Chapter 210: My Rifle Was Never My Strongest Weapon

Raven chose an abandoned quarry nearly an hour from the main road, not because it was particularly safe, but because it had stone walls, clear visibility, and enough distance from any farms that nobody would mistake the tests for an attack.

Roland left the horses behind a rock formation while Valeria surveyed the terrain. "How many shots are you planning to fire?"

Raven opened the Mk.I case. "As many as necessary."

Valeria looked at him. "That isn’t a number."

"I don’t know how many will fail yet."

"That is not more reassuring."

Elise approached from the edge of the quarry. "Is there any chance it explodes?"

Raven took out the rifle. "Yes."

Elise stopped. Valeria closed her eyes. Roland laughed. "I like that he talks more now. I don’t necessarily like what he says."

Raven ignored him. He placed the Mk.I on a thick blanket and began disassembling the external sections he could inspect without fully opening the system. The weapon was still ugly. He couldn’t think of a better word.

Well over a meter of treated Black Mithril, stabilized organic structures, dark-blue filaments, and a crystalline Reservoir housed near the rear. The pressure chamber from the Blastback Burrower Matriarch sat inside a frame that looked far too much like black ribs. It worked. That didn’t mean it worked well.

Raven pressed two fingers against one of the conduits. FORGE responded.

[PROJECT: PROTOTYPE RIFLE Mk.I.]

[Structural Integrity: ACCEPTABLE.]

[Pressure Containment: STABLE.]

[Reservoir Saturation: 41%.]

[Barrel Stress Accumulation: MODERATE.]

[Biological Component Fatigue Detected.]

[Maintenance Recommended.]

Raven studied the panel. FORGE could tell him what was failing, but not always why, and it definitely didn’t hand him a complete solution. That detail remained irritating.

Elise crouched nearby. "What do you see?"

"Wear."

"Where?"

"Several places."

"That is still not very specific."

Raven pointed first toward the Reservoir. "Storage holds. Transfer isn’t perfect. After several consecutive shots, efficiency drops."

Then he touched the main body. "The chamber contains the pressure, but vibration still transfers into other components."

Finally, the Black Mithril structure. "And this can withstand more than it should, but not infinitely."

Elise studied the rifle. "Can’t FORGE correct it?"

Raven shook his head. "FORGE adapts functions. It doesn’t replace knowledge I don’t have."

"So you built this without fully understanding every component."

"I understand enough to know when not to pull the trigger."

Valeria folded her arms. "That sentence isn’t reassuring either."

Raven looked at her. "It still works."

"That isn’t the same as being safe."

"I never said it was."

Roland approached with a small ammunition box. "Good start, then."

---

Raven had prepared six rounds: two standard, two reinforced penetration rounds, one with a partial Black Mithril core, and one experimental round whose mass he had reduced enough to test velocity without demanding as much pressure from the system.

They weren’t cheap. Every shot was a decision. That was good. It stopped him from thinking that carrying a rifle meant every problem could be solved from a distance.

He marked three targets on the opposite wall of the quarry: one exposed, one behind a salvaged metal plate, and one protected by two layers of compacted stone with a sheet of iron between them.

Roland finished setting the markers. "What do you want me to do?"

Raven pointed toward three positions across the terrain. "Move between those. Two fingers means change positions. One means stay. Closed fist means secondary target."

Roland nodded. "And if you do this?"

He raised his middle finger. Raven stared at him. "It means Elise is nearby and you should behave."

Elise frowned. Valeria burst out laughing. Roland smiled. "That works."

It was stupid. But Raven noticed something. Roland no longer asked why he needed each signal. He understood what they were for. That mattered.

---

Raven loaded the first round. The mechanism took several seconds. Too many. Elise watched carefully.

"That’s slow."

"Yes."

"You seemed faster during our fight."

"Because I wasn’t reloading in front of you."

Elise needed a moment. "You had prepared positions."

"Prepared ammunition. Prepared angles. Measured distances." Raven braced the stock against his shoulder. "And you were looking where I wanted you to look."

Valeria smiled faintly. Elise didn’t, not because she was offended, but because she was reconstructing the fight in her head.

Raven fired. The Mk.I roared. The shot struck the exposed target and blasted apart a section of rock behind it.

Raven lowered the weapon immediately. He didn’t admire the impact. He reloaded, slowly, too slowly, counting internally. Elise was counting too. Raven could see it.

"Seven seconds," she said.

"Six point eight."

"That’s a long time."

"That’s why I don’t plan to stand still for six point eight seconds."

Second shot. The metal plate folded inward and flew backward. Raven set the rifle down on the blanket. Elise frowned. "Finished?"

"No."

Raven activated Burst Step, and the distance to the next position vanished. He stepped off the direct line, closed on a wooden post Roland had placed, and struck it with his forearm. Stonehide covered the impact point just before contact. The wood snapped.

Raven didn’t stop. His right hand already held the knife. Kinetic Acceleration reinforced the short motion of his wrist, and the blade cut through a second board far more cleanly than raw strength would have allowed.

Before the broken piece hit the ground, Raven raised his left hand. Ember Spark. A short burst of flame ignited a pile of dry straw to one side. Not meaningful damage, but light, smoke, and visual interruption. Raven circled through that interruption and appeared on the other side.

Predator’s Instinct didn’t slow the world down. It didn’t need to. It gave him enough information to recognize intent, direction, and danger.

Roland picked up a small stone from his position. Raven saw the shift in his shoulder. Two fingers, and Roland changed angle. The stone flew. Raven moved his head before it passed through where he had been.

Valeria raised an eyebrow. "Was that supposed to demonstrate one thing or several?"

Raven sheathed the knife. "Several."

Elise looked toward the rifle abandoned on the blanket. "You left it behind."

"Yes."

"In a real fight, someone could take it."

"Then they’d have to survive long enough to use it."

Elise watched him in silence. Now she understood better. During their fight, she had treated the Mk.I as the center of the problem because it was the only thing capable of breaking parts of her defenses. That had been a mistake. The rifle created a window. Raven decided what happened inside it.

---

The third test was different. Raven loaded again. This time Roland took position behind a stone column. Valeria created a thin blood barrier in front of the target, not to stop the shot, but to force Raven to account for a second layer.

"Don’t make it stronger," Raven said.

Valeria arched an eyebrow. "Afraid you’ll break your toy?"

"I’m afraid of wasting a round to prove something I already know."

She smiled. "Better answer."

Raven aimed. He didn’t fire. He waited. Valeria shifted the barrier slightly, and Raven kept waiting. Elise noticed.

"You’re watching how the mana redistributes."

"No."

"No?"

"I’m waiting for the moment she stops thinking I’m watching that."

Elise went still. Valeria turned her head. "That was aimed at me."

"Yes."

The barrier changed slightly. Raven fired. The round struck exactly where the density had just dropped. Blood exploded aside and the projectile punched through the plate behind it. Raven lowered the rifle.

"That."

Elise remembered the fight: Valeria applying pressure, Roland changing angles, Raven waiting. The rifle had never been the plan. It had been the instant inside the plan.

"I thought you depended on it more," Elise admitted.

Raven began reloading. "That would have been stupid."

"It’s a weapon capable of breaking defenses far above your rank."

"And it takes almost seven seconds to fire again. It consumes mana. It needs ammunition I can’t buy in any ordinary market. It wears down. If someone closes distance while I reload, it stops being a rifle and becomes an overpriced piece of metal."

Elise looked at the Mk.I. "When you explain it like that, it sounds worse."

"Because you’re listening to the limitations instead of the noise it makes."

Valeria walked toward them. "That is exactly what makes it dangerous."

Elise looked at her. Valeria pointed toward Raven. "He isn’t in love with the weapon."

Raven frowned. "It’s an object."

"Exactly. I’ve known nobles who spent fortunes on weapons and then built their entire fighting style around them because they needed to justify the price. Raven would tear his apart tomorrow if it increased his odds of surviving."

Raven looked at the Mk.I. "Not tomorrow."

Valeria smiled. "See? Emotional progress."

"I’m thinking about the materials."

"That doesn’t improve your argument."

---

They spent another hour training without firing. Raven marked targets. Roland shifted positions. Valeria created temporary obstacles. Elise watched at first. Then Raven made her participate.

"When I raise my hand, pressure from the left."

Elise frowned. "Sacred Edict?"

"Minimal."

"What are you testing?"

"Whether you can follow an instruction without turning it into doctrine."

Valeria laughed. Elise ignored her.

Raven moved. Two fingers, and Roland changed position. Fist, and he stayed. Raven raised his hand, and Elise released sacred pressure from the left. Too much. Raven cut Burst Step halfway through and had to change his footing to avoid entering the area directly.

"Less."

"That was less."

Raven looked at her. Elise understood. "Ah."

"Champion."

"Right."

"Your ’less’ can still break my bones."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

Valeria muttered, "That should go on a list."

They repeated it. This time, it worked. Raven closed distance while Elise forced the imaginary target to adjust position. Roland marked the exit. Valeria closed the opposite side. Raven entered through the center. No shot. None was needed.

When they finished, Raven studied their positions. It wasn’t Black Hound. Not yet. But it was beginning to resemble something.

A group of dangerous people was one thing. A team was another. And a team could make every ability worth more than it was alone.

---

Roland returned from the road near the end of the afternoon carrying two waterskins and an expression Raven was beginning to recognize. Information.

"I’ve got something."

Raven stopped cleaning the Mk.I. "Talk."

"The mercenary post at the fork got questions about the Thunder Weapon."

Valeria approached. "More buyers?"

"Not exactly." Roland looked at Raven. "This time they didn’t ask how much one of the bullets costs."

Raven waited.

"They asked how long it takes you to load the next one."

Silence. Elise looked at the rifle. Valeria stopped smiling. Raven slowly placed the cloth on the blanket.

Someone was no longer studying only what he fired. They were studying what he did between shots. That was different. A projectile could be bought. A combat pattern had to be observed.

And that meant that at some point, someone had been watching.