MMORPG: Crowd Control

Smither Gary had been smithing alone in this secret base for god knows how long.

During this time, he had not interacted with any other people, so his loneliness gradually increased over time.

Nevertheless, he had his smithing by his side. Thus, he never felt the need to head outside to interact with others.

Until he realized his secret base that had never been discovered was exposed to two unknown people. At first, he wanted to kick them out considering he was working, but seeing them waiting patiently instead of barging right in.

He decided to listen to what they had to say first and communicate with another person after a long time.

And that was his mistake which led to the current situation.

"Tsk, even if you want to request my smithing work, shouldn't you have brought materials of your own?" Smither Gary asked snarkily, clearly displeased at being fooled by them.

He had been in the industry for a long time and not once was he fooled into accepting a work request. Yet that record was seemingly broken today because of his carelessness and isolation from the outside world.

"Right, I didn't expect things to actually go so smoothly." Lei Zhen nodded his head and rubbed his chin.

"Agreed, Master. I didn't expect us to really find Senior Smither and have him agree to our request despite his known reputation for not accepting any work." Candice nodded her head in agreement.

And hearing these two said such words, Smither Gary felt like there was a prick poking his skin, causing him to feel irritated.

'Calm yourself, a blacksmith would never let anger cloud their judgment.' Smither Gary struggled to suppress his anger.

Sometime later, Smither Gary flashed a solemn expression as he crossed his arms.

"If you want a weapon that can transform, then you'll need to get me some Magnoroid Cores and a growth-type weapon that could sustain the hammering." Smither Gary demanded.

"Growth-type weapon huh?" Lei Zhen raised an eyebrow, inspecting his staff, only to realize it does not have that description.

Meanwhile, Smither Gary sneered coldly when he saw what Lei Zhen did.

"Hmph, a growth-type weapon is even rarer than Magnoroid Cores. Do you think they just grow from trees?" He laughed tauntingly.

"I surely don't believe that growth-type weapons would grow on trees." Lei Zhen nodded his head.

But before Smither Gary could taunt further, Lei Zhen retrieved a book from his inventory.

The moment he took out the book, Smither Gary's laughter seemed to have dissipated instantly. His mouth was hanging wide open, almost as if he was inhaling a bunch of oxygen.

Seeing his reaction, Lei Zhen tauntingly said, "But I sure am lucky to receive a growth-type weapon called Tome of Demise. Isn't this much better than searching for trees that grow them?"

"..."

Although Smither Gary didn't say anything, his expression alone was enough to show that he was fuming mad.

Just a moment ago, he was taunting that finding a growth-type weapon is beyond difficult, but Lei Zhen was able to pull one out right away.

How could he not be furious?

It was as if he was biting at his own tongue when he realized this part.

"How did you manage to acquire a growth-type weapon? They are completely natural when a blacksmith crafts one and cannot be meticulously forged. Of all blacksmiths in their lives, barely 1 out of the many was able to produce one growth-type weapon in their career." Smither Gary explained.

Lei Zhen shrugged his shoulders.

"Clearly my luck is quite good to be able to find one growth-type weapon. Now can you tell me what a Magnoroid Core is?" Lei Zhen said, unwilling to waste any more time chattering about where he got a growth-type weapon.

Smither Gary nodded his head.

It wasn't as if he had never seen a growth-type weapon before.

It was just that he didn't expect Lei Zhen would have one when he noticed his attire and pieces of equipment were completely below average in his eyes.

"A Magnoroid Core only comes from monsters at level 30 and above. Of course, the higher a monster level is, the higher the chance one could get it. However, even if you hunt 300,000 high-level monsters, you might still not get a Magnoroid Core. That's how rare they are." Smither Gary explained and proceeded to explain the description of a Magnoroid Core.

A Magnoroid Core is bright purple in color and formed like a maple leaf.

Upon hearing the tedious method of acquiring a single Magnoroid Core, Lei Zhen was nearly disgusted.

The probability of a monster dropping it was lower than 0.00000002%.

"How the hell is anyone supposed to get one then? Do they farm for weeks, months, or even years?" Lei Zhen asked in a disbelief tone.

"Hold your horses, young man." Smither Gary smirked evilly.

"I only mention the tedious method, but there's still one other method to get them. And that is by exploring the harshest environment possible and looking for a strong monster that has a powerful Magicule from its body that is able to affect the environment itself."

Magicule appeared when a monster became strong enough to withstand a large amount of mana in its body.

When that happened, Magicule began emitting from their body which would subsequently change the environment surrounding them.

However, such monsters are usually labeled as calamity and if Lei Zhen had to compare it, then it would be a thousand times stronger than the Kraken's Clone that they had faced previously.

"Are you simply telling me to go die then?" Lei Zhen asked suspiciously.

"Think however you want. That's the only two methods to gather the Magnoroid Cores, and I'm under no obligation to provide any of the materials for you." Smither Gary shrugged his shoulders.

Accepting their request was already considered a big generosity from him, and asking for more would be nigh impossible.

Lei Zhen also knew it would be unreasonable to ask the blacksmith himself to provide the materials when it was him that wanted the weapon.

'Damn, looks like I must pull out the friendship card.' Lei Zhen thought to himself.