[Crude Furnace] = 50 Stone (Any, 0.3-0.4kg) + [Hammer] (Any)
----------------------------------------
Whack. Whack. Whack.
Jay hacked into the vein of copper ore, his flint pickaxe in hand. Even with the infused +2 monster core, the work was slow going, and though he’d reinforced the handle with hemp, repairs needed to be made frequently to keep it from snapping. Torches burned bright in the background, a handful of empty containers remained nearby to store the excesses of his labor, and his row of crude furnaces roared nearby, their combined tops exuding enough heat to force him into a sweltering Condition just for standing within their aura.
But it was worth it. After spending a couple hours in preparation, everything was in place to crank out those bars at the quickest pace imaginable.
The system was quite simple with this basic level of tech. Jay would hack apart the copper ore vein into small pieces and feed them into the back of his crude furnaces. The inner heat would then slowly melt the metal down, and the power of gravity would force it to drip into an adjacent basin, where it would harden into a solid block. This could be modified with a clay or stone cast to make refined shapes, but for Jay’s purposes, he wanted nothing more than the bars to trickle out.
His research table was hungry, after all.
To process all this ore normally would have taken hours of hoisting it back and forth, but Jay had streamlined his routine to maximum efficiency after spending the morning testing. His mobile workshop contained many furnaces to melt copper without slowing him down, his storage crates could hold all the slag he removed, and his research table would gobble up whatever came out. He’d since learned that all research tables shared the same research projects, meaning that while he could never re-roll a project once it had been started, he could also make progress at any table, instead of just the one in his base. So long as he didn’t cancel the project early, neither his time nor his materials were lost.
That was today’s goal.
Crafting – Swords
Current Research: Unlock Copper Sword
Time Remaining: 46 hours, 35 minutes
Resources Expended: 5250.1/5248.9kg Wood (Any), 524.2/524.2kg Twine (Any), 0/2624.3kg Copper (Bar).
Jay would fill the cap for copper bars into his sword research in the quickest pace possible, and that would cut out the hassle of everything else. He’d already put in the hours cutting down the necessary trees and collecting all the reeds and vines, so this was the final step before finishing his time researching by hand.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
With each successive pile produced, Jay tossed the resulting ore chunks into different furnaces, evenly distributed to minimize time spent melting. The fires hissed as they burned into the unprocessed metals.
One of the furnaces dimmed before long, its fuel running low. Jay redirected to a different vein, not too far from the copper.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
Where the first vein held a reddish, copper tint, this one was jet black and exuded a darkened cloud upon each hit. Jay minimized his time collecting fuel as he breathed in the noxious fumes. In the end, he grabbed an armful of coal before heading back and refilling his furnace, tossing the rest into a storage crate where it would not despawn.
The first bars solidified in their stone basins, forming uneven, crude bricks, about ten kilograms a piece. Jay took a stone rod, scooped out the excess slag, threw them into a separate wooden chest, and returned to work.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
By the time he finished gathering enough ore to refill the furnaces, the first copper blocks were fully cooled. He dropped the ore into the furnace tops and collected the bars, then thrust them onto his research table, one after the next since they were each so heavy. Bright light shimmered beneath the research panel when lowered as the ore got sucked into the table’s project. He pulled it back up and focused on the details that mattered most.
Time Remaining: 45 hours, 18 minutes
Resources Expended: 120.4/2624.3kg Copper (Bar).
Jay grinned. That loop had taken less than fifteen minutes in full, and he’d already shaved off an hour and seventeen minutes just by processing so much copper at once. The prep work had really paid off.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
Jay continued to run his route. Knocking the copper ore free from its vein, throwing it into the line of furnaces, refilling coal as needed, removing the slag when it built up, and finally, dragging the final copper blocks and throwing them on the bench.
He checked again.
Time Remaining: 43 hours, 57 minutes
...And then went back to the top of the list.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
This was a breeze. At each loop’s completion, another hour and change was removed from the total.
Time Remaining: 39 hours, 42 minutes
Not even his wood and twine gathering had gone nearly as quickly, and even when he put all of them together, they only counted for half of the total material’s reduction benefit, matching the copper’s contribution in full.
Time Remaining: 35 hours, 34 minutes
What should have taken days instead became reduced to mere hours as Jay continued to push through, step by step, as he hauled the copper about.
Time Remaining: 31 hours, 42 minutes
And his technique became more efficient too, the longer he practiced. Breaking down the ore, collecting the slag, refilling the furnaces, repairing his pickaxe as needed, and finally, throwing the final bars into the research table to be processed.
Time Remaining: 25 hours, 21 minutes
Each iteration became quicker than before as he found new ways to speed things up by another half a minute.
Time Remaining: 19 hours, 47 minutes
Jay was almost finished. Only a few more cycles remained until he reached the full copper threshold. If only I could remove the time factor altogether. None of his monster cores seemed to work on weapon or armor research of this level.
He thrust the table’s backboard down and grinned. With a wipe of sweat from his brow, Jay read the full log.
Crafting – Swords
Current Research: Unlock Copper Sword
Time Remaining: 18 hours, 38 minutes
Resources Expended: 5250.1/5248.9kg Wood (Any), 524.2/524.2kg Twine (Any), 2624.5/2624.3kg Copper (Bar).
He beamed. Well over twenty-eight hours of possible research time cut down in a little more than two, and he’d even finessed the final bar input to minimize overflow. The rest continued to cook in his line of furnaces, and he had more than enough total mats to remelt them and put them into casts, as soon as the option became available to complete the sword recipe.
And there was still plenty of daylight left.
Jay studied the afternoon light at the edge of the cave and calculated how much more he could get done today. By his count, daytime lasted for about sixteen hours while night went on for another eight. With perhaps as much as six hours remaining until the sun set, he had more than he needed to set the stage for tonight’s brawl.
I’ll just hang around for a bit, he told himself as he placed the hardwood sword onto the research table for the manual research.
His eyes fixated onto every nuance of the weapon, his hands tossing and turning it. From the hide-bound grip, to the bone crossguard, to the hardwood blade itself, whole new slews of possibilities floated through his mind. There was so much more that could be done to improve this instrument of death, so long as he put in the time…
And time flowed on until Jay looked back up.
Crafting – Swords
Current Research: Unlock Copper Sword
Time Remaining: 14 hours, 25 minutes
Resources Expended: 2834.4/2832.8kg Wood (Any), 524.2/524.2kg Twine (Any), 2624.5/2624.3kg Copper (Bar).
It was eerie both how quickly the time had passed, as well as how succinctly he was able to pull himself from research. As if no more than a minute had come and gone, Jay fast-forwarded through most of the afternoon.
He consulted his Stats with a rub of his chin. Thankfully, for perhaps the first time since he arrived on Annwyn, he’d found an activity that didn’t drain him more than idling.
A yellow-orange haze refracted against the waterfall beyond the cave’s boundary, reminding Jay how much time he had left. Before another moment could be lost, he doubled back to his cabin and grabbed his bow.
Some preparations still remained.
* * *
Night fell again as it had so many times before, with the world descending into shadow while the blood planet watched from above. Jay waited patiently as the night’s army rose to face, his weapons in hand and suit of armor freshly fortified.
He hadn’t had much time to whip this set together.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He didn’t need to, either.
The wave of gorillas and wolves marched forth, with the group of bears in the rear, enjoying their lazy saunter. Jay gleamed, seeing that Natura was repeating its same technique in a gambit to drain his pistol’s ammo. He fingered the polymer grip, remembering that only five shots of this overpowered tool remained.
The wolves closed in while the gorillas jogged in support, rocks in hand to wage another debilitating fight.
But rather than facing them straight on, Jay merely saluted his enemies for their valiant effort, spun around, and sprinted the other way. His body rocketed forth now that he’d switched into full light armor – a courtesy given to him by a pair of elks he’d hunted before the night had come.
As the monsters watched dumbfounded by the change in tactics, Jay scaled the vines leading into the more treacherous mountains and disappeared over the lip. The howls of his enemies dwindled.
Just like that, the odds were back in his favor. Jay might not have been able to defeat Natura’s current armada, but he did not need to.
He could just run away until the day was up.
Sure, doing so would cost him precious points in fatigue as the Poorly Rested status began to tick back up, especially when compared with his failed fight the night before, but if his second week had taught him anything, he could afford to go days without real rest and not break a sweat. So long as he used the tactics he’d developed while balancing his overall Stats, it did not matter how he reached the other side of these engagements. Sometimes, they required winning a climatic fight.
And sometimes, Jay could just be a little bitch and hide until it was safe to come out.
Such was the case this evening. The wolves became lost trying to navigate the mountainous terrain, and the gorillas couldn’t keep up because of his heightened movement speed under full fur armor. Meanwhile, the granite bear squad was impossibly far behind the rest.
What should have been a stressful game of cat-and-mouse instead turned into a leisurely hike at night, and before Jay even realized the time had come, the sun was already on the cusp of the horizon. The manifestations shrieked in outrage at their failure, only to fade out once the rays of sun hit the ground.
That was when Jay returned to his base, enjoyed some cocoa tea, dusted off the hardwood sword, and went back to another round of research, munching on some dried elk meat to help balance the hunger loss.
There was more than one way to win a battle.
* * *
The sun was on the cusp of falling when Jay reached the end.
That time already? He wiped the sweat from his brow. Though his day of research had been overall quick with the time acceleration, a mid-day power nap helped him with an extra fatigue boost to keep an additional buffer when the sun fell.
But it was done. Though the night would soon come and the battle with it, Jay was finally at the end.
Crafting – Swords
Research Requirements: Examine crafted [Copper Sword] for required length of time and/or expend desired material into table’s board to reduce maximum time.
Pending Research:
Update Modifiers: 4-16 hours, or Wood (Hard, 200-300kg) + Twine (Any, 50-75kg) + Bone (50-75kg)
Unlock Heavy Sword Sub-Craft: 4-16 hours, or Wood (Hard, 250-375kg) + Twine (Any, 50-75kg) + Bone (75-90kg)
Unlock Curved Sword Sub-Craft: 4-16 hours, or Wood (Hard, 250-375kg) + Twine (Any, 50-75kg) + Bone (75-90kg)
Unlock Straight Sword Sub-Craft: 4-16 hours, or Wood (Hard, 250-375kg) + Twine (Any, 50-75kg) + Bone (75-90kg)
Unlock Piercing Sword Sub-Craft: 4-16 hours, or Wood (Hard, 250-375kg) + Twine (Any, 50-75kg) + Bone (75-90kg)
Investigate Skills: 5-20 hours, or Copper (Bar, 500-750kg) + Twine (Any, 50-75kg) + Bone (75-90kg)
Unlock Pig Iron Sword: 30-90 hours, or Wood (Hard, 4000-6000kg) + Twine (Any, 500-750kg) + Pig Iron (Bar, 2500-3750kg)
Unlock Silver Sword: 30-90 hours, or Wood (Hard, 4000-6000kg) + Twine (Any, 500-750kg) + Silver (Bar, 2500-3750kg)
Jay rubbed his eyes, seeing the new entries. What the hell is pig iron? That skill investigation, though…
He stared closer and realized that the Sub-Craft and modifier research had been reduced for time, now that he’d finished the sword. Would all research work this way?
He’d have to figure this all out later. Night was quickly coming and he wouldn’t be able to hide it out.
The recipe remained where it always had under the Crafting tree, though Jay was pleased to watch the new line get drawn, further inward than he’d ever seen before.
[Copper Sword] = Copper (Bar, 0.45-0.8m) + Wood (Hard, 0.15-0.2m) + Leather (level 11+, 0.15-0.2m) + 2 Copper (Bar, 1.5-2.5kg) + Twine (Hemp+1, 0.15-0.2m) + [Knife] (Flint+2) + [Hammer] (Stone+2) + [Workbench] (Any)
A small, but subtle twist. This recipe varied for the first time Jay had seen, with the copper in the blade specifying length, while the guard components were identified by weight. What caused the difference? he wondered.
Didn’t matter. This could be crafted before the time was up. Even with the added handicap of using upscaled tools, Jay had compensated with monster cores.
Jay went through the routine as quickly as possible. The hardest and longest step was forming the blade and guard pieces. These had to be smelted into casts directly, with Jay using his hardwood sword as the template. Mining his dwindling copper node had become second nature, as had allowing the furnace the time to work, so he kept himself busy by trimming down the hardwood and crude leather to work for the handle, along with collecting the added hemp. He still hadn’t performed the research needed to upscale hemp yet, but perhaps, he could still make it work.
The copper finished. Jay rushed back to his workbench and threw together the pieces. The blade was placed next to the guard while being hammered into place for a stronger edge, the hilt was fixed to the bottom and wrapped in twine. He winced with this last step, his normal crafting instincts feeling that this was unnatural, like trying to ram the wrong puzzle piece in place.
But the result came together as always, and Jay stared at his final creation: a newly minted copper sword.
Buzz.
Level Up! Swords 4 → 5
Crafted sword durability increased.
Jay grinned. Just as he suspected, levels were influenced both by monster cores as well as tier unlocks. By cracking into copper for the first time, he’d gained a new level, even though his core had never broken +3. He’d even gained bonus durability for the level.
He turned to the Inventory page to check the result.
[Copper Sword] (Weakened) – A sword made out of copper.
This [Copper Sword] has been modified for reduced durability.
So, that’s what happens when going below the recipe threshold. The lower level twine reduced the strength of the total craft, undermining its durability. Jay would have to focus on upscaling as his next research focus.
But the deed was still done.
He went to his workbench next, an extra monster core in hand. The added infusion bonus would make it even stronger…
But the moment he placed the core, a new line of text appeared.
Durability – Full.
Repairs needed: None
WARNING – Core level too low. Level 21+ cores required for this infusion.
WARNING – Roof missing. Interior required for this infusion.
Another wrinkle. Gear must have scale naturally to not accept lower-level cores, meaning he’d have to defeat stronger monsters to make them stronger. He also could no longer build a bench outside and infuse the cores. He’d have to come back home.
This also explains the T-1 naming they use, Jay considered. A level 21 monster core would make his weapon a “Copper Sword+1,” even though it’d make his hardwood sword +5. So, it was a T-1 Copper Age core to upgrade his Copper Age weapon.
He rubbed his head, not wanting to think about more level math.
A boulder sat near his base, ready for target practice. Jay gripped his new sword tight, feeling the strength resonate through his veins.
He [Power Attacked]. The copper sword roared through the air with a hiss, sparks shooting out where it struck the granite block. The blade easily tore through stone, and pebbles and dust exploded into the air.
He stared blankly at the shattered pile of gravel, shocked by his own strength. All this power just for upgrading to copper? What would happen once he started putting monster cores in?
The last rays of light faded on the night. Night had come again. Jay went back inside, repaired his sword, and changed out of his fur armor, into the heavier lizardscale set. He was just about out of komodo hide, so this would have to count.
The malevolent cries of Natura resonated throughout the plateau, reminding him of the enemies soon to come. As Jay walked back outside, he saw the wall of pale green eyes flickering into life.
So many tonight. In anticipation of another routing fest, Natura seemed to have summoned an army designed to chase him down again, with swarms of mudchimps, wooden owls, muddy bats, and leafdeer to stalk him in the mountain, and even some larger eagles that he’d never seen before. The mossmoose had also made a return, standing as the unbeatable bulwark of this set.
Yes, were Jay to go on the run, this would be a tough evening.
But this was all according to plan. Jay didn’t need to go on the run now that he’d gained his sword, and by baiting Natura into an assumed chase, his enemy had fallen straight into his trap. His sword could no doubt cleave through most of these monsters with ease, and his 9mm still had five rounds left, should it be needed. No running for him tonight.
Jay marched forth, ready to embrace this new age.
Name: Jay Reis (Copper Age)
Vitality – 38/38
Hunger – 44/72
Thirst – 16/24
Fatigue – 10/24
Sanity – 80/100
Main Crafts: Armor Crafting 2, Base Building 2, Cooking 0, Medicine 0, Tailoring 1, Tool Crafting 1, Weapon Crafting 2.
Weapon Crafts: Axes 0, Bows 4, Clubs 0, Daggers 0, Spears 5, Swords 5.
Armor Crafts: Heavy Armor 5, Light Armor 2, Medium Armor 0, Shields 4.
Armor Skills:
Heavy Armor: [Push], [Stampede]
Light Armor: [Dash]
Shield: [Brace], [Track]
Weapon Skills:
Bows: [Sharpshooter], [Longshot]
Spears: [Thrust], [Sweep]
Swords: [Power Attack], [Slash]
Armor:
[Lizardscale Helmet+2] (Hardened+1)
[Lizardscale Chestpiece+4] (Hardened+1)
[Lizardscale Leggings+2] (Hardened+1)
[Lizardscale Boots+1] (Hardened+1)
[Lizardscale Gauntlets+1] (Hardened+1)
[Scaled Roundshield+3] (Hardened+1)
Weapons:
[Copper Sword] (Weakened)
[Flint Spear+4] (Hardened), (Reinforced)
[Wooden Bow+3]
[Basic Leather Quiver]: Contains 20 [Flinthead Arrows]
[Crude Javelin Bag]: Contains 5 [Crude Javelins]
[9mm Semi-Automatic Pistol] (Accurate+2), (Quick): Contains 5 [9mm Cartridge] (JHP)
Tools:
[Flint Knife+1]
[Stone Axe+1]
[Stone Hammer+1]
[Flint Pickaxe+2]