novelraw Chapter 103: Ancient Dragonfang Greatclub!
Chapter 103: Ancient Dragonfang Greatclub!
[Forging Skill Enhancement Scroll (Skill-type Item): A skill scroll dropped by an unknown blacksmith. Using this item increases the quality of a Shell’s forging skill by one tier, up to a maximum of Epic.]
[Spirit Essence Value: 1000]
Lin Xun’s eyes lit up. If he used this scroll on the blacksmith, wouldn’t that save him the 20,000 Spirit Essence crafting fee?
But then he paused.
“Wait a minute, why’s this item so cheap?” Even the cursed game’s own estimated value was just 1000.
And in the entire trading panel, there was only one of these scrolls.
“Screw it. Let’s just buy it and deal with the consequences later!”
Lin Xun guessed the cursed game had bugged out, marked the scroll’s value incorrectly, and some seller had blindly listed it at the suggested price.
Quick fingers win. Slow hands lose. Without hesitation, he snatched it up.
[You spent 1000 Spirit Essence and successfully purchased Forging Skill Enhancement Scroll!]He clicked to use it.
[You have used the Forging Skill Enhancement Scroll…]
[Your Master Forging Art has upgraded to Grandmaster Forging Art!]
He opened his panel. Sure enough, the blacksmith’s forging skill had changed.
[Shell Skill: Grandmaster Forging Art (Epic) – A legendary forging technique passed down through generations of blacksmith clans. Refined through tens of thousands of hammer swings, then further elevated through some mysterious process. This skill allows forging of Shell equipment up to Epic grade.]
This scroll works fine… So it was a price error by the cursed game?
He immediately opened the Apostle Forum to investigate pricing on similar items.
After an exhaustive search, he discovered: no, the price was accurate.
Because in the game, blacksmiths and craftsmen NPCs were a very special breed.
They possessed unique forging skills that allowed them to create, repair, and enhance gear, making them incredibly valuable for logistics and support.
If Apostles could easily kill them and possess their bodies, it would completely break the game’s balance.
So in-game, blacksmith-type NPCs fell into two categories:
Either very high-level human NPCs, far stronger than any Apostle, essentially unbeatable.
Or non-human entities, which Apostles couldn’t possess in the first place.
Most game worlds used non-human NPCs for blacksmith characters to prevent Apostles from possessing them.
Even if a frustrated Apostle did manage to kill one, the chance of the blacksmith dropping any valuable item was abysmal.
This is why Apostles depended so heavily on the Book of Craftsmen in the Library.
This Forging Skill Enhancement Scroll was likely dropped by some lucky player who somehow managed to kill a blacksmith NPC.
But since Apostles couldn’t possess blacksmiths, no one had the forging skill needed to use it.
So this ‘rare’ scroll had no actual market and ended up dumped at 1000 Spirit Essence, and even then it wasn’t selling.
But now, in the hands of Lin Xun, someone whose talent was a complete bug, this near-worthless item had become a treasure.
Unfortunately, there was only one of them on the market.
Probably because Apostles all knew that killing a blacksmith was pointless, and almost no one bothered.
Grinning widely, Lin Xun spent 12,000 Spirit Essence to purchase the Advanced Tuning Magic Diagram from the trading book.
He activated the blacksmith’s forging skill, selected Craft Equipment, and inserted all the required materials mentioned by the Book of Craftsmen…
[Crafting equipment…]
[Equipment successfully crafted!]
[You have obtained Ancient Dragonfang Greatclub (Epic Weapon)!]
[Ancient Dragonfang Greatclub (Epic Weapon): Forged using the Giant Branch of the Ancient Primordial Tree as the core, and set with a Subspecies Dragon Fang at the club’s head.]
[The shaft is lined with jagged Wolfhound Fangs and densely embedded Fangs of the Black Giant Worm.]
[This massive club weighs tens of thousands of pounds, thick and brutal, far beyond the grasp of ordinary beings. Thanks to the Advanced Tuning Magic Diagram, the weapon can expand and contract freely, perfectly adapting to Shells capable of changing size.]
Lin Xun’s eyes lit up as he admired the weapon.
He tried listing it on the Book of Trade to check its estimated resale value.
The game suggested 140,000 Spirit Essence, just 30,000 less than his Thunder Dragon Staff-Spear.
Staring at the string of zeros, a dangerous idea crossed his mind. Should I become a full-time forger and get rich selling weapons?
He cross-referenced the material prices in the Book of Trade with the recipes in the Book of Craftsmen.
After some analysis, he realized that crafted weapons were generally cheaper than naturally dropped ones.
In fact, the total material value often exceeded the final weapon’s market price and that didn’t even include the forging fee.
“No matter how you slice it, it’s a loss.”
Then again, that made sense, crafted gear was tailored to your own Shell.
For personal use, it was powerful. But for other Apostles, custom-made gear lacked the universal utility of native drops.
Take his Ancient Dragonfang Greatclub, for example. With the Earth Giant Shell, he could enlarge or shrink it to match his form, unleashing its full potential.
But if anyone else tried to use it, the power would drop significantly.
“So much for my dreams of instant wealth… Or maybe not. If I forge gear for others and charge half the game’s forging fee, it could work. Still… lots of complications to consider.”
He opened his inventory and saw he had five crafting materials left.
Two were special materials that guaranteed unique Equipment Traits. Sapling of the Corrupted Tree of Life and Multicolored Poison Powder Gland.
These hadn’t shown up in the Book of Craftsmen’s earlier weapon blueprint, probably because they weren’t weapon-compatible.
After a bit of tinkering, Lin Xun discovered that crafting Epic gear always required five high-grade materials, but only one guaranteed-trait material could be used per recipe.
In other words, if he wanted to forge another Epic piece, he needed one more material.
He glanced at his wallet, 13,000 Spirit Essence left.
He considered selling some unused gear.
First up was the Chieftain’s Scepter of the Beastmen Giants.
This Rare weapon had an estimated market price of 8,000.
Rare weapons generally sold between 7,000 and 11,000.
But the scepter was massive, probably hard to sell. Even 8,000 might be optimistic.
He listed it at the suggested price anyway.
He still had four Common+ items gathering dust: Two-Handed Knight Greatsword, Ultra-High-Voltage Conduction Taser, Mountain Monster Leg Bone Staff, Heavy Metal Plate Armor (damaged).
Each was priced between 300 and 500 Spirit Essence.
“Even mosquito meat is still meat…”
He listed all the junk, hoping a new Apostle might come along and scoop them up.
Having mostly explored the Book of Trade and Book of Craftsmen, Lin Xun returned to the Librarian.
[The Librarian regards you with kind eyes and softly tells you: he has a few special items in stock, perhaps they might interest you.]
The game text displayed several items.
First and foremost: Invasion Bookmark!
Just seeing those words triggered a memory, Lin Xun still had a powerful exclusive item that could only be unlocked through PvP invasions…
[T/N: The author’s starting to make the chapters longer, so I’ll be splitting them into multiple parts to keep the daily updates consistent, and also so I don’t burn myself out. Thanks for your understanding.]