After arriving at the blacksmith's location, Fatty was stunned by the surging crowd!
He knew that many players learned to forge, so he should have expected that it would turn out like this. The blacksmith area was covered outside by dense crowds of people. Players even queued more than 20 meters down the street!
How was he going to squeeze in?
Before Fatty was done breaking out in cold sweat, a group of players saw him standing dumbly in the same spot and they immediately came over.
"Friend, do you need a weapon? Come find me. You just need to prepare the materials. You don't have to spend a single cent on anything else!"
"I'll do it for you, I'll do it for you! It's free as long as you can bring your blueprint and materials. My proficiency is higher than theirs!"
"Step aside. Your dozens of proficiency points are considered high? Friend, I'll help you. My proficiency is almost 100. If you have any insufficient materials, I can add those in!"
"Look for me. I'll help you. I'll give you two Bronze Coins for forging something once!"
"…"
Too many players learned to forge, but the system had regulations. Before the proficiency reached 100 points, they could only forge equipment below Level 10. This meant that players who had just learned the forging skill could only rely on forging low-level equipment to improve their proficiency. Only after they had sufficient proficiency could they forge higher-level Weapon Blueprints.
However, the problem was that at the blacksmith's location, they taught forging skills and also helped the players forge Level 1 to 9 equipment, which was free. When many players wanted to forge low-level weapons, they would rather find the blacksmith to do it. After all, the players who learned the forging skill had a very low proficiency. If they went to the blacksmith, they could even obtain Refined Rank equipment. If they went to the players, they would probably get Normal Rank equipment…
In that case, too many boats would be chasing a small number of fish, creating a situation where players who learned forging skills flocked to compete for business as if they were competing for passengers at a station. Nothing good would come out of it. The only purpose was to draw one over to increase their forging proficiency.
Now, all players were relatively poor. Those who wanted to buy game currency with money could not do so at this stage. If they wanted to raise their proficiency by acquiring blueprints, they could dream about it, as they didn't have the financial resources…
After understanding this, Fatty was suddenly caught between laughter and tears and could only say loudly, "Please move aside! I'm here to learn how to forge!"
"Pffft!" Upon hearing Fatty's words, that big group of players immediately looked at him disdainfully and dispersed.
Just as Fatty was about to squeeze in to find the blacksmith to learn the skill, a player next to him said, "You're a Venomancer. Why learn to forge?"
It was no wonder that others thought so. After all, they were more dependent on weapons. The vast majority of them belonged to classes like Warriors and Thieves. Their pursuit of high-quality weapons was much more intense than that of a Pyromancer or Venomancer. It was precisely because of this that more players of this class learned to forge. On the contrary, it was very rare for common classes like Fatty's to learn to forge. Players believed that they should learn enchantments or alchemy…
However, Fatty didn't care what others thought. He knew what he was doing.
After squeezing his way to the blacksmith, Fatty saw a tanned muscular NPC covered all over in sweat that reflected faint light against the huge stove on the side.
"Forging is a profound skill. Only with a lot of sweat and endurance can you achieve something. Fellow clansman, are you sure you want to learn to forge from me?"
Fatty naturally confirmed this.
"That's very good!" The blacksmith nodded with satisfaction and said, "However, before learning to forge, you'd better go find my apprentice, who is next to me. He will impart mining skills to you. Then, I want you to make use of them. Go to the Abandoned Mineshaft West of Asgarod and mine an Iron Ore for me. Only then will I impart forging skills to you!"
Coming! As soon as Fatty heard that, he understood that nothing had gone wrong.
After accepting the quest, finding the apprentice next to the blacksmith, and paying him 5 Bronze Coins to learn the mining skill, he purchased a normal mining pickaxe. Fatty then squeezed through the crowd, found the teleportation portal, and teleported outside of the West Gate. Then, he went all the way to the Abandoned Mineshaft just like the blacksmith had told him.
When he had played the Berserker, he had also learned to forge. Thus, he knew a tiny trick regarding the problem of upgrading the proficiency of the forging skill regarding handing over the ore to the blacksmith.
The blacksmith only needed a piece of ore of any level. After he gave him the ore, he would teach the player how to smelt the ore into Iron Ingots and how to forge equipment. The quest was very simple. Since it was not hard to obtain an ore, after many players went to the Abandoned Mineshaft and dug a piece of ore, they would be impatient to fly back. The lazier ones would even directly find someone and purchase an extra piece of ore from them, which they could then take back for the quest.
However, there was a tiny trick here. When the players turned in the quest and gave the blacksmith ten pieces of Level 10 Iron Ores at one go, the blacksmith would help increase their forging proficiency directly to 100 points!
This was not a bug, but something the game development team had set up to help players get past the proficiency problem in the early stages. After all, it was only possible to learn the forging skill at Level 10. The players couldn't be using Level 3 to Level 5 weapons at this level, right?
Of course, this opportunity to improve proficiency was unique. It was offered only when the player received the mining quest and turned it in. Afterward, the blacksmith would ignore them. Furthermore, the blacksmith only helped increase the proficiency to 100 points and couldn't do anything more than that.
This little trick was used among players in both camps, but Fatty could no longer remember specifically who had discovered it first. However, if the players who joined at a later stage wanted to learn the forging skill, they would make use of this tiny trick to get through the early stages of proficiency requirements and directly forge Level 10 weapons.
Fatty supposed that nobody had discovered this little trick yet, or there wouldn't have been so many players at the blacksmith's location, helping people forge equipment and acquire proficiency.
There were many monsters on the journey to the Abandoned Mineshaft, but they were not actively attacking. Hence, there was no need to worry about it. After successfully arriving at the Abandoned Mineshaft, Fatty faced an overcrowded scene again.
If one wanted to forge weapons, ores were indispensable. Although the highest ores in the Abandoned Mineshaft were only Level 10 Iron Ores, many players came wanting to increase their proficiency.
In the low mineshaft, many players were mining while facing the mine wall. The clinking sounds they produced were endless. Fatty saw that there wasn't any space left, so he could only continue to go deep into the mineshaft, hoping to find a suitable spot to mine slowly.
Finally, after he went deep inside, the number of players gradually became smaller. Fatty found a mine wall and took out the pickaxe to start mining.
After mining a few times, he obtained the first Iron Ore. He picked it up to have a look and saw that it was just a Level 3 Iron Ore. He could only shake his head and put it in his backpack.
To make use of that trick, the ore handed over to the blacksmith had to be at Level 10. Any lower than that and it would be useless. The ores produced by this primary mineshaft ranged from Level 1 to Level 10. The higher the level of the player was, the lower their chances of obtaining this would be. The Level 3 ore he had mined could only be sold to players who had a Level 3 Weapon Blueprint on hand and wanted it.
After mining for some time, he obtained many ores. However, Fatty only managed to mine two Level 10 Iron Ores, which was still far from his goal of ten. Just as he was prepared to continue patiently mining deep in the mineshaft, two rustling sounds were heard all of a sudden.
"Huh?" Fatty felt a little strange. When he had been mining just now, there had still been a few players around. However, after mining for a while, those players had already left to turn in the quest, leaving Fatty alone to continue struggling. Theoretically, there shouldn't have been any other people, so where had this sound come from?
Curious, Fatty stopped mining and went deep into the mineshaft.
After walking for some time, Fatty finally found where that sound had come from.
It turned out to be a Kobold Miner! This short thing carried a bundle on its back and had a burning candle on top of its head. It was brandishing its pickaxe while mining!
Upon seeing this Kobold Miner, Fatty laughed. Ha ha… This time, he would have a source of Level 10 Iron Ores!
Monsters such as Kobold Miners had a certain chance of respawning in many mineshafts. If players could encounter them and kill them, they would get varying amounts of ores from them or some kind of Equipment Crafting Blueprint. The rank of the ore was determined by the level of the mineshaft. The higher the level of the mineshaft, the higher the upper limit of the ore rank one could get. Thus, many players loved to wander and mine in the mineshaft in the later stages to see whether they could encounter such a rewarding monster.
Since he had encountered one now, Fatty naturally wouldn't let this chance slip. He put away his pickaxe and took out his staff. He was about to kill it.
Although he was still using his Normal Rank novice staff, a Venomancer relied on the toxic effect of their skills to survive. After he lifted his hand to release the Miasma and poison the Kobold Miner, Fatty moved it along all over the mineshaft.
In this Abandoned Mineshaft, the Kobold Miner's level was naturally not high. It was Level 2 1-Star, which was the equivalent of normal Level 10 or Level 11 monsters. It didn't have much HP either. Furthermore, it had met a Venonomancer like Fatty. It didn't run for long before its HP dropped to zero because of the poison. After Fatty hit it, it fell on the ground and died.
From the corpse of the Kobold Miner, Fatty obtained one Level 10 Iron Ore and one Level 9 Iron Ore. Therefore, he no longer continued to mine. He ran in the depths of the web-like mineshaft for the sake of looking for even more Kobold Miners.
The players didn't know the role of this Kobold Miner yet, so that was probably why no one had come to kill it. After a while, Fatty found three Kobold Miners and obtained four pieces of Level 10 Iron Ores. As a result, he had already obtained seven pieces of Level 10 Iron Ores.
However, to his pleasant surprise, the last Kobold Miner also dropped a Level 10 Weapon Crafting Blueprint that was a Staff Blueprint for the magic classes!
Great! Fatty had even been spared the effort of acquiring the blueprint to forge the weapon…
Delighted, he strived for a while in the mineshaft. After he mined four pieces of Level 10 ores, he returned.
Out of the eleven pieces of Level 10 Iron Ores, ten were for the quest, so there was one left. Fatty planned to use it to forge his staff.