Chapter 18. Equipment Upgrade

Jack looked at the two corpses as they vanished, leaving behind several items on the floor. He was surprised to see that the bodies disappeared so soon. In his past experience with Bill and the guy who he had gotten the God-eye monocle from, their bodies stayed around for quite some time.

Could it be that player bodies stayed while the parties involved were still in combat? After the combat ended, only then the dead player bodies would vanish. He thought about it and thought that this might be the case. Perhaps the Game system only allowed players to loot Monsters' drops during combat, but for looting player's drops, they needed to wait until the combat ended.

He squatted down and inspected the loot from Ogre and Mouse. There were four items and 4 copper coins. The items were a Bronze Axe, a Leather Bracer, a Leather Shoes, all of which were common grade equipment, and 1 Medicine. It was a pity he didn't get all the nine armor pieces they wore. He equipped the Bracers and Shoes, and stored the rest. The Leather Shoes had a better defense than his previously equipped Sandal, as the latter was a light armor.

After sorting out the loot, he looked around the room. He had not scoured the room for the hidden items shown in his God-eye monocle earlier because he didn't want to arouse the duo's suspicion. Now that he was alone, he could check them out to his heart's content.

His monocle had shown that there were three green glowing spots in the room. 

One was the dress that had made him grow more suspicious of his treacherous hosts. He would pick it up later, just in case he could sell it if he came across a merchant. Furthermore, he had lots of space due to his extra bag, so he didn't need to worry about storing too much stuff.

He headed towards the nearest green marker. It was a work table. The marker seemed to be pointing inside its drawer. He opened it up and found it filled up with papers that were jumbled around. One of those papers had a green glow. Ogre and Mouse must have missed it because they only saw a mess of papers, they wouldn't have wasted their time picking up these papers one by one in order to find out if one of them was valuable. Jack didn't have that problem; he picked the glowing paper up.

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Whetstone recipe (Blacksmith recipe)

Create Whetstone, a consumable which can increase a weapon's physical damage by 10% for 6 hours

Ingredients: 1 Iron ore

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'It's a recipe! And for a useful consumable at that!'

  If he could create it, it would be a boost to his melee fighting prowess. A pity he didn't know where to find the iron ore ingredient. He learned the recipe without hesitation.

Afterward, he went to the final place with a green marker. It was a heap of spare part junks. The monocle's marker guided him to a small toolbox at the bottom of it. He took out the box and opened it up. There were five items inside, a hammer, a small rectangular steel plate, and three lumps of rock. He scanned them with his God-eye monocle.

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Apprentice hammer (common Blacksmith tool)

Combined with a mobile anvil, allowed for Blacksmithing process without a forge

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Apprentice mobile anvil (common Blacksmith tool)

Combined with a hammer, allowed for Blacksmithing process without a forge

Success rate decrease by 10%

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Iron ore (normal material)

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'And there he was just now wondering where to find iron ores, now three had fallen into his lap just like that!' Jack smiled.

He happily stored them all in his storage bag, and then he went to the workbench. He picked up the Ranger's dress on his way and threw it inside his storage as well.

He then activated the Blacksmithing interface on the workbench. Although he now had the mobile Blacksmith tool, the success rate was reduced by 10%. So better to use this workbench. That mobile tool could be utilized in an emergency when he needed to repair equipment and couldn't find a nearby Forge.

When the interface was on, he heard a notification sound.

"Detecting blacksmith materials, unlocking the upgrade function."

He was surprised. He looked at the menu list, there was now another text in addition to Repair and Recipe. He clicked on this upgrade text. Another instruction followed.

"Please place the equipment to be upgraded on the Forge."

After giving the matter some thought for a moment, Jack placed his Blade of Haste on the workbench table. It was his best equipment, so it would be better to choose it for upgrade considering his limited resources. The forge seemed to be analyzing the weapon. Not long after, another set of instruction texts appeared in the interface.

Uncommon level 5 weapon. Required 1 Iron ore and 10 copper coins to upgrade. Success rate 100%.

The materials requirement was vicious. He only had 3 iron ores and 37 copper coins in total. This would pretty much take one-third of his savings. He hesitated for a while before making a decision.

'Oh, well. I don't know what other functions these materials and coins are for. Might as well use them now.'

He placed the iron ore and coins on the bench and clicked on agree for the upgrade. A tutorial video appeared. It showed a simple hammering process with a rhythm that had to be followed. He studied the video seriously and then he started following the action depicted.

He wondered what would happen if he did the process wrong? The description said 100% success rate, so if he intentionally performed the wrong action, would it still succeed? Would the materials be wasted if it failed? He didn't intend to experiment on it. He had too few materials for testing, so he followed the instructions to the letter.

Once the final hammering was done, the materials and coins turned into light and entered the sword. It then released a blinding glow.

"Congratulations! Upgrading is successful. Weapon level increased by one."

He picked up the sword and inspected it.

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Blade of Haste, level 6/15 (uncommon one-handed weapon)

Physical damage: 42

Attack speed: 2

Increase movement speed by 10%

Durability: 40/40

Requirement: Level 5

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"Bloody hell! Just a two-point damage increase for such an expense!" Jack cursed out. But he noticed that the upgrade had fully recovered the sword's durability, so it wasn't a total loss. He now understood the other number beside the weapon level: 6/15. The 6 was the weapon level, he conjectured the 15 should be the maximum level this weapon could be upgraded to.

He pondered for a while before deciding to do another experiment. This time he placed his chest armor onto the workbench. It was his second-best equipment, even though it was just standard common equipment. Its durability was almost spent as it had been his armor from the start and it had suffered quite a number of hits in the past few days. Its durability was down to 9 at this moment, and he had no other chest armor to replace it with if it expired.

Another instruction appeared on the interface. It also required 1 iron ore, but only needed 5 copper coins for this upgrade. He thought that it was probably due to it being just a common grade. The success rate was still 100%. He then proceeded to work on the upgrade process like before. When it was done, he viewed the stats.

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Leather armor, level 2/10 (common medium armor)

Physical Defense: 6

Magical Defense: 4

Durability: 30/30

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'Only a pitiful 1 increase, but the durability has refreshed. So, once again, better than nothing. Level 2/10, so 8 levels to go before it maxes out.'

Jack looked at his last remaining iron ore. He decided to use it to craft a whetstone using the recipe. The process was the same as upgrading weapons. He just needed to perform a few simple hammerings in certain sequences and timings. But this time instead of hammering on the weapon, he was hammering on the iron ore. And it consumed another 5 of his copper coins.

This blacksmith job seemed to be a more expensive job compared to cooking; he never needed to spend any coins when he cooked. But then, cooking required more ingredients than blacksmithing, so there were pros and cons to each.

After he finished the process, the iron ore vanished, and in its place was a small oblong piece of metal. He inspected its description and it said it could increase weapon damage by 10% for 6 hours duration. He stored it for future use.

He then made one round around the workshop to check on the locks, making sure he'd have no more surprises for the night. He then returned to his room. He replaced the damaged bolster and pillow and then laid on the bed. He looked at his radar one more time to make sure that there were no nearby menaces before allowing his eyes to close and letting fatigue overcome his body.