Chapter 20: Mastering the Magical Armaments: Explosions and Penetration

Upon Polaris’s suggestion, Baoyu nodded after a moment of silence.

“I understand, Senior. I’ll give it a try.”

She had seen plenty of edited footage of magical girls battling Corroded Entities before, but back then, her gaze had largely been fixated on the magical girls’ beautiful outfits and appearances. In other words, at that time, she had perceived everything unfolding on screen as a mere ‘performance.’

Indeed, in the deliberately edited and adjusted footage, people could always witness the magical girls’ battles brimming with spectacular visual effects. This was one of the reasons why, in recent years, people had enthusiastically blended magical girl culture with idol culture; after all, both were imbued with public expectations and effortlessly captured public attention, showcasing considerable commercial value.

Upon actually becoming a magical girl herself, Baoyu began to observe the magical girls’ combat itself more closely: how they attacked with appropriate methods at the opportune moment, how they flawlessly countered assaults, and how they nimbly evaded attacks beneath the Corroded Entities’ colossal forms. It was important to remember that most of them had once been ordinary girls who, like herself, had lived in peaceful environments. Behind the scenes, unseen by the public, they must have poured in immense effort and sweat, overcoming countless difficulties to fulfill their mission of eradicating Corroded Entities.

As these thoughts stirred within her, Baoyu felt a renewed weight in the gun she held, yet the hand gripping it grew even more resolute.

In any case, she resolved to first try following Senior Polaris’s suggestion.

Pointing the muzzle towards the ground, Baoyu pulled the trigger, casually emptying the magazine. With the spent casings ejected, the opened breech was once again exposed before her. This time, Baoyu deliberately refused the shotgun’s demand for magical energy; sensing her magical energy about to be drawn out, she exerted herself to recall it back into her body.

As the magical energy failed to transfer successfully, no new bullet materialized in the empty chamber. Even if she pulled the trigger now, nothing would happen.

Baoyu had no idea how her magical energy was supposed to transform into bullets. The idea of conjuring bullets from thin air sounded utterly unreliable. Yet, magical girls’ magic itself defied conventional worldly explanations, leading her to recall a phrase she had once heard somewhere.

‘Do not think; feel.’

Since it was her own magical armament, it shouldn’t be too troublesome to use.

Visualizing in her mind the magical energy within her continuously condensing and solidifying into bullets, Baoyu attempted to actively inject a much greater amount of magical energy than she had consumed in her previous shots.

As the magical energy steadily flowed into the breech, she watched as a bullet gradually materialized within the chamber. The casing’s appearance also underwent a distinct transformation from before; during the process of magical energy infusion, it shifted from a clear metallic hue to a metallic indigo, finally settling into a brilliant blue.

The sensation of actively loading ammunition, rather than passively allowing it, was far from easy. Baoyu could distinctly feel that the experience of using magical energy when guided by the shotgun was far more ‘seamless’ than it was now. Just as Polaris had mentioned, her magical armament had solved many problems she had never even considered.

It felt like trying to fill a container with water using a rusted, clogged, and erratically flailing hose. Without precise control, some magical energy was inevitably wasted, and due to the decreased efficiency, the loading time was continuously extended. To fully adapt to this rhythm and state, she would only succeed through constant practice and adjustment.

When Baoyu felt she had consumed roughly a third of her magical energy, a sense of mental exhaustion began to creep into her consciousness. Yet, the shotgun in her hands seemed far from reaching its limit, like a bottomless well, it endlessly absorbed the magical energy she poured into it.

Resigned, feeling the discomfort grow increasingly pronounced, she ceased the magical energy transfer. She closed the breech, took a deep breath, and then redirected the muzzle, aiming it at the wall.

Her right index finger slid to its familiar position. After another deep breath forced her to concentrate, Baoyu, feeling a dryness in her throat, pulled the trigger.

“Bang!”

With a thunderous roar, a burst of bright blue fireworks instantly erupted before Baoyu’s eyes. The unexpected recoil from the shotgun nearly wrenched the stock from Baoyu’s grasp, causing her body to tilt slightly. However, she had no time to mind these minor details.

The young girl’s eyes widened in astonishment as she watched. As the smoke cleared, the earthen wall, approximately ten meters away, was riddled with dense, intricate cracks. As these cracks continued to spread and expand from the central crater, fragments of the outer wall began to crumble and fall.

Even though this single shot hadn’t completely shattered the wall, the visible change in damage was nonetheless gratifying. Polaris, standing nearby, walked over to the wall for a closer inspection of the conspicuous impact crater. She reached out and lightly scraped it; the wall before them had become as fragile as a mille-feuille (TL Note: A French pastry with many thin layers) displayed in a shop window.

From the flashes created by Baoyu’s previous shots colliding with the wall, Polaris had already surmised that the bullets Baoyu fired from the shotgun possessed a certain explosive power. This was likely one of the shotgun’s inherent characteristics as a magical armament.

With such destructive power, it was almost comparable to a small artillery shell.

“Are you alright, Baoyu? Do you want to rest?”

“I’m… fine. Just a little startled.”

Her heart throbbed painfully from its rapid beat, her hands still tingled faintly. Waves of dizziness surged into her brain, crashing against the dam of her consciousness. Despite her conscious efforts to control it, her body’s equilibrium remained elusive. These symptoms manifested externally as Baoyu swaying precariously where she stood, appearing somewhat distracted.

“You should rest first. You consumed too much magical energy at once; your body probably hasn’t adapted yet.”

“Okay…”

Baoyu settled down on the spot. She had initially intended to use the shotgun to prop herself up, but the moment her hand brushed against the muzzle, she realized it was scorching hot. She instantly recoiled her hand and quickly rotated the shotgun, planting the muzzle firmly into the ground.

She had initially believed that her internal magical energy was like gasoline in a car’s fuel tank, where even a small reserve was enough to maintain normal operation. However, it now seemed that consuming too much at once could also impose a significant burden on both body and mind.

Nevertheless, this discomfort was indeed like a wave on a sandy beach, arriving swiftly and receding just as quickly. After remaining in place, regulating her breathing and resting for about two minutes, Baoyu had largely recovered.

“To control this gun’s output by independently regulating my magical energy—is that what you wanted to tell me, Senior Polaris?”

“Something like that. My main intention was for you to experience the sensation of personally controlling magical energy. I just didn’t expect you to push yourself so hard… So, what do you say? Can you continue?”

“No problem.”

Gazing at Polaris’s outstretched hand, and observing her petite physique, Baoyu accepted the kind gesture with a slight hesitation. However, the strength emanating from Polaris’s arm immediately dispelled her reservations. Of course, Polaris’s former weapon had been a massive, heavy shield; pulling Baoyu up would be effortless for her.

Once the shotgun’s barrel had cooled, Baoyu again held it, attempting several shots by actively injecting magical energy herself. However, this time she controlled the injected magical energy to the bare minimum, primarily to train her precision in magical energy output.

In the worst instance, the two bullets fired from the gun disintegrated the moment they made contact with the wall, causing no damage whatsoever.

‘If this was its full power, it seemed it wouldn’t be useless for suppressing human actions either…’ Tucking this somewhat dangerous thought away in her mind, Baoyu temporarily set down the shotgun and drew out her other magical armament from her belt: a bronze-gray revolver.

She had briefly fired this revolver a few times when she and Asherah rescued Ye Xiaoshuang. After that, she hadn’t paid much attention to it. Now that she needed to familiarize herself with the magical armaments’ capabilities, it was time to try and uncover the advantages it could offer in combat.

Compared to the somewhat weighty shotgun, this revolver was very light and portable, easily usable with just one hand, and adjusting its firing angle was much simpler than with the shotgun.

Baoyu had also looked up information about revolvers online in the past few days. While slightly inferior to contemporary semi-automatic pistols, its advantages of simple, reliable structure and high stability still secured its place in the firearms market.

After tinkering with it for a while, Baoyu gleaned some initial pieces of information.

This revolver featured a double-action trigger, and its cylinder contained a total of seven chambers, meaning it could fire up to seven consecutive shots. Compared to the shotgun, which required reloading after each shot, it should possess greater sustained suppressive power.

Next, holding the gun, she retreated to a distance of approximately fifty meters from another wall. By common firearms knowledge, this distance represented its maximum effective range. Aiming at the center of the wall, Baoyu pulled the trigger.

Seven gunshots echoed consecutively within the empty space, and several bullet holes, not closely grouped, appeared on the wall with each report. One, two, three, four…

Six in total.

It seemed one shot had missed the target entirely.

Baoyu blinked, attempting to find traces of the last shot on the ground near the wall.

“Step back a little, Baoyu.”

Polaris, standing beside her, suddenly took two steps forward and spoke. Following the direction of her gaze, Baoyu saw an earthen golem, which had previously been aimlessly wandering nearby, suddenly turn and charge towards them. It looked every bit as if it intended to attack them.

Its massive body, supported by two heavy legs, pounded the ground with thunderous thuds. Its seemingly clumsy limbs now moved with exaggerated motions, closing the distance between them at an unexpectedly high speed. In a few blinks, it was nearly upon them.

On the golem’s large, gray-blue head, Baoyu noticed something sparkling embedded within.

‘Wait, that’s her bullet.’

Baoyu instinctively reached for the shotgun on her back, but her outstretched hand grasped nothing but an increasingly awkward emptiness as the memory surfaced.

‘Oh no! Her gun was still on the ground far away!’

In that brief moment of her daze, Polaris had already positioned herself in front of the earthen golem. The stark difference in their sizes made Polaris’s back appear even more petite and vulnerable.

Facing the obstruction in its path, the earthen golem mercilessly raised its arm, swinging its sandbag-sized fist down heavily towards Polaris.

“Senior!”

Another dull, heavy thud resounded as the earthen golem’s punch slammed into the ground. Polaris, however, stood unharmed merely half a step away from the fist. Seizing the golem’s momentary rigidity, the red-haired girl kicked off its arm, scaling its torso in a few swift bounds at a nearly vertical angle.

The earthen golem swung its arms, attempting to dislodge the annoying little pest clinging to its body. However, Polaris gave it no such opportunity. Fully exploiting the advantages of her small physique, she played a game of hide-and-seek on the golem’s body with remarkable agility, evading its attacks by the narrowest of margins each time.

After several evasions, Polaris moved from the golem’s arm to its back, then slipped from its back to its head. Facing the two massive hands reaching for her, she calmly dove forward, dodging the grasp. Simultaneously, she hooked her feet around the golem’s neck, hanging upside down against its chest.

Her hands, encased in gauntlets, now gripped a white crystal protruding from the golem’s chest. With a powerful tug, using the strength of her entire body, she wrenched the crystal free from the golem’s form.

“…”

The earthen golem’s poised fists paused, and its movements ceased. Polaris seized this chance, still holding the white crystal, and leaped off the golem’s body.

Having lost the crystal that served as its power source, the earthen golem’s body underwent a new transformation. Its thick limbs began to soften and become porous, like leavening dough, and its structural integrity grew increasingly unstable.

Approximately half a minute later, only a puddle of gray sludge remained where the earthen golem had stood. It appeared this golem was completely defunct.

“They are earthen golems left by Xirang for combat training. If they are subjected to magical energy attacks, they will officially activate and attack any strong magical energy source nearby. That bullet must have accidentally hit it and caused it to activate.”

“My apologies, Senior.”

“There’s no need to dwell on such things. The important thing is that you’re fine.”

As she spoke, Polaris crushed the crystal in her hand. Large and small fragments fell through the gaps between her fingers, transforming into disappearing white motes of light as they scattered into the air.

“Your expression looked a bit tense earlier. What’s wrong? Are you having trouble with this pistol?”

Both their gazes fell upon the wall that had served as the pistol’s target. The bullet holes on the wall drifted upwards and outwards from the center, with one almost entirely outside the wall’s perimeter.

‘That’s why the last shot completely veered off and hit the wandering earthen golem in the distance.’

“I’m a little unaccustomed to its feel. This gun is unexpectedly strenuous to use.”

Baoyu shook her gun-holding wrist. Perhaps she had been tense and exerted too much force when using it in an emergency situation before. Now, she had attempted continuous firing with a more relaxed mindset, but the force from the trigger had caught her off guard. With each shot, her hand muscles grew tenser, and her shooting accuracy steadily declined.

Come to think of it, this was likely also the reason revolvers were gradually being phased out: each bullet required significant force to pull the trigger. To fire multiple shots in quick succession, one needed to adapt to this feel and practice diligently to improve accuracy.

Baoyu recalled some scenes from old Western films she had seen, where handsome protagonists, surrounded by multiple enemies, would draw their revolvers and empty their cylinders in an extremely short time, eliminating all foes. How was such rapid firing achieved?

Next, Baoyu similarly attempted active bullet loading practice with the revolver. A sufficient amount of magical energy formed into seven silver bullets embedded in the chambers. Controlling her hand muscles, Baoyu slowed her firing rate and discharged several shots at the wall.

The exaggerated explosions from before did not occur this time. From a visual standpoint, the results of this round of shooting were unremarkable, seemingly no different from her previous attempts.

“Did… nothing happen?”

She wondered if she hadn’t supplied enough magical energy, or if her approach was wrong, or perhaps if this revolver itself had no special properties. Baoyu found herself doubting.

“Let’s get closer and take another look, Baoyu. Examine the bullet holes on this wall.”

Polaris’s timely voice once again guided Baoyu. Following Polaris’s instruction, Baoyu stepped forward to inspect the bullet holes created by her recent shots on the wall.

And this time, she indeed made a new discovery.

On the wall before her, several bullet holes were significantly deeper than the others. The bullets were deeply embedded in the hard, thick wall, with their depth estimated to be almost halfway through the structure.

The dissolving bullets within those particular holes were precisely the silver bullets she had just fired.

“This is…”

“That’s penetrating power. Bullets fired from that revolver armament are imbued with an additional penetration attribute. So, by adjusting the flow of magical energy, you can produce a more direct piercing effect.”

Polaris elucidated the characteristic of Baoyu’s revolver armament. This trait was also highly practical; in certain situations and against specific enemies, it might prove even more effective than the shotgun.

Explosive power and penetrating power—both were clearly visible combat abilities. This child usually appeared polite, mature, and well-behaved, yet her magical armaments were remarkably brimming with ‘battle intent.’