The station back in town only had two burners... One for refining, one for crafting.
'Fancy...' Jake felt the mana flow in this device for a moment.
The crafting station back at hometown felt like a toaster in comparison. It's nice to have... It's just you can't do anything fancy with it.
After getting used to the burners, Jake took one last sip of his coffee.
After placing the coffee onto the counter, Jake opened up the last suitcase.
Seeing how casual and relaxed Jake was, the artisan chuckled and shook his head.
"Looks like this young fella isn't taking the job very serious." The artisan joked at Nick Rogers.
The young guildmaster seemed even more depressed.
Feeling the refined mana core in his hand, Jake lightly knitted his brows. Things were more troublesome than he'd expected.
Whoever refined this mana core... The job was done rather crudely...
In other words, it's going to be harder to get a firm grasp at the mana drawn out.
If Jake had a better pen, with more precise control, this wouldn't be a problem.
But a $49 practice pen...
Without further hesitation, Jake placed the orb into a smaller 'burner.'
"What's the kid doing!" The artisan widened his eyes.
The explorers turned their gazes towards the artisan, clearly interested in hearing an explanation.
"The kid already messed up on step one." The artisan slowly shook his head. "What a waste of material."
"After refining the mana core, it would be easier to work with. But there is also less mana left. There would be no room for error left for the kid."
"His hand shakes a little and it's over."
Little chatter broke out among the crowd.
The artisan sighed. "Clearly, the kid is just here to practice."
"At this point, even I can't successfully craft a talisman now."
Hearing this explanation, the young guildmaster's gaze towards Jake turned a little dangerous.
Around ten seconds later, Jake had finished refining the monster core.
The billiard-ball sized orb had shrunk down to the size of a tennis ball. It's color had turned from a dark-green to a transparent-green.
Placing that orb onto the crafting burner, Jake took a deep breath.
Closing his eyes, ignoring the chatter in the background, Jake focused his mind on this task.
Lightly tapping his marker onto that orb, Jake started the runic character writing process.
Unlike that artisan who's dressed like a successful elite, Jake's writing process was much faster.
Without any pause or hesitation, there was a flow to his moves. It was almost like performance art.
Even when focusing on character writing, Jake still heard the chatter getting much louder in the background.
Though... It was more like a crowd watching their favorite team. And that team was about to score a goal!
Along with the crowd, the artisan seemed rather excited too.
"There is no way he can get this right."
"How can you write precisely like this?"
"There is barely any room for error when writing runic characters. Just watch, the kid is going to fail soon."
At the moment, he even wanted to thank Jake for being here. After seeing Jake's performance, the people here would admire his crafting capabilities more right?
Once in a while, an explorer in the crowd would take a glance at Nick Rogers. Their gazes seemed rather playful. To these guys, Jake was publicly humiliating this guildmaster.
So what, this kid didn't bother to pretend like he's trying anymore? He's just going to make his intentions clear? He's just going to blatantly waste material at this guildmaster's expenses. Right in front of Nick Roger's face?
Sensing the mocking gazes from the crowd, Nick Rogers clenched his fists.
"Mr. Rogers, looks like you've made a bad decision." The artisan chuckled in victory.
Feeling that salt being poured into his wounds, Nick Rogers sighed. He sincerely regretted giving that nod now.
Clearly, master Harold took offensive in his decision. By the looks of it, master Harold was also not a forgiving character.
"Yes master Harold. Looks like so." Nick Rogers nodded in defeat.
Unlike that well-dressed artisan, Jake didn't get stuck over any problems. Even if he got stuck, he wouldn't look for inspirations from the crowd.
Ignoring all the chatter, focusing only on this task, Jake continued.
In thirty seconds, he had already finished all the strokes.
The runic character naturally folded itself into a green chip.
The crowd fell silent.
The explorers all looked at master Harold.
You were the one who kept on saying this was going to fail right?
Master Harold widened his eyes at the result. Well. Erhm... What to say...
Nick Rogers took off his sunglasses, revealing thick eye bags. This guildmaster stared at that green chip like he was mesmerized by it.
Green light reflected off this young guildmaster's eyes. Looking at him, he looked like a hungry wolf, staring at free prey.
Dead silence continued in this room.
Being watched by a quiet crowd, Jake placed the cream-colored casing orb into the burner.
Within a second, that orb melted into a stream of liquid.
With a flick of his marker, that creamy liquid encased the floating green chip.
Just like this, a healing talisman was completed.
Looking at this, the people in this room could hear Jake's words echoing by their ears.
It's just a basic talisman. How difficult do you expect it to be.
After turning off the crafting station, Jake caught the falling talisman.
A glassy texture. The shape of a rectangular prism. Jake could have made the casing look more fancy. But it's too troublesome. So Jake chose not to.
Looking from afar, this thing looked no different from a typical keychain.
Casually throwing this article to the guildmaster, Jake nodded.
"Twenty grand. Cash only. Thank you."
Catching the talisman, the young guildmaster quickly regained his composure.
"Naturally. Of course."
The sulk expression on his face suddenly turned into a smile. Nodding at Jake, Nick Rogers seemed to be bowing a little.
"Master Harold, he's going to fail right?"
"There would be no room for error."
Looking in that direction, the artisan was trying to silently leave.
However, explorers being explorers, there's always a few who's not afraid of trouble.
"Erhm... I didn't think of refining the material a second time."
"The monster core was way too crude."
Powerlessly taking one last look at Jake, this artisan quickly left this room. He walked off as if he was fleeing.
In the world of artisans, crafting capabilities reigned supreme.
In some sense, Jake won the market away from this artisan. If possible, who would choose an artisan with a low success rate? Who knows how long it would take for a weak artisan to succeed. During this time, they'll just have to pass by without any new equipment.
Now that Jake was here, master Harold would need to head to another city. No fame. No connections. Got to start from the beginning again.
Though... there's plenty of places in need of an artisan.
Jake felt remorse for this guy for 0.05 seconds. If he didn't succeed, reality would turn in another direction now.
There would be a lot of trouble from the Iron Sparrow Guild. That's for sure.
'Still, things are not that much better...' Jake took a quick look around.
The hot gazes from these explorers made him feel a little uncomfortable. Gradually, the gazes from these people became hotter and hotter.
'How troublesome...'