Chapter 168: Heavy Machine Gun Wizard

A week later, the bell in the workshop rang.

Lei En stopped his work, opened the door, and the goblin boss Jia Weizi stood outside, saluting, "Customer, the item you ordered is ready; please inspect it."

A large wooden crate lay at the goblin's feet; he pushed it over with effort, looking strained.

Lei En's eyes lit up as he lifted the crate lid; inside were rows of yellowish empty shells made of brass, lacking caps and projectiles, each shell identical in size, clearly machine‑made.

He grabbed a handful, examined them closely, and nodded in satisfaction.

The shells' dimensions met his specifications, and their quality was excellent.

"Boss, this is your craftsmanship, right? Truly superb," Lei En cheerfully paid, pulling out a pre‑prepared money pouch and handing it to the goblin, while still offering praise.

Jia Weizi poured the Gold Shields from the pouch, counted them carefully, and said delightedly, "The workshop often receives orders from gunmen for shells; I'm seasoned, but this is the first time we've handled such a large order."

The large crate contained exactly two thousand shells, and Lei En paid over fifty Gold Shields for them.

An ordinary gunman might not use that many bullets for years.

Each Soul Gun shot consumes soul energy; every bullet is painstakingly crafted—from materials to enchantments—with complex steps and high cost, making Soul Gun Bullets scarce. They are normally stored meticulously, never wasting a single one.

Hearing Jia Weizi's words, Lei En laughed and said, "Boss, this is just the beginning; there may be more orders later."

"Great, welcome to place orders!"

Jia Weizi rubbed his hands eagerly; he didn't care why Lei En needed so many bullets, as long as there was profit. The workshop had a dedicated shell‑production line that was usually idle, making such a large demand a rare opportunity.

The goblin happily took the money and left.

Lei En carried the crate back into the workshop, tossed it into a corner, and the firing drug was still being prepared, not yet ready for loading.

Half a day later, an anywhere door opened nearby, and Ao Xi Li Ya stepped out, seeing Lei En still busy, and asked, "Earl of Glamorgan, how much longer will you stay here?"

"Almost done," Lei En replied without turning his head.

Ao Xi Li Ya's expression froze; this was her third follow‑up, yet each time Lei En answered "Almost done," perfunctorily.

A week earlier, upon arriving at the mechanical workshop, Lei En never left the workshop; aside from passing through the anywhere door each day to appear once at the magical hotel before the Secret Fire Guard, he ate and slept entirely within the workshop.

She had little interest in machinery, but could tell that Lei En was forging a Soul Gun.

However, this Soul Gun was odd.

Just from the component sizes, one can see the final product is several times larger than a typical Soul Gun, and its weight is astonishing.

Most importantly, she saw no magical or rune applications on the Soul Gun.

Ao Xi Li Ya doubted whether this Soul Gun could be used, and even if it could, what effect could a single Soul Gun have?

She truly could not guess the Earl of Glamorgan's intentions.

At first, Ao Xi Li Ya kept watching in the workshop, fulfilling her duty to protect Lei En, but after two days of such tedious waiting she could barely endure.

Lei En didn't want her to be a hindrance while he crafted the gun, so he proactively offered to let her leave.

He explained that he had already employed a shape‑shifting disguise, making it impossible for enemies to track him, and the mechanical workshop was safe enough.

Ao Xi Li Ya no longer insisted, merely coming twice daily to check his safety.

Unexpectedly, a week passed and Lei En was still in the workshop, seemingly having completely set the Earl of Glamorgan's matters aside.

Ao Xi Li Ya said lightly, "Master asked me a question today."

Lei En halted; her meaning was clear: Master Anxi was dissatisfied with his progress. No one could ignore a Holy Soul Wizard's urging.

"Understood," Lei En solemnly nodded, "Give me three more days."

"Three days?" Ao Xi Li Ya hesitated for a few seconds, saw Lei En still insistent, and said, "Fine, I hope the Earl of Glamorgan can provide some explanation."

Having said that, she opened an anywhere door and left.

After the anywhere door closed, Lei En turned to look at what he held: a barrel nearly seventy centimeters long, jet‑black, weighing close to fifty pounds, already longer and heavier than most Soul Guns.

On the table beside him lay the pre‑made firearm components, arranged separately.

Lei En hurried over, assembled them swiftly, and soon a large gun materialized in his hands.

Any Diqiu person with some knowledge of armaments or who often plays shooting games would instantly recognize it as an M60 universal machine gun!

An actor named Shi Tai Long once wielded this machine gun in a film, holding the gun in one hand and a ammo belt in the other, sweeping fire at enemies, leaving a strong impression and earning the nickname "Rambo's Gun."

That day, a gunman hit a target from over three hundred meters away, inspiring Lei En.

He initially intended to follow this line to craft a sniper rifle; a mobile game even featured a powerful anti‑material sniper, but sniper rifles demand too high a precision.

With the aid of metal feel, careful polishing, and repeated testing, Lei En could also forge a sniper rifle, but it would take a long time.

After careful consideration, Lei En concluded that a sniper rifle might be unsuitable.

Ai Lun E Si's gunmen, upon reaching high ranks, can achieve sniper‑like effects; their range isn't as far as true sniper rifles, but the power is comparable.

That shot he received was no less powerful than a sniper rifle's.

However, high‑rank gunmen are not particularly outstanding among the many extraordinary professions, often ranking at the bottom.

Because such long‑range single attacks are akin to instant‑death spells, many supernaturals, especially casters, have their own defenses, making instant kills difficult.

Many magical shields are passively triggered upon attack, constantly guarding against ambushes.

Only legendary‑plus gunmen wield a single shot so terrifying that it can kill outright.

It is said a legendary gunman's full‑strike can demolish an entire building.

That's almost comparable to heavy artillery.

But Lei En believes gunmen lack not Soul Gun power, but rate of fire and fire‑suppression!

In essence, a Soul Gun is a spell; it consumes soul energy, and like casting, the stronger the power, the longer the firing time— the strongest soul‑infused shot takes two or three seconds per shot.

Such sluggish fire rate gives enemies excessive reaction time.

On the battlefield, the most terrifying is not the sniper rifle but the machine gun: long range, rapid fire, bullets pouring like a storm, leaving no breathing room, suppressing to death.

By contrast, Lei En thinks machine guns are more suitable than sniper rifles for frontal combat.

He has two or three machine‑gun schematics on his phone, and he instantly chose the M60 Rambo's Gun.

It is a universal machine gun, usable as a light gun for mobile fire or mounted on a tripod as a heavy gun, firing 7.62 mm rounds with an effective range of eight hundred meters—far surpassing high‑rank gunmen's range and exceeding most wizard spell distances.

Lei En values fire rate above all; its theoretical rate exceeds five hundred rounds per minute, and its actual combat rate also reaches two hundred rounds per minute.

He originally wanted to make a big Pineapple M249 with an even higher rate, theoretically up to a thousand rounds per minute, but he lacked the schematics, and the big Pineapple uses 5.56 mm ammunition, whose power is inferior to Lambo's Gun.

After a week of nonstop hard work, he finally forged this machine gun.

Lei En did not follow the schematics exactly and made some modifications himself.

The whole gun consists of 130 parts, and he selected the best‑performing metal raw materials from the workshop, combining hardness and toughness, most of which are alloys smelted from refined gold.

Lei En discovered that refined gold is a marvelous metal—heat‑resistant, wear‑resistant, hard, corrosion‑resistant, fatigue‑resistant, with performance unbelievably high in every aspect; its only drawback is its great weight and extreme difficulty to work, otherwise it would be a perfect metal.

To solve barrel overheating, he forged the entire barrel from pure refined gold, thickened it and lengthened it, greatly increasing thermal capacity so it can fire continuously for a long time without needing to replace the barrel.

If time permits, he even wants to combine the advantages of a Soul Gun by engraving runes on the barrel for heat dissipation, extending the gun's lifespan.

The modifications caused the machine gun's weight to skyrocket, exceeding two hundred pounds!

This is already a true heavy machine gun.

For reference, the original empty M60 weighed only about twenty pounds; after a tenfold increase, an ordinary person could not lift it at all.

However for Lei En, a two‑hundred‑pound machine gun is no different from a twenty‑pound one, and it still weighs less than his Crushing Ice War Hammer.

The over‑heavy barrel actually makes shooting more stable.

The 1.2‑meter‑long Lambo's Gun, entirely black and compact, is held in Lei En's hand; the metal's feel extends into the weapon's interior, and sensing its performance, he can tell without a firing test that the gun has no problem.

He presses the machine gun to his waist and mimics Sylvester Stallone's side‑to‑side sweeps a few times; the feel is quite good.

"No spells, no melee combat—what kind of Wizard am I now?"

"Mechanical Wizard? Or Heavy‑Machine‑Gun Wizard?"

Lei En fiddles with the machine gun for a while, his mind wandering, and only after a long time does he set the gun down, thinking, "Now I'm just missing the ammunition."

Bullets are the most critical and hardest part; two days ago, while Ao Xiliya was away, Lei En went to a nearby alchemy shop and bought a large batch of raw materials.

Months earlier, he had figured out a method using the Melting Integration Method to synthesize propellant, but this time the quantity is larger and the difficulty higher; it is almost finished and hidden in a corner of the workshop, covered with canvas.

He also has primer, and has found a substitute for Thunder Mercury.

For the projectile, he plans to use the hardest dragon‑pattern steel for the core, making a pointed Armor Penetration round to boost power.

He also needs to make a backpack‑style magazine that can hold two thousand rounds, a flexible ammunition feed belt, and a detachable iron‑plate bullet chain to link the rounds together.

Loading the ammunition isn't difficult and doesn't require high skill, but it is all meticulous repetitive work; with such quantity and no mechanical aid, it must be done by hand, which is very time‑ and labor‑consuming.

"I recall seeing a hand‑cranked loader that one person can operate to make bullets and link them into a chain; I'll definitely need it often, so I'll build one when I have time."

"Three days should be enough."

Lei En pours out all the casings and buries himself in work.

(End of chapter)