When it came to the direction for optimizing his Ancient Magic, Jhin was a bit undecided at first—should he aim toward creating more elemental fusions with greater destructive power, or should he refine the spells he already had?
Each approach had its merits. Creating new magic let him design things tailored to his current needs, while improving old magic meant he didn't have to worry about stability or applicability.
After agonizing over it for a while, he decided he wanted both.
Because the creation of the [Elemental Armament] had given him inspiration. His grasp of fundamental magical theory was definitely no match for the mages of the continent, and if he tried to follow their procedures for improving magic, he'd only be locking himself into a cramped little room called the "Cage of Thought."
For Jhin, aside from magic, modern technological weaponry was equally blood-stirring. He happened to have a wealth of experience with firearms, so why not combine the two? What Ancient mages valued most was creativity, and this idea undoubtedly fit perfectly with the doctrine of "creativity first."
With the initial idea in place, the next step was to put it into action.
The convenience of an Ancient mage's spellcasting lay in not needing to perform the tedious guidance and control of magic power and elements. Take the simple Fireball spell as an example.
A modern mage on the continent of Astraea who wanted to cast Fireball had to use magic power to guide the elements and construct the most basic spell framework, all while chanting to ensure communication with the elements, then gradually channel in magic power to complete the entire spell. This was also why modern magic could be learned by anyone with an elemental aptitude.
You only had to memorize the fixed route and incantation, then perform them in order to release the spell—no different from reading a whole text thoroughly and reciting it from memory.
Ancient mages, on the other hand, when they wanted to cast Fireball, simply manipulated fire elements to gather together. With a clear mental conception of what a Fireball was, they could release the spell.
This casting process always gave Jhin a sense of déjà vu, like the "power of I-reckon-so"—I think it can work this way, so it really does work. A thoroughly idealist approach.
But that didn't mean you could create any spell at all as long as your imagination was wild enough. At the very least, you still needed sufficient foundational theoretical knowledge as a cornerstone—it was still a notch below the beastmen's wish-it-into-being.
Otherwise the Ancient mages might as well have renamed themselves the Greenskin Boys.
In short, under this line of thinking, Jhin's first improved spell took shape in his hand.
It was a Desert Eagle pistol, all black, stamped with a lightning emblem, loading magical attacks into the magazine in the form of bullets. This was the minor improvement he'd made to [Dark-Corrosive Thunder].
As the saying goes: beyond seven paces, the gun is fast; within seven paces, the gun is both accurate and fast.
Compared to a casting method with obvious magic-power fluctuations, once reworked into a pistol, [Dark-Corrosive Thunder] became an essential item for home and travel—perfect for murder, arson, and shooting people in the back. Although having to reload after firing all seven rounds was a bit of a hassle; with Jhin's current skill level, it was difficult to design it for unlimited ammunition.
But it guaranteed power while also being hard to detect, so he reckoned this counted as a pretty good improvement.
Exactly which attack method to use still had to depend on the actual situation. If he wanted to resolve a fight quickly and quietly, he'd choose [Dark-Corrosive Thunder · Pistol]; if he wanted continuous attacks, he'd use the original version. Flexible, ever-changing tactics were the key to victory, after all.
The next day, Jhin took the pistol and began advancing through the Red Dragon Volcano while hunting monsters as he went. Since there were no magic-power fluctuations, and since he could amplify the power of the fired bullets, basically the moment he raised the pistol, a monster would be ambushed and killed by black lightning.
Kyaru stared at the pistol, her eyes full of curiosity, but she didn't ask anything—she reckoned she wasn't worthy of learning about such things.
Jhin, for his part, had no such reservations. Spinning the gun in his hand, he explained to her, "This is the form after magic improvement. No magic-power fluctuations, but it does make noise. Range is two hundred meters, and in a short span it can fire seven spells in a row."
"That's amazing..."
"It's all right. Right now it's just the most basic version. There was originally a better design, but with my current abilities, I can't pull it off yet."
A gun in one hand and a sword in the other—I'm getting closer and closer to the Tenno Hamster from my memory. Maybe if I got a spear and paired it with a flintlock musket, I could even cosplay the Sword Saint of Ashina.
"Kyaru, times have changed." Leaving her with that baffling remark, Jhin continued onward.
Though Kyaru couldn't understand what it meant, from her fragmentary memories she could tell he was making some kind of joke. Gripping her staff firmly, she trotted to keep up with small steps.
A stone rolled down the slope all the way into the cave, but before it could reach the central spot, the high heat instantly turned it into a bright gemstone, which then melted into liquid and flowed into the lava pool below.
A colossal beast covered in pitch-black scales lay sleeping soundly in the center of this lava pool. The breath snorting from its nostrils was like a high-temperature blowtorch—anything that drew near would become part of the lava.
It was called "Letishi," the mutated Red Dragon King who reigned over the Red Dragon Volcano.
At birth, it had been mocked for the black scales that set it apart from its kin. It hadn't even spent its hatchling stage on Dragon Island before running off to live on its own. These black scales granted it tremendous physical strength and terrifying defensive power, letting it safely survive its hatchling years and transform into a young Red Dragon.
When it returned to Dragon Island once more, it used its formidable body to give a sound beating to all those who had once mocked it, then strode off, severing all ties with its homeland of its own accord.
As for parents—if such beings had existed for it at birth, it probably wouldn't have been mocked by its own kind to the point of leaving Dragon Island.
After Letishi found a spot it found agreeable and took a nap, it woke to discover that its surroundings had become its favorite kind of environment, so it decided to settle here for the long term.
Not long after, a group of Red Dragons found it, carrying a letter from the dragon elders. The letter clearly stated that, according to a prophecy, if it continued to stay in this place, it would one day be slain by a certain human—so it should hurry back to Dragon Island.
After reading the letter, Letishi flew into a rage. It was the strongest young dragon of the Red Dragon clan, and yet it was being threatened by those ancient deadweights! In its fury, it spat out dragonflame and killed half of the Red Dragons outright, then took the rest in as underlings to manage the surrounding area.
For the first two hundred years after receiving the letter, it spent every day in anger, believing that even if the goal was to trick it into returning, they shouldn't have used such a weak creature as a human to insult its dignity.
Another three hundred years passed, and it began to feel contempt for the human race—those underlings couldn't even smoothly subjugate the Sub-dragon Species they'd haphazardly produced, and yet a human wanted to kill it? It was an utterly enormous joke.
Now, in the present day, its attitude had shifted from indifference to anticipation. Among humans, there had indeed appeared heroes it acknowledged—but none of them was the human described in that letter.
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