Chapter 136 - Hammer and Tongs (1/2)
The first thing wanted to do once he logged in was to go to the auction house of the city. He needed raw material for the collection quest as well as creating equipment. So, the auction house was the best place to look for these after night.
Along the way, he contacted Rudra to check to request for any refined iron ore to make the rifle crossbows. As Balthazar managed to already create his own black iron equipment, all his friends in the guild already considered him to be best forger. So, Rudra had already offered to provide him as many resources as he needed.
With that in mind, he inquired about the various resources that the guild collected and apart from that the common items available in the auction house. Even if a guild didn't require a material, they tend to keep a record of the materials found commonly in auction house in case they ended up finding a design or recipe that required it.
He first went to the forging association to buy some designs. Even though he already had the design of the rifle crossbow, which he hadn't used yet, he also wanted to check on other design that were available.
He hadn't yet visited the forging association at the city till now. As he remembered it, it had three floors, the ground had the reception area and was filled with basic forging rooms. The first floor had mostly intermediate forging rooms and 10 advanced forging rooms. The advance forging rooms were very costly and using them before one reached tier 2 would be considered a waste of money by most. It was considered sensible to used them only after upgrading to a basic forger from a forging apprentice. The players would usually have to book these beforehand as the NPCs also tend to compete with them for these rooms.
The third floor had the main offices, supplies, equipment and stores of the Forging association. The offices of the vice heads and head would also be there. It was where Kade's office would be. This was also the place where members of the association could exchange designs for contribution points. One usually needed certain permission or has to be a member of forging association to get there.
With the title of Kade's apprentice and being a member of the forging association, Shadow had the access to get to third floor. He first went to the receptions to inquire for Kade first and was informed that Kade wasn't actually there and would only be there for a couple of hours every afternoon.
After that, he went to the third floor. The third floor was pretty much the same that he had seen in the Blackrock town. It had offices of the NPCs at the very end, with materials rooms and workshops on either sides. It also had a quests board filled with requests similar to the one that he saw at the Blackrock Town, but he requests were all for higher level materials and equipment.
He had a look through them and decided that he didn't want to waste his time with those. He needed to get out of the city for them and it wasn't much sensible to hunt for them during the night time. He went pass the workshop and reached his destination.
It was the managers room. The NPC in this room would change usually depending on the time of the day. The managers usually handle all submission of quests and exchanges that the members want. Usually, there would be a total of two or three manager NPCs for every association, forging, alchemy, tailoring, engineering etc.
He knocked at the door and a short 4 feet tall bespectacled NPC opened the door. He wore a tall pointed hat that reminded Balthazar of the ancient wizard movies. He recognized the NPC immediately from his past life memories. The NPC was named lithe and was a great mage who specialized in adding enchantments to armaments. This wouldn't be known to most till
”Who are you? Who allowed you here?” asked the NPC in loud shrill voice.
Balthazar was surprised by the question. He was confused why an NPC would ask him that. ”I am Master Kade's apprentice. I came to you for designs,” he said in doubtful manner.
”You can only be here if you are a member or apprentice of a member. Wait! You are Kade's apprentice? Where is his insignia?” asked Lithe raising his brows.
”Oh! I am sorry,” said Shadow as he put on the badge that was given to him by Kade.
”Ya, wear that before you move around the place. Without that or a member badge, how am I to know who you are?” questioned Lithe angrily as he gestured Shadow to get in. He went back to his desk and placed his hands on a transparent globe. The globe was a method of transferring information and to store data in the game. It is used by most organizations to keep track of members and their data.
”200 contribution points, huh. Good. You can check what you want from that table,” said Lithe pointing to a desk. It was a setup similar to the one in the Blackrock town filled with designs. He could browse through them and buy using contribution points.
There was quite a large assortment available there allowing one to purchase designs for even level 100 armaments. Shadow had seen quite a few of them before. Even some of the popular set equipment were also available for purchase. The only problem was that they were ridiculously costly.
He focused on equipment around level 15 and could be made using the resources that were available. He also checked for armaments that could probably be mixed to produce new ones.
He bought the design for a level 15, one-handed two headed axe and a clawed buckler. These were items that would be commonly used by many players and would have quite a large demand. Buckler and one-handed axe though not popular a new kind of weapon will attract quite a bit of attention if someone manages to show how useful it could be.
Swords require a lot of finesse and training to be effective. The best way to injure using one-handed swords was to stab rather than hack which is harder for most players new to the game. As one-handed swords are light, a hack doesn't have much force behind it. Most players tend to move their swords in a hacking motion as it helps them cover more area and it gets easier to attack monsters. So, a majority of players using one-handed swords don't deal much damage.
To them, an axe is the best way to compensate. An axe having its blade to the sides and a heavy head deals most damage in hacking actions compared to swords. Apart from that an axe requires much less refined metal and would cost less. Most tanks who focus most of their effort on blocking and wildly hack away in retaliation would prefer axes to one-handed swords.
The biggest reason that most tanks chose an axe was because they don't lose their durability as fast as as sword. When a sword is used to block the edge would be dulled, but an axe is largely thick except for the edges, and the durability wears off slower as mostly the thick part would be used to block.
These effects are much more pronounced in vita-nova and would soon be realized by the players. Quite a number of them already know it. All guilds and teams equip their tanks with the most equipment as they play a very crucial role for dungeons. So, Balthazar chose an axe which is easy to make and would have a decent demand.
Bucklers are basically small shields, but these are useful in both attacking as well as defending. As small shield allows the players to move it much easier in fights. Bucklers aren't meant for tanks but quick moving occupations. This is one of the most common choice for players who choose a light-footed occupation like assassin or swordsman, but slowly find that they need a better way to block.
Though a shield, clawed bucklers, blade rimmed bucklers and the like would become one of the most favoured close combat weapons. Even as a secondary weapon, they would become quite famous.
[Barbarian axe] (Black Iron One-handed axe)
Level 15;
Materials Required: Refined Iron Ore x 3; Simple wood log (small) x 1;
Requirement: Strength: 35; Agility: 20;
Attack power +25;
Special effect: 5% to cause a bleed effect of 20 HP per sec.
Durability: 30/30;
[Clawed Buckler] (Black Iron Shield)
Level 15;
Materials Required: Refined Iron Ore x 3; Iron Ore x 2;
Requirement: Strength x 25; Vitality x 15;