“Really?” Unsurprisingly, Arcenne could not help but become excited once she heard the words that came out of Valyr’s mouth. After all, this would be the first time she would see Valyr’s other side, the side that she hadn’t become acquainted with yet.
While Arcenne’s curiosity made her wonder as to what kind of proficiency Valyr had in forging to be able to become an Elite Member of the Blacksmith Guild, Valyr retrieved the forging hammer and tongs from the selection of tools, wiping off the dust from them before placing it on the anvil near the two furnaces.
Wiping the dust off the anvil’s surface before placing the tools down, he then headed to another part of the building, taking a look at the remaining materials the previous owner had left for him to work with. Though he could not help but bitterly smile, thinking that he could’ve worked with more exotic materials if he contacted the suppliers beforehand about this place, he still thought that he could make a decent weapon with the materials at hand.
With that, he grabbed a decent amount of coal before placing them into one of the two furnaces. After that, he conjured a small wisp of crimson flame, which he threw at the small pile of coal, causing it to turn into a sufficiently large flame within seconds.
Taking note of the temperature through the ambient heat it released, Valyr went ahead and added more fuel to the fire, eventually stopping once he felt that the furnace had reached its optimal temperature.
“Before I ask you what kind of weapon you want me to forge, I’ll let you know beforehand that I’m only working with the materials the previous owner left in the building, so I won’t be able to forge to the best of my abilities.” Becoming entranced while watching Valyr stoke the flames in the furnace, Arcenne was swiftly brought back to reality once she heard Valyr’s words, nodding in response soon after.
“So, what kind of weapon do you want me to forge?” Seeing Arcenne nod at his words, Valyr went ahead and posed the question to her.
In response, a light frown appeared on Arcenne’s face as she rubbed her chin in contemplation. After a while, a specific weapon surfaced in her mind as she looked back at Valyr and nodded.
“I’ve been meaning to try wielding the blade at some point since I’ve already reached a sufficient level of proficiency with the spear,” she told him as she wryly smiled. “Well, to be more specific, I think I’ve reached a bottleneck in terms of my proficiency with the spear, so I thought I should try wielding another weapon to find a way to break past it.”
“So, yeah. If you could craft me a blade, that would be nice.”
“A blade, huh?” Valyr nodded and took note of Arcenne’s words, keeping an eye on the furnace from time to time before heading to the sections where the remaining materials were stored.
‘Since I haven’t started forging yet, I should allocate all of my Technology Points first.’ While looking through the pile of remaining materials, finding one that would perfectly suit a blade, Valyr eventually recalled one of the things he told himself he would do during the journey once he had settled down in Clossbay, which was to use up all of his Technology Points and progress further into the Technology Tree.
‘But first, I should use the necklace’s ability.’ Then again, as he recalled this reminder, he remembered that he hadn’t used the Necklace of Enlightenment’s ability yet, causing him to inwardly admonish himself as he could have used the necklace a second time the following day if he had used it once he had left the dungeon.
However, he swiftly got over it as he told himself that there was no point regretting over what he could have done in the past. Reminding himself to use the necklace’s ability as soon as possible from now on, he went ahead and activated its innate skill, telling the ability to unlock advancements rather than upgrade existing ones.
Ding!
[Selecting a random Basic level advancement to unlock…]
[You have unlocked the advancement <Basic Understanding: Attributes Lv. 1>.]
‘Huh. The necklace actually unlocked an advancement I was planning to unlock.’ Checking out the Technology Tree to see what advancement the necklace’s ability had unlocked, Valyr eventually noticed that the other Basic level advancement that branched out of <Basic Blacksmithing Essence> was now lit up.
Seeing that the necklace had already started his job for him, Valyr went ahead and unlocked the Basic level advancements that branched out of <Basic Understanding: Attributes>, maxing out all of the advancements along the way.
‘And with this, I’ve unlocked all of the Basic level advancements in the Production branch for the meantime.’
Ding!
[You have upgraded the advancement <Basic Understanding: Attributes> to Lv. 5 (MAX).]
[You have unlocked the advancement <Basic Understanding: Additional Equipment Attributes Lv. 1>.]
…
…
[You have unlocked the advancement <Basic Understanding: Equipment Attribute Awakening Lv. 1>.]
[You have upgraded the advancement <Basic Understanding: Equipment Attribute Awakening> to Lv. 5 (MAX).]
[As you have unlocked <Basic Understanding: Equipment Attribute Awakening>, you have gained the active skill ‘Basic Equipment Attribute Awakening’.]
[Due to your current class, your active skill ‘Basic Equipment Attribute Awakening’ has been changed to ‘True Prodigious Equipment Attribute Awakening’.]
𝑶𝑽𝐿xt.𝚌𝞸𝕞
‘Enhancement, Refinement, and finally, Attribute Awakening.’ As he placed the materials he would use for the blade to the side, Valyr went ahead and allocated the remaining Technology Points he had to the other branches of the Technology Tree. At the same time, he wondered what kind of changes his current class brought to the [Basic Equipment Attribute Awakening] skill.
Though the Attribute Awakening feature did not directly increase the Attack or Defense stat of the equipment, from the name of the feature itself, it allowed the equipment to give the user additional attributes, with weapons focusing on the user’s offensive stats, while armor focused on the user’s defensive stats.
Unlike Enhancement and Refinement, where the improvement was constant, the level of awakening was always random, with the highest value being reliant on the rarity of the equipment. Nevertheless, there were ways to increase the chances of getting the best Attribute Awakening, such as the usage of items, or by having those with rare Blacksmith classes awaken the attributes of equipment.
In fact, Valyr could recall many people in his past life chasing those with incredibly rare Blacksmith classes to obtain the best Attribute Awakening on their equipment. Then again, the reason behind that was because, in the later versions of the game, a great portion of one’s stats was made up of the equipment one had equipped.
Eventually, Valyr was finished retrieving the materials he would use, carrying them all to the anvil as he started to throw some of the materials into the furnace, increasing the heat from the flames soon after. While doing so, he took a look at his Technology Tree, inwardly nodding as he noticed the large zero that served as his counter for Technology Points.
Since he didn’t have a lot of blueprints for blades, Valyr allocated most of his Technology Points towards maxing out all of the advancements he could in the Innovation branch, which would give him a larger base of knowledge to work with while making a blueprint. Though, before doing so, he maxed out all of the advancements he had already unlocked in the Combat branch first.
With the amount of Technology Points he had, he was able to max out all of the advancements from the Innovation Branch up to the Copper Age, which Valyr deemed a respectable age of innovation to stop on. However, just as he had activated [True Prodigious Blueprint Creation], Valyr went ahead and took a look at the description for [True Prodigious Equipment Attribute Awakening], only for a light grin to appear on his face after he was finished.
“Well then.”
“Now I see why the others were like that back then.”