Ch-13-First Firearm (Second Edit)

Coming to, I found myself on the dining room floor, with the chair having fallen over behind me and the light of dawn coming through the window.

Slowly getting up from the floor and feeling a bruise on my left forearm and my right side directly where the scar was, I tried to remember what happened to cause this. When I did, it left me a little embarrassed about my momentary panic attack and subsequent breaking of all the safety measures I tried to make for the system so that this would not happen.

Besides that, I set aside my embarrassment and reviewed all the information I had received from the techs I had gotten last night. 

Initially, the information I was going through felt like the usual way the system did things, which was far too structured and perfect. However, as I continued, the way the information was structured became more and more natural. It was to the point that the only way I was able to distinguish between what I already knew and the information I had just received was the knowledge that I had bought the tech.

After I went through all the information, I went outside to the work area and was immediately given two quests with a notice.

{Infromation Formating and Stacking Error Fixed}

[Quest: Mainline 1: Onwards to the Industrial Revolution]

{Task 1: Be the first to discover/rediscover steam power!} (Time limit: 5 Hours)

{Task 2: Be the first to set up some sort of advanced crafting.} (Time limit: the other person will not be alive long enough.)

{Reward: Unique tech of your choice.}

[Quest: Mainline 2: First Contact]

{Description: Prepare for your new visitors.}

{Task 1: Furnish your second guest bedroom.}

{Task 2: Build guest bathing facilities.}

{Task 3: Build a more powerful weapon.}

{Reward: One limit break skill point.}

After reading the quests and finding that they mainly consisted of things I was already going to do, I began to work. The interesting part was that the first quest had a time limit on the first task, and the second one did not, while giving me a slightly angry feeling toward the person the message was talking about.

Choosing to ignore this and take my luck where I could get it, I started with the first task of the first quest since the steam engine had a time limit that it needed to be built in.

Walking over to the anvil to see if I could build it there, I opened the menu and found a parts kit for both the steam engine and steam mill but not the actual machines themselves.

This was interesting and left me with a guess about where to look. So I set both parts kits to be made, which takes two and a half hours, and then moved on to check the crafting table.

Here, I found the machines I needed, both of which required their respective parts kits to craft.

Afterward, I set the workbench to make an armor/clothier station and a bowyer/fletchers table, which I did not have and took an hour and a half to make.

Next, I went to the stone cutter and woodworking station to order a couple of foundations, walls, and roof pieces. These building pieces were meant to be used to make the bathing facilities mentioned in the second quest, but they ended up being finished first as their crafting time was slightly lower than the other things I needed.

I then took those pieces and walked to the back side of the guest rooms on the outside of the house, adding a joint full bathroom connecting the two.

With those pieces placed, I now had to walk inside the house and add a set of doors leading into the bathroom from both sides, giving them locks that could only be opened from the inside. 

When that was finished, I returned to the work area, where I set the furniture bench to build a queen-sized bedroom set, another bath set, and two toilet sets.

Those would take a little longer than I thought to make, so I went and placed the rest of the workstations that finished crafting while I was placing the new bathroom on the back side of the house.

After putting the armor/clothier station down first, I opened the crafting menu and was instantly treated to the many different types of clothes and armor that I could craft.

In my excitement, I ran over to the furnace and set it to make a set of ceramic plates before calming down and placing the bowyer/fletcher table down to complete the circle of workstations I had made.

Checking the crafting menu of the new workstation, I am presented with the option to craft a composite bow and many different types of arrows.

After those two were placed and I finished inspecting them, the anvil finished its work.

Walking over, I opened the menu and grabbed the parts kits before transferring them to the workbench and setting the machines to be made.

This would take another half hour, so I grabbed the furnishing sets and placed them in the house, completing two parts of the second quest.

Leaving the house once more, I waited for the new machines to finish crafting while setting the furnace to smelt random rocks in the hope of one of them containing some tin.

When the machines finished crafting, I walked upstream of the house and placed them down.

The steam engine's inlet was placed in the stream, and the crankshaft was connected to the mill.

With all this ready, I place some fuel in the steam engine and set it to start. As soon as I did this I was rewarded by the pistons beginning to pump slowly before speeding up and powering the mill.

Walking over to the mill, I opened the menu to see what I could make, and the first thing that caught my eye was the steam electric generator.

This, however, was inaccessible because I did not have any copper smelted due to smelting the iron first. So, I returned to the furnace to make some.

After setting the furnace to smelt some copper as the first priority over everything else, I took the ceramic plates that had finished being crafted and went back to the armor/clothier bench from earlier, setting it to make a set of projectile-protected hardened leather armor.

This would take out most of my stock of animal hide, but it was worth it in the long run.

I knew that I would soon need steel to continue, so I went to the mortar and pestle and set half of my remaining iron to be made into steel compound.

With the mortar and pestle set, I checked the furnace to see if I had made enough copper for my needs.

Opening the menu, I saw that the copper I needed was finished, so I walked back to the mill and set it to make the steam electric generator.

With that taking half an hour, I walked back to the mortar to check my steel compound. Surprisingly, the mortar was halfway finished with the compound, so I took what it had made so far and set it in the furnace to refine it.

With nothing left to do but wait now, my stomach chose this time to remind me that I hadn't eaten yet.

This reminded me of an old habit of mine I had in my old life where I would skip breakfast all the time. However, it was never to the degree that I could go almost to three in the evening without eating anything after walking around all day.

This might have actually been because of my enhanced endurance. Regardless, I Pulled out some of my remaining rations, as I was starting to run out and did not want to make a large meal this close to dinner, and ate them until I was satisfied once more.

Afterward, I walked over to the mill to check the progress and saw that the steam electric generator still had a few minutes left.

Waiting for it to finish, I grabbed it out and placed it next to my steam engine.

It was then that a system window popped up, showing that the quest was now complete.

[Congratulations [Quest: Mainline 1: Onwards to the Industrial Revolution] Completed! You have received the reward of one unique tech of your choice.]

After that, I gathered the steel that had been made and transferred the rest of the compound to the furnace.

Walking back over to the steam mill, I set it to make the basic mill I needed to build what I needed next.

This mill would take an hour to make, so to keep myself busy, I went out into the forest to cut down some more trees as I was 'running low' on wood.

An hour later, I was back in the meadow after 'restocking' my wood supply and even having gathered a few random medical herbs while I was at it.

Returning to the steam mill, I took out the basic mill that had finished crafting and set it down next to the generator so I would not have to make an extension cord.

With the new mill placed, I opened its menu and found what I was looking for: the firearms workbench.

Setting it to be made, I saw that it would only take one minute, so I sat down on the bank of the stream and waited.

When it finished, I was too excited to wait and placed it down immediately, right next to the mill, not caring where it was being put down.

As soon as it was placed, I opened the menu and looked at the options in front of me. My inner bald eagle was screaming at me to build all of them, and I was inclined to agree, but I had to hold myself back as I only had so many resources and so much time.

Closing the window and taking a step back to calm myself down, I opened the window again and chose to build the rifle won the west, the 30-30 lever action. The rifle was completed almost instantly, and instead of appearing in the bench's inventory, it appeared on the table with a few boxes of ammunition next to it.

[[???] Has activated. Your new rifle was instantly crafted and blessed by the same deity that has blessed you. With some free ammo as a courtesy.]

With the blessing unknowingly activating, I was left stunned by the message.

Coming back to reality half a second later, I sent a quick prayer of thanks and grabbed my new rifle and its ammo before moving onto the armor/clothier station.

Opening the menu and Taking out my new armor from the station's inventory, I spent a while figuring out how to put it on, but eventually, I was ready.

Loading my new rifle, I left the meadow and entered the forest, going toward the boulder field I unintentionally turned into a ramp leading deeper into the forest.

The reason for this trip was that I was low on iron now and needed more.

I eventually decided that this would be a good opportunity to test my armor, so I started moving at a sprint to see how I would move in it, and totally not as an excuse to run to my heart's content.

Making it to the newly christened ramp, I found a site that I was not expecting.

On the ramp, two people in silver-trimmed light blue robes were fighting what appeared to be a black-and-white tiger on fire. The fire was strange, though, as it was white in color and did not seem to be harming the tiger itself.

The two people had their backs facing me, and the tiger seemed to not care about my newly arrived presence. It did not even give me a look and focused only on the other two people in the clearing.

The same could be said for them, as they did not seem to know that I had arrived. It was almost like I was a ghost that everyone ignored until I got close.

Looking closer at the two people, I noticed that one of them appeared to be a woman, and the other appeared to be a man.

The people and the animal were having what looked to be a staring contest until the man lunged forward with a spear that appeared from nowhere and wrapped itself in water.

The spear bit into the tiger's shoulder as it dodged out of the way, not seeing the woman, who was now holding a sword wreathed in yellow and red flames, slash at its other leg.

The flames wrapping the tiger seemed to absorb the blow before the tiger lunged out at the man, clawing him savagely across the chest.

The man took a few steppes back before collapsing to one knee.

Seeing this, the tiger went to finish him but was stopped as the woman stepped in, slashing it without the flames this time.

The tiger dodged the girl's attack before countering with one of its own.

The girl, however, anticipated this and dodged countering with one of her own stikes.

This seemed to start a cycle that was repeating itself, waiting for one to get the upper hand.

However, I would not let that happen as I raised my rifle and got a bead on the tiger. When I was confident I got a good lock on the tiger, I barely squeezed the trigger, and the gun jolted, letting off the first crack of a gun this world has ever heard.