Chapter 2: First Attempt

"Whatever, at least I learned a thing or two from YouTube videos. Let's see if they apply here."

Crius opened the door leading outside and looked over his house. A single room on the outskirts of the village, consisting of roughly twenty buildings and shacks. To the right when facing his house, the blacksmith's forge, a shoddy representation of one unfit for proper craftsmanship greeted him. Poorly made tools worn from use and some unused materials sat to the side under a leaf-covered roofing. On the table a paper covered with a loose wooden plank and some leaves caught his attention.

"Blacksmith Crius, we require 23 daggers for replenishment of the village's hunter's stockpile and 10 hatchets for harvesting wood for the winter. Upon completion, deliver to the main hall and collect your rations."

Clearly his rewards outweighed the effort he had to put in. With a sigh he began cleaning the forge and repairing some damaged facets where the flame would escape. As he was working, a delivery man passed by the entrance and dropped off a worn-down chest.

"Hey! Chief wants this order done within a fortnight, so hurry up or else we are gonna have some issues this coming winter."

Crius looked over the man as he too gazed upon the new blacksmith that recently moved in. The man was taken aback under the stare of Crius. Intimidating! Something about the guy made him unnerved. Be it the six-foot-two height or the slim build, neither bothered him, but the eyes contained a sense of seeing what made him, like he turned to a wall and was partially dissected.

"Are you delivering the extra materials Fenger? I realized I only have enough for thirteen daggers and four hatchets if I work well with the materials."

Fenger looked at Crius for a moment before brushing his thoughts to the side. There was no way he couldn't have got his name from the chief upon entering the village. Maybe he has a great memory despite coming from such a humble background. As he thought these things, Crius was understanding some more about his interface.

[Fenger]

[Class: Civilian]

[Level: ?]

[HP: ?]

"A simple explanation, but one that is understandable. I have no information on the standards here and I have no way to see through people totally…"

Fenger interrupted his thoughts.

"Yeah we got some extra as well in case you have a worse outcome than imagined. If you finish earlier you can get more rations, I can already see you are low by how slim you are right now. It's a shame to have the blacksmith as such but we already have our families' livelihood to look after. You understand?"

Rhetorical, but Crius still nodded as a response. He sent Fenger on his way as he looked over the contents of the box. Some poorly mined iron and a number of handles for the process.

"My god, could they have cut wood any worse? Shit's got splinters all over it."

Crius, having finished cleaning the forge, brought over the box under the sheltered area and began separating the iron from rock with his previous knowledge. As he waited and did periodic checks, he smoothened the handles of the to-be-hatchets and daggers. The hours ticked by through the night and into the next day as he went through the rotations of cleaning most of the iron and handles.

"And I forgot to eat. Where's the experience bar, does that not exist for these classes?"

He took some metal and began working on it, eventually producing a dagger than only bastards would use.

[Dagger: {Common, Tier 0, Lvl 0} Hunter's Harvesting Item and Assassin's Weapon. Literally trash quality, you should be proud you completed this on your first try. 6-8 base damage, +2 slashing damage on weak points. Performing a sneak attack doubles damage and feints enemies.]

"Literally worse than the hammer I have if I don't get the sneak attack. Whatever, I need food, and I need to figure out… Oh wait, the bar is there!"

On the side of the various tools and materials he used, he noticed a proficiency bar. On the furnace, that he spent the most time on, he reached 40% of Lvl 0 and on the tools, he reached 5% or under for all of them. Under the bar, a text box lay.

[Blacksmithing Lvl 0: 100% proficiency with Tier 0 tools and lower, for each utilized item Lvl higher than character Lvl, decrease of 90%, multiplicative.]

[Refinement Lvl 0: 75% purity of metal melted within.]

[Sharpening Lvl 0: +25% durability and -10% max durability with each use]

[Hammering Lvl 0: +10% success rate when forging with aid of a hammer. Affected by Blacksmithing Lvl]

[Forging Total Lvl 0: 5% success rate when creating a weapon. Affected by other misc. calculations and life-experiences.]

"So, the occupation works towards tool and process efficiency and such. Wonder what changes appear when I reach Lvl 1 for these?"