Chapter 34: Sierra's Top Hammer Noob

The night passed slowly and even painfully at times in this fashion as I continued making the secondary or even primary weapons for my teammates. At first I would receive stat points for every project but I eventually slowed down until I did not even get any points when I completed Merch's dual wakizashi, the second to last. He always used Japanese short swords.

I really would have liked to get one more set of points, though, because then my Endurance would have naturally been an even fifty-five without my current armor. However, now that the night shift was ending I was more than happy to stop and rest now that everybody had all of the weapons and armor they needed. Which was actually quite the chore.

For Stonewall's shield, I honestly just cast a four-inch thick four-by-four-foot square plate that I carefully and slowly hammered down to two-and-a-half inches thick in a five-foot square. Then I cast fifteen three-pound bars of higher vanium and higher carbon steel bars to fold into one-hundred-layer spikes.

[Strength raised by 1]

[Endurance raised by 1]

[Successfully Created: Elder Midnight Stake x15]

[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Elder Midnight Stake]

[+50XP*15]

[Leveled Up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[+50*15 Blacksmithing XP]

[Blacksmithing Leveled x2]

[+30XP]

The shield 'face' was then heated to the point of softening before laying on a wooden table I paid for to ruin while hammering the spikes through the shield face in 'X' patterns down the middle of the front with a spare foot between the spikes and the edges of the shield

After hammering the ruptured side of the shield around the spikes into a welded crimping, I left the shield face to cool on the burning table by the edge of the smithy. Next, I cast a two-and-a-half-inch four-foot square plate that I heat up on the forge underneath the spiked shield face with Canley's assistance before transporting to a giant knee-high anvil at the back of the forge.

Next, I hammer welded the spiked shield face down onto the back plate that secured the spikes in place.

For the final steps of the process I cast two more bars of simplified steel that only had one-percents of everything in the rest of the shield and rented a special tool from Agar. Then I heated and folded them into ten layered bars before shaping them into giant U nails. Then, while Canley heated those giant U nails, I used the magic hand drill I rented for sixty gold for an hour from Agar to bore two sets of two vertical holes in the middle of the six-foot square shield two feet apart.

Once the U nails were hot, Canley and I hurried to set up vices on the giant anvil before clamping the U nails in place. Fitting the shield over the upturned U nails so that three inches of spike poked out through the front of the shield, I started hammering the exposed ends down so they mushroom out around the surface of the shield while swelling the softly hot steel in the holes.

[Successfully Crafted: Giant's Elder Midnight Guardian Shield]

[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Giant's Elder Midnight Guardian Shield]

[+350XP]

[+350 Blacksmithing XP]

[Blacksmithing Leveled]

[+18XP]

"Who here besides that man glaring daggers at me from the front of the building can craft a shield that does seventy damage?" I demand of everybody in the smithy, drawing the eyes of everybody in the area to myself as I exhaustively raised my hammer into the air triumphantly. "Anybody?" I ask when nobody responds. "I want answers or results! The first one of you to make a shield that does more than fifty-five damage gets a freaking job!"

[Acquired Unique Title: Sierra's Top Hammer Noob]

[+100XP]

[Sierra's Top Hammer Noob: Active. Rare. For challenging the Sierra Public Smithy after eight hours of consecutive labor and receiving no competition from the entire municipal, you have earned the uncontested right to be called the city of Sierra's top blacksmith at level 20 or under or less than three Earth days old. Permanent +10 Sierra Reputation and bonus +10% smithing proficiency while the title is equipped or in the city of Sierra]

[Acquired Title: A Master Noob Craftsman]

[+250XP]

[A Master Noob Craftsman: Passive. Epic. For crafting numerous advanced items and an advanced masterpiece for which you were named an area's top smith in the noob bracket, with a Blacksmithing skill below 50 and a first character less than an Earth week old, you have been awarded this master craftsman bracket title. Permanent +10 Imperial Reputation and +10% proficiency to all crafts]

[Acquired Unique Title: 72nd Classless Craftsmaster]

[+500XP]

[Leveled Up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[72nd Classless Craftsmaster: Passive. Epic. For being the 72nd classless player in the world to be awarded a master title in any crafting brackets, you have been awarded this Unique Title to show the world the record of your Top 100 achievement. Permanent +30 Imperial Reputation and +10% proficiency to all crafts]

"Why give me titles for blacksmithing and crafting when I'm already done blacksmithing and crafting!?" I groan angrily, considering buying a hammer and anvil just so I can destroy both of them with one another to vent my tired frustrations.

To the confused faces of my friends around me, including Canley, I both angrily and smugly had the system reveal my newest achievement titles. "Can I punch you?" Go asks after looking at the names on my titles, not even bothering to read their descriptions or affects. "First, you became the first classless with a beast taming mastery, then you got the merchant mastery, now you're a master craftsman? I don't care about what NPC you're friends with or what noble family you're pulling out of the grave, but this records shit makes the rest of us look bad."

"I made stonewall a shield that could dismiss the first hobgoblin warrior, I think that deserves an achievement in itself," I say with an emotionless deadpan expression and voice while looking at my unhappy friend. "How long have you known me? This is just how I do things and its so early in the game that I'm finally getting the recognition I deserve. I'm no longer the competition for the first generation rankers in the games I play, yours truly IS a first generation ranker in this game."

This was true, I had just been named a top member of many noob brackets as well as a top one hundred classless craftsman player. These were only half of the recognition I deserved, but I had yet to truly make the right combat achievements.

However, the first thing I would assuredly do is put my name out there not only as the first person to discover Elder Oak Passage but also the first person to perfectly complete its survival challenge both alone and with a team. After that, my fame for the early phases of the game and my place in its starting history would be secured.

All that would remain after that is continuing to keep myself at the top of combat and crafting brackets to keep myself relevant so that I could start selling my face as well as making money in the two-way conversion.

Eating the last of the meat I kept on my person to help me recover, I tiredly climb to my feat and say, "Call everyone together and make sure we're all suited up in our very best. I gave Ivana and Merch the materials for Skooma's heavy leathers, so they should have it ready. Lil, what's the word on your dad?"

"He's finished with his current class quests and has been training his character in the forest," she replies with a similar exhaustion to mine. Her and Agnes had made serious gains while being forced to forge basic iron fuller swords every hour during the night and Agnes herself was asleep on the floor. "He'll be back in about and hour."

"You guys still have another hour or so into the next shift," Agar the night foreman informs me while walking up from nearby to where my group was hanging out by the giant anvil and Stonewall's seventy-unit shield, giving the sleeping and adorable Agnes a wry look. "If I was still on shift, I'd be tempted to make her wake up. However, you guys are becoming pretty well known around here."

"Is that what brings you over, my friend?" I ask curiously, watching the man appraise the giant shield I made from all angles.

"Partly," he admits open. "Folding the spikes was necessary and leaving the front plate one layer to remain soft and impact absorbent was good, but this back plate will lose shape as your giant friend fights with these foot-long spikes. It should have been folded before being welded it, then it would offer more than as much defense as its weight. Weight ratio will determine your future masterpieces, my friend."

"That's just the one that I'm known for, sir," I reply casually drawing Midnight Hauntings from its sheath and holding it by the blade to offer him the handle. "It's not quite perfected, but I'm finally finding a good balance in materials and methods. Next, I'm going to remake it into a thousand layers and if I need another upgrade in the future I will work on the alloy recipe before trying to pattern-weld two more ingots to it. I made it by recycling a dead man's equipment so if I overwhelm it with unknown material I might lose my connection to that person's spirit."

Trailing his fingers through the deeper fullers at the point end of the blade, Agar says, "A weapon like this is certainly rare, to say the least. Your crafting is also good, I can see you're very well practiced in this design. Your skill level itself is still low or this weapon by itself would certainly be more formidable. Are you classless?"

"Yes, sir," I reply openly despite some inward reluctance. This was probably the part where I would be told how being classless with become a limitation on my capabilities..

However, I was pleasantly surprised when Agar simply nods as if this made sense before saying, "It makes sense. Your level was much lower when we met so I have seen how quickly you can grow, which means it is safe to assume you're fresh to our world. Your connection to the spirit is not their weapons but more likely the fact that you are classless. If they were classless, your kindred spirits would be able to maintain such a bond even should you add twice its weight in materials."

Then, after a few seconds of idly feeling the edge of the sword with his thumb, he adds, "In fact, I would not be surprised that it is why the warrior's spirit remains attached to their weapons. They know that you can make them stronger in death than they were in life Our world is a strange place, my young friend, but I feel it is good to have you here," he adds in a sagely manner, returning Midnight Hauntings to me.

After sharing his advice and deduction the night foreman simply turned and left the smithy while waving by over his shoulder. Canley left soon after, claiming his needed to see his family for breakfast and catch a nap before his training at noon. Then, when the rest of our team finally met up around twenty minutes later we woke Agnes and left together.

Skooma's friends were back online and wanted to meet up with Skooma but I wanted to finally take my entire team to face the goblin survival challenge. So, I told Skooma to sell all of his current goblin fangs and claws to give his friends that money so they spend the entire day working in the smithy. I even gave him a basic guideline for how to turn one-gold appraisals from the day shift foreman into receiving free tips and advice and affinity.

When I Got Skooma met back up with us at the south gate after we picked up our familiars once again we set out from Sierra for the Elder Oak Tree. The others all kept themselves busy and amused by discussing their new equipment and explaining the goblin survival challenge to our friends who only just met back up with us. However, whenever we ran into a confrontation we immediately became serious.

With my new armor I could take a direct tail whip or bite from a level fourteen 'tree dragon' and never go over fifteen damage. Even though I took more than twenty damage in our first confrontation with what seemed like a large nest of giant lizards, I was currently level twenty-one with two hundred and thirty-six HP thanks to my suit and stats.

A few nips and whips from these giant fence lizards was nothing, especially when I was wearing a suit of armor that exceeded one hundred defense. This was closer to level thirty or even forty equipment than the lower twenties level cap of Sierra's region. I was pretty sure armor that only did defensive property of one-twenty would be close to a thousand gold while my suit did that AND buffed stats.

It was also thanks to this that I was excited to see what Skooma's armorer friend came up with to make for my teammates and I. If my flawed design came out with two of either stat and less than one-thirty defense then that potential master craftsman could certainly make something that exceeded one-thirty with stat boosts of at least four. Potentially.