13 Officially a Novice Forger!

After teaching Eidiri how to make use of the Dwarven Son technique, Jarid left him to his own devices, preferring to make some headway on the backlog of orders.

Being left alone, Eidiri decided to finally, officially become a novice forger, grinding out the last 6 Exp points required.

By doing this, he could also train his proficiency in the Dwarven Son technique, getting used to its application to make his work better.

But first, he had to consider what he even wanted to make in the first place. Another blade? An ax?

He eventually settled on trying to improve the blade he had made before, melting the metal down once again and recasting it.

He layered the metal 12 times, and after that, he took the glowing-red mass of metal out and began to furiously hammer away at it.

While he was hammering it, he focused a portion of his concentration on controlling his strikes, making it so that the metal would "even out" so to speak.

Hammering it at the central ridge, edge, fuller, and ricasso, would ensure that the blade wouldn't snap mid-combat.

After completing the usage of the Dwarven Son technique and repeated quenching, Eidiri set about attaching a pommel and grip.

Sliding the tang into the sword, into the hilt, he then attached the pommel of the rear-end of the sword, so that it would affix and secure the overall sword together, making sure not to let the entire work just fall apart.

Then to finalize the sword, Eidiri decided to wrap the grip in simple leather material, so that the weapon wouldn't fly out of its wielder's hands.

This was Eidiri's first weapon he made without the usage of a blueprint, something worthy of accolades.

Suddenly, the familiar ding that Eidiri had become accustomed to rang off, "Congratulations player for crafting the first unique item! For this, you have been awarded 20 general Crafting Exp!"

Huh. So there was a mechanic like this. Then presumably there would be people rushing off to explore dungeons as fast as possible. Additionally, as the tasks got more difficult, the rewards would naturally grow as well.

A stray thought floated through, Eidiri's mind, "So that means that there are probably going to be some speedrunners, huh. Neat, I guess."

The more important thing was how exactly did this weapon qualify as a unique item.

The weapon he had made wasn't dissimilar from that of the one he had made from the blueprint, the only real difference was that this time he had made use of the Dwarven Son technique.

Does that mean the usage of particular techniques would result in different items or was this just some sort of random, lucky occurrence?

Hmmm... such an event most certainly warranted further investigation.

Eidiri's attention then drifted over to the item he had created.

A blinking text box asked him to name the weapon he had created.

After a moment of deliberation, he came upon "Steel Song", the name would have an appropriate amount of finesse and sound cool at the same time.

"Steel Song (Gray Tier) - A finely crafted blade through the use of the Dwarven Son technique. Although the usage of it was rough, it still resulted in a sharp blade.

+5 ATK

Blade Passive - ...

Slash: Viciously slash at a singular opponent. This strike will deal 150% dmg."

Now, this was a weapon he could make use of. Despite it being quite basic, it was still far better than the sub-par one. Not to mention how this weapon had a skill. Another skill!

On another note, Eidiri only now just remembered that his forging Exp had gone beyond the cap, officially making him a Novice Forger.

This title of Novice Forger, despite it seeming lowly, was actually pretty good. It signified how Eidiri possesses the capabilities to effectively make basic items.

This sort of title would essentially serve as verification for his abilities.

As a reward for Eidiri accomplishing the task of ascending the ranks, he was gifted a special hammer of his own.

"The Hammer of Uruk - This hammer bears a decently long history, in use of the children of a long-lived smithing family. It bears the experience and test of the anvil.

+2% chance of successfully smithing items copper tier and below."

The weapon he had crafted just now was a gray tier, the lowest on the rankings, the sub-par one was so bad it wasn't deemed worthy of a ranking.

This hammer, despite its usage being quite specialized, would be infinitely helpful towards Eidiri's smithing endeavors.

But for now, he wanted to test his creation.

As he walked out the door, Eidiri called for Leif, "Hey Leif! Can you tell the boss that I'm going out to test something?" seeing Leif nod, he carried on his way, yelling a quick, "Thanks!"

His walking eventually led him to the rat fields.

Brandishing his new weapon, the grip felt sensational against his palm.

The rats leaped towards him, their gaping maws outstretched towards his throat.

Eidiri swiftly swung his sword, slashing into their bellies.

"Come on then!" he cried, challenging the rats. Of course, he still made sure not to provoke the Horde Leader, Such an existence was something he still couldn't fight as of yet.

While the individual abilities of the Horde Leader weren't something to scoff at, they were still something that Eidiri would be able to take on.

The truly scary feature that Horde Leader's possessed was that they could command lesser mobs of the same species en masse, as well as bearing a higher level of intelligence.

Eidiri rapidly farmed Exp in his slaughter of the rats, eventually hitting level 5 after only an hour of grinding the mobs.

Such a spike in efficiency could be said to be approximately 500 times what he had previously, all made possible by the equipping of a decent weapon.

To make a comparison, prior to this weapon, he was removing weeds by hand, but now he had a machete.

After hitting level 5, he quickly checked on the time, seeing that it was getting late, he wrote a quick post again, making it so that only paid-subscription members could see it.

Not too many had subscribed as of yet, waiting for others to verify the importance of his information before actually subscribing themselves.

Anything to get an edge ahead of others.

As of right now, he only has 7 subscribers, but that would change given time.

Thinking on what exactly to write his post on, he decided to discuss the crafting system as well as the efficiency a proper weapon would bring in.

A minute of surfing the forums would show anyone the miserable state of the beta players, wielding sharpened sticks and such, struggling to survive.

In the comments, those who had not been accepted in the beta test mocked and jeered these players, proclaiming how if they were the ones chosen they would be doing infinitely better, citing Eidiri as an example.

"The crafting system is quite similar to other games we have experienced, with it providing special rewards for accomplishing certain milestones. As we have a real way to generate currency as of right now, I recommend developing your profession, as stated in my previous blog post."

"Link here"

"I've taken up the title of a forger and rapidly developed myself as a Novie Forger. The tiers for progression in terms of professions are Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster."

"If there are further tiers, they are ones that I, unfortunately, possess no knowledge of."

"However one thing that I ascertain as a fact, is the importance of a proper weapon. Just today I had crafted what I have named "Steel Song" a gray tier weapon (the most basic of the weapons, with those worse than grey not even qualifying for a rank(Ex: Sharpened Wood Stick))."

"This weapon has allowed me to increase my farming rate exponentially, and while just previously I had struggled with Lvl 2 and 3 Giant Rats, now I cut through them like grass."

"That's all I've got to say for now, till next time"

" - Eidiri"