Second World

Jack went ahead and started crafting equipment using the recipes displayed on the worktable's screen. Although he was only crafting common and uncommon grade equipment. The rate by which his proficiency increased was still better than when he was only leveling up equipment.

Jack was amazed by the resources available in this faction. The materials that he and the other blacksmiths kept on taking, was continuously getting replenished. The pile never appeared empty.

During his chat with Grenmir, the dwarf had told Jack that apart from the existence of the fire mana site, the choosing of this place for the faction's factory was also due to the large ore deposits around the mountain. The Themisphere kingdom faction had occupied half part of the richest mining sites of this mountain, while Blacksmith Circle occupied a small section of the mountain that was equally rich in mineral.

Jack ended up spending the remaining day only on crafting equipment. Despite that, he didn't manage to break through to Basic Expert. His proficiency reached 91% when the night was getting late. Grenmir came over and said Haestus had invited him and Samuel to a feast, celebrating the success of reclaiming the fire mana site and honoring the official cooperation with the third prince.

Jack reluctantly stopped his blacksmithing works. Although it was only 9% more, he still needed a few hours of more blacksmithing work.

Although his blacksmith skill didn't increase in level, there was another auxiliary skill that did. He had also been constantly summoning runestone of enhancement during his work. His runecraft skill had now increased to Basic Expert grade.

During the feast, Jack chat fervently with everyone. The reason? Not because he enjoyed chatting. But simply because he wanted to level up another of his auxiliary skill which, by the end of the feast, happened. His Diplomacy skill had increased to Advanced Apprentice.

During the chat, Haestus was jolly enough to try to recruit Jack into the faction. Grenmir had reported the result of Jack's blacksmithing job of the day. The two were rather impressed by the quality of his products. Of course, the quality was boosted due to Jack's Runestone of Probability. The quantity that Jack had produced was also not few, it was roughly 15% more than what other normal blacksmiths produced with the same time frame.

Jack had always been able to focus on his task if he put his mind to it. When he was doing blacksmithing, he worked on it without any pause. Hence, he produced more.

Jack admitted he was rather interested.  He was not that interested in new blacksmith recipes, but this faction's access to materials and services could be beneficial. He asked first what a member needed to do to get the faction points, which were used for exchange for items and services.

Haestus informed him that the points were given based on the blacksmithing products a member produced. Just as Jack had been doing most of today.

Jack asked, did he have to be here when he was doing the producing?

Haestus said, of course. Otherwise, how could they provide the environment and materials?

Jack told him then that he was thankful for the offer but he had other passions to pursue. Hell, wouldn't he be reduced to a factory worker if he joined?

Yet, he still sent a message to Jeanny describing to her what he had seen inside this faction. It should motivate the guild's blacksmith players to join this faction.

Samuel and Jack returned to their guest bedroom afterward. Samuel sat beside the window as he watched outside while Jack took out his mobile blacksmith tools.

Jack didn't use the forge provided by Grenmir earlier today to level up his sword because the forge was only an uncommon grade. His rare-grade mobile blacksmith tools provided a better percentage of success. He took out the Fire Eating Estoc and started working on it.

He kept on working on it until it reached level 44. He used Runestone of Probability all the time to increase his success chance. At level 40 onwards, the material required had increased again to 4 iron ores, 2 steel ores, and 2 copper ores for each attempt.

He had stocked up on materials but he didn't think it was enough to upgrade all his equipment, considering the frequency of failings. So he chose to just upgrade his Rapid Dazing Staff. He needed to save some to be used on the super rare pants he should be getting tomorrow.

His level 44 Rapid Dazing Staff now had magical damage of 337.

For the level 44 Fire Eating Estoc, he fed it to his Storm Breaker. It now transformed into a super rare grade. Not only its damage increase, but each of its abilities had also increased. He could now choose three abilities to activate. Jack made some tweaks and chose the abilities that he thought most useful.

Storm Breaker, level 44 (super rare one-handed sword, bound weapon)

Physical damage 355

Attack speed 4

Cannot be destroyed, Bound to Storm Wind

Dexterity +12

20% chance to cause Poison status effect on each attack

When user receives damage, the next attack on the player dealing the damage will be increased to 250%

Overlimit: Release the weapon's hidden power that adds an additional 200% damage as chaos damage, increases weapon range by 3 feet and decreases target's defense by 90%. Duration: 4 minutes. Cooldown: 6 hours

He didn't choose Fire Eating Estoc's two fire-related abilities because it was only effective when he fought against an opponent with a fire element. He could change his Storm Breaker's ability setting to those two skills if he did encounter such an opponent.

Aside from that, his Overlimit duration had increased again, to four minutes now.

Done with upgrading his weapons, it was time for him to distribute his free points. He had leveled up three times today. Two for his Blade Dancer and one for his Archmage. He had 9 free attribute points to distribute. He spent them all on Dexterity and brought it to 207 points, including buff from equipment and race skill.

For his battle skills, he had 6 free points for Blade Dancer and 3 points for Archmage. He spent the 6 free Blade Dancer points on Cross Slash, bringing it to level 10. It could now dish out 430% damage.

The 3 Archmage points he gave to Call Familiar spell again. Peniel had been very helpful in the fight with the Ice Demon Spawn today. He had decided to just level up this spell to the max before other spells.

He also received an abundance of souls from the Ice Demon Spawn. Peniel had mentioned that the soul quality of Demon-type monsters was only second to Draconian. He received 120,000 souls from that rare elite demon. Combined with the stock of 83,000 soul points originally in his container of souls, he could upgrade an elite skill two times. He decided to use them on Call Familiar Spell as well.

Call Familiar increased five levels to level 18. Peniel now had 92.5% of Jack's HP, she also received another skill when the spell went past level 15. The skill was called invulnerability. It granted both Peniel and Jack immunity from all damage and effects for 3 seconds. The skill's cooldown was 2 hours.

Two of Jack's battle skills received an upgrade after this morning's fight. Both Arcane Turbulence and Dragon's Eye received their second stars. The Arcane Turbulence AOE increased yet again with this upgrade, while Dragon's Eye now lasted 14 seconds.

Jack finished the night with his routine of meditation training before going to bed.

The next morning, Haestus presented him with two rare medium armor pants. When Haestus expected Jack to study their stats, Jack simply chucked them into his inventory. The grandmaster blacksmith was rather disappointed seeing that.

"I guess we will take our leave now," Jack said.

"You won't consider becoming a full-fledged blacksmith?" Haestus asked again. "You have the gift in this field."

"I have more gift in whacking monsters, don't you say? After all, I've taken care of that rare elite monster."

Haestus nodded with a smile, "I can't deny that. If you can indulge me, I have another favor to ask."

"Sir, we are about to leave already. Don't tell me another monster has come up again and made its lair in the cavern with the fire mana site?"

"No, no, luckily no such thing had happened. We have applied a stronger rune diagram to ward off monsters down there. The favor I am asking is, can you take Kirsi?"

"What?" Jack was bewildered. Grenmir and Kirsi were there. Jack thought at first they were only present to say goodbye to him. "Take her? To where?"

"I learned that you are part of an outworlder's guild and possess Guild Headquarters, yes?"

"Yes," Jack nodded. In his mind, he added, 'I am even the leader, dude.'

Haestus continued, "Our faction, Blacksmith Circle, had the traditions of sending our brightest trainees into an apprenticeship with other organizations. Our normal choice is usually the kingdom factions, where they worked with the blacksmiths there and established connections. With the rise of outworlders, however, our leader had considered sending our blacksmiths into these outworlder forces. But we knew very little about you outworlders. Now after we get to know you during your brief stay here, my opinion is that you are trustworthy. Grenmir has the same thought."

Jack turned to the grumpy dwarf.

"After she fought together with you yesterday, Kirsi also approved of you.. The guild that you are a part of should be a sensible one."