Sharpening the blade was easy. Slowly the rough edge was ground away and soon the blade was done and ready to use. A little bit of embroidery on the hilt and the sword was complete.
Common sword (uncommon) complete.
'A good sword on my first try?'
Common sword
An uncommon sword made by a decent craftsman.
Item Level: 10
STR: 30
AGI: 10
It took Peter almost 3 hours to complete the sword and the result was not bad. Most common swords only had an attack of 10. This one was a lot better compared to the rest.
The sword was decent and so Peter went to the player auction area and put up his sword for auction. People could buy or sell items here.
At these early stages of the game, it was rare to get this good of a weapon. But as more and more crafters reached a higher rank, uncommon items will flood the market.
After making his first weapon he had levelled up in blacksmithy. 'If I could level up once for each weapon that would be great.'
It was already close to 12 but since he was free for the day he chose to stay and continue making more swords. Since he was a swordsman, making swords gave him a small experience towards his combat class as well.
It was a slow night and he kept making more swords.
Common sword(uncommon) complete.
Common sword(rare) complete.
Common sword(uncommon) complete.
All n all, he was able to make three uncommon quality and one rare quality sword. These pushed him to level 8 with most of his experience coming from making the rare item.
Too tired to continue playing, Peter went to bed. He woke up a bit late the next day. He had a message from Sicily asking him to call her.
"Hi, I just got up. What's up?"
"Peter, we are renting an office and every work is done. You can come to join us anytime."
"Aren't you all ladies? I don't think it's appropriate."
"We have separate rooms. Don't worry. If you are willing to join our money-making guild then we will also pay you 3000 bucks a month. "
"What's the catch?"
"You need to make 10 gold a month. Anything more you can keep to yourself or sell at the system exchange rate."
"I'm not sure. I will think about it today and tell you tomorrow."
"Ok. When you are done come to this address."
'I forgot to ask if they had a cook.'
Peter logged in to the game and went to the market. He wanted to check the sales on the items he placed at the auction.
The rare sword sold for 2 gold and 10 silver while the uncommon ones were sold for 50 silver each. For a beginner player, this was a large profit.
Peter now had 5 gold in his bag. That was equivalent to 5000 bucks real life almost the pay for his month. The difficulty of crafting profession was bound to increase further.
Already level 15, Peter initially thought of going back to the mountain and train his level a bit but with the current cash, he had there was no need to go back to those mines. He could just buy materials from the market.
Compared to crafters, gathering was an easy profession. In the early stages, most of the big workshop hasn't started forming guilds and so no one could restrict the resources to themselves. This was the best time for a player to grow his crafting and gathering levels.
The game did not give quests that were profitable to Peter any more. Since it was now possible for Peter to craft weapons and sell them, the rewards from quests were too low for it to feel rewarding.
Now the most important thing for Peter was to either find more weapon recipes or to get his combat level to 20 to finish the Alder quest he had.
There wasn't much different from the gear that he wore and the gear available at 15. So he went to the forest looking to kill something good.
The starting area of Alderriver forest had no strong mobs. Everything was below level twenty and the few higher-level bosses were all LVL 10 and defence based.
It was common for the guild players to team up and kill a few of them.
As Peter closed in on one of the boss spawn areas, he saw a few players teaming up planing to kill the soon to spawn boss. "Hey, we are planning to kill the boss soon why don't you clear the area?" One of them who looked like the leader of the group asked Peter. It was early in the game and these players had to pretend to be nice. But once they reach endgame it was normal for guilds to block off entire maps to level up and farm. This was a normal occurrence in most games.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Peter was just one man and he wasn't able to kill more than two no matter how he tried. The idea of fighting and killing others also repelled him. So he asked them if he could join them.
"Join us to kill the boss?" The guy kept looking at him.
"I just need the experience I have never fought one before."
"How much defence do you have?"
"500. I just have beginner armour."
"Not bad. Ok, we could use a few more players."
The bosses were different from ordinary mobs. Most of these creatures increased its attributes depending on the total number of players fighting it.
The boss they were fighting increased its vitality making it more durable. Due to the weaker strength, it couldn't kill players. The stronger a boss became the more experience the players received. This was common for region bosses.
The boss hadn't spawned yet and the few people that were there were still sitting and waiting. Soon the boss spawned.
A giant turtle almost 6 foot tall. The health of the boss was about 200 thousand but since Peter alone did 300 damage and combined with the rest of the team that was a decent amount of damage. The fight should only take a few minutes at most.
The more crowded it became, the harder it got for them to hit the boss. There was only so much space available to stand in front of the boss. So unless the player was skilled at melee combat most guilds preferred ranged players when they planned on killing large mobs.
After the initial few hits on the boss, the rest of them asked Peter to fall back so that they could get the other stronger players to deal the damage.
The fight went on with Peter helping from time to time when the professional males at the front got too tired to continue. Soon the turtle took its last few breaths and fell on its front legs. The loot dropped were a mixture of a lot of common items. There were a few additional uncommon items as well.
Peter stood around to see if they got anything good but it didn't look like there was much. Among the many exceptional items dropped by the boss, the most remarkable ones were the rare sword and a descent uncommon armour set.
The guild went into an internal auction for the items. After a few more items were put out Peter left the area feeling a bit dejected.
Most of the items that the boss dropped were common armour as expected of a vitality type boss. For a large guild, this was good since they would get enough equipment for its members.
For peter who was playing solo, this was too low of a return since these could be bought over at the auction house with ease. The boss was quite generous and gave him enough experience to push him over an entire level and he reached closer to 17.
As Peter was planning to withdraw back to the city, the party leader of the guild called over to him and asked if he needed anything. He was just being polite.
"No, I already went up a level. It's good enough. I wanted to get to level 20 fast so if you are doing other regional bosses please let me join in as well."
Since regional bosses were much easier to kill and the more players also meant a higher amount of experience, he was willing to add him to the party.
The rest of the morning Peter joined the guild and farmed a huge amount of experience. Soon he was able to reach level 20 and the experience from killing in the area slowed down.
If a player killed a monster with a difference of 10 levels below them, they wouldn't receive any experience. This was to prevent players from staying in a single area and not spreading out.
The party soon disbanded and after a few casual exchanges with the party leader, Peter went back to the town. Since he was already at level 20, he now qualified to complete Alder's quest. The only problem was that his armour was of lower quality.
Two issues now plagued Peter's mind. One, he had to finish a T2 quest to become a T2 swordsman also there were no armoursmiths in the game and all he could do was make his armours which needed him to be a few levels higher in blacksmithing.
Remembering that he still needed to go and meet with Sicily at her new farming studio, Peter decided to take a break for the day. He had Saturday and Sunday off so he had two days to go and level up his skills later.
As he moved across the district Peter bought a sandwich from the street vendors. Reaching his destination, he took out his phone and dialled Sicily.
"Hey, I'm outside."
"You got here a bit early. I'm coming over."
"I got bored playing for so long."
"Bored playing AM?"
"Just come down."
"Coming. I'm already at the door."
Peter greeted Sicily with a warm smile. She let him in and asked how he was managing himself.
"It's not bad. The only issue is I have to cook. I never learned to cook."
"Oh, that's ok. We have so many girls here some might know how to cook."
"You don't?"
"We had maids at home. "
Sicily quickly changed subjects and took Peter to show around. The place was well off. A few cabins were laying around.
"If we get more members I plan to make the entire floor into a workspace. The stay is put up and the first floor and the second floor has the best cabins for our elite teams."
"Elite teams? What's that for?"
"Competitions. Monthly PVP competitions are going on in the game and if we won a championship we could participate in the annual champions event. It's supposedly going to be one of the biggest events in the country."
"So what about the money-making workshop?"
"All good workshops need them. Don't worry about it. We will buy a few exceptional players to do the monthly championship. "
"I thought you were planning to participate in it."
"No, I'm not that good. I will leave it for my elder brother. He belongs to the rising sun guild. It's one of the best gaming studios in the market."
"Nice."
As they both chatted away, Peter realized that Sicily was only a higher member of the rising sun guild and was responsible for this workshop. Her job was to recruit players and operate the workshop. Rising Sun was one of the best gaming guilds in the game and it was owned by her family.
"Ok great so what about me then. Do I stay here?"
"It's a simple contract. We pay you 5000 bucks every month and we get the gold you get. You can keep everything else or sell it to us for a decent price if the equipment is good."
"Ok, so how much gold do I need to give you this month?"
"Nothing much these few months. There is no point in getting any money now but soon the gold value will drop and then we will need your help. Just get 10 gold that's all."
"Ten gold? Isn't it a bit too high?"
"It is 10,000 bucks. Right now it might look like a lot but soon it will drop down in value and then it would be cheaper over town."
After thinking a lot about the offer, Peter decided to join the workshop. Soon he was provided with a room and Sicily offered to help him move his cabin over. Since he didn't have to cook or clean anything anymore, he could focus more on the game and making money now.
The thought of getting rich quick forced him into levelling up his blacksmith job as soon as he was done moving.
'I need to get more recipes. Maybe I should check the auction house soon."