Chapter 168 - Change in planets (1/2)

Balthazar had logged back into the game. With him being gone for a few minutes, Merlin had already decided to attempt the hell mode of the dungeon. Merlin already had enough experience and with the guides provided by Shadow which had methods to clear the dungeon even without the subjugation skill, he was quite confident on clearing the hell mode.

”Who was the tenth guy?” Shadow asked Blinding White who was still recruiting members for Blazing Fury.

”It was Griff. This dungeon doesn't really have much use for assasins once we know the path. So, Merlin decided to take another heavy hitter with him,” said Blinding.

”Ok. I will be in the Forging Association or Engineering. Contact me if you need anything,” said Balthazar as he went to book a forging room first. It was the best way to increase his experience to a high level in short time without killing monsters and he needed to gain a significant amount to maintain his advantage over the others as he might not be able to play the game for a day.

He decided to create a few more of the gold two-handed weapons, before trying to work on other stuff. He also had plans to use the same design of the gold weapon to create a weapon pair of detachable daggers. With daggers having smaller size, he was sure that he didn't need to make use of copper as dagger blades with lower size reduces the requirement for handle sturdiness.

He started to experiment with the idea and began to work on a pair of detachable daggers with only iron ore but failed to get results. He used the antelope horns with three iron ores for the pair of daggers. The first two times, they completely failed to be recognized by the system as completed products before they were finally realized as a proper weapon. The system failed to inspect both of them together as an entity but realized them to be a pair of daggers. This was far from what Balthazar had hoped to achieve.

It was a complete waste in his eyes. Even though the dagger was recognized as a black iron daggers, he didn't care about them. They had similar stats to that of the antelope horn dagger and were level 12 daggers as one more iron ore was used in their making. In his eyes, it was a complete failure. The only good thing that he could see about it was that he managed to produce another original black-iron equipment which put him a step closer to intermediate forger.

”This is a waste of time and even if the daggers are considered as a single entity, I doubt that there would be much use with this attempt. Only good thing is that I got a higher-level dagger pair using antelope horns,” thought Balthazar.

With the failure of his attempt, he decided against detachable weapons which could be made without copper ore. He decided to make a few more of the gold weapons that he had made previously as he had about 40 more copper ores before going ahead to attempt engineering tools. He hadn't tried to make the rifle crossbow till now.

He continued to make the double-handed weapons for another two hours before he went out of the forging association. He handed them off to Lizzie and collected enough materials from her, before he went to the engineering association to make the rifle crossbow.

The bow was a weapon that was harder and took more time to create than swords or spears. The crossbow required a bow along with a proper trigger and loading mechanism which were all delicate stuff. By the time, he made the first rifle crossbow, he took 30 minutes.

It also earned him 1000 exp and 2 engineering proficiency. He began to wonder if this was the best option for quickly earning experience. Moreover, the proficiency, he earned could be considered much lower than the forging proficiency per equipment he made due to the effect of Kade's Insignia. Due to the long time, he took to make one of them, he began to wonder if it was best to continue making rifle crossbows. He also thought of getting out and kill monsters to get a simpler engineering blueprints that would allow him to create tools at a faster pace, but realized he couldn't do that as he needed to log out as soon as he was contacted by Lucius and that wouldn't be possible if he was fighting monsters. It was an unpredictable scenario.

He thought for some time and finally decided to continue with making more rifle crossbows. He had about 4 hours left to play in the game and if he works properly, he was sure that he could make eight other units of the rifle crossbows.

He continued with that before he received a notification informing that someone was trying to contact him in the real-life. He had managed to create seven rifle crossbows while failing two attempts and created inferior silver grade crossbows.

”I guess we have finally reached our destination,” thought Balthazar as he received the notification. He put in the half-finished crossbow into his bag and got out and ran to Lizzie and gave all his items to her before logging out.

”We have reached our destination,” asked Balthazar as soon as he removed the helmet. Robert had also stopped using the somnium headgear and was standing beside him.

”Ya. We are at the planet, GR-23. We had decided to change our destination due to some unforeseen circ.u.mstances. The planet isn't really in our control but in the hands of the Price family. We are temporarily borrowing it,” said Richard.

”What?”

”Why the sudden change?”

”This changes a lot of things. We have no idea about the situation of the planet. How can we attempt it in some other planet?”

”Calm down, both of you,” said Lucius in a loud voice drowning out the questions of Balthazar and Robert.

”We are going to give you all the information you need. You don't need to worry,” said Richard. ”The suits will have link and image recognition that would allow you to identify which ever animal or plant you see.”