I was walking away from the guildhall with a very sore body, all thanks to that damn guild master. "Damn old man can sure pack a punch". I quickly looked around half expecting a loud 'I'M NOT AN OLD MAN' before being punted into some wall 50 metres away. I continued walking to the inn before realizing "Wait, I'm still flat broke. Shit. Now what? I can't exactly sleep on the streets or beg for money. Do I have anything to sell?" I continued walking towards the inn and searched myself then checked my inventory.

In my inventory was 48 rusty iron swords,5 damaged blobs of slime, the basic starter kit, infinite water bottle and some food. "Guess I can sell the damaged slime for a discount. Hmm what do I do with the rusty swords?" I kept walking and turned a corner. I saw a blacksmith shop that was rather empty and off to the side where people wouldn't see it so easily, so I decided to check it out. I had walked into some alleyway far from the main street so this shop was rather secluded. "Wait, wasn't this the self serve blacksmith shop?". I remembered that back in the game there was a blacksmith shop where you paid a small amount and were able to use the shop for whatever you wanted and were allowed to craft stuff by yourself. The shop itself was very basic, with only a basic forge and equipment. To get better equipment you had to buy your own blacksmith shop and upgrade it, or rent out a blacksmith shop with the upgrades in it already.

"How would a self serve blacksmith shop work in real life? Is there somebody I can pay or do I just toss the coin somewhere?" I was inside the shop and saw the forge, anvil and a hammer resting on a rack with tongs and a bucket of water to quench the heat from tools. I saw a sign that had a slot for a coin next to it, the sign said something about this being a self serve blacksmith, which I figured, and went on to explain the rules. No stealing the tools, no damaging property or you would be forced to pay for it, no illegal activities on the premise and no fighting in the shop, and last but not least, to use the stuff you had to pay 5 copper per hour of usage. The payment seemed to activate a rune that would allow you to use the equipment and once the timer ran out for payment It would revoke the rune, making you unable to use the equipment again and would replace all the equipment back in its original locations.

I was about to leave when I had a big brain moment. "I have 48 rusty iron swords in my inventory. Can't I just turn these into iron ingots and sell them? I doubt they would be worth anything as an actual sword even If I fixed them up. Hell, I would probably screw them up if I tried to do that, so melting them into ingots and selling them it is. I dropped the 5 copper coins into the coin slot and then heard a humming as a set of runes activated all around the room and then faded away. I tried lifting the hammer up and it was lifted very easily, but when I tried taking it out of the shop it wouldn't budge. I would probably be able to take it if I forced it but it would take too long and far too much effort.

I went to the forge, which was already heated when the runes activated. I cleaned the rust off of 2 iron swords using some type of magic tool that was similar to sanding paper. "I won't question why magical sandpaper is good at removing rust from a sword. I'll just roll with it since it makes my life easier". I cleaned up the rust in about 2 minutes and used some fire magic to heat up the swords before breaking them up into smaller chunks. I couldn't just toss large swords into the forge so I broke them down. After that, I tossed them into the crucible to melt. I waited for around 5 minutes as the fire magic runes heated the metal and melted the iron shards, then poured the molten iron into ingot casts. I had 2 ingots and around half of another ingot.

"I probably messed up somewhere and did something wrong, or there was just that much iron from the swords. Well At least the ingo turned out fine. Time to make money!". I spent the rest of the hour cleaning swords then breaking them down to melt into ingots. I had gone through 40 swords and had 80 whole ingots and 20 chunks of metal that were left over from the process. I was going to melt them into ingots but ran out of time with the self serve forge. Once an hour passed, the runes appeared throughout the smithy, glowing brightly before fading. I was instantly unable to use most of the equipment, such as the heating runes or lift the hammer off the rack. "Welp, at least I got part of my swords melted down into ingots. Time to go sell these bad boys for cash.

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I left the self serve blacksmith after putting the ingots into my inventory. If this didn't work I was going to be totally out of cash and would need to find another method for cash. I got back onto the main street and kept walking for a while before getting to the place I was looking for. Dokam's place. I decided to see if he would buy the iron ingots, even if they were made by an amateur like me. I mean I had done my fair share of smelting and crafting etc when this was a game, but that's the problem. It was a game then so it had assistance to make the process easier etc so I wasn't exactly confident in being able to recreate masterwork level swords within an hour like back then.

I walked in and yelled "Oi Dokam, you here?!". I saw somebody rush over, they wore above average clothing, probably the uniform here. It was a brown vest over a white shirt. and black pants with some small designs on the vest. "Yes? How may I help you? Mister Dokam is a bit busy at the moment so if you have a message, please leave it with me and I will tell him". I pulled out the 80 iron ingots and put them on the table next to me. "I would like to sell these, do you buy iron ingots?". The man looked a bit surprised but quickly responded "Yes we do buy iron ingots, but the payment would depend on the quality of the iron and such. If you would allow us to check the ingots first, then we can get you an estimate". I nodded my head and let them take 5 ingots to test and put the rest away. I walked over to a chair in some waiting area and sat down in it while fiddling with some spells.

After what felt like slightly over half an hour, the man came back along with Dokam and the ingots. I got up and shook hands with Dokam. "It's been less than a day and you're already back. Miss me already? Haha!" Dokam smiled his jolly smile with a twinkle in his eye as he shook my hand. "I actually came to sell some iron ingots. Are they sellable?" I asked as I moved my hand back to my sides. Dokam looked at some papers he was handed from the man from before and then said "The ingots were made out of some rather bad quality iron, and frankly the person who cast the iron ingots was a complete amateur so I can't offer too much in terms of money. 4 copper per ingot is the most I can offer my friend. I can't go any higher. If you had gotten better quality iron or even had the ingots made by a professional then they would have been worth around 5 to 10 copper per ingot, depending on the quality.

I was smiling a broad grin and shook his hand and said "Deal. You need to make a profit too so I can't get too greedy haha" I pulled out the rest of the iron ingots and said a joke to try and hide my happiness at essentially turning useless pieces of metal into money. I was then given a pile of coins, with 3 Silver coins and 20 Copper coins. I pocketed the cash into my inventory and left the store saying "Pleasure doing business with you Dokam. I'll be sure to come back if I got more to sell. See ya later." I waved goodbye as he said "Goodbye to you too my friend". I still had the lumps of iron in my inventory and 8 swords left to melt down which would turn into more money. I was so glad I accidentally walked into the self serve blacksmith zone. It was well worth the 5 copper for an hours usage. "I just wonder who the hell owns the self serv blacksmith zone? It's such an odd business. Whatever, I'm not poor anymore! Time to go buy some proper armour and get out of this dreaded swiss cheese armour". I said as I looked down at the leather armour riddled with holes and scorch marks. I head towards the shopping district with a skip in my step, happy I wasn't dirt poor anymore, the self serve blacksmith zone's peculiarity steadily fading from my train of thought.