosion gas would blow backward into the shooter’s eyes.

"But I am not an ordinary blacksmith. I possess the skill [Porous Material Manipulation] that can carve microscopic holes and form metal at a molecular precision level," my smile bloomed. "Let’s tinker some more. At least until I obtain a Bolt Action system that can reload brass cartridges in one second."

I stared at the remaining gunpowder in my workshop. "Sorry, honorable GMs. You just closed my door to becoming a bomb-maker, so you forced me to break through the window to become a sharpshooter from three hundred years in the future."

I turned and went back into the workshop, locking the door tightly. Tonight, I would not sleep until the first Bolt Action rifle on this fantasy continent was born from my hands.