Ard with the mories of his past life, Ryan found the instructor he had been looking for, tucked away in a dilapidated shack at the edge of the settlent.
The man was Ignis Ironhamr, a grizzled veteran and the trainer for the Forgemaster profession. Unlocking the forging path required nothing more than accepting a small errand from him—an unassuming quest that involved collecting four varieties of fine ale. A few dozen silver coins spent at the local tavern was all it took.
Ryan completed the task with ease and returned, handing over the ales. In return, Ignis granted him access to the Forging profession.
Forging itself was structured into three tiers: Novice Forging (0–75), Journeyman Forging (76–150), and Master Forging (151–225). Each tier was locked behind character level requirents: level 5 for Novice, 20 for Journeyman, and 35 for Master.
Ryan was starting from the bottom—Novice Forging. Seventy-five points of proficiency might not sound like much on paper, but he knew better. From bitter experience in his past life, he understood just how grueling earning those 75 points could be.
Don’t be fooled by the number. Every single point had to be earned through the taphorical blood, sweat, and tears of a blacksmith. It was a test of patience and persistence.
At his current level, Ryan’s forging panel displayed only two basic recipes: Crude Balancing Stone and Crude Sharpening Stone.
Crude Balancing Stone: Apply to your weapon. Increases blunt weapon damage by 2 for 30 minutes.
Crude Sharpening Stone: Apply to your weapon. Increases bladed weapon damage by 2 for 30 minutes.
Both items required a raw material called Crude Stones. Two crude stones could be processed into one finished product. However, crafting an item didn’t imdiately yield a proficiency point.
Instead, each recipe ca with its own experience bar. Only by crafting enough of a single item to fill that specific bar would Ryan earn one point of proficiency.
It got worse. If, say, he leveled the Crude Balancing Stone’s experience bar to 99% and then decided to switch to crafting Crude Sharpening Stones, the remaining progress on the Balancing Stone would effectively be wasted. The system didn’t combine experience across different items, even within the sa tier.
Even more maddening was the color-coded indicator beside each recipe na. Right now, both were orange, aning crafting them guaranteed a proficiency point once the bar filled. But after enough repetitions, the color would shift to yellow—signifying only a 60% chance of gaining a point upon completion.
And if that 60% chance failed? Ryan would have to grind the entire bar again from scratch.
Eventually, recipes would turn green, and the odds would dip even further to a punishing 20% success rate. At that stage, leveling beca pure suffering.
This was why, despite the seemingly manageable requirent of 75 points, Novice Forging was an ordeal few players willingly endured. Many simply gave up and turned to gathering professions—safer, easier, and more profitable in the early ga.
As Ryan stepped out of the shack and into the open air, he considered his next move. Maybe it was ti to visit another crafting trainer. Alchemy, for example, would beco indispensable in the mid-to-late ga.
He sighed. "It’s a real headache. Not many players are willing to sell raw materials this early."
Ryan scanned the bustling streets of Goldmine Town. Players darted between stalls, feverishly buying up raw materials. Any resource scraped together from mining nodes or foraging patches vanished into their inventories in seconds.
The general population hadn’t even made it out of the starting village yet. The streets here were filled with elite players from powerful guilds—hardcore veterans who had either rushed ahead or received assistance from their organizations. They didn’t care about gold. With their guilds backing them, money was never an issue. They weren’t wasting ti on gathering professions either. Those offered little in terms of combat advantage.
Instead, they threw mountains of gold at the marketplace, using sheer wealth to brute-force their way through the early crafting levels.
At this stage, the only real suppliers of raw materials were the gaming studios—small groups or professional players whose sole purpose was to make real money through in-ga trade. They weren’t too concerned about slightly weaker stats or slower progress. Their priority was profit. And with demand from the elite players spiking, early-ga material prices had inflated dramatically.
It drove Ryan up the wall.
’You rich bastards! I earned 30 gold from two Glorious Achievents. You probably only have a handful of silver, and yet you’re buying everything in sight!’
He knew it wasn’t a fair thought, but the frustration boiled over when soone snatched a stack of Crude Stones right out from under him.
"Damn it, I’m not so pushover!"
Ryan opened the regional shout interface, exclusive to Goldmine Town, and spent 10 silver coins to broadcast:
"Buying large quantities of Crude Stones—5 silver coins per stack! Anyone with stock, et at Trader Unit 1 by the tavern entrance!"
He wasn’t bluffing.
Trader Unit 1 was a virtual trade dummy—an automated rchant NPC he had purchased from the general store for 1 gold. These dummies allowed players to set up personal shops. Ryan configured his to buy Crude Stones at an above-market rate. Anyone who sold to it would receive paynt instantly, and he could retrieve his purchased items and leftover funds from the tavern’s mailbox after two hours.
With his trap set, Ryan gave a satisfied snort and headed off to accept quests.
After gathering all the important ones, he ended up overpaying a loudmouthed gatherer for a single stack of Crude Stones—20 pieces total. Still, it was enough to get started. He crafted them into 10 Crude Sharpening Stones and grimaced at the result: a re 20% progress on the recipe’s experience bar.
With a sigh, he closed his forging panel. It was going to be a long road.
Retreating to a quiet corner of town, Ryan allowed himself a small smile as he reviewed his experience points—over 100,000, neatly stored. He tapped twice, leveling up from 5 to 7 in an instant.
The stat gains were decent: 70 Health, 58 Mana, 2 Strength, 1 Stamina, 3 Agility, and 1 Intellect. His current total reached 381 HP and 281 MP. Not bad at all for this stage.
He still had 50,000 experience points banked, but there was no need to rush. He’d hold onto them for now.
At level 7, Paladins unlocked a new active skill from their class trainer: Judgnt.
Judgnt: Use an enchanted weapon to perform an inquisition, dealing significant Holy damage. Cooldown: 10 seconds. Requires re-enchanting the weapon for subsequent uses. Different enchantnts produce different Judgnt effects.
In the early ga, Judgnt was a monster. It could hit like a truck and would remain one of the Paladin’s core abilities throughout the ga’s progression.
He had already learned it.
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