From Player To Npc

Chapter 21: Back to the forge

Ameanum told them how to get access to a teleportation station that would allow them to teleport to the North Kingdom that Carda was. They were currently in the East Kingdom, which was very far. Even the timezone between each was different, and that is why it was late at night at Carda but evening at Picton.

It would take some time to get there, but they would be there in a week in-game time with his tips.

They continued going through the cave and encountered more parties of goblins similar to those faced with a slight difference at their level here and there. They were between three to seven in number. Still, there was always only one with the shortswords who were always the highest in level while the rest had daggers or wooden clubs.

After repeating that for the next two hours, Ameanum decided that enough time passed, and it was time for him to end his SPECTATOR MODE and return to be an NPC.

They returned to town. After giving some more tips on both of them for their training and how to level up some skills, he went to an alley that no one was and decided to exit SPECTATOR MODE.

After the familiar feeling of changing body, he was this time laying on the bed, and his sister seemed to have woken up and brushed her hair in front of the mirror.

"Good morning, little brother. Father came just a few minutes ago and said that he would wait for you at the shop. He left early to make some preparations and check what you did, he said." [Annoue]

Shingi was surprised about this since it seemed quite early in the morning. He wasn't expecting Garry to be awake at that point, mostly since he wasn't back when he had entered his SPECTATOR MODE.

He stood up, and after making sure that Annoue remembered how to use her Enchantment trinket, he started his way toward the shop but not before having a simple breakfast.

On his way there, he opened his Status to see if anything had changed since he enabled SPECTATOR MODE.

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STATUS

NAME: Shingi Maki

CLASS: None

PROFESSION: Scholar Master

RACE: Blessed Human

HP: 50/50

SP: 20/20

MP: 32/32

STR: 10

AGI: 10

END: 10

INT: 16

CHA: 4

Mana Pool: Earth and Light Category

Skills: VISUALIZATION (Base Rank), MANA MANIPULATION (Base Rank), MANA SENSE (Base Rank), PERCEPTION (Master Rank), STEALTH (Base Rank), IMPROVISED THROW WEAPON (Master Rank), SMITHING (Base Rank), ACCELERATION (Base Rank), MARTIAL ART (Base Rank)

Spells: MANA HAND (Low Grade), FILTH EATER (Ungraded), MINOR ILLUSION (Ungraded), LIGHT (Ungraded), ROCK THROW (Low Grade)

Blessings: Blessing of ??????, Blessing of Dlog

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It seemed like his repetitive use of his ACCELERATION skill and throwing rocks with the help of MARTIAL ART to control his damage have made them available to him. His IMPROVISED THROW WEAPON skill ranked up I too. His STEALTH didn't seem to change at all, but he didn't use it as much. No change at his PERCEPTION that he had active pretty much all the time.

He could feel the effect of his new skills, and he should train with them cause even if they were available to him, he was used to using them in a different body, so he had to adjust some moves.

He made it in the shop, and getting in it seemed to be pretty much as he left it just Garry was here organizing some different materials on the desk.

"You are finally here. Good work with the shop it looks better than it was for quite some time. Now let's work on your SMITHING skill." [Garry]

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QUEST COMPLETED: CLEANING BLACKSMITH SHOP

Reward: Local Blacksmith Garry's reputation was greatly increased

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Following that notification, he saw Garry having a metal piece that looked almost like silver on his hand. Shingi knew that it wasn't one.

'How did he find some Mithril?' [Shingi]

Mithril was an expensive piece of metal cause it is found deep on earth near natural sources of natural mana. That would turn the nearby metals in Mithril as they were consuming parts of the mana considered unpure using it to evolve itself. It took decades for the metal exposed to mana to become the lowest quality of Mithril. Those that were for hundreds of years were of high quality. As for those exposed to mana for thousands of years, not many could work with it as their natural durability made them that hard that even some Master Blacksmiths couldn't make even a simple item with it as they couldn't meet it.

The one in front of him didn't seem to be of high quality as his appearance was almost the same as silver, and if one didn't know, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

"As a man of crafts, you have to be able to be familiar working with different materials and know which one is for more fitting for what. Today we will work with silver, which isn't suitable for weapons by itself. Since it is easier to handle enchantments, it is a usual thing to use in those types of crafts." [Garry]

Shingi was surprised by Garry telling him that the ore he was holding was silver. Even if he didn't have his Eagle Eyes skill, he was sure that Mithril was not silver. Garry even gave it to him to better look at it and saw up and close; he was more and more convinced of it being Mithril.

"So you should read this blueprint of a dagger. You should have more than enough to make the blade, so don't waste it. There is some more iron so try to mix them. I suggest an 80/20 or iron/silver." [Garry]

Without saying anything else and giving him a piece of paper with a simple dagger blueprint, he went to his desk to take another nap. This time he didn't allow Shingi to use his Master Hammer. This time though, Shingi could tell that he didn't was asleep, but it seems like he was secretly watching him.

Well, Shingi didn't care much as he had decided to either way not to use any spells today. So he wasn't worried about him learning his arcane abilities. He was happy that he got lucky today cause even if the Mithril was of low quality, it could still create a high-quality item with it.

But he wasn't going to use any iron as it wasn't needed for this type of material as purely Mithril made items were of higher quality. He could use it not only as a weapon but also as a focus for his spell casting. Since Mithril's nature, he would move his or environment's mana in it and cast his spell through it. The Mithril would purify the mana since it was tending to absorb any 'bad mana,' and he could use the 'good mana,' which would make the spell stronger. Also, he could manipulate the mana in the rod instead of himself right away. After it purified it, he could absorb it, which would give him more benefits.

Of course, he was planning to make the dagger with some adjustments to the blueprint. He would change its blade by making the left side look like a saw while keeping the top part as usual and making the right side flatter. That way, he could focus slashing with the left part, piercing with the front part, and mostly bludgeoning with the handle and right part.

Of course, this weapon would be weird looking and be unusable on that small size for someone else, but Shingi could use it at full effect with enough training and his MARTIAL ART skill.

He used the forge, and this time he used the lever to handle the fire, but he was quite proficient with it already. He heated it up, and it took more time than it was for the iron he worked with the other day. He could see Garry's smile of looking down at him on making the mistake of letting it in the forge for too long, but he wanted to speak with his actions and ignore him.

He used the tongs to pull it out and used one of the hammers that Garry had left near him started shaping the blade firstly as a normal one and then starting flattening the right side. He used a chisel that Garry had left out to start shaping the saw side. Fortunately, some files were to pick and sharpened the saw and the blade in general.

He secretly used some Earth mana to manipulate the metal to make it easier to handle. However, it wasn't that easy since the nature of Mithril, but it was still making things faster.

And so close to 4 hours of nonstop work, his dagger was finally ready. Even if it didn't seem quiet, balanced cause of its blade shape, he wasn't planning on throwing it, and cause of Mithril, it was light as a feather but also way more durable than if made by iron. He just had to make a handle, and his weapon would be ready, but at this point, Garry 'woke up' and came to check what he had done.

Shingi could tell that Garry was ready to say to him everything that he did wrong. Still, after picking the blade and investigating once more, his eyes went wide with the wonder of what he was currently holding.

"How did you do that? This isn't what it was in the blueprint." [Garry]

"How can someone be a true craftsman if he just follows a blueprint?" [Shingi]

Garry turned towards Shingi, and for a second, he thought he was talking with a Master of the craft and not his young son. And so he started laughing hard on it and stopped after a minute of continuous laughing as he has heard the greatest joke ever.

"Well, you seem to have better talent than I thought, but you still have to learn a few things." [Garry]

After saying that, Garry took the blade and started heating up a little and started hammering it and made its front point a little longer and then sharpened the saw blade some more. Then he opened a box and brought out a wooden handle that seemed to have prepared beforehand and connected it with the dagger, and after some adjustments, it was finished and ready to be used.

He even made some attacks trying to attack with each of its three different parts to test it out. After making sure that everything was ok, he brought the dagger at Ameanum.

'His skills in the craft seemed to be closer to Master than I presumed, but he is still in Base Rank. I wonder how good he truly used to be' [Shingi]

Garry had made some small improvements in the blade. Since it was something that Shingi personally had designed, making improvements to it wasn't easy for someone else without skill or familiarity with the design.

"You seemed that you are better at noticing things than I presumed. You understood the true nature of the material in front of you and used it at its full potentials." [Garry]

Someone would assume that this was his plan all along after hearing that. Still, Shingi could tell that Garry didn't know the material's true nature, and he truly thought it was silver. But at least Shingi knew that he seemed to have understood his mistake but didn't want to say anything to reveal it.

"You seemed like you are familiar at working with the forge, so we should be ok to open the shop once again and start the orders." [Garry]

Then Garry brought out a pack of paper as each seemed to be orders of different crafts. None seemed to be weapons but things like nails, chains, buckets, and other general metal items.

"Start working on them and put them aside. In the afternoon you should deliver them to the address that is written behind its order. You have a week to finish them all."

Noticing that there were almost 100 orders, Shingi was mostly mad at Garry, who once more headed to get his nap, and this time he seemed to get one.