Chapter 48- New Rendezvous

Chapter 48- New Rendezvous

Abel was currently hard at work, crushing the raw ores so he could smelt them into ingots.

He had no clue about the death of the muscular man or the deep seed of fear planted in the skinny rogue. The latter would actually mentally suffer whenever he had to open an in-game door in an unfamiliar place from now on.

Bang

Bang

Bang…

There was a smelter and ingot molds within the forging room so Abel got to work straight away. The method to make ingots was a very easy process, especially in-game.

First, he would crush all the ores and then place them into the smelter where they'd get separated from a majority of the impurities within. Depending on the type of metal and its grade, it usually took 8 or 9 low-grade ores to fill up the mold for a single ingot while mid-grade ores required much less.

This was why mid-grade Nocturnium would sell for more than a silver while its low-grade equivalent only sold for 11 copper coins.

After the smelter separated the impurities, the metal would need to be hammered to remove any remaining impurities. This process would also help consolidate the metal into a more solid mass.

Once the metal is purified, the ingots can be formed by reheating it and pouring the molten metal into molds. These molds could be made out of sand, clay or other materials, depending on whatever's available. Once the ingots are allowed to cool in the molds, they can be ready for use.

The current molds were left over by Branthor so he didn't bother getting any himself. There were so many racks of molds stacked up that he wasn't sure how long he'd take to go through them all. His current ores barely used up 4 racks with 10 molds each.

He took a look at his forging skill and saw it had marginally improved. It increased by 3% which wasn't so bad but not worth the time and effort he put into making the ingots.

Abel turned off the smelter and took a look at the time. It was slightly before 11 pm in Veridia right now, he needed to leave the ingots to cool down so he decided to head out and buy some much needed upgrades for his equipment.

While his sword, chest armor and boots would still do for the time being, it was time to upgrade his other equipment. He also reminded himself to re-stock on arrows.

'I doubt those 2 guys are still in the shop, but its best to leave from the front. They might have posted a watcher on the shops side.'

Abel made his way out of the building from the front door and headed off to purchase some goods.

He first spent 3 silver coins buying 2 quivers worth of the cheapest arrows, the same type he got from the training citadel. He also purchased a spacial canteen that could hold 100 times the amount of water for 15 silver coins.

After making the rounds at the different smithies, he decided on getting a pair of pants that added +3 to agility and +12 to defense, an arm bracer that added +2 to strength and +10 to defense as well as a new helmet that added +14 to defense. All these new pieces of equipment had a level 5 requirement and cost him nearly 30 silver coins.

He didn't want to buy top-notch level 5 equipment because by the time he stopped clearing Stonebinder's Cavern he'd probably be level 8. After going to a higher-level hunting grounds, he'd level up much faster than he was currently and he'd need to get level 10 equipment.

Weapons and armor generally increased every 5 levels when players were at the zeroth tier. He wasn't sure what requirements higher-leveled equipment would need but from what little information was stated online, there seemed to be a much greater restriction after the first tier.

For example, a level 27 sword might also have the requirement of being any class of swordsman to be wielded. If another warrior type had it, they wouldn't be able to equip it due to not meeting the class requirement.

None of this affected Abel though, he could wield any and all weapons thanks to his Battlesmith class.

He still had 2 gold and 12 silver coins on him, while tempted to exchange them all for coalition credits, he held himself back and only exchanged 1 gold for 470 credits. He then purchased a few minor healing potions and a few mana incense sticks. Finally, as he was headed out of the city, he decided to treat himself to actual food for the first time.

It wasn't anything fancy, merely skewered kidneys from a street stall but it was still a nice changed from the stale black bread.

'I should log out for dinner after reaching the dungeon and in the future, I have to check out how much the cooking skill-essence crystal costs… it will take forever to learn the cooking skill on my own.'

He made his way out of the city and dove into the dark Hollow Forest.

After bypassing a few cunning Umber Wolf packs and some lone small monsters, he was at the dungeon's entrance once more. After clearing out and skinning the low-level sentries outside, he stepped into the dungeon and chose to log out.

When he got out of the pod, he saw it was a little after 9 pm in reality, after short detour to the bathroom he left his room and headed to the main house.

"I thought you wouldn't be out till much later."

He came across Frankie and Melly snuggling on the couch in the living room with a pot of tea in front of them,

"I had a very light lunch, if I hadn't logged out then the system would've reminded me in the middle of my dungeon run."

"Go and eat, the left overs are in the warmer stove. We're heading off to bed soon."

"Alright, good night. I'll see you in the morning."

He made quick work of the leftover dinner and cleaned up after himself when he was done.

As he made his way back to his room, he saw the living room lights had been switched off so he figured the couple had gone to bed.

Whooooooosh

The cascading colors came and went as they assembled themselves to connect him to the virtual world.

He logged back into Realm Quest and jumped right into the dungeon. Clearing out each floor was getting easier and easier, especially with his upgraded equipment. He wouldn't spend more than half a minute in a single room and the same was true for the last room as well.

After killing the sole Sergeant Rat on the first floor, he leveled up!

*Ding*

+ Level up.

+5 STR

+5 END….

'Open Character Stats'

Name: Red Sky

Level: 7

Profession: Battlesmith

Alignment: Neutral

Title: Rodent Ravager

Reputation: 20

Health (HP): 400

Mana (MP): 300

Attack: 111-115 

Defense: 61

Strength (STR): 62 (+8)

Agility (AGI): 34 (+11)

Endurance (END): 52

Toughness (TGH): 34

Vitality (VIT): 40

Wisdom (WDM): 16

Intelligence (INT): 32

Resilience (RES): 13

Dexterity (DEX): 44

Luck: 6

Satiety: 95

Stamina: 89

His agility was absolutely pathetic but there wasn't anything he could do about it. The level 5 equipment that added a lot to agility was simply too expensive. Although he could afford it, it wasn't worth it.

He'd use it for a few days and when he comes to sell it, it would have terrible re-sale value. While he didn't mind spending a lot on equipment, it had to last for a few weeks at least instead of a few days.

He was also hoping he'd get some good blueprints after finishing his current quest which was why he was so reluctant to act like a spendthrift on low-level armor.

'Let's see what's in here this time…'

He reached for the item in the trap-chest and expertly jumped back, avoiding the subsequent explosion.

The item this time was a ring. It was made out of dark stone that seemed to be Nocturnium. It had an intricately carved eye at the top and seemed to be one whole with the ring.

"Inspect"

*Ding*

[Rodent's Eye]

+5 AGI

+5% to Evasion

Description: This simple ring is adorned with a small, intricately carved stone eye resembling that of a rodent's.

Requirement: Level 5

'This is some good stuff. It even adds to evasion!'

Evasion was one of the hidden stats a player had that would aid in battle, just like attack speed and movement speed. It couldn't be increased and was influenced by agility, endurance and stamina. He wasn't sure how the hidden stats worked, only that they were affected by the main stat as well as other stats gained.

Abel equipped the ring right away and descended to the second level.

A player can equip up to 10 rings in Faeron, one for each finger but most players could only dream of such a thing. Just like in other games, accessories were generally much more precious and harder to gain.

Of course, a player can purchase and equip normal jewelry but such goods wouldn't add any stats. They were worn for aesthetic purposes and mostly by the female players.

Abel descended to the second floor and carried on with his slaughtering spree. Although the increase in agility hadn't sped up his work by much, it was a welcome increase regardless.

He bulldozed his way through the second floor without break, easily dispatching the gathering of monster in every burrow.

An hour later, once he went down to the third floor, he finally started practicing his archery. He'd pull a single Rat Lord out of the room and kill it with a few swings before skinning it right away. There were a couple of times when he pulled out more than 1 monster due to bad aim.

He wasn't being as careful as the first time but even then, he'd simply kill them both in succession before carrying on with his clearing.

By the time he was done with killing the Rat King and skinning all the monster carcasses in the dungeon, it was close to 4 am in Veridia. He packed up all the goods and wrote a whisper to Coinweaver.

"If you're online, meet me at the guardians' district in 20 minutes. There's a shop with an old and weathered signboard in the fountain's square, you can't miss it."

Abel thought he wouldn't hear from the merchant until daybreak but when he was nearing the city gates, he got a reply.

 "I'll be there right away. Just give me 10 minutes."

'I guess I'll wait to finish the transaction before I start forging.'

He moved through the streets without stopping and entered the old shop. A few minutes later, Coinweaver curiously walked in.

"What's up with this place…"

"Don't ask. Just know that I'm on friendly terms with the owner, so we can use this spot to exchange goods."

"I don't get it. They obviously know about this plac-"

Coinweaver couldn't understand Abel's logic behind changing the meet up spot, but the latter's interruption cleared up his confusion.

"I can enter through another path. Even if they come, they'll only find an old and empty shop. I already led them here yesterday. Besides, we'll only do this exchange a couple more times so it doesn't matter."

He started pulling out the goods, one stack at a time, gesturing for the merchant to put them away.

"By the way, I saw the skinny guy lurking around the fountain. He had a couple of people with him, it was the guy that bought the poison and another person that had a quiver of arrows on his back. The muscular guy wasn't around though…"

'Is he offline or did he try to go through the door…'

Abel inwardly wondered about it but he wouldn't bother the old guardian over such a trivial matter.

He merely nodded in thanks and told Coinweaver he'd see him later.

Once the young merchant left the shop, Abel entered the building through the backdoor and headed to the forge. He wanted to try his hand at making the Rat-tooth dagger a couple of times before logging off for breakfast.