Mike retreated from yet another fight as dozens of monsters over level 80 chased him down. He had made the decision to climb up higher on the mountain, and was beginning to realize he may have bitten off more than he could chew. The problem was slowly getting better over time as he fought against the enemies and leveled up, but he still had to run away from the occasional horde of monsters.
He hadn't needed to retreat for a couple of days, and he had hoped he wouldn’t need to ever again. Alas, the difference in levels was sometimes just too much to overcome. Speaking of levels, the past two weeks fighting monsters had been quite nice for leveling, and he had managed to rise to level 64 in his class. seven levels wasn't a huge difference, but every little bit helped. The points from all of those levels had gone into agility, as he had needed all the speed he could get when he ran away.
Even as he leveled, the strength of monsters he could fight didn't change too much. He knew it was because while he had gained seven class levels, he hadn't leveled his profession at all. This did unfortunately mean that in comparison to the monsters, which didn't have a class or profession, that he had gained just three and a half levels.
He finally managed to get away from the horde, and sat down on the ground while letting out a long and slow breath. He leaned against a nearby rock, wanting a moment to rest. He was getting diminishing returns in levels as he fought, and he was beginning to think that it was because he was fighting the same 4 or five kinds of monsters over and over again. If he wanted to fight something different, he would need to either climb higher on the mountain or leave the mountain entirely for new enemies to face.
Obviously, he wasn't about to leave the mountain after putting so much work into clearing it, so he decided to find a spot to bunker down and raise his professional level. If he could raise it to be equal with his class level, he could climb higher and face stronger foes.
After he finished catching his breath, he flew back to where he had been stockpiling the materials from all of the monsters he had killed. It was in a large alcove that wasn’t too close to any groups of monsters. After entering the alcove, he equipped his armor, placing it all in his soul. He summoned the mammoth parka onto his body, which was far more comfortable than the heavy metal armor.
Mike took about a half hour to go through all the materials he had, sorting them into two piles. The first was stuff he would probably use, and the other was stuff he probably wouldn’t. The second pile mostly consisted of fur from monsters. He could probably turn them into something if he really wanted to, but it wouldn’t be anything of worth. The first pile, the useful stuff, was full of fangs, skins, bones, and many cores from the earth elementals he had killed.
He didn't even think twice before he used Arcane Fusion to fuse all of the cores into his hammer. He felt like if he infused enough of them that he might get another bonus to his hammer, similar to the fortitude buff his armor gave him. He identified it, and with a hint of disappointment he saw that nothing had changed.
Moving onto the pile of useless stuff, he once more used Arcane Fusion to merge all of it into his hammer. Hey, if it wouldn’t be of any use in crafting, there was no issue in giving it a use. Mike chuckled as he could practically hear the clothiers in Thudfall cry as he essentially destroyed the expensive furs.
He then started working with the other materials, when he got an idea for how he could potentially gain several levels without too much effort. If he fused every single fang he had gotten, he could make a strong knife out of the final product, and if he spent a day or so enchanting that, he could potentially end up having his third legendary item. He could do something similar with all of the materials, such as if he combined all the hides to make a pair of super boots or a really good helmet.
The only thing holding him back from trying that was the fact that he probably could level up more if he spent the time to make many items from the materials he had. He thought long and hard about which would be the better choice. By long and hard, he meant that he spent all of 5 minutes considering his options.
The appeal of fast levels called to him too much, and so he merged all the materials that were similar. After that was finished, the hide he had went from enough to make dozens of armor sets down to enough to make not even one full set. The hundred or so fangs and talons he had shrunk down to just one. He combined the bones, leaving one large bone as the product.
Mike already knew exactly what each of them would be turned into, so he started with the large fang, working to turn it into a knife. It was damn hard to work with, as it had been combined so much that he wasn't able to chisel away at it with just his hands and an epic ranked soul chisel he threw together. Instead, he needed to brace it with his mana as he tapped the chisel with his hammer, which he had unfused enough to weigh just over 2,000 pounds.
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Despite the weight, each tap was delivered slowly and methodically, and from just watching could be seen as feather taps. After a while, the fang took the shape of a dagger, and he fashioned a part of it to act as a handle. He thought briefly about what enchantments to add, as there wasn't enough space to add more than a handful of them.
He settled on a few durability enchantments as well as the heating enchantment that was in the parka he wore. His idea was for the dagger to be superheated when infused with mana so it could do extra damage.
It worked, but it didn't end up getting as hot as he wanted it to, so he took the time to refine and improve the enchantment, adding a second copy of the enchantment to boost the effect. It didn't quite double how hot it got, but it was significantly hotter. It burned his hand to hold, and he needed to equip his armor’s gauntlets to hold it without burning himself. It was a testament to how hot it had gotten considering his high fortitude.
Next, he moved on to the bone. He had thought he would need to chisel away at the massive thing, but he realized he could use the knife to make small chips in the bone, shaping it the way he wanted. He used Cleave to make the strikes powerful enough to leave more than small divots in the tough marrow. When it was in its final shape, he held a bone club that was twice as long as any baseball bat in his hands. Due to the material it was made of, it was already extraordinarily tough, and he decided to lean into that feature of it.
He added dozens of durability enchantments to it, making it even tougher and harder. After that, he wanted to try something he hadn't done too much experimenting with. He wanted to attempt to make a ritual at the club. He had helped Raj create one before, but he had never really made one by himself. He wanted to make one that mimicked the effects of his Cleave skill.
The skill itself was powerful, but wasn't super complicated if he wanted to recreate the rare version of it as opposed to the heroic version he had. All he needed to do was add an enchantment to make a wall of mana, and another to use the momentum of the club to propel it.
Mike got side tracked while he had been experimenting with the momentum runes that would make up part of the momentum enchantment. He had discovered through a bit of trial and error that the runes didn't just detect the momentum of something, but could affect it as well. At first he thought it would be helpful, as it could act as the propeller for the mana wall. Then more ideas flooded into his, and he got to work trying to add the best one he’d thought up onto the club.
After he finished, he gave the club a test swing, feeling how he could stop it on a dime. Sure, he had stupid high strength, but that wasn't what made it so quick to stop. Instead, it was the momentum rune he’d added that made it possible to halt all of the momentum of the club on demand. He also added another enchantment that would make it shoot out a wall of force if he so desired.
Having his first two out of three items created, Mike took a short break to look out at the mountain. Sure, what he did might not have sounded like it had been taxing, but the process of making the two items had taken Mike about four days, with the club taking twice as long as the dagger had taken.
His break ended just as soon as it had begun and he went to work on the gloves he would make from the hide. To make a long story short, the gloves took longer than both the club and dagger combined. The reason it had taken so long was due to Mike trying to recreate the stat boosting effect of his armor. It took forever for Mike to figure out how to do it when he didn't use cores in the enchantment, but he figured it out eventually.
He’d infused the fragment he’d gotten from killing the Earthen Goliath, and had tried to recreate the natural enchantment in his armor to the best of his ability. It worked, and he got the result he wanted. He set the item he had made down on the floor and looked at each of them with pride. Only his gloves had crossed into the threshold of being legendary rarity, but that was just fine with him.
Hide Bracers (legendary)
A set of bracers made from the combined hides of various monsters and infused with the fragment of an earthen goliath. +75 Strength When equipped.
They didn't give as good of a stat boost as his armor did, but it was just a single pair of gloves. If somebody wore an entire set of armor with the enchantment, like himself, they would get a much better boost. He also felt like it was an enchantment that he could certainly make far better with practice, and potentially even better if he could get his hands on high quality cores. Alas, nothing was better for stats than some levels, and he was happy to see he had fulfilled the purpose of this crafting break.
*Profession level up x6! Prodigious Artisan of the Arcane (level 62)*
*Race level up x3! Human (level 63)*
He’d gotten one for the dagger, two for the club, and three for the gloves. He soul bound each of the items, pulling them into his soul and storing them. Mike let out a laugh of relief as he left the alcove he had been in for the past ten days, ready to get back to fighting.