Dominic didn’t buy anything at the magitech stores, as the prices were exorbitantly high for everything that he actually wanted. But he ended up stopping in at a materials supply warehouse and picking up a hundred kilos of clay.
He had a new spell to test, and if he did it right, he should be able to press the frame for Mana Revolvers out of clay in under a minute once he had the forms made. It was only two halves, and a stick with rifling carved on it so that the barrel didn’t have to be milled after creation.
Rifles were the requirement for the military, but Dominic had observed that gunslingers were far more capable in short - ranged combat than the average enlisted soldier. He didn’t know how many of them there were wandering around without their trade cores showing. But as the Leatherworker had proven, that didn’t mean they were not around.
They were by far his favourite blueprint, and the lack of a need for ammunition made them incredibly practical.
So, when he got back to his room at the end of a day out, Dominic set about making a mould for the pistol frame and chamber, using epoxy halves. It didn’t need to hold up to heat, he just needed to press the clay into shape and possibly let it dry a little, if he had gotten it too wet to hold shape.
When he made the first clay attempt, he used a slab of the bulk clay exactly has he had received it, and realized that it wouldn’t press properly without a bit more moisture.
That was easy enough, and on the second attempt it pressed perfectly, right down to the small details.
Dominic put the halves back together again, ensuring that the shape was perfect, and cast [Clay to Steel].
The parts came out shiny steel, that was for sure. But to his smithy trained eyes, he could see that the quality was well below that normally used for hardened tool steel or gun steel.
It was good enough for a common kitchen knife, as the mage had insisted, but while the metal had formed with every detail he had drawn, the quality of the metal was markedly mediocre. A bit embarrassing to a Gunsmith.
But Dominic assembled the parts, using a trigger mechanism from the rifles, and then forged the rest of the mechanical internals to assemble a pistol.
It was much faster, but if he added the other internal parts to the mould, he could save even more time. Carving the epoxy wasn’t hard, and most of the internal parts were flat sided, so he could just carve them into one side and fill them with clay before closing the halves.
He modified the epoxy first, then did a final check on the pistol before creating a pair of metal grips and heating the whole thing for an oil bath.
{Mana Revolver} Uncommon Quality. Created at Level 10
The result came out gunblue, with shiny steel grips. It wasn’t bad to look at, though the solid metal grips made it unusually heavy. He would have to continue making them from wood in the future. Or make them hollow.
However, it did work. The revolver looked decent, it charged properly, cycled properly, and the charge dissipated without incident when Dominic opened the action as if he wanted to load a conventional round.
He was about to put the pistol away when Pops stuck his head in.
"Have you found the flaw with the [Clay to Steel] spell yet?" He asked.
Dominic shook his head, and handed over the Mana Revolver.
"Oh, I guess you wouldn’t, and wouldn’t until you fired a conventional round through it and it exploded.
The tensile strength of the metal is incredibly low until the gem is at least level fifteen or twenty. It looks like high-quality steel, but it’s more like pewter in that way. It’s also softer than properly forged steel. Make another one in your casting, and hammer it out. You will see."
Dominic followed his instructions and realized that even without heating, he could warp the pistol frame with a hammer.
"What about if you work harden it? Could it at least be cheap steel?" He asked.
Pops nodded. "With a few rounds of purification and heat tempering, it gets better. But by then, you’ve wasted more energy than if you had just started with steel. But keep that spell in mind when you’re in need of a patch on steam vessels. It really is good for patches if you keep a flat sheet of clay in your storage cube and slap it over a hole."
Warnings about dissimilar metal corrosion came to Dominic’s mind, but brazing the two metals together, or steel to copper, was easy enough, and would plug the hole much more quickly than trying to hammer a flat sheet to shape.
Pops looked at the pistol in his hand. "Keep this as a backup. But plug the chamber, so nobody tries to fire an actual round through it. Just hammering a short wooden dowel in the holes won’t stop it from working as a mana revolver."
Dominic did that before putting the pistol away.
"One day, I will learn to accurately use that. Just so that I don’t always have to use spells to defend myself at a distance. As much as I appreciate a good blade, I like Goblins better at twenty paces." He joked with a sigh.
Pops patted him on the shoulder. "Well, at least you got something good with your first pay. Even if you did spend months worth of pay. But that spell is also useful in combination with the [Repair Item] spell when the item is too damaged. You can use the clay to patch holes, and then paint over the mismatched parts.
It might not be a miracle maker for anyone but a Master Smith or an obscenely wealthy Noble who can jack the gem quality all the way up. But it’s still going to be something that you use much more than you expected."