14 The Lucky Blacksmith (1/2)
”Gru…mm…Gru…mm… Smelting Complete. You have obtained 8 stacks of Copper Ingots! Smelting Experience +20!”
A total of 20 Copper Ingots were produced. Almost half of them had gone up in smoke as Jiang Fei's Smithing skill was only at Level 1; A 60% loss.
”Ding! You have crafted an equipment—Green Copper Wrist Guard! Smithing Experience +1”
”Ding! You have failed the Smithing process!”
…
”Ding! You have crafted an equipment—Green Copper Wrist Guard! Smithing Experience +1”
”Ding! You have crafted an equipment—Green Copper Wrist Guard! Smithing Experience +1”
”Ding! You have failed the Smithing process!”
…
As the minutes ticked by, Jiang's Fei spent more and more Copper Ingots in his inventory. As a result, the empty slots in his inventory had been replaced with equipment! Smelting was nothing like Smithing. While Smithing, failing to produce an ingot from the ore would still grant Jiang Fei experience points. Smithing, however, the materials would still be processed. Failures resulted in a wastage of materials, and it would not award any experience points.
After smelting eight stacks of Copper Ingots -- a total of 1,600 Copper Ingots, he found that he was able to produce a total of 160 Green Copper Wrist Guards! It was a 50% success rate! Moreover, amongst the 160 Green Copper Wrist Guard, 20 of them were Green tier! That was a pretty good yield!
Based on the market prices, a Level 10 White tier equipment would cost roughly 20 silver coins. Green tier equipment at the same level would cost around 50 silver coins. To put it bluntly, Jiang Fei could sell all of his equipment for more than 40 gold coins. A total of 20 stacks of Copper Ore would only cost 20 gold coins. His profit margin was nearly 100%.
It did not sound like much, but these Profession players would not profit much from their labors, to begin with. The main reason was due to the rat race of increasing one's Crafting level. Almost all Crafters at this stage of the game would have to invest heavily to gain levels. This once again proved that no Profession player could survive on their own -- not without the help of a guild, at least!
Though their pockets would lighten as they leveled up, a good Recipe could switch the situation around. Their pockets would end up bulging at the seams!
…
Jiang Fei turned to the Temporary Storage at the Blacksmith workshop, slightly happier than before. Even though he was a Profession player, the euphoria and entitlement he felt then matched the elite players of the game. Still, having that many equipment was a problem. Despite being stackable, 140 of them had still taken up 14 slots.
”*Woosh*” The ring hummed.
Jiang Fei looked at the ring and finally realized that the ring had been flashing for a while now. It looked like it was hungry for those equipment that were threatening to give Jiang Fei more headaches!
”Haha! Good timing. I'll let you have them!”
Jiang Fei quickly deposited all 140 White grade Green Copper Wrist Guards into the red slots of the ring inventory. Ironically, he was grateful for the functions of the ring. Most of his success had largely been due to the ring.
Jiang Fei took the 20 Green Grade Green Copper Wrist Guards and threw them into his own inventory before heading back to the Bank. There, he extracted the remaining 30 stacks of ores and deported the equipment.