The 'Winners'

The Arcanite phase passed smoothly without any incident, producing one hundred basic magic alloy bastard swords that all of these people should be making for only the second time ever.

As expected, everyone below level twenty barely passed muster with weapons that achieved thirty points. Even with the blessings on the material, there were no actual magic effects because there was no magic actually used. These guys just did not have those skills yet.

As for the people above level twenty, their weapons were all thirty-five to thirty-seven in damage and bore basic effects like conductivity buffs or fire elemental damage from thermal regulation in the steel. A handful of them, though, were of decent enough quality that they had unlocked the secondary perks from Melpomene's blessing.

These were all random and none of their stat raises even reached five. However, this alone was promising enough to help them stand out from the rest of their level brackets and thus these people were pushed forward to the next round with the thirteen noobs.

As for everybody above level forty, their base parameters were not that much higher and never really reached forty damage. If they had actually reached forty PATK with just eleven pounds of Arcanite steel and basic skills, I would have been thoroughly impressed. At their level, I would have needed all of my steel material enchantments to achieve this.

The most material enchantments used here were two, showing how few material enchantments people around here even knew at the moment. These were all freelance craftsmen if they were at the municipal smithy, anyway, and would have most of their time taking up by hunting and trading when not crafting.

If they had multiple material enchantments and higher class skills, they would have been eaten by some clan by now. As it was, I was scraping the best bits from the bottom of the barrel at the moment. However, they were not bad dregs and had decent flavor in potential.

Since I had thirty-three people already, I only took in the best seventeen people in the rest of the level brackets and even explained that I was mostly looking for lower leveled participants from the beginning. Once the hundred people were cut down to fifty, I transmuted the same signature alloy as the Hauntings I had originally left Sierra with and pass it out.

When I left Sierra I think my Hauntings was just entering the size growth phase, having climbed to about fifteen pounds from the original ten-pound standard these people were using and had a sixth tier PATK. With their skill levels and actual skills, everybody above level twenty-five would have to make a weapon with a base PATK above fifty, a matching burn value, two blessings, an innate perk like conductivity.

Even for people around level thirty-five, finding the right way to thermal-regulate their weapons during forging in the right way to match or exceed their PATK was no small feet. The steel quality alone and a crafting levels above fifty would ensure most of the other requirements. However, anyone who managed to stand out with a third blessing would be considered to have won.

More than an hour later, as I expected, everybody below level twenty-five would have been disqualified if I had set standards for them. The actual noobs barely hit or exceeded forty in PATK while the others entering the next bracket did not fare much better. Most of the people directly below level thirty could only achieve a PATK of around forty-five.

The noobs could not even thermal regulate to begin with, and thus lacked their passive burn damages. The only reason any of them even achieved two blessings was because of the steel quality itself. However, their random stat blessings- when they were stat based- were all at five-point increases by default.

Since everybody got to keep their weapons as well as the recipes for making them from the event, all fifty people in this stage would be going hope with fourth-tier swords. The people above level thirty actually reached fifth-tier but their thermal regulation was not up to par to create burn damages equal to PATK. Most of them also lacked innate abilities.

Everybody without an innate ability was cut by default, leaving little more than thirty of the original fifty. After decided to cut all the remaining people with a PATK below fifty-five, I was left with a solid thirty people remaining. Twenty of them being below level thirty.

After sending everybody away with their consolation prizes of self-made weaponry, I transmute a few hundred pounds of signature steel before waving the rest of the spoils toward the current foreman. The quick old man needed no further prompting and gathered up the items by simple touch into some unknown storage. Storing the rest in my inventory, I gather the thirty survivors of my event off to one side of the newly quiet smithy.

"Everyone," I address the crowd. "I would like to start by saying thank you for being here and thank you for taking part in the event I suddenly threw together. I had originally intended to do some normal recruitment, but the smithy was… busy."

Clearing my throat awkwardly after the brief explanation while being stared at by QTPi, I hurry on to say, "My name is Life Hack and I am the founder of Tragedy's Travelers, one of the current leading clans. I started here in Sierra so I was hoping to recruit some low-leveled craftsman that my clan could raise. Some of you are kind of high in level, but that's good. Once you've made the necessary equipment for yourselves, you'll be able to power-level these thirteen in Winter Wood!"

Nobody seemed to understand my reference and thus did respond with the same excitement I tried to exude. However, there were no negative responses. Everybody was patiently listening and waiting for me to get to the point.

"Anyway, if you're interested, I would like to offer all of you a short-term crafting contract for one real month," I say at last. "So, for about three months in the game you'll be working in a sweatshop for my clan upgrading your crafting skills to clan-par. This will include daily or every other day access to our current clan dungeons and benefits from the Elder Oak."

One of the noobs, someone with a human character that looked to be in their young teens, suddenly calls out, "What is clan-par?"

"I'm glad you asked," I reply happily before heading over to a nearby forge and producing one of the same signature steel ingots that they had all used. When I blessed the original iron, all of the metal around me had been blessed and thus this ingot would still carry all the same characteristics as what they had just used.

Like them, I only hammered the ingot straight to shape and form without any folding, which would usually be the source of a weapon's highest parameters and durability. Unlike them, my skills were so high and I had so many material enchantments that by the time the sword was done it had received five material enchantments in different areas of the blade, an exaggerated burn PATK of seventy-five, a PATK of seventy, MATK of one-thirty, three blessings, my usual innate Conductivity perk, a secondary durability innate perk, and then I used a basic Slash enchantment.

My overwhelming piece of noob art came out with a Burning Slash skill that added fifty PATK and fifty fire damage to the sword's own Slash skill and a fifty-percent chance to do the same on the user's Slash skills. This was basically a flaming critical hit compared to all of the weapons made by the others.

The first time I had reached seventy PATK I think I had needed to fold the shit out of my steel. If this steel had been folded with a thousand layers the PATK would probably be at one hundred. As is, this was a purple Epic quality weapon that did not even shine while everybody else had only gotten as high as blue in quality.

Four blessing perks would have been possible and even five would not be impossible to achieve had I made this a thousand-layer sword. The perks I had already triggered were thirty-percent undead effect, plus-twelve Willpower, and plus-eight-percent Knockback to every blow. The fourth one would have been a regen.

Appreciating this twenty-minute sword, I simply shrug and stab it into the floor for the others to appraise in awe. Watching them was like watching Ferithar's assistants gushing over my hickory alchemy sword. It was clear they could do the same but without having seen it they would not have thought of it the same.

"This is clan-par," I say at length while the others were still crowding around the sword in the stone ground. "Now, you're probably thinking things like I am so high leveled and have been around for so long that this is easy. However, I want you all to know something. If not for the fact that I prepared most of your materials, even the steel you bought at first would have made weapons with at least five points less damage. Apiece. This is a benefit only my clan can provide, so believe me when I say there will be lots of money in it for everyone."

"What is the contract worth?" Someone else asks curiously, quickly catching my attention. "Do you expect us to work just for levels and clan mats?"

Thinking of all the money I had already made, I run some quick numbers and say, "Five hundred dollars, take it or leave it. It's only one month IRL and you literally do it in your sleep. If it's not enough I can always find people to do it for free, they just won't be as easy to teach."

I had tens of thousands of new gold on hand at this point and thus could pay out thousands in one go. For these thirty people, that was fifteen thousand dollars which was half of my private profits from clearing my inventory after conversion. This did not include the credit account, but I could also always pay them in old gold and use them for the spare-change conversions.

Even the person who first asked about being paid did not take long to think about it before deciding to go with the flow. Everybody was up for contract and I immediately contacted Merch to get the 'paperwork' in order before sending them all clan invites. Luckily, all of my winners were not affiliated and had no obstacles in joining.

The next ten minutes were spent gushing and freaking out about the clan perks, private forum network, and our clan store. Just as I expected, these guys were all focused on the items, materials, and familiars offered in bulk in our clan.

They were basically getting paid fie hundred dollars to join our clan, but they still had no idea what they were in for. I outright told them the word 'sweatshop' when I offered them the deal. let's say their basic forged weapons were worth ten gold- which was not too high a price considering their variety of effects but average PATK value.

Their quality was even blue, which was enough to with my divine touch to trigger the greed of clan poachers in this area. Making one sword and hour, they could theoretically make ten swords in ten hours and I could make one platinum a day from each of them.

With thirty people, I would potentially bring in thirty platinum a day which converted to about three hundred dollars in my server. If I worked them every day with four hours of live training every other day, I would be making my money back with interest every other day. This was just in swords!

Five hours could make five swords and the remaining five could craft a simple five-piece suit worth one platinum. After these had sold enough and their levels were high enough, we could sell the sixth and seventh pieces of the suit to the public. For a platinum apiece as long as the belt's parameters matched the main body and leg pieces of the suit and the coat exceeded those values.

If we sold only swords, the value would plummet, so variety and time management would be the key factors in my sweatshop. Sadly, their overall abilities were not yet high enough for such values and thus they needed to be raised. Firstly, though, by working on their tailoring and leather skills.

\After everybody had familiarized themselves with the clans and Merch had presented them with paperwork for a twelve-hour sweatshop, I used the last hundred-pound stacks of goblin, hobgoblin, kobold, and a single stack of cordycep silk as a group.

Even though the smithy lacked the proper equipment, I personally transmuted from stone, wood, and water everything they would need in one corner of the recently quiet building. Once I had enough different areas that everybody could remain busy while performing at least one dedicated task, divvied up the process of materials and gave them my orders.

The noobs were all set to work tailoring the silk into scrap silk suits while everybody with higher levels were set to work treating hides or preparing cut-outs for leather pieces and augments. The cuts could still be treated and further processed individually, so some members of the process would have more or less work than others.

My favored thirteen, though, were stuck cutting and seaming the same basic two-layered underarmor silk suit again and again. They had to create the entire suits themselves, ensuring that everybody had matching quality and level-required equipment at a universal value.

The armor they were currently making was meant to raise their levels with one of my designs and instruction, this armor would also be their own suits. So I spent my time with them well, teaching them all the same density material enchantment that blended with all of their own enchantments.

For the noobs, I started working on opening their minds to alchemical magic by force using jabs of my perception at their weak mana signatures. They experienced pain in their 'magic' which let them feel their mana, perceiving it at its base level in an instant. Not unlike when I was being hit by mana bullets by Ferithar, just without elemental inclinations.

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