Assimilate All Talents

Sol looked at the smooth black cylindrical tube with an intrigued expression. He tried to use [Analysis], but nothing appeared. As expected of Fabio’s products, it was something never before seen.

"Tynamo Cannon?"

Fabio nodded. "At first, I wanted to make something compact like a void saber or something more defensive like a shield that absorbs energy, but I quickly realized it was too impractical. Void energy innately hates staying still, so when I try to make it take a specific form similar to the Lipon, it fights back hard, causing it to break in a few seconds. So, I had to go with the projectile route for this one." He then lifted the Tynamo Cannon, which was almost as tall as he was. "This bad boy may be called a cannon, but it only shares its appearance; it's honestly more similar to a bow if looked at from a functional angle."

He placed the Tynamo Cannon on his shoulder and showed Sol how to use it. "It’s not hard to use; it only has three mechanisms to control it. The first is a slider, which changes the potency of the void beam by manipulating the oscillation of the..." Fabio glanced at Sol and saw he was losing him in the explanation. Even Taliya, who was from a completely different area of expertise, didn’t understand much of what he was saying.

Fabio sighed, wishing the old man who taught him all of this was still alive; at least then someone could understand his genius. "I’ll skip all the boring stuff. Moving the slider down means weaker, thinner beams and up means stronger, thicker beams of void energy. The minimum still uses 3.43% of the void root's reserve; any lower and it would be too weak to form a concentrated beam. The highest uses up 48%; any higher and the interior parts of the cannon would begin to break."

Sol nodded, feeling a bit bad for not understanding and appreciating all the work that went into it. ‘Maybe I should hit the books at the Royal Library sometime; there should be something on the subject.’

Fabio continued with his presentation. He showed the trigger located on the bottom, which released the beam, but didn’t actually pull it. Instead, he handed it to Sol and said, "Give it a try! I set it to 10%."

"Huh? Here? Now? Where do I even aim?" Sol didn’t want to accidentally destroy Taliya’s workshop, especially when he had just met her for the first time.

Taliya pointed and said, "Aim there."

"At your forge?"

She pointed directly at the opening of the forge, which was currently unlit. Sol knew forges were meant to be durable to contain extreme temperatures, and this was an A-Ranker's forge, but this wasn’t even fire; it was void energy.

Fabio reassured him. "Trust me, it’s made for this. Plus, I’ll get to explain how we got the other void material in the cannon."

"The other void material? Alright, fine. Here goes nothing."

Sol aimed the Tynamo Cannon and pulled the trigger, releasing a short three inch beam of pitch black energy toward the forge. It felt good to use, with only minimal recoil that he completely negated, and because it was specially designed for him to wield, it fit comfortably over his shoulder.

The beam traveled instantly, rivaling the speed of light magic, and entered the forge, causing it to light up. The forge shook as unknown runes lit up on all its surfaces. The runes clearly did something as the void energy didn't disappear when it entered the forge but instead circled around inside, condensing and morphing into a black flame.

‘What the-?’ Sol used [Analysis], and surprisingly, the forge worked, but the results were even more shocking.

[Blessed Heart of Creation

Legendary

Durability: 9999/9999

Skills:

[Unbreakable Core] Lv MAX, [Spirit of the Elder Fire Elemental] Lv MAX, [Purifying Flames] Lv MAX, [Mystic Flame Conversion] Lv MAX]

Taliya approached the forge and proceeded to take out a few seemingly random ores.

"This forge used to belong to our master. We’re not sure how he obtained this or if he made it himself, but what we do know is that it was blessed by Proteus, the God of Transformation. He blessed it so any type of energy, as long as it's potent enough, transforms into a flame that retains its unique effects. In this case, void fire."

As she placed the ores into the fire, Fabio continued with the explanation.

"The fire by itself isn’t very useful; we can’t remove it from the forge, or it will be extinguished. But we can transfer some of its properties onto metals, that’s if they can handle the void flames. But Little Miss Forge over there can create unique alloys that... well, you can see for yourself."

Fabio stopped explaining as actions spoke louder than words, and the two took a seat to watch as Taliya carefully combined the many precious metals in precise quantities over the ominous black flame.

The two continued to watch as half an hour quickly flew by. Sol’s eyes were glued to the process as he realized how little he truly knew about forging compared to the beginner level skill he siphoned.

[[Novice Craftsman] leveled up! (6 -> 9)]

‘Three whole levels just from watching...’

The craziest part of it all was that he only really learned a few tricks; the rest was either too complicated or straight up impossible for him to emulate. Taliya polished the finished product and handed it to Fabio, who took it from there. He held the sleek black metal ingot up and said,

"We call it void metal. Not very original, I know, but what else could you call it? Anyways, doesn’t it look familiar?"

Sol looked at the Tynamo Cannon and saw it was the same color as the entire cannon.

"It’s all made from void metal?! But I saw durium and other rare metals being used! Isn’t that unbelievably expensive?"

Taliya shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. "All the money in the world can’t even buy legendary materials. Only an idiot would sell such a thing, and it would be stolen by other idiots like that guy."

She pointed back with her thumb toward the bloodied crime boss, who was still unconscious.

Fabio agreed. "It’s not really about the money for us. We finally got the opportunity to create something legendary. With the addition of void metal that was incredibly resistant to void energy, allowing it to release half of its energy in one go without any issue, there was another benefit in amplifying the Tynamo Cannon’s last function."

Sol remembered he was only shown what two of the three functions do—changing the potency and releasing the energy. He looked at the final button on the side curiously.

"What does it do?"

Fabio grinned mischievously and pointed at an empty wall. "Go stand over by that wall and hit the button when I tell you."

Sol knew he was up to something, but he trusted Fabio enough to let the man have his fun. He went to the wall and waited for further instructions.

THUD.

From Fabio’s spatial ring, a large object appeared. It was a large, semi transparent blue cannon with a massive elemental fire cartridge attached at the back.

"H-hey Fabio, please tell me that’s not what I think it is..."

"Hehe... This is my favorite toy, a reconfigured elemental cannon, Big Bertha! And for the final touch! [Overclock]!"

Big Bertha trembled as it changed from blue to red. The massive fire cartridge was completely drained in an instant as an incredibly concentrated blast of fire launched out of the cannon.

"Hit the button!" Taliya yelled, seeing that Fabio was too caught up in his antics to give a heads up.

Sol paled as he faced an attack that surpassed Kirgar’s massive ice spears, which could destroy entire mountains, and immediately hit the button. A small click could be audibly heard as Sol felt something spin inside the Tynamo Cannon. He held it forward toward the incoming fire and hoped for the best.

VRRRRR!

When the fire blast was only a few feet away, the Tynamo Cannon hummed as it began sucking in concentrated fire blast. It shrank rapidly as the flaming ball appeared to unravel into small strands that were absorbed into the barrel of the weapon. In almost an instant the terrifying flame was reduced to nothing, gone moments after it appeared.