The Strongest Gun Magus: I Cast Bullet!-Chapter 30: A Failure!

Reynard reduced the intensity of his Inner Flame, but it was too late. His mana turned gray, and even with lowered heat, parts of it were burning into nothing.

Since interrupting the process of projection fully would only further harm his refinement. Reynard could only curse inwardly and keep refining his mana until it was all a uniform, liquid black.

The amount was the same as when he started the Cycle of Operations.

He had spent a week and over three hundred gold coins’ worth of materials and elixirs, and achieved nothing at all!

Reynard flopped to the ground and opened his eyes to look at the distant blue sky. Then he turned to the side, where he heard Chili’s scuffling.

"Maybe these life-strengthening elixirs would have been spent on you, Chili. Would you have grown stronger and larger from them?"

The piglet oinked.

"Ah, screw it. I still have some elixir left on the bottom of the bottle..."

Reynard stood up and went to the piglet’s pen. When Reynard reached out his hands, Chili ran into them as fast as its short, undeveloped legs could allow.

By now, the piglet was old enough to slowly drink the remains of Reynard’s elixir right out of its bottle. Reynard thought that he should sell his Wooden Mother artifact when he had the opportunity.

’One baby beast to raise is enough. When Chili grows up, I won’t even need a horse. Forge-Boars are smart enough to learn anything horses and dogs can do!’

"This is for my luck. You are going to be my good luck charm. Or bacon!" Reynard said when the bottle was empty. Chili oinked, then began to release excited puffs of fire.

Reynard put the piglet back into the pen, where it began running around to expel the extra energy from the elixir.

If nothing else, the sight lifted Reynard’s mood.

’I still have the ingredients for another batch of the elixir, so I should just go to the workshops and make some. As for the projection... There has to be something I can do.’

He thought about it while cutting and crushing herbs for the life-strengthening elixir, and the solution had come to him.

’I need to add metal influence to my mana to make the spread of temperature more even at the projection stage. This means that Saturnian Ivy won’t cut it as my base for Earth Mana. I need some ore. Blue Bismuth should do, and it will definitely be on sale.’

Blue Bismuth was a common metal in the iron mines near the town, and it gave the Blue Bismuth School its name. Reynard often had to refine it into alchemical powders for sale as a part of his labor-tithe to the school.

***

The next day, Reynard was walking back from the markets. There were two kilograms of Blue Bismuth in a bag over his shoulder, but the same bag was four hundred gold pieces lighter.

Reynard was still unhappy about it. Most of the money went on his fixation catalyst. Instead of a Mermaid’s Tear Pearl, he chose to buy a droplet of Azure Wind to balance the Blue Bismuth out.

However, the Azure Wind turned out to be even more expensive than the Tear Pearl! Not because of the Azure Wind itself, but because of a box it had to be held in.

Azure Wind could only be stored at sub-zero temperatures. In warmth, it evaporated, turning from a liquid into a gas. Then it immediately exploded.

Thus, it was sold together with the artifact freezer box.

These boxes were common for making ice on hot days and various frozen desserts for nobility, and cost like houses. Like a literal hovel, Reynard could have lived in.

’I guess if my projection fails again, I can calm myself down with a homemade ice cream,’ Reynard thought as he prepared for his next Cycle of Operations.

"Wish me luck, Chili!"

When Reynard gathered the mana of Blue Bismuth, the metal turned into ordinary lead. Its mana felt much colder than the mana of Saturnian Ivies, even though both were of the Earth element.

Then, the Operations followed.

Calcination, dissolution, distillation, separation... The second attempt at them went more easily than the first.

The fixation presented an unexpected challenge, though.

Reynard stared at a glass vial with a single azure droplet at the bottom, which was lying in ice inside the freezer box.

’Shit. I didn’t think about how I’m going to swallow this without the Wind melting in my throat and exploding... Ah, I have an idea.’

He picked a large enough piece of ice. Using a knife, he made a hole in it, then opened the glass vial and quickly poured the azure droplet into the hole.

Finally, Reynard closed the hole with another piece of ice. Now he had an ice pill three centimeters wide.

And he had to swallow it whole, or he would explode.

Just looking at this construction made Reynard feel anxious.

’This can’t be too bad. People swallow dicks much larger all the time, this is just three centimeters of pure ice...’ 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

***

"Mister Artemy, I don’t understand. Refinement is a solitary process—how can I ever be able to assist you in it? You don’t mean giving you advice, do you?"

"Just... Look, if I choke on this thing," Reynard opened the freezer box and pointed the puzzled kid at the ice pill inside, "squeeze my torso hard so it would get out. Stand here, I will show you how it’s done..."

"Aaah! Mister, you are choking me! Yaaaah!"

Reynard stepped away from red-faced Terence and raised his hands in defense.

"But you get it, right?"

"Yes, but, but! But!!"

"Then don’t complain, kid! You might use this trick to save people’s lives, you know!"

Reynard picked his freezer box and pulled out the ice pill.

"Well. Chili, wish me luck."

He opened his mouth and raised his head like a sword-eater about to take in an entire rapier, then put the pill in.