While talking to NPCs, it was always best to show humility and respect, so Liam as well followed this blindly.
He might not need any quest from the guy but he didn't want to randomly decrease his favorability, especially with someone from the blacksmith association.
So he ignored the actual question and gave a generic reply while not stopping what he was doing.
The elder, however, did not seem to want to let him off that easily. "Not that good, huh? Then I wonder just how you managed to craft this one here. He He."
Among the dozens of iron swords scattered around, he reached his hand and pulled out the very first sword which Liam had crafted to perfection.
Liam was once again surprised. What was going on here?
As far as he knew there were only five hidden quests and 2 unique quests in the entirety of the Gresh kingdom.
So this person in front of him possibly couldn't be someone important and yet, his instincts were telling him otherwise.
Based on their conversation so far, Liam could already tell that the man was not as simple as he looked.
"It is very kind of you to take a look at my sword and my crude forging technique." He bowed and immediately got to the point. "If possible, may I please repay this kindness in some manner?"
"Ho. Ho. Ho. Of course, you can, but there is no rush for that right now. I can already see that the path you wish to take. I will come to find you when the time is right."
Liam didn't even get a chance to question the vague answer as the old man had already started walking away from him back to the blacksmith association tower building.
"What the heck?" Liam was confused.
Even though he was a reincarnate, and had a lot of knowledge about the game, he was not exactly omnipotent. There were surely more tricks in the tutorial that he was probably not aware of.
But if he ran behind every trick in the game and tried to accomplish everything, then that would only end in failure. There wasn't too much time left for the things that he wanted to accomplish.
He did not want to waste this precious little time on vague hints that might or might not amount to anything. Liam quickly put his thoughts away and continued grinding his forging skill.
However, in the midst of these confusing thoughts, he completely failed to notice something.
Though the elder walked among the sea of players crowding around the other smithing association NPCs, no one in particular seemed to approach him. It almost seemed as if no one realized that he was even present among them.
Unaware of this, Liam continued forging the reminder of the swords for the next few hours, fully emptying out his supply of iron ore chunks.
And just as he was done forging the last sword, the notification that he was expecting rang loudly.
[Ding. Forging successfully completed]
[Ding. Crude Iron Sword]
[Ding. Rating: Common]
[Ding. Your forging skill proficiency has increased to Intermediate Level]
"Alright. Now comes the difficult part." Liam wiped the sweat off of his forehead and then proceeded to toss a couple of fruits in his mouth.
Munching the berries, he walked out of the association towards the Yleka city auction house.
Enough time had passed by now, so Liam was sure that more raw materials had been put up for auction, especially because of the high in-game gold versus real money trading ratio at the moment.
Bigger groups of players might still try to hoard the materials and not sell them, but the temptation was more than enough for individual players.
And just as he had expected, several stacks of tin ores, bronze ores, copper ores, and iron ores were available. There was even a stack of striped iron ore available.
Liam did not hesitate and quickly purchased whatever was available.
Several players had greedily put up sky high prices but he didn't care about that and purchased a rough amount of what he thought he needed and then some more extra, just to be safe.
[Ding. Congratulations! Tin Ore x 500 have been purchased!]
[Ding. Congratulations! Bronze Ore x 500 have been purchased!]
[Ding. Congratulations! Copper Ore x 500 have been purchased!]
[Ding. Congratulations! Iron Ore x 500 have been purchased!]
[Ding. Congratulations! Striped Iron Ore x 20 have been purchased!]
The last one was the most expensive raw material as the seller had put it up for 1 gold a piece which was almost 10 times its worth even if calculated generously.
But Liam quickly purchased this one as well as he ran through the several recipes in his mind. "This should be enough." He silently muttered and then walked back towards the blacksmith association.
This time he didn't return to the courtyard and instead booked one of the expensive smithing rooms at the reception.
He paid the 5 gold coins charge and booked the high grade smithing room for a surplus amount of time.
There was nothing too special about the room, but there was a variety of molds available, plus the hammer quality was rare.
This was Liam's target as forging uncommon grade equipment would be a lot easier and faster with a higher grade forging hammer.
Also, after what happened, he decided to buy himself some privacy.
Just iron ores might not attract attention but if he took out an entire array of ores and herbs, there would once again be unwanted people gathering around him.
Liam did not particularly care about this but for the current period, he absolutely wanted to make sure that he wasn't disturbed.
This was crucial in order for him to complete the quest within the best possible duration as this time simply speed alone won't be sufficient.
He took a deep breath and once again started throwing stacks of ores into the burning furnace that slowly melted on touching the fire.