Gun Chapter 40: Miniature Sun! (Patreon)

This kind of all-around amplification of the senses didn’t feel convenient at first. It felt more like being overwhelmed by a flood of information.

He took a deep breath and let his mental power circulate steadily, forcing himself to adapt to the sudden enhancement as quickly as possible.

After only a dozen breaths or so, the chaotic sensory input was forcibly sorted into order. Everything became neatly categorized, and danger and ordinary background movement began separating themselves almost instinctively.

He filtered out the unnecessary information, reducing the discomfort caused by the sensory overload.

“Finally steadied it.”

Wakasha let out a breath.

After resting a bit, he left Chalk Forest and chose to go hunt slimes.

For no other reason than that slimes gave more experience.

About ten minutes later, the moisture in the air became noticeably heavier, and the ground turned muddy and slick.

The trees around him thinned out, replaced by wide patches of low moss and ferns, and in the distance he could vaguely see the reflection of standing water.

This was the deepest part of the marsh, the true gathering place of the slimes.

Wakasha stopped and narrowed his eyes slightly, spreading his perception out like an invisible net.

The next second, the corners of his mouth lifted.

“Not bad.”

Ahead of him, the marsh was full of slimes.

Pale blue, light green, and transparent gelatinous bodies slowly wriggled around the edges of puddles. A rough count put them at forty or fifty in total, forming a small-scale slime tide.

For a rookie adventurer, this kind of density would be a disaster. Slimes might be weak, but once there were enough of them, they could pin your limbs with their mucus and slowly grind you to death.

But for Wakasha, this was a walking cluster of experience points.

“Perfect chance to test how efficient Law of the Jungle LV2 really is.”

Wakasha slowly raised Deathbird, not even bothering to try a stealth attack.

Slimes had no eyes, no ears, and almost no intelligence. There was barely any difference between ambushing them and attacking them head-on.

He simply stood where he was and aimed at the large pale green slime in the front row.

The slimes here were much bigger than the ones near the outer marsh, each one about half a person’s size.

Pale blue mana gathered at the muzzle almost instantly, with barely any charging time.

At the same time, Spark at Fingertip was quickly loaded into the bullet.

Bang!

A light gunshot rang out.

The bullet tore through the air and slammed directly into the center of the slime’s gelatinous body.

Pop—

The soft jelly-like mass was punched through, blasting apart a large spray of transparent slime.

The large slime’s body convulsed and twisted violently, then completely lost its vitality within two seconds, melting into a puddle and seeping into the mud.

[Monster Killed: Large Slime. Obtained 5 EXP

Talent: Law of the Jungle activated. EXP x20. Actual EXP gained: 100

Concept Armament: Deathbird gained 100 Skill EXP

Spell: Spark at Fingertip gained 100 Skill EXP]

Wakasha’s eyes lit up.

“Hell yes.”

One kill was worth 100 EXP. That was more than wiping out an entire squad of ordinary goblins.

At this rate, he’d only need five of them to fill Spark at Fingertip’s max-level EXP bar.

He stopped hesitating and began rapidly swinging the gun from target to target, firing shot after shot like a chain of cannon blasts.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The gunshots echoed one after another across the quiet marsh. They weren’t especially loud, but every shot hit its target with perfect accuracy.

The slimes moved far too slowly to dodge. All they could do was take the hits.

Pale blue and light green gelatinous bodies burst apart one after another, turning into puddles of fluid.

System notifications flooded Wakasha’s vision so fast they practically spammed the screen. He chose to ignore the middle of it and focus only on the final results.

[Monster Killed: Large Slime x4. Obtained 20 EXP

Talent: Law of the Jungle activated. EXP x20. Actual EXP gained: 400

Concept Armament: Deathbird gained 400 Skill EXP

Spell: Spark at Fingertip gained 400 Skill EXP]

[0(1)-Ring Spell · Spark at Fingertip LV·EX: Consumes a certain amount of mana to generate an extremely high-temperature spark at a chosen fingertip, lasting 30 seconds

Bound Effects: Ring Promotion, Embers]

[Skill · Spark at Fingertip has reached EX, triggering ultimate options—

1. Red Sun (Epic): The maximum temperature this spell can reach is doubled, and the duration limit is removed

2. Solar Flare (Epic): This spell changes from contact-type to area-type, creating a high-temperature sphere that deals high-temperature, light, and other physical spell damage to units within range. Other spells can also be loaded into it to alter its effects

3. Black Sun (Epic): This spell changes from contact-type to attachment-type, creating flames that cling to the caster’s body. Attacking a target causes it to be burned by black flames that cannot be extinguished or removed by normal means or by spells below 3-ring

—Please choose one of the three ultimate options to permanently bind to this spell]

Seriously, and you’re telling me this is the effect of a 0-ring spell?!

The first option, Red Sun, basically turned him into a miniature humanoid sun. As long as he had mana, it had infinite uptime.

The second option, Solar Flare, was literally summoning a miniature sun, and it could even change its effects depending on what other spells were loaded into it.

And the third option, Black Sun... was that you, Amaterasu?!

Absolutely insane.

Wakasha was certain that other people using the same spell absolutely did not get anything this outrageous. Or rather, when other people leveled up skills, they probably didn’t get upgrade options like he did.

They’d have to do their own development and research if they wanted to modify or branch a spell out.

In other words, Wakasha’s cheat really was fully activated.

He carefully studied all three options, and in the end he chose Solar Flare.

Because no matter how ridiculous this spell was, at its core it was still just a 0-ring spell. In the future, stronger spells would eventually be able to achieve effects like Red Sun or Black Sun anyway.

So the functionality and future growth potential shown in Solar Flare were much more valuable.

That was why Wakasha chose it.

After that, Spark at Fingertip changed on his panel.

[0(1)-Ring Spell · Solar Sphere LV·EX: Consumes mana to generate a blazing, high-temperature sphere with a maximum radius of Intelligence x 2 centimeters. This sphere can float near the caster at a maximum distance determined by the caster’s Intelligence, and deals high-temperature, intense-light, and other physical spell damage to nearby units. It deals additional true damage to darkness- and undead-type beings. Maximum duration: 60 seconds

Bound Effects: Ring Promotion, Embers, Solar Flare]

What an absurd spell.

A miniature sun that lasted a full minute. He wondered whether he could just throw it at people.

As for Solar Flare’s other effect, Wakasha only had Mage Hand right now, so there wasn’t much to test yet.

But once Spark at Fingertip evolved into Solar Sphere, he could already feel something inside his soul starting to stir restlessly.