The first thing wanted to do once he logged in was to go to the auction house of the city. He needed raw material for the collection quest as well as creating equipment. So, the auction house was the best place to look for these after night.
Along the way, he contacted Rudra to check to request for any refined iron ore to make the rifle crossbows. As Balthazar managed to already create his own black iron equipment, all his friends in the guild already considered him to be best forger. So, Rudra had already offered to provide him as many resources as he needed.
With that in mind, he inquired about the various resources that the guild collected and apart from that the common items available in the auction house. Even if a guild didn't require a material, they tend to keep a record of the materials found commonly in auction house in case they ended up finding a design or recipe that required it.
He first went to the forging association to buy some designs. Even though he already had the design of the rifle crossbow, which he hadn't used yet, he also wanted to check on other design that were available.
He hadn't yet visited the forging association at the city till now. As he remembered it, it had three floors, the ground had the reception area and was filled with basic forging rooms. The first floor had mostly intermediate forging rooms and 10 advanced forging rooms. The advance forging rooms were very costly and using them before one reached tier 2 would be considered a waste of money by most. It was considered sensible to used them only after upgrading to a basic forger from a forging apprentice. The players would usually have to book these beforehand as the NPCs also tend to compete with them for these rooms.
The third floor had the main offices, supplies, equipment and stores of the Forging association. The offices of the vice heads and head would also be there. It was where Kade's office would be. This was also the place where members of the association could exchange designs for contribution points. One usually needed certain permission or has to be a member of forging association to get there.
With the title of Kade's apprentice and being a member of the forging association, Shadow had the access to get to third floor. He first went to the receptions to inquire for Kade first and was informed that Kade wasn't actually there and would only be there for a couple of hours every afternoon.
After that, he went to the third floor. The third floor was pretty much the same that he had seen in the Blackrock town. It had offices of the NPCs at the very end, with materials rooms and workshops on either sides. It also had a quests board filled with requests similar to the one that he saw at the Blackrock Town, but he requests were all for higher level materials and equipment.
He had a look through them and decided that he didn't want to waste his time with those. He needed to get out of the city for them and it wasn't much sensible to hunt for them during the night time. He went pass the workshop and reached his destination.
It was the managers room. The NPC in this room would change usually depending on the time of the day. The managers usually handle all submission of quests and exchanges that the members want. Usually, there would be a total of two or three manager NPCs for every association, forging, alchemy, tailoring, engineering etc.
He knocked at the door and a short 4 feet tall bespectacled NPC opened the door. He wore a tall pointed hat that reminded Balthazar of the ancient wizard movies. He recognized the NPC immediately from his past life memories. The NPC was named lithe and was a great mage who specialized in adding enchantments to armaments. This wouldn't be known to most till
"Who are you? Who allowed you here?" asked the NPC in loud shrill voice.
Balthazar was surprised by the question. He was confused why an NPC would ask him that. "I am Master Kade's apprentice. I came to you for designs," he said in doubtful manner.
"You can only be here if you are a member or apprentice of a member. Wait! You are Kade's apprentice? Where is his insignia?" asked Lithe raising his brows.
"Oh! I am sorry," said Shadow as he put on the badge that was given to him by Kade.
"Ya, wear that before you move around the place. Without that or a member badge, how am I to know who you are?" questioned Lithe angrily as he gestured Shadow to get in. He went back to his desk and placed his hands on a transparent globe. The globe was a method of transferring information and to store data in the game. It is used by most organizations to keep track of members and their data.
"200 contribution points, huh. Good. You can check what you want from that table," said Lithe pointing to a desk. It was a setup similar to the one in the Blackrock town filled with designs. He could browse through them and buy using contribution points.
There was quite a large assortment available there allowing one to purchase designs for even level 100 armaments. Shadow had seen quite a few of them before. Even some of the popular set equipment were also available for purchase. The only problem was that they were ridiculously costly.
He focused on equipment around level 15 and could be made using the resources that were available. He also checked for armaments that could probably be mixed to produce new ones.
He bought the design for a level 15, one-handed two headed axe and a clawed buckler. These were items that would be commonly used by many players and would have quite a large demand. Buckler and one-handed axe though not popular a new kind of weapon will attract quite a bit of attention if someone manages to show how useful it could be.
Swords require a lot of finesse and training to be effective. The best way to injure using one-handed swords was to stab rather than hack which is harder for most players new to the game. As one-handed swords are light, a hack doesn't have much force behind it. Most players tend to move their swords in a hacking motion as it helps them cover more area and it gets easier to attack monsters. So, a majority of players using one-handed swords don't deal much damage.
To them, an axe is the best way to compensate. An axe having its blade to the sides and a heavy head deals most damage in hacking actions compared to swords. Apart from that an axe requires much less refined metal and would cost less. Most tanks who focus most of their effort on blocking and wildly hack away in retaliation would prefer axes to one-handed swords.
The biggest reason that most tanks chose an axe was because they don't lose their durability as fast as as sword. When a sword is used to block the edge would be dulled, but an axe is largely thick except for the edges, and the durability wears off slower as mostly the thick part would be used to block.
These effects are much more pronounced in vita-nova and would soon be realized by the players. Quite a number of them already know it. All guilds and teams equip their tanks with the most equipment as they play a very crucial role for dungeons. So, Balthazar chose an axe which is easy to make and would have a decent demand.
Bucklers are basically small shields, but these are useful in both attacking as well as defending. As small shield allows the players to move it much easier in fights. Bucklers aren't meant for tanks but quick moving occupations. This is one of the most common choice for players who choose a light-footed occupation like assassin or swordsman, but slowly find that they need a better way to block.
Though a shield, clawed bucklers, blade rimmed bucklers and the like would become one of the most favoured close combat weapons. Even as a secondary weapon, they would become quite famous.
[Barbarian axe] (Black Iron One-handed axe)
Level 15;
Materials Required: Refined Iron Ore x 3; Simple wood log (small) x 1;
Requirement: Strength: 35; Agility: 20;
Attack power +25;
Special effect: 5% to cause a bleed effect of 20 HP per sec.
Durability: 30/30;
[Clawed Buckler] (Black Iron Shield)
Level 15;
Materials Required: Refined Iron Ore x 3; Iron Ore x 2;
Requirement: Strength x 25; Vitality x 15;
Endurance +10; Defence +15;
Attack Power +10;
Special effect: Induces a stun effect for 1 second on a perfect stab.
Durability: 30/30;
Though both of them were hard ones to make, Balthazar was confident that he could create them without much difficulty and that he would not have much issue with either of them. He also didn't care much about the weapons not being that frequently used as he was sure that he could convince at least Rudra to have some of the guild members try them out once he explained it.
With the designs in hand, he contacted Rudra who had already sent the materials required with another forging apprentice of the guild. The forging apprentice he had sent was a well-known player in other games.
His alias was always Hammer and Tongs and had been asking Rudra to make him the guild head forger. He had the reputation for being a well accomplished forger in the other games and had been the head forger of a first-rate guild called Valkyrie Brigade in the game War God's Tempest. He was always forging and kept asking for more materials. He had only joined them as they offered more materials than others at the Blackrock town.
So, Rudra told him that he had already had one forger who already created equipment and thus wanted to make Shadow, the head forger of the guild, at least for now. Unconvinced that the Shadow who was well known to be an ace fighter to also be an accomplished forger, Hammer had requested Rudra to meet him. Rudra also didn't want to lose a capable forger player. So, he had sent him to Shadow with the materials.
Shadow used his disguise skill and met with Hammer and Tongs at the receptionist. Hammer was a plump man with well-defined arm muscles, and he wore a pair of goggles. Balthazar also recognized Hammer and sent a friend request. Hammer was a one of the Master Forger players in his past life and was quite well-known.
Hammer wanted to check Shadows skills. He realized quite some time ago that without sufficient real-life skills, it would hard to be a successful forger. So, he immediately requested him if he could observe.
"You want to look at my forging?" asked Shadow confused. "I haven't done anything that outstanding in forging yet nor was there any system announcement. Why does he want to check me out?" thought Balthazar.
"Give me a minute," said Shadow as he contacted Rudra about it. He soon came to know of Rudra's dilemma.
"Can you let him look at you. He is a very capable player and wants to know why you are being the head forger. It would be for the best, if you manage to convince him. He is the best in our employ after you and probably would lead forging division in your absence," requested Rudra.
"Fine, I will try my best. I think it is best if you make him the head forger though. I wouldn't be available for most of the time and giving me that position is not really effective," said Balthazar.
"Fine either way, but I want to reduce his consumption a bit. He is forging a lot of equipment just to increase his forging proficiency. I hope you can calm him down a little," said Rudra.
"I get your point. Bye," said Balthazar cutting off the call.
"You can watch me work. Come along," said Shadow as he went towards the receptionist.
"One intermediate forging room please," he requested the NPC and took a token for six hours after paying her the amount. He wanted to increase his experience as much as possible as he wouldn't be able to join the game for a day.
His purchase caused a small commotion among the players, most of whom went around calling him a rich kid who came to waste money. Even Hammer and Tongs didn't use an intermediate forging room as it cost ten times the basic room. So, he was also surprised that Shadow would take an intermediate forging room.
But hammer still kept his calm and followed Shadow without saying anything. They soon reached the first floor and got into an intermediate forging room.
"You have been in an intermediate forging room before?" asked Shadow noticing that Hammer was looking at the various equipment present in the room.
"No. This is my first time," said Hammer.
"Ok. Let me introduce you to the basics. You can see the various lathe modules, forging tools, etc," said Shadow pointing to them. "Allows us to carve most materials to the required shapes for weapons and materials for tools."
"You can have a look at it yourself. Maybe try to use them to make the Antelope Horn spear?" suggested Shadow. "But these aren't the best part. The forge is much more advanced. It has a temperature gauge. The Mystic fire at the room allows us a finer control of the metal and its temperature."
"Lastly, a magic stylus. It allows us to create magic pathways and carve runes which are seen in some rare equipment," said Shadow pointing at it. "Only used it for one equipment. I think it might be more frequently used at higher levels."
"These would be very important for tier 1 equipment onwards. It is best if I introduce them to him," thought Balthazar.