"Yo, you're back."
"Yeah."
The brief exchange took place inside the blacksmith's shop in the Starting Town. After activating the teleport gate, Lillian had immediately returned here and sought out the blacksmith.
The system had unlocked secondary professions at level 10. Lillian was already level 11 now, more than qualified. He should have come days ago, but he'd been stuck in the labyrinth helping Terusuke's group level up.
"Not bad. Haven't seen you in a few days, and you look a bit sturdier," the blacksmith said, setting down his hammer and wiping his hands with a rag. Then he asked seriously, "Are you sure you want to become a blacksmith? This isn't an easy profession."
"I'm sure."
"Very well. Then I'll be your profession mentor."
---
[Do you wish to become a Blacksmith?]
Lillian selected Yes, and immediately received a success notification. No quests required—simple enough. Of course, getting a sub-profession was easy; leveling it up and making a name for oneself was the hard part.
"Good. You can now perform smithing," the blacksmith said. "Forging or reinforcing weapons requires smithing tools. You can buy them from me. If you don't have enough col, you can also rent mine—1,500 col per use."
"…"
Lillian checked the price. A full set of beginner smithing tools cost thirty thousand col—far beyond what an average player could afford. In fact, even having ten thousand col at this stage already counted as being very rich. Lillian himself currently had nearly fifty thousand col, and once Argo passed him the ten-thousand-col commission fee, he'd be close to sixty thousand.
For an individual player, that was a massive fortune. As for people like Terusuke, who could casually spend tens of thousands on information, that was only because over thirty closed-beta players had been grinding together and completing high-reward quests early.
So—buy or not?
Lillian decided to buy.
Col was useless if left sitting there. He didn't plan to buy property, didn't urgently need gear, and there wasn't even a proper marketplace system in the game anyway.
Thirty thousand col vanished in an instant, replaced by a full set of smithing tools.
Lillian left the shop, found an empty corner of town, and activated the tools. A full setup appeared before him—forge, hammer, drill, everything. Operation options also appeared in his interface.
The available actions were: [Repair Equipment], [Enhance Equipment], and [Forge Equipment].
He first checked forging. With his current proficiency, he could only make the most basic weapons—barely better than starter gear. And since he'd bought beginner portable tools, the range of weapons he could forge was extremely limited. Large weapons like spears or greatswords were completely out of the question.
Next was [Repair Equipment], which restored durability. Lillian's refined steel greatsword had already been repaired once by an NPC and still had 162 durability left, so there was no urgent need. Still, he checked the required materials and saw that they were all listed in Argo's free guidebook—easy enough to gather if needed.
As for the remaining option, [Enhance Equipment], this feature would without a doubt be used the most. Unlike NPCs, players didn't need to spend col to enhance equipment themselves—as long as they had enough materials.
For example, Lillian's greatsword was currently at +2. If he wanted to upgrade it to +3 at an NPC, he could skip materials entirely and just pay 6,000 col. But if he did it himself, all he needed was to gather the required materials, and the enhancement would be free.
Materials for weapon enhancement were divided into two types: [Base Materials] and [Additional Materials]. Base materials were mandatory. Additional materials weren't required, but if you wanted a higher success rate, you'd want to prepare as many as possible. With enough additional materials, the enhancement success rate could be increased to a maximum of 95%.
Of course, most players wouldn't prepare that many. First, those materials were hard to obtain. Second, many players had what could only be described as a "gambler's mindset." In other words: If the success rate is 50%, both success and failure are acceptable. But if it's 95% and it still fails, you'd absolutely want to jump off a wall.
Lillian checked the requirements. To enhance his greatsword to +3, he needed twelve iron ore as base materials—resources that dropped on the first floor of the labyrinth.
That was fairly easy for him to obtain. As for players with weaker combat ability, they could simply buy materials from blacksmiths instead of farming them themselves.
One important detail was that if you only used base materials, the success rate depended on the blacksmith's proficiency. Beginner blacksmiths had a base success rate of only 30%, intermediates had 50%, advanced blacksmiths had 70%, and master-level blacksmiths reached 85%.
So at the beginner stage, it was best to prepare plenty of additional materials to stack the success rate higher. And those additional materials varied depending on the enhancement direction. For example, enhancing sharpness versus enhancing weight for a greatsword required completely different materials, which made things rather troublesome.
[Friend Argo has sent you a message]
{Congrats.}
{Same to you.}
{…The ten thousand col Terusuke left with me can be handed over to you now. Oh, and by the way—quite a few players have been asking me to buy information about you.}
{Really?} Lillian didn't care much about that. He wasn't doing anything shady, nor did he plan to hide his identity. If it got exposed, so be it.
{You're not worried?} Argo replied. {A lot of people think you're a closed-beta player. If that gets confirmed, won't it be dangerous for you out in the field later?}
{It's fine,} Lillian said calmly, then added, {The second floor is open now. When are you giving me the info on learning martial arts skills?}
{Oh right—you're really impatient.} Argo replied. {This isn't something I can explain properly over messages. I'm free right now anyway. I'll come find you.}
{Alright.}
---
After closing the chat, it wasn't long before Argo's petite figure appeared from around the corner. When she saw Lillian studying the forging platform, her expression turned to shock.
"You actually bought this? Are you planning to become a craftsman?"
"Part-time."
"Oh, that's a relief." Argo let out a breath. "You scared me—I thought you were going to quit frontline combat. That would've been such a waste. Terusuke told me he thinks you might be the strongest player right now."
"Is that so?" Lillian nodded without the slightest hint of embarrassment. "Sounds about right."
Then he glanced at Argo. "Want me to repair your equipment or something? I'll give you a 20% discount."
"Only 20%?" Argo laughed, but still pulled a short, slender rapier from her waist. "That's too stingy. Make it half price."
"Sure. Original price ten thousand, half price is five thousand." Lillian took the rapier and examined it. He remembered that Argo usually used special weapons like claw hooks, but she probably hadn't gotten her hands on those yet. Even so, this rapier was still a good-quality weapon—very high speed, decent sharpness, but slightly low durability. Its maximum was only 100, about half of Lillian's greatsword, which was a common flaw of rapiers.
"As expected of an information broker—your weapon's pretty nice. Only 39 durability left though… Do you have the repair materials on you?"
"Huh?" Argo stared at him, speechless, then sighed. "As a blacksmith, you don't prepare your own materials? Are you planning to make every customer bring their own? That's stupid. Blacksmiths earn the most from selling materials, not the service fee."
"Hey, hey, I just bought this set less than ten minutes ago. Of course I don't have materials yet."
"…Honestly." Argo shook her head helplessly. "Good thing I always carry some." She took out several iron blocks. Lillian accepted them, tossed them into the furnace, selected [Repair Equipment], and placed the rapier inside. Moments later, light flashed and a notification appeared.
[Equipment Repair Successful]
Unlike enhancement, repairs always succeeded as long as the materials were prepared—no success rate involved.
[Proficiency +3]
Looking at the rapier's durability restored to [100/100], Argo nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad. Want me to advertise for you? I guarantee tons of players will come running~"
"Advertising costs money too, right?"
"Not much, not much. Five thousand will do."
"Forget it." Lillian had no intention of wasting money on that. He wasn't trying to be a full-time craftsman—just doing it on the side for convenience. Making money wasn't the main goal.
Argo pouted. "Suit yourself."
She watched as Lillian put away the forging tools, pulled his bamboo hat back on, and started walking forward.
"Let's go. Second floor."
"Sigh." Argo let out a soft sigh and followed him. "I was planning to take a good half-day break. Seriously, you've been grinding in the labyrinth for over ten days straight, haven't you? Aren't you tired?"
"I'm fine. Compared to that, it's better to clear this game as soon as possible. Don't you think so?"
Walking beside him, Argo shook her head. "It's not that simple. Clearing the game will take years, at least. Even if you're in a hurry, there's no shortcut. Without gradually building up stats, even the strongest players can't handle high-level monsters."
"…"
"If you're this desperate to clear the game," Argo continued, "there must be someone or something important waiting for you in the real world. In that case… yeah, leaving as soon as possible makes sense."
"Yeah."
Because there were important people, important things waiting—he had to go back as soon as he could.