The forge was more than just a crafting space—it was a blackened cathedral, a place where the sharp scent of molten metal filled the air, where the glow of the furnace painted the walls in hues of orange and green. The heat from the Blastrock kept the air thick, almost oppressive, but neither Renji nor Hajime cared. Their focus was unyielding.
It had been days—maybe longer—since they started working on their weapons. Hajime's craftsmanship was swift and brutal, while Renji's approach was methodical and precise. The base materials they used were far beyond what the average blacksmith could ever imagine—Taur Stone, Green Glowstone, and Blastrock, all combined with magic, reinforced with their raw mana. They had molded these materials not just into tools, but into monuments.
Taur stone: A black, hard rock. On the Mohs scale that went up to 10,
it would rank an 8 for hardness. It is able to handle heat and direct
impacts well, but is weak to the cold. Cooling the stone makes it brittle
and fragile. However, reheating it will restore its hardness.
Blastrock: A combustible ore. When exposed to fire, it burns like oil.
As it burns, it slowly decreases in volume until it finally burns to
cinders. Burning large quantities of blastrock in a confined space will
make it explode violently. Depending on its quantity and pressure, it's
possible to create flames as strong as those created by fire magic.
Green glowstone: This ore can absorb mana. When it is saturated with
mana, it emits a faint green light. If you break a saturated glowstone,
the light it has contained within explodes out all at once in a brilliant
flash.
The most common class in the world, Synergist, which was thought to be good for nothing more than crafting swords and armor, had brought forth modern weaponry into this fantasy world with the power of its sole skill, Transmute.
The forge hummed with the heat of creation. The rhythmic pounding of a hammer on an anvil echoed through the chamber as sparks flew, illuminating the shadows of the dim-lit room. Renji, focused on his work, adjusted the final components of his Chrono Trigger, a sleek, time-themed firearm he had spent days perfecting. Hajime, working across the room, was assembling his Donner, the powerful, thunderous revolver that had earned a reputation for its sheer stopping power.
With a final twist, Renji slid his mag into place, the Chrono Trigger now fully assembled. He glanced over at Hajime, who was adjusting the cylinder on Donner, and couldn't help but smirk.
Hajime raised an eyebrow. "Chrono Trigger? That's what you're going with?"
Renji didn't even flinch. He adjusted his gloves, then took a step back, admiring the smooth curves and sleek design of his gun. "It's clean. Symbolic. Got that time motif."
"You named it after a video game," Hajime remarked, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Renji shrugged nonchalantly. "It's a classic. Not my fault it's also timeless."
Hajime rolled his eyes but couldn't suppress the grin forming on his face. "Yeah, yeah, very nostalgic. You really think that's going to intimidate anyone?"
"You named yours Donner. That's just 'thunder' in German. Kind of edgy, don't you think?"
Hajime chuckled, not missing a beat. "It's direct. It doesn't need all that time-warp nonsense to make an impact. Donner means exactly what it is. A weapon that hits hard and fast."
Renji raised an eyebrow. "You sure it's not just to hide behind the whole 'German' thing?"
Hajime smirked as he finished tightening the barrel. "You do know that the Germans practically perfected gunmaking, right?"
Renji snorted. "I know. I was just waiting for the cliché to come out. 'German engineering,' huh?"
"I'm not afraid of being cliché," Hajime retorted, spinning Donner's cylinder with a flick of his wrist. "It gets the job done, and that's all that matters."
Renji rolled his shoulders and turned his attention back to Chrono Trigger, now resting in front of him on the workbench. He ran his fingers over the smooth contours, taking in the feel of the cold metal.
HAJIME'S GUN: Donner
Type: Single-action, six-chamber revolver
Capacity: 6 rounds
Frame: Reinforced steel and Taur Stone alloy
Design Influence: Classic German revolver, rugged and functional
Special Features: Power-focused, no frills
Built like the spine of a mountain and shaped with squared-off aggression, Donner was a beast of raw Earth. Its design drew from old-world revolvers, particularly the Colt Dragoon and Chiappa Rhino lines—but scaled for war mages, not cowboys.
Hajime's Donner was no-nonsense, designed with raw power in mind. Built from Taur Stone alloy and reinforced steel, the revolver was built for stopping power above all else. The barrel was thick, and the gun had a distinct weight that made it feel like an extension of the user's arm. The six chambers were large enough to accommodate Tempest Rounds, each loaded with enough firepower to tear through both flesh and armor.
The grip of Donner was constructed from polished steel with a tight texture for added control, allowing Hajime to maintain an unshakable hold during the recoil of each shot.
The frame had been carefully molded to withstand the high pressures generated by the shots, with additional heat-resistant layers applied to ensure the gun wouldn't fail under intense conditions.
HAJIME'S AMMO: Tempest Rounds
Core: Taur Stone
Casing: Steel alloy with Blastrock linings
Special: High-velocity impact with incendiary effects
The Tempest Rounds were built for maximum damage. The Taur Stone cores provided the necessary hardness to ensure the bullets could pierce even the toughest of defenses. But the real innovation was the Blastrock lining each round, which was carefully packed into the casing. Upon firing, the round's ignition would cause the Blastrock to erupt into a fiery explosive burst, devastating everything within a short radius.
The production process was meticulous. Each Tempest Round was crafted by hand, with the Taur Stone core being molded into shape first, then polished to perfection to avoid imperfections that could disrupt the bullet's path. Blastrock was then carefully packed around the core, ensuring it wouldn't detonate prematurely. The final step was to coat the round in a steel alloy, keeping everything contained until the bullet left the chamber. Once fired, the result was catastrophic—fire, explosion, and devastating force.
The bullets themselves were heavy—designed to keep their momentum, ensuring they tore through the target on impact.
RENJI'S GUN: Chrono Trigger
Type: Semi-automatic pistol, inspired by Colt 1911
Capacity: 7-round magazine + 1 in the chamber
Frame: High-grade steel with mana-reactive alloys
Design Influence: Classic Colt 1911 design, with modern enhancements for time manipulation
Special Features: Precision barrel, time-impulse mechanism for temporal distortion, recoil dampening
Chrono Trigger drew heavy inspiration from the Colt 1911, one of the most iconic handguns ever created. The steel frame of the pistol was reinforced with mana-reactive alloys, giving it the power to harness and manipulate temporal energy, a feature that the classic Colt never had. Renji wanted something functional, yet unique, taking the rugged reliability of the Colt 1911 and enhancing it with the potential to slow or speed up time within a fraction of a second.
The design was sleek, with the classic 1911 shape—a smooth, slightly curved frame and ergonomically designed grip. The trigger pull was crisp, and the sliding action was buttery smooth, reminiscent of the 1911's precise mechanics. The slide was polished, and the barrel bore a precision rifling that enhanced its accuracy, ensuring each shot landed with pinpoint precision.
The time-manipulation mechanism was built into the frame, a specialized module that infused the bullets with temporal energy, giving Renji the ability to slow down or accelerate the passage of time with each shot. Unlike traditional firearms, Chrono Trigger didn't rely solely on velocity—its unique feature was its temporal impact, which affected the environment around the target.
RENJI'S AMMO: Chrono Rounds
Core: Mana-infused steel, time-bending properties
Casing: Reinforced steel alloy with precision machined edges
Special: Temporal distortion, high-velocity impact
The Chrono Rounds were specially designed to work in harmony with the Chrono Trigger's time-impulse mechanism. The core of each round was crafted from mana-infused steel, a material that held the potential to interact with Renji's firearm and manipulate the fabric of time itself. Each round was treated with green glowstone, a powerful mana-conducting ore, which allowed the bullet to carry an inherent temporal charge that could be released upon impact.
The casing was forged from a reinforced steel alloy, chosen for its durability and precision. Each casing was carefully machined with exacting tolerances, ensuring that the bullet would perform consistently across various conditions. The high velocity of the round was paired with the mana charge that made it capable of manipulating the flow of time for a brief period, slowing or speeding up the target's movements.
The process of making the Chrono Rounds was a meticulous one. First, the mana-infused steel cores were smelted and shaped into bullet-form, allowing for perfect symmetry and consistency. The glowstone was embedded into the core using a specialized infusion process, ensuring that each round had a precisely calibrated amount of mana saturation. This ensured that the bullet would deliver the correct amount of temporal distortion upon impact.
Once the rounds were forged, they underwent a series of testing to ensure that their temporal effects would be consistent and controlled. It wasn't an easy process, and any flaw in the forging would lead to catastrophic failures—either a bullet that didn't work or, worse, one that malfunctioned in the middle of a fight.
With each weapon perfectly reflecting its creator's style, Renji and Hajime readied their guns, prepared for the test of their creations. Chrono Trigger, with its timeless design and sci-fi enhancements, stood poised to manipulate time itself, while Donner, built for raw power, would deliver a devastating punch. The clash of their styles—time versus force—would soon come to a head.
The shadows here moved like living things. A low mist rolled across the jagged black stone of the ravine floor, swirling around the worn boots of two figures pressing deeper into madness.
Renji exhaled slowly. The green glow of Chrono Trigger shimmered faintly, casting light across the sweat-slicked lines of his face. The gun was a heavy-frame, sci-fi variant of a Colt 1911—its length extended with a reinforced heat-shielded barrel, mana-circuit latticework running beneath the slide, and a magwell that fed the chrono-infused rounds into a rail-accelerated chamber.
Each bullet was a complex alchemy of taur-forged casing, compressed blastrock core, and a sliver of green glowstone suspended in the tip, waiting to erupt in a controlled time-distortion pulse upon impact.
He felt the pressure shift. Something was moving.
A ripple in the fog—then motion.
A wolf the size of a horse lunged through the miasma, jaws stretched unnaturally wide, bones splitting its skin like jagged armor.
Renji side-stepped, grounded his heel, raised Chrono Trigger.
CRACK-THUMP.
A rail-accelerated shot punched straight through the beast's snout, and the green glowstone tip detonated inside the skull—expanding in a green flash, then snapping backward in a delay of temporal whiplash. Blood and bone hit the stone two seconds after the body dropped.
Behind him, Donner thundered.
Hajime stood in a low shooter's stance, Donner leveled with precision—its six-chamber revolver core smoldering with mana heat. The entire upper body of another wolf ruptured in a mist of molten tissue and steel-sharp ribs.
He rotated the chamber with a thumb-flick. The inner mechanism hummed as a blastrock-charged round slid into place, the pressure sigil on the hammer glowing red-hot.
Another target. A pack of three.
They moved too fast for normal eyes—but not for Renji. Not with the time-bending perception of his class.
He rolled forward, came up kneeling, braced Chrono Trigger with both hands.
Three rounds.
One-two-three.
The bullets sang through the air, twisting mid-flight from the temporal charges, bending space ever so slightly. The wolves never stood a chance. Heads turned too late. The rounds pierced vital points—one through a throat, one under an eye, one just above the heart—followed by micro-bursts of pressure that snapped necks from within.
"Clear." Renji's voice was quiet, almost reverent.
They advanced.
Hours blurred. The deep layers of the labyrinth were a hellscape—lava-choked tunnels, jagged vertical drops, fields of magical crystal. They fought through it all.
Hajime swept a rifle-sized blade through a group of chitin-armored manticores while Renji provided cover fire from a perch, using precise bursts to weaken joints and expose soft tissue.
They used the terrain, lured monsters into tight passages, set glowstone grenades as proximity mines, and crafted extra chrono rounds in the dead time between battles. The process was delicate—Renji cracking open glowstone shards with a steel punch, adding precisely cut taur fragments into each bullet mold before Hajime sealed them with blastrock gel and tempered them over flame.
The ammo was rare. Costly. Unforgiving if done wrong.
But when done right? Deadly.
By nightfall—if it could be called that in the dungeon's eternal dusk—they made camp.
The corpse of a horned rabbit twitched over a spit. Cooked meat hissed over the fire of a blastrock burner, lighting the jagged ceiling above in flickering orange.
They sat silent, the quiet crackle of fire and the faint ticking of mana capacitors the only sounds.
Chrono Trigger rested beside Renji, cleaned, its green-core magazine newly loaded.
Donner sat beside Hajime, chamber full, the hammer lowered, its taur-forged frame gleaming.
No more words. Just breath. Just survival.
Tomorrow waited.
And so did the monsters.
The horned rabbit meat had a strange metallic tang, somewhere between venison and copper. It sizzled with latent mana as it cooked, and as the two ate in silence, a strange heat bloomed beneath their skin.
It wasn't immediate. But the shift was undeniable.
Renji's breath hitched. His vision tunneled. Muscles tensed involuntarily, then relaxed—smoother, lighter, like gravity had suddenly dialed down around him.
His boots scraped against the obsidian rock. No friction. Less drag.
Across the fire, Hajime's eyes narrowed. He felt it too.
A data stream lit up on their status card—lines of new information carved from consumed DNA and transmuted through their bodies via magic-infused digestion.
[You have acquired new skills.]
Air Dance [+Aerodynamic] [+Supersonic Step]
You are no longer bound entirely by gravity. Footwork becomes wind-borne. Motion accelerates with intent.
Renji stood slowly. Flexed his ankles. Took one step—and vanished in a shimmer of wind and light. He reappeared five meters away with a shock of displaced air trailing behind him.
He blinked. "That... was fast."
Hajime didn't even bother responding. He launched forward with one burst, vanished, then reappeared off a canyon wall—vaulting through the open space like a ghost with wings. His coat snapped in the air. The recoil of movement was nearly silent.
"No. That was fast," Hajime muttered, landing in a crouch.
Renji smirked. "So you're still competitive."
Hajime didn't respond. He was already gone again, a flicker of light and a gust of wind. They tested it for the next hour—vaulting, weaving, accelerating along walls, firing in mid-air with impossible stability.
Chrono Trigger's recoil compensation system synced beautifully with Air Dance. Renji could shift and fire in midair, bending time and motion simultaneously.
Donner's raw power became surgical. Hajime could now close distance in a blink, fire point-blank, and vanish before the blood hit the floor.
They weren't walking through Orcus anymore.
They were cutting through it.
Silent. Deadly. Unbound.
The dungeon didn't know it yet.
But it had already lost.