"Well, this one is going to be great," Arin thought as he carefully shaved down the longbow in front of him. The Sonnenberg family had recently received a request from the British royal family, who wanted their personal guards to possess the best bows available anywhere in Europe. Naturally, they had come to the Sonnenbergs, because there was hardly a better bow-making family on the continent. Even England, the traditional home of the longbow, could not boast bowyers who surpassed the Sonnenbergs in quality, consistency, and understanding of the weapon.
The order itself was not particularly complicated, but the standards attached to it were extremely high. The British royal family was not looking for ordinary weapons that could simply be handed to guards and replaced after a few years. They wanted bows that represented the very best their country could acquire, and that meant the Sonnenbergs had to ensure every detail was perfect. Arin had no intention of allowing even a minor flaw to remain in a weapon that would eventually be carried by royal guards.
"Okay, that is this one finished," Arin thought after making the final adjustment. He joined the bow and string together, carefully checking the tension before placing the completed weapon beside him. Three identical bows were already lying there, each one the result of his work that day. The four weapons looked almost indistinguishable from one another, which was precisely what he wanted, since consistency was just as important as individual quality when fulfilling an order like this.
His skills had allowed him to work considerably faster than he could have in the past. The greatest improvement had come from the professional skill he selected when his Bowyer profession reached Stage 0.9. At that point, he had been given the opportunity to choose another skill, and he had selected one that focused on woodworking knowledge and the proper methods of shaving, carving, and shaping wood into the form he desired.
The skill was called Woodwright's Insight, and although Arin already possessed considerable experience working with wood, it had still given him access to a vast amount of information he had never encountered before. It did not merely tell him how to carve ordinary branches or shape familiar timber. It also explained how different types of wood reacted to mana, how their internal structures changed depending on how they grew, and how certain unusual trees required completely different handling methods.
One example was lightning-struck wood.
Arin had not yet encountered a tree that had been deliberately struck by lightning, but according to the knowledge provided by his skill, such trees could exist in the current world. Some trees could supposedly be cultivated or grown in a way that encouraged lightning to strike them repeatedly during their development. The resulting wood would become incredibly hard and possess unusual properties, but it would also be exceptionally difficult to work with.
The main difficulty was not the hardness of the wood itself. Instead, it was the way the lightning mana became trapped inside the tree's structure and moved through its internal channels. If a bowyer shaved the wood incorrectly, the mana could leak out, disperse into the atmosphere, or even damage the material. The craftsman had to understand the tree's internal "nerves" and follow the paths through which the lightning had been channeled.
A single careless cut could ruin an otherwise valuable piece of timber.
There was another challenge that Arin had become much more familiar with recently: keeping mana trapped inside a material while working on it. That problem had been one of the reasons he had selected the Essence-Gated Reservoir skill when he reached Stage 0.6 in his profession. The skill did far more than simply prevent mana from escaping during the crafting process. It also allowed him to regulate the type of mana entering the bow with considerable precision.
That meant he could control both the amount of mana being stored and the nature of the mana being introduced into the material. Such control was extremely important because different kinds of mana could influence the final properties of the bow. Instead of allowing whatever mana happened to be present in the surrounding environment to enter the wood, Arin could guide the process and ensure that the material received exactly what he intended.
"By the way, how is my panel looking?" Arin wondered as he paused to reflect on how far he had progressed.
He opened his Status Window and reviewed the information displayed before him.
Status Window
Race: Human
Stage: Mortal (0.9)
Class: Archer (0.9)
Profession: Bowyer (0.9)
HP: 250 / 250
MP: 127 / 350
Stamina: 102 / 270
Attributes
Strength: 35
Agility: 27
Endurance: 27
Vitality: 25
Toughness: 24
Wisdom: 35
Intelligence: 35
Perception: 48
Willpower: 31
Free Points: 0
Techniques & Traits
Breathing Technique: Archer Breathing Technique (Inferior)
Physique: Son of the Forest
Class Skills
Focus of the Old Marksman (Epic)
Basic One-Handed Weapons (Inferior)
Archer's Eye (Common)
Echo of the Grove (Rare)
Power Shot (Common)
Professional Skills
Arboreal Lore (Common)
Stringcraft (Uncommon)
Limb Shaping (Uncommon)
Identify (Common)
Essence-Gated Reservoir (Uncommon)
Woodwright's Insight (Common)
"A lot has changed," Arin thought as he stared at the panel. His progress had not always felt dramatic while he was living through it, but seeing all his skills and attributes gathered together made the difference much easier to recognize. He had gone from struggling to understand the basics of archery and woodworking to possessing several specialized skills that allowed him to produce weapons far beyond what ordinary craftsmen could make.
Arin closed the panel and sat cross-legged on the ground, beginning to meditate so he could recover some of the mana he had spent. Around him, numerous other recruits were doing much the same thing. Some were meditating in silence, while others continued working on bows, strings, and other wooden products that could be sold through the family's growing business.
The workshop had become a familiar sight in recent months. Previously, many of the recruits had been forced to sleep underground in what they casually called the bunker. That situation had changed after the family constructed enough housing above ground using proper materials. Every recruit had eventually been moved out of the underground shelter, leaving the massive underground space available for another purpose.
The family had decided to convert the entire bunker into a woodworking workshop.
It had been an obvious decision. The underground area was spacious, secure, and already connected to the family's facilities. Leaving such a large amount of usable space empty would have been wasteful, especially when the Sonnenbergs were producing more bows and wooden equipment than ever before. The workshop now allowed dozens of recruits to work simultaneously without disturbing the people living above ground.
Arin looked around while recovering his mana. The sight of so many people meditating between crafting sessions had become ordinary, but it still amused him occasionally. Everyone was constantly trying to recover enough energy to continue working, because the newer techniques consumed far more resources than the older methods.
The problem was especially severe when Arin used the Essence-Gated Reservoir.
The skill essentially required him to coat an entire wooden branch in mana before slowly shaving and shaping it into the desired form. The coating had to remain active throughout the process, meaning he needed to continuously maintain the mana around the material while carefully removing layers of wood. If the mana coating weakened or disappeared, the process would become less effective and some of the advantages of the skill would be lost.
As a result, the technique consumed both mana and stamina at an incredibly fast rate.
Still, the difference in quality was undeniable.
The traditional method involved forcing one's own mana into the bow while working on it. That method functioned well enough, and it had been used by craftsmen everywhere, but it was inefficient. Much of the mana poured into the weapon would simply escape into the surrounding air instead of being absorbed by the material. The bow would retain some of the mana, but a considerable amount would be wasted during the crafting process.
The Essence-Gated Reservoir changed that entirely.
With the skill active, nearly every bit of mana Arin poured into the material remained trapped inside the bow until he finished working on it. Only after the crafting process was complete would the mana that had not been absorbed naturally escape into the air. This made the process much more demanding while he was crafting, but it also meant that almost none of his mana was wasted.
The result was a bow with a much denser internal mana structure.
That density was important because the mana stored inside the bow did not simply make it stronger in an abstract sense. Instead, it acted as a pathway through which the person using the bow could channel their own mana while activating skills. The more mana pathways the bow possessed, the easier it became for the user to guide their mana through the weapon.
In practical terms, a mana-filled bow allowed an archer to use their abilities more efficiently.
The weapon became an extension of the user's own mana circulation. Rather than forcing mana through a mostly ordinary wooden object, the archer could rely on the pathways already established inside the bow. This reduced resistance, improved control, and made it easier to activate skills without wasting energy.
Arin considered the idea of having too many mana pathways to be rather ridiculous.
He knew of no serious archer who did not possess or use Power Shot in some form. While he personally did not have much use for the skill at his current level of strength, that did not mean other archers could afford to ignore it. Most ordinary archers needed Power Shot because, without it, their arrows would often fail to deal meaningful damage unless they struck an extremely vulnerable area.
Armor made that problem even worse.
If someone was wearing proper armor, most ordinary arrows had little chance of penetrating it in a single hit. Multiple arrows striking the same location could eventually damage or break through a weak point, but relying on that was unrealistic during an actual battle. No opponent would simply stand still and allow an archer to repeatedly strike the same spot on their armor.
That was why Power Shot was so valuable.
It served as an equalizer, allowing an archer to concentrate enough force into a single attack to overcome the protection that armor provided. Even if the skill consumed more mana, the ability to deliver meaningful damage with one well-placed shot could determine whether an archer was useful against armored opponents or nearly helpless against them.
For that reason, Arin had no doubt that the demand for high-quality bows would continue to grow. As more people advanced, acquired skills, and began facing stronger enemies, the quality of their weapons would become increasingly important. The bows he was producing were not merely expensive wooden tools anymore. They were increasingly becoming essential pieces of equipment for anyone who wanted to survive in the changing world.