Trapped at the bottom of an ominous abyss, with nothing around to kill and no quests to accomplish, his only hope of getting points was the occupation menu.

  When Avery had previously experimented in the sect, he had found that if he set his occupation to alchemist, he could gain points by refining elixirs. He had dismissed it at the time as it only gave points in ones and twos, which was far from the hundreds needed to buy anything decent, and he had deemed it a better usage of his time to climb the sect hierarchical ladder and integrate into a team which would help him kill monsters to get rich in points overnight.

  That plan had failed miserably, and for now singular points would have to suffice. Being an alchemist evidently wasn’t an option, as all the materials would probably explode before he could process them. The same problem applied to other occupations such as beastmaster or farmer. Occupations that did not require materials, like seer or formation master sounded so complex it would probably take years before he was good enough to be rewarded with any points.

  His best bet were manual jobs with inanimate materials. There were a few he could choose from, like sculpting or painting, but he quickly decided on blacksmithing. It just seemed the most useful. From what he knew of this world, a sharp sword was definitely more appreciated than a beautiful painting, and he had a hard time imagining a bunch of sculptures helping him out of this mess.

  He hesitated for a moment longer, knowing he did not have enough points to change his mind if he chose the wrong option. Taking one last glance at the occupation list, he decisively changed his profession for 500pts.

Ding, congratulations on changing your profession and receiving the blacksmith novice package. -500 points

  Looking through the gift box, Avery took out a dozen ingots of what he guessed were magical ores, as well as a hammer, a stylet, and a disappointingly thin instruction manual with a refining diagram.

  Reading through the three paged instruction manual, Avery learned that there were two steps to refining in this world. First you had to shape the metal, which would often be very easily done with magic, but then you had to inscribe runes on it to guide the flow of Qi in the material, giving it attributes and making it into a treasure.

  Once he was sure he had not misunderstood anything, Avery didn't waste time and started forging according to the diagram, hitting an ore with his hammer to craft a spearhead.

  He had no means to heat up the metal, but the hammer must have some magical properties as each strike reshaped the ingot with ease. It might have even been too easy, each impact flattening half the ingot, making it challenging to control the resulting shape. He was not helped by the fact he had no anvil or support of any kind, and he had to work kneeling on the floor in front of the future spearhead. He quickly decided to hold the hammer at the very top of the shaft for more precise movements, but it didn’t help much.

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  Avery couldn't help but feel disappointed in himself as he put down the hammer roughly an hour later. He hadn’t expected to craft a masterpiece on his first try, but his new weapon was so blunt and misshapen it was uncomfortable to look at. Upon further inspection, he was convinced the untreated ingot would have made a better weapon than his creation.

  Noticing he had not been awarded a single point, he promised himself he would do better next time. He hesitated to continue his attempt at forging, but he decided to move on to his first attempt at engraving. The manual had placed a lot more emphasis on this part of the process, and he had a feeling it would reward him with much more points.

  Besides, Avery had done some calligraphy when he was young, so he was more at ease with this part. The symbol depicted on the diagram was of a complex shape that vaguely reminded him of Chinese characters. He took the time to study the design for some time, memorizing the pattern and deciding where he should start, before proceeding to draw it on the shameful weapon.

  Having only a stillet and no ink, he was expecting to physically carve the glyph on the metal, but instead he felt something being drained out of him and being used as ink. Some kind of energy was flowing from him through the stillet, and being transformed into glowing silver-blue ink. He couldn't quite tell what was being depleted, so he panicked and stopped engraving. The sensation of loss stopped immediately, but the line he had drawn also blurred and faded away.

  He tried understanding what was happening, attempting to use vague feelings to ascertain the nature of what was being consumed. It wasn’t physical strength, it felt much more elusive and deeply connected to him, but it was hard to be more precise than that.

  He was pretty sure it was supposed to be Qi, but since he had no Qi to offer, he was highly concerned that something more important had replaced it. The worst case scenario would be that it was his soul or lifespan that was being depleted, or really any resource he could not regenerate.

  He couldn't really do anything about it, so he could only carry on and hope he was only losing something like vitality, and that it was replenished whenever he used a time warp. He might have immediately changed profession if he had enough points, but right now he had to bite the bullet and get to work.

  Completing the pictogram took a few dozen strokes, and he messed up a few of them, but each successful stroke would emit a mysterious light, making the glyph glow silver.

  It was useless to worry about something he could do nothing about, so he had decided to ignore the feeling of being drained, and focus on his calligraphy. However, it was such a mysterious and indescribable feeling that he was constantly getting distracted, unconsciously stopping to appreciate the weirdly inviting energy.

  He had no way to explain it, but perhaps the closest comparison would be two friends talking just out of earshot. He was close enough to hear that they were talking and couldn't ignore their voices. They acted as if the conversation was extremely interesting, so he subconsciously paid attention, but no matter how closely he listened it was impossible to understand anything.

  He had no feeling of loss, so he was able to reassure himself that using this mysterious energy wasn’t too big of a problem, but the distraction alone greatly hindered his engraving. It was a constant fight to keep his hand steady, and only by taking his time, ignoring the relative urgency of finding a source of points, was he able to persevere.

  Unfortunately, perseverance was not enough to make up for his lack of skill. His hand wobbled too much, the light of the glowing ink slowly dimmed, and soon there was nothing left of his first attempt at engraving.