Chapter 48 - Forging (2/2)
”Only those? What are you making magic stones?”
”No. Of course, not. I got the remaining materials. I got a design for level 3 shield.”
”Black Iron shield? I could use some of those. Are you sure you can make them.”
”Yes. But lack the materials from Arwild Forest. Didn't go to the forest. So, lack the magic essenses and stones.”
”Oh, so you got the design from the dungeon?”
”No. If you are satisfied with the information I provided, can we discuss about the materials.”
”I will get someone to deliver you the materials in a few minutes costing a silver. That should be enough to create a few equipment. I hope you can sell us a few.”
”Yes, I can provide a black iron bow also. Let me make a few attempts then I can give you a proper value depending on the amount of resources and attempts I needed to make the equipment.”
”OK. I will have my guys deliver you some materials. Where are you?”
”I will be at the Forging association. Send them in twenty minutes or so. I will be working on equipment with the materials that I have,” said Shadow cutting the call.
The forging association was a two-storey building. The first floor had about 20 basic forging rooms and the second had the remaining forging rooms. There were already few guild members at the reception waiting in line for the forging rooms.
There are only 30 basic forging rooms at the forging association which could hardly support the growing population of the game. One of the silliest things done by the Metis Technologies was to underestimate the growth of the players joining the game. There was an exponential growth overnight.
This caused a crisis of space, especially for the trade profession players. The players waiting in front of the forging association were grumbling about the same.
”The damn price of these forging rooms are outrageous. 5 coppers an hour! I hardly have any left for materials.”
”Yes, it looks like the independent players can hardly prosper, if it continues to be like this.”
”It isn't easy for us guild members either. We were given only 30 to 40 coppers. The farming teams aren't able to successfully adapt to the game. It is much worse for us. Forging here is far too realistic with a high failure rate.”
”How come the basic forging rooms are all full. Instead of the 5 intermediate forging rooms, they could have put in more basic ones which we would use.”
”Stupid system why waste resources on an intermediate forge which no one would use.”
As they were bickering about the unfairness of the system, Shadow was calmly walking towards the attendant at the reception of the forging association.
”Oy! What do you think we have been standing in line for. We are all in waiting for the forging rooms,” ridiculed someone from behind.
”Ya, do we look like idiots to you?”
Shadow didn't pay any attention to them as he reached the attendant NPC. ”I would like to rent an intermediate forging room for one hour please,” he requested the attendant.
The NPC which looked bored from telling the players that basic forging rooms are not available, suddenly got an elated expression on its face. Finally, someone who wants to have an intermediate forging room. Now, it actually got a chance to get some decent amount from a bigwig.
”That will be 50 coppers an hour,” it said looking at Shadow. Noticing his title it immediately added, ”Esteemed sir would get a discount of 5 coppers.”
Shadow immediately paid 45 coppers to the attendant and obtained the key to the intermediate forging room. The players around who were ridiculing him stood aghast in shock.
”It is these kind of nouveau riche that waste their money on coin so early in the game,” said an independent player.
”You kidding?! It is impossible to exchange money for coins at this stage. It must be some kind of expert to get this kind of funding for forging,” said another guy shutting them all up.
Shadow paid no heed to any of their comments. He quickly reached the floor and got into the nearest intermediate forging room. He wanted to open and see what he would get from the silver blacksmith kit.
Once inside the room, he quickly opened to check the kit. There were three items inside.
[Basic Forging Manual] (Tool)
Written by Human GrandMaster Whitney of the White Heart Kingdom in her youth.
Provides an explanation of the basic Forging Techniques. Provides an increase in the success rate of Bronze equipment by 20%, Black Iron equipment by 30% and 50% for common equipment.
[Basic Forging Hammer] (Forging Hammer)
Gives 5% more experience points on successful forging of equipment and weapons.
[Kade's Insignia] (Bronze Badge)
Forged by Kade to help aspiring and resourceful blacksmith to improve their talent quickly.
Provides a fixed increase of 3 proficiency points for every successful forging of equipment or weapon.
This was the most valuable of all the three rewards from the quest, Kade's demand. The badge is the one that allowed Mr. Miner to improve his forging proficiency quickly. In general, every successful forging has only about 50% chance to gain a point in forging proficiency. This chance increases as higher ranked equipment are created. But this could hardly match the proficiency gained from the badge till one becomes an advanced apprentice.
Shadow immediately equipped the badge. He went over the manual to check if it had the same information that he heard of in his past life. It was more or less the same stuff he knew about handling various metals and other resources and small tips.
But it only covered the resources which were available in the starting areas of the game and not the ultra rare resources either. But still it included some useful stuff like the list of optimum temperature to heat for removal of the impurities from resources or the list of optimum temperature at which to temper or shape the metals.
Still it allowed him a lot of advantage over the other trade profession players. He checked the design for the light bow and realized that it was a lot easier than he had expected. It didn't even require the iron ore to be purified/refined.
In the advanced forging room, he had a few advantages over the basic forging room. The first was better and greater set of lathe machines and forging tools for various purposes like various kinds of tongs, chisels, fullers, flatters, swage blocks, blower/cooler and casts of various basic shapes. The other was that the temperature of the forge can be manually checked with a sensory device. This is very useful.
The third and the most important is the tier 1 mystic fire that is provided as the forge fire. The mystic fire can be controlled at the forge to the proper shape and intensity required for the product. The fourth was that it also provided a proper magic stylus to carve runes and magic pathways on the equipment. But for the black Iron equipment he wouldn't need the stylus at all.
He had quickly placed the iron ore in the melting pot and started up the forge fire. The mystic fire was deep blue in color with small sparks jumping out of it occasionally. Balthazar immediately recognized the fire to be the tier 1 mystic fire, the Blue glitter fire.
[Blue Glitter Fire] (Tier 1 Mystic Flame):
Can provide very high temperatures. It can also be used for forging. Items, tools or equipment treated with it tend to have improved magic conductance.
This fire was considered to be among the top three of the tier 1 flames for the purpose of forging. It was especially sought after to create magic orientated tools and equipment.
The iron ore placed in the pot began to melt within the minute under the heat of the Blue glitter fire. He added the Blackrock crystal pieces to the molten metal which quickly dissolved in it.
He slowly reduced the temperature and poured the metal in a cast in shape of a thin rod. After the temperature reduced a bit, he pulled out the metal on shape of rod from the cast. He then took it towards a filing and tapering machine and slowly removed required amount of metal from the rod to produce rod like tapered structure with pointed ends.
He took this to the anvil and again used the Blue glitter fire to soften it. He finally got to use his forging hammer along with other to bend it into the appropriate shape of a recurve bow and then he let it slowly cool down to the room temperature.
Though Balthazar had worked on smithing in his previous life, it was for a small time and he never made a bow. He was very satisfied by the result of his efforts. Even if it didn't have the perfect shape, once the system analyses it, the proper corrections to the shape and balance would be made automatically.
He immediately placed it on the anvil and selected the option for inspection. A green colored loading bar appeared beside it as the system was analyzing it. After a few seconds a notification sounded out.