The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 709  Archery

After following Fizzspark into the archery room, which had its own shooting gallery in the back, Karl was flooded with cheerful greetings and the sound of cheerful conversations.

It was a very different feeling than the forges, where everyone worked in silence, as the noise of the forge was too loud for casual conversation.

Surprisingly, a large portion of the room was not crafters who had some special skill in creating bows, but Nature Priestesses.

Bows were traditionally created from wood. Nature Priestesses excelled at growing more of it. It was a perfect fit for them, Karl decided.

Karl walked over to one of the bows and picked it up to examine the enchantments on it.

{Bow of Multi Fire} Uncommon Grade bow. Creates two arrows each time the bow is fired.

Karl shook his head as he realized that the one important thing the bow didnʼt do was allow for separate targeting, or even aim assist when you fired.

But it was Uncommon Grade, and that wasnʼt a particularly powerful item. The question was, why was it the first thing he found on the table?

”What do we have thatʼs already at the Rare or Epic Grade to be enhanced?” Karl asked.

One of the bowyers raised his hand, and Karl walked over to see his work.

{Compound bow of Brutal Impact} deals 110% of skill damage as physical impact. Requires skill use to activate. That wasnʼt terrible. It would be hard on the mana levels, but it would double your damage output, or allow you to use a much lower output that didnʼt deplete the Elite nearly as quickly.

The problem that he could see was that the actual bow was not particularly high-quality wood. Ascended Rank Ash, if his botany knowledge was right.

It would have helped to have Lotus here. She would gladly fill him in on all the little details without him having to ask. The clerics here were too nervous to say much today.

But he would be able to work with that, it would just take more runes to reinforce the wood, which Karl noted was in a carefully crafted composite. It was quite a modern weapon, with its compound design for improved arrow speed and shorter overall length while retaining power.

Karl made a quick mental plan, then borrowed a paintbrush from the tools on the counter. Carving into the composite of the bow would do more damage than help, so he would have to do what he could with paint.

”I have a marker.” One of the nature priestesses suggested helpfully.

”Oh, that would be easier.”

She handed it over, and Karl noticed that it was a rainbow-coloured marker, with sparkles.

Whoever got this bow once they were done testing had better have a sense of humour if the runes didnʼt change colours.

Karl decided on two phrases. One to strengthen and stiffen the bow, and one to greatly improve the travel speed of projectiles.

Adding mana to the marker runes was not easy, and Karl suspected that it was the changing composition of the multicoloured marker. Even when he brought it through Awakened and Ascended Rank, it retained its sparkles.

At Commander Rank, the runes turned shining gold. Karl hesitated, but a Commander Rank weapon wouldnʼt do them any good for an Overlord Rank Ranger.

So, he took the bow to Royal Rank. The runes shifted colour as the power level increased, and the whole bow turned a rich black, with golden lines making up the wood pattern around the amethyst runes.

He could feel the saturation of the wood, and didnʼt dare to take it any further. But it was a good start.

”Alright, who wants to test fire the bow?” Karl asked.

The creator shrugged. ”I donʼt have an attack skill.”

Karl nodded in understanding. His class was {Bowyer}, so he had thought the man should have at least one skill for testing purposes. But this bow only activated with a ranged attack skill. Perhaps whatever he had was not suitable.

Or worse, the class could be entirely crafting focused, without even the ability to fight in an emergency.

One of the others came over and picked up the bow, almost throwing it in the air.

”Itʼs incredibly light. Feels good in the hands.”

Then he tried to draw the bow, and only managed to get it a few centimetres back.

”Monarch, I think there has been a mistake. Nobody can draw this.” He complained.

Karl frowned, then took the bow and stepped to the archery range. He activated [Rend] at Commander Rank and drew the bow string back, creating a vicious red metallic arrow.

The draw weight had to be close to a hundred and fifty kilos.

”Alright, perhaps thatʼs a bit too stiff, but Rangers have strength close to Warriors, so it should be usable for them.”

Karl let the arrow fly, and the barrier at the back of the room lit up, while the metallic target rang like a gong.

”One thousand two hundred metres a second. As good as a bullet.” Fizzspark cheered.

”The bow effect activates on impact, so the skill hits first, then the bowʼs damage is secondary, hopefully after the barriers are down. Not too shabby.” Karl agreed.

”Can you make it actually usable, and not just for you?” One of the bowyers asked.

”Sure. But the effect of the speed increase is percentage-based. The average combat bow tops out at something like a hundred metres a second arrow speed. Now, without significantly improving that with the actual bow, weʼre not going to see the same sort of results.”

The bowyer shrugged. ”The arrow speed is mostly irrelevant, isnʼt it? Itʼs just to get the arrow where it needs to be.”

Karl sighed, then turned to Cara. ”Throw one of those arrows at me.”

Cara giggled and climbed on the table, then drew back her arm and hurled an arrow at him in a perfect spiral.

Karl shifted slightly to the right and easily caught the projectile, while the crafters stared at them in horror, and Fizzspark tried not to lose her seat on the rapidly moving badger.

”As you can see, that wonʼt work. At a hundred metres a second, not only can I dodge the arrow, but I can catch standard projectiles.”