Chapter 2: Kings

"Next time I should definitely find a more efficient method to kill the boss. Preferably one that doesn't involve me waiting several hours." Weed mumbled to himself as he was sifting through the remains of Lazarus' cavern. The ants were only interested in meat so they had carried Lazarus corpse and the remains of the dead spiders away and out of the cave, presumably to their lair.

One of the main reason's Weed chose the ants to be his executioner was because they only wanted food and would ignore any items that dropped. Although it was too bad he wouldn't be able to extract any materials from the dead bodies.

He did get the last hit on Lazarus just out of spite and as a result his level rose by 4! Unfortunately since Lazarus had been carried off by the ants he couldn't loot it. Weed was however compensated for this by the fact that he could ransack the various skill books within the cavern. Due to the age however most of them had rotted away.

"Tch, he didn't even have the dignity to keep his stuff in decent condition much less good condition." Weed said being extremely disdainful Lazarus even though he was dead now.

Magic Sphere

A rather common techniques used by the Mage Knights of various kingdoms centuries ago. The sphere's power is made to fit the user's mana. However with the advent of elemental magic that did not require a natural affinity the technique lost popularity and was eventually lost through the ages.

Rank: D

Requirements:

Intelligence 150

A breakthrough!

Among the various skill books that were available Weed had finally found a combat one! The various struggles he had undergone with absolutely no combat skills at all! Weed almost wept with tears of joy, he probably would have if it was actually a sword technique.

However it would still be awhile before he could learn the skill as his intelligence was only 89. Weed did the calculations. If he placed all of his 20 points into intelligence with the additional benefits from his skills and class then he would have 128 intelligence points and that would require 12 more levels before he could reach 150.

Weed began to ponder on the thought. He was already a jack of all trades in the crafts area being a sculptor, tailor, blacksmith, and cook. In fact Weed had planned to learn additional skills when he had the chance such as jewelry crafting and even enchanting. In fact he wanted to level up all those skills to grandmaster level.

His class allowed him to learn any skill to master level, be it magic or physical. So if Weed wanted to he could be both a master in magic and melee unlike other classes that were often limited to one area of expertise or multiple ones but they were weaker than the ones that focus on one area.

Still it wouldn't be good if he started out as a jack of all trades for combat since it would lower his overall combat ability. Thinking about it Weed decided he would continue his quest for power through physical means while supplementing it with magic when possible before focusing on magic.

After all he only had one skill book relating to magic at the moment and most of his stats were devoted to and would continue to develop towards physical combat.

Deciding on the issue Weed place the skill book within his gate and continued to throw all the books and tomes into the gate. Most of them were related to alchemy and not to mention the copies but Weed took them all even if they had rotting spines and bookworms eating through the ancient pages within them.

This was an absolutely huge catch. Up until this point there had been no alchemist class or skill even existing. Well there were NPC alchemist but they required you to have some foreknowledge about alchemy or an unknown level in herbalism before they would even think about taking you on as an apprentice. So no player had ever become an alchemist.

Realistically and objectively speaking. The alchemy skill should have been discovered ages ago because of the location of the skill books, within a swamp that a single party of players about level 200 could conquer. But it absolutely reeked and that was the only thing stopping people from conquering the land. The users sense of smell and delicate sensibilities of finding insect like monsters 'gross' and thus avoiding them. Weed however had no such compunctions and was thus able to completely ignore the smell that would've driven grown sewer workers to their knees at its absolute foulness! Driven on by thoughts of profit weed continued and this allowed him to reap absolutely massive profits.

If one had alchemy the expected profits would be beyond huge. Weed had heard that they could even make potions and potions were expensive luxuries that were few and far between and to be vigorously hoarded and saved for the rare moments of need. Unlike most healing techniques that took a certain amount of time for the full effect or any effect to apply. The potions simply needed to be consumed and the effects immediately happened and couldn't be interrupted apart from having the potion knocked out of your hands or having the container it was in break.

Not to mention the many books...er scrolls of Lazarus', the Mad Alchemist's, personal recipes! They were one of a kind. Well until the next group of users killed Lazarus who would respawn after a lengthy period of time. Weed however doubted anyone would come on account of the terrain around the dungeon

After ransacking what he could Weed left the cavern and headed back into the spacious cave full of stalactites and stalagmites. It was relatively clean since it wasn't really that long after the Titan Ants had left killing most of the monsters on the way so most of the monsters had yet to respawn.

Weed did come across a few straggling or lost ants, to which he mercilessly slaughtered. Once he made it to and out of the entrance Weed slightly grimaced. Even for someone as stout as him staying in such repulsive place had its limits and he was fast approaching his.

Deciding to come back when his level was higher Weed left the foul and disgusting place that was the Eerie Swamp… more like Vomit Inducing Swamp.

Weed took a detour for a bath in the lake. 'Perhaps they made the game a little too real. Ugh I can still smell the stench.' Weed had to spend hours scrubbing himself raw before he moved onto his clothes, his armor and finally polishing everything before the stench finally disappeared.

But once he was done it made Weed feel much better. Hunting there reminded him too much of the times when he was younger and had to work in factories and sweatshops with foul levels of hygiene, he had tried with his considerable willpower to repress the memories but they still came out when he took too much joy and was summarily distracted when the ants were ripping Lazarus limb from limb.

Along the way back to Serabourg Weed garnered the attention of many users due to the unique design of his armor. It wasn't that there wasn't armor as good as Weed, not that users could tell without identifying it, but the engravings Weed made is what made him stand out.

Having had enough of the attention Weed decided to unequip his armor, it was however done with great reluctance. He wanted the high quality equipment but without the attention it brought. Having thought about this Weed decided to make a cape. Going with the same train of thought. Weed mused that he could make several pieces of armor from different materials with the same design making them a set. When equipment is equipped that are of the same set they created a union effect that the individual pieces couldn't thus making the whole set greater than the sum of its parts. Adding a cape as an extra piece would let Weed increase the set effect and his profits to roughly twice as much as normal because the set effect would be worth that much.

The first thing Weed did when arriving back into the city was go to the various tailor specific shops to buy well material... obviously of all kinds. He bought all colours of the textile materials from purple, to black even white and dark blue made an appearance with its opposite in the form of red tagging along. Material of all qualities were bought by Weed. From beginner level items such as pelts from rabbits and foxes to intermediate quality material in the form of Deer pelts.

A cape looked simple to make, but in truth it was not as there was a specific shape one had to make like a rolled out cone with the top part cut off. Most people made the mistake of using a square piece of course if the piece was too round that was bad. Also the fabric had to be a certain thickness.

Of course the just having the fabric cut out in a certain shape would not cut it. You also had to consider where the cape would hang or if the cape was directly connected to the armor. But the effects of the cape would be increased exponentially if you added jewelry onto this thought Weed made his way towards the Jewelry-Crafting guild in order to learn the craft the guild was named after, Jewelry-Crafting.

The guild master contrary to Weed's exception was a gruff man with a thick beard who looked perfect in a blacksmith's workshop with the exception of the glasses with incredibly thick lens. Despite the man's seemingly clumsy hands he was working with great dexterity on what seemed to be a golden necklace.

Weed wanted it, hell he wanted anything that was worth something. He knew nonetheless that he could not or it would raise the NPC's enmity. Craftsmen more than anything hated to be interrupted while they were concentrating on their work. Weed could sympathize, since he too was the same. Just envisioning getting bumped on the shoulder while pouring metal such as gold or iron and having that spill over your workstation was enough to drive many good craftsmen into a rage. Weed himself would be no exception.

While waiting for the skilled Jewelry-Crafter to finish Weed took out a relatively small sapphire that he had taken from Lazarus's lair. His level in sculpting was intermediate 3, and thusly making small statues out of common materials such as wood or stone just didn't cut it for him anymore.

Plus jewels were far more aesthetically pleasing to look. It was like the jewels themselves were demanding justice from Weed as he crafted them. Demanding he do his absolute best. And this time instead of mindlessly crafting the sculptures like he did when making Seoyoon, Weed pictured his beautiful sister, his precious sister.

The basic outline was carefully etched into the jewel first, then a clearer detail of the body was etched into the jewel and before long the body itself and the clothing could be told apart. Gingerly smoothing out the rough edges to give the picture of smooth skin and the softness of the sundress despite the hardness of the gem. Finally Weed began to shave away the face of the sculptor giving way to the beautiful face of his sister.

Triing!

Fine Piece: You have created the Carefree Woman

The material used to create this fine piece was a flawed sapphire. Despite the phenomenal difficulty in sculpting a gem, the talented artist through patience has created a piece of art worthy of appreciation.

Artistic Value: 490

Increase charm by 70 points

Increase water affinity by 30%

Effects stackable with up to two other sculptures

Number of Fine Pieces Created: 2

You have gained 33 points to the Art stat

You have gained .9% water magic resistance

Fame has increased by 10

Sculpting has increased to intermediate level 4

It was good and he could obviously tell that the woman was smiling, but...it wasn't Hayan. It looked like her but it simply wasn't Hayan. It perplexed Weed to no end as he continued to eye his creation with a critical eye he tried to discern where he went wrong and why it wasn't Hayan.

Weed heard the clapping as he removed himself from his hyper focused state. Looking up he realized that the head of the jewelry crafting guild was clapping at him and like a block that held the silence giving way the other observers who were looking were also clapping or at least started clapping with the block removed. It seemed that Weed was too focused on sculpting his precious sister. As an inexplicable amount of time had passed without himself realizing it.

"Amazing, in all my years I have not seen a sculptor with skills such as yours. I am Dimond the head of this guild, may I enquire as to why a skilled sculptor such you has come to the Jewelry Crafting Guild?"

Seeing this as an opportunity that had opened up due to his artistic creation thanks to the sculpture in his hand, he had gained the guildmaster's respect Weed stood up from where he had sat down to steady his hands to sculpt and bowed deeply.

"Greetings Dimond-nim, my name is Weed and I have come here to learn the art of jewelry crafting so that I may further refine my sculpting skills."

"It is indeed. As honorable a reason as any. However Weed-nim I cannot just teach it to you even after seeing you create such a masterpiece before my very eyes. In order to learn the art of Jewelry crafting you first prove yourself by creating a ring."

Saying this Dimond gestured towards a line of workstations within the guild building. Weed nodding as he walked towards the weathered and old station that had seen more use than any of the other stations lined along the walls, he sat down looked at the tools with a critical eye discerning what would be of use for the ring he was about to make. Taking out a single gold coin from one of his many pockets Weed gingerly placed it within one of the stone melting cups and placed it over the small magical fire that was burning intensely in the workshops corner.

He was going to craft a gold ring!

Once the golden coin had turned into a small puddle of glowing golden liquid in the stone cup he removed it from the fire. Looking around for a mould of some kind because he didn't have the foresight to make one himself he spotted it in the opposite corner to the fire. It was small and clearly well used … a bit too well used after grabbing it and gently prying it open as to not damage it in anyway he discerned that there was no pattern in the mould he nodded to himself as he closed the mold after filling in some minor leaks and began to gently pour the metal into the mold or he would have if the metal was the right consistency having cooled considerably since he took it of the flame so he had to put it back onto the fire to heat it up again

When he had finished pouring the gold into the mould he began running through the various designs in his mind for what to engrave onto it later. He did this simply to pass the time because he needed the molten gold within the mould to set. Normally Weed would have cried tears of blood at having to waste gold like this but in his mind right now he wasn't wasting gold he was making gold literally. The ring that he was making well he'd already planned to sell it for at least 2 gold. A quick tap to the side of the mould let him know that it was ready.

After gently prying the mould open again he noted that the gold was slightly set and he could probably bend the gold with just his fingers alone it was still malleable enough that he could deform his ring if he wasn't careful. Taking all the care one would when handling a delicate piece of art worth billions of won he delicately … Oh so delicately held the blank form of his ring and expertly ignoring the goggling of the idiots surrounding him because he was holding a molten hot ring … in reality he didn't even feel the pain because of his ridiculously high endurance stat.

He began to carve lines that ran from a centerpiece of the ring to the sides linking up at the back as if the ring itself was a clip. with that minor task done he began the real reason for taking the ring out early he gently as if guided by an invisible force started shaving off layers of gold from all around the ring layers not even millimeters thick began to waft of the ring wherever his knife went the soft delicate gold shavings soon followed. Before long he had finished the task and putting the ring back down on the bench to cool he began looking through his inventory for another knife to use as the steel had warped his current knife.

Weed put it down and let it fully cool. He could have made the square he had just finished carving into the ring when it was cool but then the edge would have looked too sharp and Weed wanted it to be soft edge. In truth had he just left the ring to cool without doing anything Weed knew he would have gotten the skill regardless but there is nothing wrong with showing off once in a while.

Finally the ring was cool enough for Weed to use his engraving knife without it warping the metal to etch the design he planned in his mind with clear and sharp detail. First he used his engraving knife to delicately shave the rough edges down to make it smooth removing the excess gold that managed to seep into the cracks from where the two moulds connected.

Then he began to slowly carve a design into the ring. It was almost like sculpting only the finished product on the ring would be flat and not 3 dimensional. Thanks to his high handicraft skill and his hard earned abilities with sculpting Weed was able to create a high quality ring. One half of the ring held the design on an angel with a heavenly background, while the other was a horned devil on top of a hellish background the lines carved in earlier being expertly hidden within the designs.

"In all my years..."

The instructor gasped and was absolutely amazed. It showed in the way he looked with honest enrapture at Weed's creation. Needless to say he got the skill.

Ring of the Paradox

Despite being originally a simple and plain golden ring, the artist who created this ring was a skilled sculptor and due to his skills the ring became a great piece of art that many will debate the ring's design due to the beauty and controversy.

Options:

The wearer will appear 10% stronger to other plays and mobs within 50 levels (Above or Below)

The wearer will appear 10% weaker to other plays and mobs within 50 levels (Above or Below)

Weed promptly left the guild building once he learned what he initially went for. The jewelcrafting skill and bought the necessary tools and moulds to create jewelry.

But there was still one thing that befuddled Weed and that was the sculpture he made of his sister earlier or more like attempted to at least. Even now it still continued to nag at him. So once he found a comfortable spot he took out another decently sized jewel and began sculpting his sister Hayan.

It took him hours but it was eventually finished only this time Hayan was in her school uniform carrying a bag he agonized over it however because it was still shallow and wasn't Hayan. Frustrated Weed began carving another piece...and another...and another! Until he had finally created over a dozen different sculptures of Hayan and spent more than SIX hours working at before his patience finally hit its limit.

"I don't get it! I perfectly depicted how Hayan should look but why is it different!?"

Weed finally cried out in a fit of frustration and startling the people who were watching him. He had already noticed small group of onlookers looking but none of them bothered him probably because they could tell how focused Weed was.

"I mean I carved it to how I look at Ha-"

Weed cut his sentence mid word as he was hit by a utterly startling epiphany.

'That's right...I'm sculpting Hayan on how I look at her and not at how she looks at the world or even me. It doesn't look like Hayan because I'm not carving Hayan … I'm carving my vision. My version of her. I'm not actually carving her at all!' Realizing his error Weed once more began to sculpt with another decently sized gem only this time thinking at how Hayan acted or looked at the world around her instead of how he looked at Hayan.

Trrrinnnng!

Fine Piece: You have created the Precious Little Sister

The sculpture of a pure little sister. It is slightly muddled by the artist's own view but there is a deep amount of thought that went behind the sculpture's creation. When people look at the sculpture they can somehow feel the perfect and precious little sister that was behind the artist's motivation as he made this lovely piece.

Artistic Value: 800

Effects:

Health and Mana regeneration increases by 22% for 12 hours.

Fighting Spirit increases by 12% for 6 hours

Vitality increases by 130 points for 4 hours.

Effects stackable with up to two other sculptures

Number of Fine Pieces Created: 5

Fame has increased by 30

Vitality permanently increases by 1

Wisdom permanently increases by 5

Intelligence permanently increases 4

It was a breakthrough! Weed had finally sculpted his little sister and not only had he sculpted his sister he now understood the sculptor profession better. A sculptor must consider the object or person he is sculpting he must view it through the eyes of others and through their own eyes.

"Umm, hello sculptor-nim but are these for sale?"

It was a young man, in fact most of the onlookers were male drawn in by the beauty of Weed's sister. Weed big brother instincts long thought buried surged to the surface as he glared at the man while he hastily placed all the sculptures he had made into his bag and stood up before stating in an incredibly loud voice.

"My sister isn't for sale!" he exclaimed. With his piece said Weed left the dumbfounded crowd in his wake as he left rather hastily … to protect his sisters virtue!

After finally solving the mystery that had confounded him for so long Weed finally was able to return to his original objective: levelling up his jewelry-crafting skill to intermediate!

Weed strategy was the same as the time when he had levelled up his blacksmithing, tailoring and cooking skills. To create a stall on the outside of a city gate which coincidentally happened to be the exact same place weed had chosen before.

Summoning his stall Weed pushed it to the exact same place and once more sat down. Only this time he took out and set out the various japtem from the Eerie Swamp. Once he started the cooking process Weed took the branches that he had previously cut off from the trees and cut off wood he had used to make the beams that created the stall and cut them into small blank pieces.

Afterwards he began to carve circles out of them and then into shapes. Each pair of circles had a different design with painstaking effort taken to ensure detail. Sometimes it was ovals or even diamond, other times it was asymmetric in shape. But once Weed was done he used the shapes to create the moulds he would use to make metals pieces to attach to the circles with the metal pieces to carve as ornaments for the earrings. At nothing short of an incredible rate weed had finished making enough jewelry to occupy a decent amount of his store from necklaces to earrings to rings and even bracelets and anklets were made by Weed. Normally it would not be possible but thanks to his high handicraft and sculpting it was made possible.

Weed noticed that just like in real life you needed more than one skill to be more than slightly successful and improve beyond the normal person who would only focused on one skill.

Doing such easy work with the wooden jewelry thanks to his handicraft skills levelled him up quite easily. But there was a limit to the wood he carried since he hadn't made or collected anymore and it wasn't long before he had started to use metal out of necessity to make jewelry and those took considerably longer to produce.

It wasn't long before the first customers started to come. Unlike last time he wasn't dressed in clothes that made him look worse than a beggar. Most of his customers were low level female beginners. Since they were a low level they couldn't afford regular the jewelry that often costed more than 5 gold unlike Weed's cheaper ones that sold in silvers and coppers. Even if they were made from low quality wood they were pretty. The main selling point as it were but they also gave stats boosts. Although it was only 1 point since the material used to make was just wood and not having been enchanted yet left them costing small amounts of silvers.

Weed had planned to eventually learn the enchanting skill however his intelligence wasn't anywhere near high enough for now so he put it off till later… much later.

"Hey! You're that guy that was selling the armor and clothes weeks ago weren't you!?"

One of the customer around the front of the small but growing crowd had shouted in surprise. He was a wizard judging by his equipment and staff. Weed gave him guileless business smile and replied.

"Yes it was me, is there anything I can help you with ... would you perhaps like to buy something, A new robe maybe?"

"Ah, yes I need a new robe can you make me one?"

"Of course you should remember from before as long as you bring me the materials I'll make anything you like."

"Really!? Thank you so much." the played had exclaimed in joy.

Having said that that the user handed Weed a craft item. While running the stall and at the same time Weed began to sew the user a new robe with his phenomenal multitasking skill. His jewelry crafting skill rate slowed to a mere crawl because of that announcement earlier but his tailoring skill did rise rather quickly as a result.

The requests didn't end there as more player ended up commissioning him to make them equipment too. Weed of course accepted them all since they were literally supplying him with what amounted to be an unlimited item supply and they were even paying him for using their items! The experience that came with making items was negligible on its own but it all added up rather quickly. Talk about double dipping.

"Weed-nim!?"

Looking up to see who called out his name, Weed found himself looking at the rather stunned visage of Pale, Surka, Irene, and Romuna. They hadn't seen each other since that night when they hunted foxes together. They had changed much from their days as low level players. Now Surka was wearing a short sleeve cheongsam and kung fu pants, Irene was wearing a white vestment with a short cape, Romuna now held a staff along with black mage robes, and Pale was wearing leather armor as well as his new and higher quality bow.

"Long time no see, Pale-nim, Irene-nim, Romuna-nim, Surka-nim." Weed greeted them as he continued sewing. It was all methodical for him since this was the way he had worked when he was a child in labor and found ways to remove himself from the pain of constantly sewing under horrible conditions that the places he worked at had.

"You didn't respond to any of our whispers so we thought you quit Royal Road for some reason."

"No, I was just very...busy." Weed muttered darkly as an ominous aura sprung up around him making it rather clear that they shouldn't ask. During the time when he had to regain his skill masteries. He deliberately turned off the whisper function so that no one would bother him.

"I-I see." Irene replied as she succumbed to the suddenly intimidating aura that was being emitted by Weed.

"Excuse me for a moment." Having finished the robes he was working on he quickly and efficiently gave it to the user and received his promised 5 gold in exchange.

"Did you need anything?" he asked politely.

"Oh, no, not really." Romuna said, they had just been surprised at seeing Weed after all. But their joy at seeing one of their first friends on Royal Road gave them an idea.

"Yeah actually, why don't you join us next time when or when you have time?"

"Yes, that's a great idea! Even if you are a tailor we'll protect you!" Surka boasted much to the other's silent disapproval. As seen by their slight glare in Surka's direction. It was a common conception that craft classes were weak at combat, since in their eyes Weed was currently tailor they did not see him as a fighter even if they have seen him fight before.

"Oh! I don't mean it that way. I mean if something overwhelms you, you can leave it to us." The others sighed and racketed their glare up a bit at Surka's even worse words.

Weed felt no need to correct it so he allowed to carry on that misconception. His real class was truly unique, even among the secret classes. Plus he had no real class battle skills yet so he could pass himself off as a craft class player if he was careful not to let them see his real health or mana.

"Great! Whisper us when you have time." Saying those words the group left. They probably joined the line to ask something from Weed before they knew of his identity, but now that they know it was Weed they could ask him another time.

With them gone Weed's business proceed as usual. Finally after several days Weed's jewelry crafting skill reached intermediate. Not only that thanks to his continuous hard work his handcraft had reached advanced level and gained a new skill known as Mind Hand.

Handicraft Skill reached Intermediate level 10, and transformed to Advanced Handicraft level 1.

You gain a bonus when using hand tools and an increase in damage with all weapons.

You can now learn certain skills related to the craft.

Hand combat skills can now be learned regardless of profession.

Mind Hand:

After achieving a near-legendary level of dexterity, you can summon the mythical "third hand" using your mind. Using the "third hand", it is possible to manipulate objects and even attack enemies.

However, it is not possible for your "third hand" to use any skills.

Mana consumption per second: 2

Logging out for the day Lee Hyun finally did what he had been putting off ever since he returned from the 'swamp of stink' as he had coined it. As he was more concerned with leveling his jewelry crafting skill. Weed took the pictures from his capsule and uploaded the images of the appropriate items onto his selling list.

Since he had a triple diamond rating on the website, his items would show up on the first page before they were sold. Weed had estimated that the items would cost at least 100,000 won since they were taught a never before seen skill, but because it was related to a craft class he estimated that the value would drop considerably as not many people wanted to be a crafter.

Afterwards Weed went to bed but not before offering a small prayer for the profitable selling of his items.

As expected, Weed from the Continent of Magic was still a hot topic among many players. The popularity was only increased by the fact that many users from the Continent of Magic migrated to Royal Road and the broadcasts CTS done thanks to acquiring the account.

"Weed! He's posted something and its from Royal Road!""Beginner's Introduction to Alchemy! It's something no one has gotten before! Of the millions of players only Weed has discovered such a skill!""It's weird, why has Weed only posted items from Royal Road now? Its been out for about 2 years now.""Who cares, what I want to know is why is it a craft skill and not combat skill. Has Weed chosen a craft class?""Weed the Dark Knight choosing a craft class!? Are you crazy, there is no way Weed would choose such a weak class!""Yeah, you're right he must have stumble upon doing exploring a super high level dungeons that Rankers wouldn't even dare to go!""True, but why haven't we heard anything from him until now though?"

Like this the discussion continued concerning Weed's presence in Royal Road. Many people wanted to know more and the items Weed posted gave no clue to his whereabouts or even his general region! The commenters desperately wanted to know Weed's status within Royal Road. As Weed was THE symbol of professional gaming.

In fact several people bidded just to have a chance to meet Weed. The auction was set to end in a week allowing the price to rise higher and higher.

When Weed woke to his surprise the bid had already reached over ?200,000.

"Hmmm, maybe I'm underestimating the rarity of the alchemy skill." The thought that he was famous never once crossing his mind.

Well it didn't matter to Weed so long as he received a good price for the item. Weed proceeded to make breakfast for Hayan and himself before he started excercising follow his routine designed to keep his body in top shape. It was important to keep a healthy body after all. A strong mind rests in a sound body he believed he had heard someone spout before while he didn't believe in much he certainly believed in this.

Once again Weed logged back into Royal Road after climbing into the capsule after a shower.

Since generally when one changed armor they had to literally take it off instead of it magically appearing as it did in older MMOs most people looked for spots without prying eyes to change. Of course Weed could use his gate of Babylon, but that would attract attention. He'd just finished this thought when he spotted a place he could change and ducked into it.

Once he once again wore the Angelic Armor Set Weed equipped the Angelic Cape. It was the last cape he made before he left the outside of the gates yesterday. He had made several in his practice for his final one and he sold the ones he used for practice. The one he currently wore was embellished with embroidery of the angelic woman he had sculpted onto his armor and used two pin like jewels to connect it to his chest armor over his pauldrons. The hands of the women themselves resting around his broad shoulders with her hands coming to the front to give the allusion that she was pinning the cape together. Her embroidered hands holding the 'jewel' pin in place giving the combined effect of the angelic woman closing his cloak and embracing him at the same time. Like a king about to leave for war being embraced by his wife who would faithfully wait at home for him to come back to.

The cape increased his dignity as well as loyalty and commanding abilities. Perfect for when he large amount of npc soldiers.

Now after finally seeing the results and the effectiveness of his new class, Weed had finally calmed down enough to remember about what Rodriquez had requested of him before he left on his cursed quest for the class.

-"Nonsense, once you completed the quest please come back I would greatly love to hear you tale."-

Within Weed's mind this was no doubt a followup quest. Weed had done his research and found out Mankind's oldest recorded epic, the Epic of Gilgamesh, once he found out about his class.

"Halt! What is your business here stranger?" Just like the last time Weed came here the soldier repeated his inquiry. Did the soldiers have a manual on how to greet people?

"It is at the request The Star that I have returned. Surely you remember me? The man who waited out the front of his doors until The Star of Wisdom gave in and allowed me to meet him."

As if suddenly struck by lightning, the soldier remembered Weed, as he was a peculiar and THE most persistent man he had ever met. "I see, I do remember now, in fact I have even heard small tales of you Weed-nim."

"Have you? I would love to talk but would you inform the Star of Wisdom that I have returned and succeeded?"

"Yes, I will. Please wait here while I deliver your message Weed-nim" Having said his piece the soldier hastily walked into the gates to inform Rodriquez.

If this was before, the guards wouldn't have even entertained the thought of helping him deliver a message but with his fame resting at a respectable level of just over 600 points mostly in thanks to his persistent sculpting. The guard delivered the message without so much as a thought of protest.

The sculptor class gave fame and other increases in state whenever a sculpture was created, depending on the sculpture itself the increases could vary from magic affinity to just physical attacks. However Weed was another class entirely, the bonuses he gained from sculpting was not as much as a sculptor. But that was easily offset by the stat increase due to his unique class.

Opening the gates to the round mansion the soldier came forwards and bowed to him likely out of respect. "His highness welcomes you with open arms." As soon as he had finished he moved out of the way allowing weed to progress on his way into the mansion owned by Rodriquez.

"Speak, Weed-nim let me hear of your tale." Rodriguez said as he welcomed Weed to have a seat.

Weed began his tale making sure to embellish where he could but not too much never know when pride could get you killed. He of course he omitted a few details in order make his journey seem all the more heroic.

Once he had sufficiently leveled to what he deemed was a sufficient enough level Weed gingerly took out the medallion when he was in a secluded area away from any and all prying eyes of course he was even paranoid enough to make sure no animals of any kind were around.

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=middle width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]Would you like to start the quest?[/pc][/col][col colspan=2 valign=middle width=50% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]Yes[/pc][/col][col colspan=2 valign=middle width=50% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]No[/pc][/col][/box]

"Yes"

Immediately Weed's vision was engulfed with golden lights forcing him to close his eyes else he risk temporarily blinding himself and when the lights he could still clearly see through his eyelids cleared he tentatively opened his eyes and was Utterly Stunned Speechless.

The site that greeted his eyes amazed him so much it left him stunned in awe for more than a few minutes.

The ground was comprised of golden sand as far as the eye could see, aside from the golden colored rubble that was obviously from old buildings that perhaps once existed on these lands. Actually the ground was stretched as far as the eye could see and Weed would later find out that it was only 10 miles in diameter and the ground was more like a floating island surrounded by a golden aurora.

In front of Weed was what amazed him the most. It was like a castle merged with a temple, an absolutely ancient and circular styled temple. It was obviously old ancient even as seen from the numerous cracks and it too was golden, but despite it seemingly made of pure gold the structure was somehow not gaudy.

Buried within the sand was from what Weed could were numerous sculptor of warriors. He could see knights, desert warriors, and all kinds of warriors from around the world and different times.

Looking around Weed could see no other point than to walk towards the large structure, but to Weed it seemed too simple. First Weed crept closer towards the rubble as a way to hide himself as he looks around for any sign of made Weed's suspicion even worse when there was none.

It was an S-ranked quest so there should be some difficulty. Setting onto his next target Weed crept closer to a warrior with long dark hair wearing a golden helmet, a long shirt that reached past the knees made of square metal plates each the size of Weed's whole body, and a iron sword and shield.

Weed practically salivated at the thought of collecting the materials used to make the golden sculptures, but stopped himself from touching at the last moment. He hadn't completely made sure it safe yet, plus he didn't know where to go even after he collected the materials.

First Weed walked around the sculpture that was half buried into the sand. Nothing was standing out about except it's excellent quality. Tentatively Weed neared it and with slight hesitation knocked on the sculpture and back away immediately behind a cover. He was afraid that the sculpture would suddenly become alive as they were the only thing in plain sight that could pose a threat to him.

Weed waited for at least thirty minutes before sighing and going back to the sculpture. Taking out his engraving knife Weed began to carve a chunk of the gold off all the while staring at the sculpture careful for any movement or at least he would've liked to as the sculpture began to move as he feared.

Thanks to the mastery of his body the shaking ground did not hinder his fleeing actions in the slightest bit, but unfortunately there was a wide gap in levels between him and the statue it was made apparent too when the towering golden statue appeared in front of Weed. Its face set in a rictus of rage and anger that he just managed to catch a glimpse before it dropped its sword on him bifurcating him. What a way to die.

Weed banged his head on the wall next to his capsule repeatedly at his stupidity. He even proclaimed his stupidity repeatedly… and loudly. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Should've known not to touch those monsters!" Weed repeatedly berated himself for letting his guard down. It was an amateur's mistake that he had made. It was obviously a trap, he had tricked himself into thinking that the sculptors were inanimate after he only hit it once.

24 hours after his death which he used to tend to the animals living at his house and exercise. Weed returned once more and this times carefully moved surveyed the sculptures making sure to mentally map their locations. Looking around Weed noticed the items he dropped after he had been killed and carefully moved closer to pick them up, all while wary of an attack.

Thankfully for him the attack did not occur and he regained his item. This time Weed carefully snuck towards the temple all the while careful not to make any noise and avoid the direct vision of the warrior sculptures.

It seemed all was going well, but Weed wasn't going to let his guard fall again. And once he stepped within a certain radius of the temple the sculptors came to life and Weed's life ended once more.

It was frustrating, but Weed was nothing but tenacious. He returned once more and got killed, but he determined the boundary of where the sculptors would spring to life and and end his life.

Weed then tried a different tactic: Kill the sculptures while they were still inanimate. He died numerous times and each time he attacked a different part to determine how much damage he could do.

The result?

Not even a single hit point was dropped from any of Weed's attack. Even if it was the strongest monster 500 levels higher than his if Weed got one attack in, the monster would have dropped one health. But the sculptors didn't so Weed concluded that he had to find a method to avoid the sculptures.

By this point Weed had already died over 20 times and his levels had dropped to the thirties within 10 days. Normally that would not have been possible as the penalty for dying was the user unable to log in within 24 hours, but thanks to Weed's consecutive deaths it kept dropping until it was only a 4 hour penalty.

Not that it made Weed any happier as it only sped up the loss of his levels and even his skills!

In between those time before he was allowed to log on, he visited a dojang and even faced the Ahn Hyundo, the master of the dojang and world famous sword practitioner, with a steel sword no less! Afterwards Lee Hyun had influenced all the members of the dojang to play Royal Road, but that's a story for another time.

Normally skill mastery stopped being dropped at 0% but as penalty for the large number of death without increasing them at all they decreased in level too! It was one of the worst form of torture Weed had ever endured.

From that point on Weed tried every possible thing he could think of, even the ridiculous ones.

Hell he even discovered a buried stone path that led to the front entrance of the temple, but it was obviously too much of a trap so Weed didn't even try it.

He died many more times and finally was desperate enough to walk on it towards the temple...he was butchered and killed.

Weed stopped counting the number of deaths he had after 57 since that was when all his skill mastery became 0, at beginner level 1!

Freaking one!

It got to the point that even Weed despaired and began to contemplating on whether or not to delete his character and start a new one.

It was at this moment when Weed stopped caring that he walked towards the stone path, his shoulder slouched, his every step slow and full of burden.

When he saw the animated sculptures running towards him, he only whispered, "Stop"

To Weed's great surprise, they obeyed him and stopped. To Weed who had lost countless lives trying to accomplish this effect fell forward and his knees hit the ground relieved. But once that happened the sculptures started to move and they killed him once more.

But for Weed it signify a great accomplishment as he began to analyze why they had stopped. First of all he was standing on the stone path and he spoke the word stop.

So he had to order them to stop or do it while on the stone path. Second they only moved once again after his knees touched the ground so he had to be standing or it was a time limit.

Weed experiments more and discovered the conditions:

1. He had to walk on the stone path

2. He had to order them to stop

3. He had to keep walking

3 simple conditions that drove Weed to the brink of despair. But it was all in the past now and Weed gave his vulgar smile once more as he stepped passed the temple doors.

Tiirrrrring!

Arrived at the Mausoleum of Heroic Spirit Gilgamesh!

Quest complete

What greeted Weed's eyes was a room filled to the absolute brim with gold and treasure of every imaginable and even unimaginable kind. There was even weapons and armors, but just as Weed took a step forward a light blinded him once more, just like when he was first teleported into the area.

When the light died down Weed was greeted with a scene straight from a historic film. He was standing on the highest platform on what seemed to be a pedestal made to give offerings to the god.

Standing next to Weed was what seemed like a priest and all around at the ground were countless dark haired and dark skinned people surrounding the pedestal and bowing down. Weed realized that it was like a cut scene from the games once he learned that no one could see him.

Then it happened.

A giant ray of blinding light appeared from the heavens and blinded the people while covering the priest whole, when it stopped the priest was carrying a blond haired and crimson eyed baby that seemed to radiate the aura of royalty, The Royalty of Royalty. A KING!. The priest then raised him into the air and screamed in a hoarse voice for all to hear. "All Hail King Gilgamesh, Son of the Gods!"

You have witnessed the first moments of your past life as the King of Babylon Gilgamesh!

Unique Class: Heroic Spirit Gilgamesh Attained!

Blood of the Gods Skill obtained!

Gate of Babylon Skill obtained!

Then the light engulfed Weed once more and brought back into where he had first disappeared from.

Weed felt cheated.

He had returned to being level 1 with zero mastery in any skills in return for a bunch of skills that only raised his stats. It didn't seem fair to him and not only that he didn't get to keep all the treasure within the mausoleum either.

And...well you of course knew that he threw a tantrum but you already knew that.

"...nd that is how I learned that I am the reincarnation of the legendary King of Babylon." Weed finished to the now stunned Rodriguez.

"...by the blessing of Freya!" He cried as he stared at Weed in a new light. Immediately bowing down to Weed. "Please forgive my previous insolence oh child of the Old Gods, Forgotten King of the Past."

Forgotten King Title obtained!

Effects:

Charisma +50

Charm +50

Loyalty of soldiers and citizens +5%

"No, no please stand up Rodriguez-nim." Weed said as he helped the Star of Wisdom back onto his seat. It wasn't out of kindness of any kind but rather for intimacy points that Weed put on the benevolent mask. "If it was not for your guidance I would have never knew of my past life. It was entirely thanks to you that I discovered it."

"Your majesty, you're too kind." Rodriguez stood up and sat back down onto his chair but with a more subservient air to him as he conversed with Weed. "Never in my life did I think I would meet a child of god, please excuse my earlier rudeness."

Weed smiled. "Oh no, you are the one that is too kind. Say I have a question, have you given anyone else such a quest?" Weed knew that there could be others like him that completed a quest and perhaps even gain a better class than him! He had to find out all his potential rivals.

The sage seemed to pondered on whether or not to say but reluctantly decided to. "Plenty. I have given them to plenty of...promising adventurers such as yourself. Alas none but you have succeeded. Of course I only know of those who I've given too. Perhaps others might have received such quests from the sages of other kingdoms."

"I see." Weed said in deep consideration. So sages from other kingdoms possess quest items like the one he received. That meant there were rivals from the powerful central continent. "Sage I have to ask is there any requirement that the adventurer must fulfill in order to accept the quest?"

"Of course. The adventurer must have an attribute that corresponds with item associated the lost heroes. I have no knowledge of the heroes myself but using my insight as a sage and determine certain characteristic of the items left by the heroes. If I deem the adventurer possessing enough of the same characteristic then I will bestow the item to the adventurer."

Weed nodded as he heard this. Absorbing the information Weed concluded that the way you conversed with NPCs had a major impact on whether or not you would be able to obtain the quest. Of course the user had to have a certain characteristic meaning that many users wouldn't be able to accept or even know about the quest just based on the fact that they weren't compatible.

'If I'd known about this, I would have researched heroes from legends more and maybe said something to get the class of King Arthur not Gilgamesh. I mean most of it is brute strength! I need skill as well although the stat boosts is very good.'

"Did any adventurer meet the requirement for you to give them such an item in recent time?" Weed wanted to keep tabs on his possible rivals and if possible allies with him as the leader of course.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Ah, I see your majesty is interested in those like you." The sage said more to himself than for Weed. "In fact a just the other day a young lady qualified for such a quest."

"Really? Would you give me the honor of telling me her name?"

"The honor would be mine, her name is Larda."

"Could you describe her, if possible I would like to meet her."

"Oh, she was quite young. Hmmm around her 20s? And beautiful, but there is room for her beauty grow, but what stood out was her silver hair."

"I thank you, if you would excuse me I would like to search for her before started her quest." Weed said as he prepared to stand up.

"Your majesty, before you leave would consider coming as my guest to King Theodarren's banquet to celebrate his majesty's 78th day of birth?" The sage asked with sincerity in his voice and eyes that were clearly filled with hope so much so it was blinding!

Weed didn't even need a second to consider as he agreed. After all no one else had ever been invited yet to meet the king of any kingdom within Royal Road. The most users did was the lower nobles. It was also a good chance to raise his intimacy with them just like he did with the soldiers. But compared to them, intimacy with nobles and the king himself was far more valuable. The date of the birthday was set to in a fortnight.

Walking out Weed began his search for Larda. He had two desired outcomes. The first one was to make her a friend so in the chance that she did succeed she would be his ally, and as for the second outcome it was for him to attain the item one way or another so that he could give it to someone who would be more likely to follow him.

However after hours of searching, Weed concluded that it was beyond hopeless. Even though Rosenheim was considered rather slow and relatively new due to the majority of the higher level players and even in the central continent, it was still quite a popular spot for beginners to start and thus even finding one person even though you knew the name was beyond hard. In addition there was a rather sizeable chance Larda has already accepted the quest.

If it was anything like his quest, Weed concluded that she would have likely given up. If an analogy was to made with the people people who passed the Basic Training Hall. Then if less than .00004% pass the training hall then people who could pass the special class quest like Weed were less than .0000000001%! Those people Weed concluded would be his biggest rivals. Fortunately so far he had not heard a single thing about another person like him... unless they were hiding it like Weed was.

Weed's motto was to not waste anything and make use of everything including time. Remembering his friends more specifically. Romuna's and the others offer to party together Weed contacted them post haste and arranged to meet them outside one of Rosenheim's gates.

When Weed arrived he saw that Pale, Surka, Romuna, and Irene were already there. When Surka saw Weed she waved her hand wildly towards him.

"Nice to see you so soon, Weed-nim." Irene proclaimed in her bubbly voice...

"Glad to see you came Weed-nim! We were planning on hunting Orcs." Romuna said as she slipped her arms around Weed's as if they were a couple. "Don't worry I'm level 128, so I'll protect you from the Orcs."

'Isn't' this suppose to be the other way around?' was the somewhat incredulous thought from weed.

"What level are you Weed-nim?" Asking out of the blue was Pale. It was generally considered impolite to ask another player about his levels unless you shared a close friendship since many things can be ascertain from just a player's level. Weed even sensed a small bit of hostility from Pale, it seemed that Pale was rather interested in Romuna.

Weed didn't care. In the first place Weed's class was abnormal so normal logic could not be applied to him and it was furthered skewed by the abnormal amount of states that leveling his crafting skills afforded him. Knowing this Weed easily told them his level as he slipped his arm from Romuna's grasp. "119" was the succinct answer he supplied the party.

Pale looked rather satisfied and quite a bit smug as he himself told Weed his own level. "132"

Seeing as three of the five users already introduced their levels, Irene and Surka felt it would be rude not to inform Weed of their levels.

"Mine is 117," Surka said a bit embarrassed. "Out of the four of us I died the most so...ehehe..." Surka trailed off with the uneasy laughter clearly waiting for someone to fill in her.

"Mine is 129, one level higher than Romuna's, but that would only be because I'm the healer so I have a higher survival rate, small as it may be. I really want to use a sword and fight too though." Irene said as she let her apparent boon and regrets out to the party.

"Well now that's done, onward. Tonight we slay the hated Orcs." Saying her sentence as if she was the hero of an epic quest Surka pointed forward 'towards our goals!' could almost be heard as she struck a pose.

The silence that followed was absolute crushing for one simple reason!

"Surka-nim, that's the wrong direction."

"..." An uncomfortable silence stretched on for a few more moments before they moved on, ignoring the faint blush on Surka's cheeks.

The journey to the border of Brent Kingdom was to take about two days by horse but Weed being the materialistic and stingy bastard that he was built a wagon from scratch using nothing but his construction skills and the surrounding forest. Not only did this reduce the number of horses they would require from five to two it also allowed Weed to store exponential amounts of japtem whenever he wanted since he did not want to use Gate of Babylon in front of his party members.

The group who had already been flabbergasted by the magnitude of crafting skills Weed had were even more baffled by his additional skills, shocked to the core would be a more apt term in truth.

"Weed-nim… exactly how many craftings skills do you have?" someone chimed in, Weed however wasn't paying attention and answered absentmindedly.

"Hmmm? I've Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Sculpting, Cooking and Jewelry Crafting at intermediate. Construction is only beginner sadly" There was real remorse in his voice when he said that. As though having FIVE crafting skills at intermediate meant almost nothing to him!

The four: Irene, Pale, Surka, and Romuna could stare with their jaws not functioning correctly and producing incomprehensible sounds at amount and level of Weed's many skills.

For the rest of the travel albeit brief it was. They could only stare at Weed in apparent awe of his hard working nature. To raise a single crafting skill to intermediate was already mind boggling and tediously boring but to level five to intermediate!? That was also politely ignoring the giant pink elephant that the Construction skill was in this instance.

"Alright we have arrived." Having said his piece Weed dismounted from the wagon seat, while the other four stepped down from within the wagon in a daze because they were still slightly in the throes of bewilderment at weeds crafting skills.

Currently they had arrived at their destination just at the edge of the forest and slightly into The Great Plains. Smoke could be seen lazily wafting and drifting on the air currents the origin of the smoke however was not so serene as the smoke itself was from the Nomadic Orcs that the area they were in was rife with.

"Okay before we go we need to prepare." Having said this weed began to systematically retrieve the items from his 'inventory' starting with a small but good quality wood powered stove with wood already loaded, followed swiftly by cooking utensils and pans. The ingredients that followed were swiftly turned into sense tingling and stomach satisfying food before them in weeds nimble hands and fingers. Having done all the major preparations for the cooking he started removing the items he would need to apply the blacksmithing bonuses. As a side note he also brought out his Tailoring equipment needed to give buff's, A worn hand washer and a single slightly worn iron.

Holding his hand out vaguely in their direction Weed said (Read: Demanded). "Give me your armor." Much to the confusion and consternation of his current party members. "I have intermediate blacksmithing skills. I can polish your armor and give it boosted defence and possibly stat increases.."

Upon hearing Weed's explanation the party members were still a bit hesitant, however following Pale's example gave whatever metal armor they had on them and in their inventory to Weed for him to use his alleged in their eyes Armor Polish. The act of polishing the armor wasn't anything special simply repeating actions he'd done thousands. Possibly hundreds of thousands of times before. Under his experienced hand the armor was brought back to its initial lustre and polish as well as increased defense. Making the items looking 'fresh from the blacksmith'.

"This!?"

"Is this the advantage of a blacksmith!?"

"Amazing!"

Seeing the amazing results a intermediate level blacksmith could produce, Pale and co were truly and utterly dazzled by the results.

"Next give me your clothes." In todays society such a line could be considered awkward at best and altogether degrading not to mention uncivil. But at this time and place after having seen weed turn their old armor into fresh of the press items the normally composed party all but shoved their clothes onto him with eager compliance.

Weed took his party member's clothes and using his Ironing and Hand Washing skill increased the defense of the items once more. Weed however wasn't finished rolling out his surprises apparently as he served his beef stew that wasn't really beef stew. Random monster part stew would be a much more apt term for it. The parts used in making this stew shall remain unlisted for even the most staunch of stomachs wouldn't be able to handle. But the party didn't know about this simply thought it was a delicious stew. (Jacob 'Reaper' Smith, "I pity them. Sniff")

But that wasn't enough for weed. No, it was not as he briefly reached into the small bag on his hip he pulled out the two best sculptures of his sister made from expensive jewels and one of his best Seoyoon sculptures. The statuses and buffs given from one sculpture alone almost made Irene feel useless but all three? Let's just not go there.

Pale, Irene, Romuna and Surka who had previously underestimated the player known as Weed now looked at him with a new light they wouldn't be down on their knees and worshipping him anytime soon but he did get moved quite a few pegs up in their minds. Make that a LOT more pegs.

"Weed-nim..."

Once they finished preparation the party headed out to hunt the Orcs. The group didn't take long at all to spot their prey within the open plains. Although the plains seemed barren and empty it was only because they were only at the edge of Orc territory and as Orcs were known to reproduce rapidly and thus needing resources at an exponential rate. Finding Orcs was hardly the most difficult task. Killing them however….

"Irene-nim buffs."

"Got it." was the succinct response before the buffs rained down upon them.

Irene as the Cleric was in charge of increasing their stats using her buffing skills and also in charge of healing when necessary. Of course that was just the basics, a competent healer knew how to time the support skills as well as managing their mana they knew when to and not to heal their allies. They knew when you buff you and debuff enemies. A good cleric could save an entire party.

As Pale was the long range attack being the group's sole Archer, he struck first while Weed and Surka whom were the acting vanguard rushed forward. Pale under specifically given advice from Weed struck first with a poisoned arrow so that the damage would be continuous even if he used skills or just regular attacks.

"Surka, we only need to prevent them from progressing! Don't attempt to kill. Only weaken them evenly so that Romuna's magic can finish them off!" Weed had decided to forgo the usual honorifics that he normally used as in the heat of the battle any action longer than necessary could cost him victory. It was also why he kept his sentences short, clipped if you will.

Surka unleashed her Heavy Step skill. A single kick to the ground after using a skill to leap into the air for the extra momentum that the skill, Heavy Step, required. The resulting attack decreased the six Orcs' health with minimal effect but the true purpose of the skill was made apparent when the enemies fell to shock and were unbalanced from the shockwaves the skill had produced. For skilled players or monster like Weed for example could rely on their real life training to ignore the shockwave and continue but for clumsy monsters such as Orcs, the effect was immense.

Weed rushed passed Surka holding two extremely different swords, in his right hand he held Ea and in his left the Angelic Knight Sword that he had crafted earlier to compliment his armor. But what stood out most wasn't the sword. Not even the angelic sword that he held, No that right was reserved for the shield floating behind his back as if held by an invisible hand. In truth the shield really was held by an invisible hand, courtesy of his skill, Mind Hand.

With no combat related skills, but pure martial arts Weed attacked all six Orcs while they were still suffering the effects of Heavy Step. Once they showed the first sign of recovering Weed leapt backwards with Surka who was staring at his floating shield. Well it wasn't like she was the only one. No one had seen a crafter, they couldn't however determine what crafting class he was due to his apparent skill in numerous areas, with such battle prowess but well, really it was the floating shield that got them a never before seen skill!

Deliberately aiming at the legs and toes Weed disrupted their sense of balance further when he could and whenever an Orc attacked him with a club or blunt weapon he used his Mind Hand to bring the shield forward to block the attack. Normally he would have been pushed back but thanks to his high stats Weed did not even budge. Hell he actually let in a few critical blows so that his health would lower into the red zone and a few glancing blows when his health was getting too high in order to raise his endurance and fighting spirit.

“Weed-nim, Surka get back now!” someone in the party hollard at them.

Hearing Romuna’s signal the vanguard duo attacked with one last vicious attack before leaping back just in time to escape Romuna’s Inferno Tempest. A miniature tornado made of pure flames. The poison coupled with the damage done by Weed, Surka, and Pale with the final addition of Romuna’s magic had utterly destroyed the party of Orcs.

Normally users would cheer or even celebrate at destroying Orcs that were about ten levels higher than them but the party wasn’t quite keen on celebration at the moment, rather they all had a question they wanted to ask Weed.

“Weed-nim, how did you make that shield float like that!!?” Surka being the youngest member of the group had absolutely no problems vocalizing her question in a rather loud manner.

“It’s called Mind Hand. It’s a skill you attain once your Handicraft skill to advance levels.” Weed said rather casually.

“Wait, hold on. I think I misheard. Did you say advance level?” Romuna voice was tinged with more than enough disbelief and incredulity to get the point across.

“Yes.” was the instant succinct answer from weed.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier!?” was stated by more than one incredulous party member.

“It isn’t really a crafting skill. It’s more of a support skill for crafting skills as it gives you a third hand. Any other questions?” Weed said as he internally sighed at his ‘friend’s’ Mixed up expressions ranging from stupefied to bewildered.

“Weed-nim, I realized that at the beginning you took a lot of the hits aimed at you, but as your health got lowered into the red danger zone, you easily dodged the Orcs’ attack. But whenever your health was rises above the red zone you deliberately got hit so that it stayed in the red. Why?” As was expected of Irene, she had been keeping tabs on everyone’s health even in the midst of battle.

“That’s simple. If you’re health is in the red your endurance rises more.” Weed said quite proudly. “In fact the attacks no longer hurt, they feel ticklish instead.

The childhood friend of three plus a sister registerd what he said before and stared at Weed as if he was some kind of alien machine clad in human skin. .

‘Is he an NPC?’

‘No, even an NPC would also feel the pain.’

‘Is he even a creature of the earth!?’

‘HE MUST BE SUPERMAN!!!!!!’

Were the collective thoughts of the party staring at the alien machine that was weed. Their thoughts unable and unwilling to listen to any attempts to reign them in ran rampant in their heads destroying what self control they had left before at some unseen or unheard signal they unanimously sighed before turning a flatly adamant look on Pale. It took Pale no more than a few seconds to promote weed to Party Leader.

After everyone save weed rebooted their brains after the mass shutdown that the party ventured further into the desolate plains that was the The Great Plains. Killing any and all monsters even if they had no inclination too. Weed’s orders coupled with his unfailing dedication to destroy any and all monsters fueling it led to many more opportunities to battle with each other. Working in tandem with everyone in the party increasing the hunting speed’s and thusly the loot rate. This continued on for a while before the inevitable fatigue set in clinging to them sapping their will and bodies of any will to continue further at all.

They collectively would have left hours ago if they had a choice but as it was they never even got to open their mouths to complain such was the speed and fervor that powered their hunt for monsters. The speed of Weed’s campaign for vengeance against any and all monsters was slowed considerably because he allowed minimal (to him) time after each battle before beginning a new one. The party was unanimously wishing for death or wishing for the death of Weed in equal parts. As the battle raged on around them with wave after wave of enemies they group slowly but surely became ‘Brothers in Arms’. Brothers forged through combat together, forged and tested in combat together. This drastically increased their already great teamwork to ever new heights.

“Surka you know how we all hated when our parents made us stop playing Royal Road and how we laughed ourselves silly  when we they got addicted?”

“Yeah?” was Surka's entirely exhausted reply.

“I wish that never occurred and that our parents is making us get off NOW!!!!!” Romuna answered this question with a minimal nod of her head. Saving her energy for future battles, they knew by now that nothing would stop this torture short of death but that was entirely unacheivable because of two factors. Weed and Irene. They were beginning to develop a phobia of healers and healing items. Bandages in particular, when you’re young a bandage seems like a miracle cure able to cure you of all that ails you but now. In their eyes it was a diabolical device used to prolonging their exposure to the torture that was known as Hunting with Weed!

After what seemed like days of nonstop hunting. Well technically they did experience days of hunting due to the capsule’s ability to speed up time by a factor of four, all them were on their last legs both spiritually and mentally. Their minds making them think their limbs were made out of lead  but Weed didn’t even seem winded like he hadn’t even thought about resting anytime soon. Heaven forbid actually stopping for awhile!

“Irene heal!” Weed commanded like a proper party leader should. The heals rained down swiftly upon them after Irene finished her healing chant / words of power needed to activate the skill.

Everyone glared at Irene. No they hadn’t grown a new found hate for Irene, just her now anathematized damn class. And even then when she ran out of mana Weed just used his advanced First-Aid with bandages to heal them!!! (Jacob ‘ReapeR’ Smith think this is some unique form of torture. I really do!)

DAMMIT!!!!

When Weed and co first arrived the Great Plains was quite literally littered with herds of Orcs and now...well let’s just say that they might go extinct if Weed continued to hunt the Orcs on the Great Plains.

“Alright, go home and get some rest.” Pale and co couldn’t believe their ears, had Weed just given his permission for them to leave the tortuous hunt?They could already envision it, their bedraggled and messy hair with their heads falling onto their pillows with the pillows making a whoosh sound as the air in it left with the onslaught of weight from the new head on it. Closing their eyelids and releasing the mental tension on their spiritually abused muscles. It was a heavenly sight that they were all but salivating over. “You have a few hours to sleep, about two to three times more than normal. I have to go to town and sell all our japtem.” Weed the merciless declared!

CRACKK!!!!!!!!

That, was Pale, Romuna, Irene and Surka’s heart shattering along with their mind and bodies as Weed dropped the figurative bombshell on them when they all had finally thought they would be able to escape the Hell Hunting with Weed. With the way things had been for the past few days with Weed allowing minimal sleep (Read: Minimal for him) time, they were at their wit’s end. Following this announcement they all but screamed to the heavens, “NO WAY!!!!”

Weed just stared at them as they froze at comprehending what they just done. They have seen their leader fight, kill, and plunder the poor Orcs. They had witnessed firsthand the destruction and terror he was capable of inflicting and instilling  into his enemies, they had learned the fear of god watching Weed and now... they had just defied him. They all mentally whimpered as he looked at them as if sizing them up while rubbing his chin in thought. Perhaps he was thinking of ways to kill them!

Moments passed before Weed finally sighed as if admitting his defeat. “Fine, make that two hours to sleep, I’ll be back in eight game hours since you’re all so eager to continue hunting.” With that said Weed the Merciless left before any objection could be said. ‘That was close, I didn’t think they would object to staying and waiting for me to come back while I returned to sell the japtem. While they weren’t looking I loaded some japtem into the Gate of Babylon and if they come with me, I would have to wait to sell them.’

The journey towards the nearest town didn’t take as long as Pale and co would have thought mostly due to the fact that Weed had stored all the japtem including the wagon into his Gate of Babylon and he made a beeline straight to town, directly cutting through Lycan Forest.

Any monster such as the Great Wolves and Werewolves that inhabited the forest that came in between him and his goal or just generally into his line of sight were promptly cleaved into two by Weed. He would’ve stopped to strip them of any and all usable materials but he was short on time so he didn’t. This action, or rather inaction hurt him so much that he shed tears of loss at the loss!

Once he arrived outside the town, the name of the town for which he didn’t particularly care enough to remember or had forgotten, Weed immediately took out both of the wagons he had stored discreetly and used the horse to pull one in while he pulled the other wagon in himself garnering much attention from the local residents and the nearby users. Both wagons were filled to the brim with japtem and some literally spilled out. Weed naturally kept the more valuable and usable items such as ores and jewels to himself and by proxy in the Gate of Babylon, pure and low grade they may be but using his crafting skills he could easily enough pull out high quality items from them to a certain extent at least.

Due to the time constraint Weed had planned to sell it directly to the store itself but then a certain merchant class player came.

“Hello, I’m Mapan. You planning on selling all that japtem?”

Immediately Weed’s business face appeared and it exuded a visage of friendliness. “Yes, of course I am. I’m planning on selling it in the city since it would be worth much more.” Weed easily saw through the veneer of confidence on the merchants face to the fear and insecurity in the merchants eye.

“No! I mean that wouldn’t be efficient at all! You have to travel all the way to the capital by yourself and pull the wagon too since you only have one horse, BUT! With me here I can easily make up for the difference in prices. You see I’m a merchant and if you sell to stores here, the profit would be 2% of the original price. If you sold at the city it would be 3%. I could pay at least 15% more than the stores and when in bulk, I'll pay at 18% more. I would be buying with only 2% margin left for me." Mapan said rather proudly. As a matter of fact he had just graduated from a beginner by reaching level 101. Users level one to 100 were considered beginners in the eyes of the majority of players and those level 100 to 200 were considered average.

Weed, being the shrewd businessman that he was waited a while, appearing on the outside to contemplate to see if any of the surrounding merchants would offer a better deal and with none forthcoming, he finally complied with the merchant, Mapan. The process was time consuming and tedious because Mapan didn’t have enough gold on him to purchase much in bulk and with each time he bought and sold the amount he could buy and thus sell making the profit and amount he could buy from weed increase exponentially. It wasn’t long before the mine known as Weed was dry of resources for the merchant.

With his mountains of Japtem sold weed set a cracking pace back to the others, spriting most of the way. Yes sprinting because he had a tag along with him and he was sprinting to make sure the path was clear, the tag along was none other than the merchant that had found the mine of resources known as Weed. Merchant Mapan! The poor fool.

Mapan had somehow gotten the thought that if he follow Weed there would be riches for him because Weed was a jackpot of resources. Now, let’s set aside this to pray for Mapan’s future as a honest merchant and moral person. That which will be inevitably and horribly disfigured by Weed. He could have grown to be a honest man and middle class business man. But no, he traded that to become a corrupt executive that made trillions of won every year that would never get caught for his under the table and back alley deals… that actually doesn’t sound so bad.

But back to the present, Mapan had offered him extra space with his wagon to store Japtem, for which Weed didn’t care for since he had the Gate of Babylon. But what Weed actually wanted and had shrewdly invested in was Mapan’s service as a merchant and worth as a future connection he could cash in with time, if he managed to survive the trauma of Hell Hunting that is.

Once he arrived back at the meeting spot he spotted his four friends staring at him with a exceptionally serious look. All of them were standing side by side actually looking at him with an adamantly accusing stare.

“Weed-nim, how much longer is it going to take?” Irene was the first to speak, sounding utterly exhausted. Running of fumes if you will. Of course that was actually very true.

“Weed-nim, we’ve already spent days nonstop hunting Orcs, if we hunt anymore with the amount of sleep we’re currently getting we won’t be able to function in real life anymore!” This time it was Pale’s agitated voice that made Weed look at him. Agitated didn’t even begin to describe the expression that Pale’s visage was set in.

‘Hmmm, he seems quite energetic for not being able to function’

Romuna and Surka then added their quips about Weed’s hunting methods and like the other two before them it went into Weed’s one ear and out the other.

“I see...” Weed said  with almost heartbreaking sincerity. Seeing the usually indomitable Weed like this and because of them made party feel absolutely horrible. Like someone had taken the cutest baby hare in the world and just slammed on the ground before stomping on it nonstop.

‘I see...Weed must have been lonely that’s why he partied with us so much nonstop.’

‘Weed-nim must have been lonely the past month.’

‘Poor Weed-nim...’

“I had received an invitation from Sage Rodriquez, The Star of Wisdom, personally for King Theodarrin’s birthday. I was only invited, but I thought that if you all grew stronger maybe I could get you guys in...”

“Weed-nim...” was the shaky reply from one of the girls, she sounded like she was weeping tears of some description, it was hard to tell.

“To think Weed-nim was doing this for us...” collectively came from the boys of the party.

Of course Weed originally had absolutely no intention of inviting or rather the confidence in inviting them to come along. When they arrived back at the capital Weed would have asked if he could bring them since this way they would also receive quests that he himself could participate in or at least nurture a relationship between themselves and the nobles. Naturally this wouldn’t be as free or he wouldn’t be the man known as Weed. Weed would and will exploit it as much as possible. He was only one user and thus could not cultivate all the relationships between a user and a noble. As some nobles would refuse to talk to him because he talked to another noble. Having multiples along to forge connections would be great negating this problem as they could get in the good graces of nobles while he went for the nobles that offered him the best connections, political or otherwise!

It was a wondrous opportunity for the childhood friends of three plus a sister. No one had ever had an audience with the ruler of any kingdom or empire. The most so far had been the lower ranking nobles and now Weed was offering them a chance to meet even dukes not to mention the KING!!

‘To think the person I met was such a big catch!!!’ Mapan internally thought. Mapan who had started in Rosenheim Kingdom knew of who King Theodarrin was, actually any user of some competency would recognize most of the ruler’s names, unless they were deemed insignificant as rulers of places out of the way and of no value. He had started earlier than Weed and his party but that was due to the hardships he had to endure as a merchant.

“Wow, Weed-nim you are so amazing!!!” Surka said with reverence and awe in her voice as she twirled around in her stunningly simple attire but held an ephemeral beauty about it. It was the attire that Weed had all but demanded they wore. 

Having acquired permission for five other people to accompany him Weed sewed new clothing and armor for them.

Of course it wasn’t free and it wasn’t like the material used to make them were actually high grade, rather they were common items made to look high class and they didn’t offer much defense compared to their battle equipment but they held far more grace and were many times more elaborate and extravagant than their battle ready counterparts. Their effects raised the charm and appearance of the wearer and since their main purpose was to raise intimacy with nobles their manners and clothing would be play an absolutely massive role in getting the attention and forging the connections. From those connection a possibility of friendship could spring forth for some.

Surka had a istylish long coat with detached sleeves along with a skirt made of ebony wolf leather for its lustre. As for armor, it was stunning, silver greaves along with armguards with sapphire pieces embedded in them, giving it the overall appearance of a fine yet functional piece..

Pale on the other hand snappy green long coat however it only covered his right leg and was sleeveless on the right side. The color was obtained by using Dye Making skill Weed had attained upon leveling up his intermediate tailoring skills. Incidentally as a result of collecting herbs to make the dyes Weed had learned the Herbalism skill. Unlike its counterpart Medical Botany / Herbalism which focused solely on the medical herbs, Herbalism focused on a broader range of them, from herbs used to makes dyes. The cooking herbs commonly found in stores that he could now gather and last but not least it allowed him to gather medical herbs too.

Speaking of which, Weed thought that he should start to make potions but at the moment he didn’t have any of the material that he could use to speed level his skills and the lower level potion instructions were frankly quite useless. Even NPCs didn't buy them for 1 copper and frankly the amount of money invested into the skill at low levels to level it simply wasn’t worth it.

But going back to Pale, he had a stylish leather made belt with metallic straps to hold his quiver if he wanted to at his waist and stylized armor from his left hand up to the shoulder. This time it was etched with ruby fragments running along predesigned lines in the leather being used to hide blemishes in the relatively low quality leather.

Romuna had a dress made of a soft black and subtle crimson fabric that was embellished with gold strings that monsters they hunted before had dropped. Her dress had detached arm sleeves and the shoulder part of the dress was made black frilly lace. To finish it all off Romuna ruby fragments was laid out in a delicate ruby rose like design on the lace collar.

Irene’s dress was much like Romuna except instead of black it was white, instead of red it was blue, and more conservative as it didn’t have the detached sleeves and lace. It was made this way to accentuate her position as a priest, her attire giving her a slightly naive aura that was generally associated with priests which created a nice dichotomy with Romuna’s more revealing attire as a fire mage known to be more ‘fiery’ pardon the pun. Known to be much more outgoing than the generally shy priest or rather how the nobles would perceive priests and fire mages.

And last but not least was Mapan. Out of the six of his was the most elaborate and ornate. His attire was similar to that of a real life business man, in other words a suit a tie combination, just minus the tie and replace it with a cravat. Of course it was that plain as it would have a negative effect for the nobles, so Weed used more of the gold string to embellish as well as a rose like design on his cufflinks and on his cravat, shiny, black leather shoes and pants. To finish the look off a white silk like scarf worn in a priest like fashion.

Being a merchant class his appearance played a minor role in his ability to sell japtem. If it was an NPC he was familiar with then his state of dress would not matter, but if he was traveling to a new city then how he dressed would affect his presentation. NPCs not do business with him if he was too poorly dressed, similarly if it was too gaudy then they might try to rip him off. But for nobles it was best to dress in a manner that presented experience and wealth since they didn’t deal with small fries.

Of course this is Weed who had made the clothing for the gathering of nobles and the king. Even with them being guests and having the monumental task of impressing and forging connections with the nobles Weed didn’t use new jewels to embellish the clothing. No, he used offcuts from when he was sculpting and he also recycled pieces of fabric and material he still had lying around from when he had set up his stall. Anything to save a copper, this was how he became known as Weed the Materialist! Perhaps out of friendly concern he didn’t tell the party that, after all who would want to wear offcuts and discarded jewelry if they knew?

No one was an exception even himself. His Angelic Armor Set had changed into the Heavenly Armor Set. Nothing changed much except Weed had gilded the whole metallic armor in gold and added a few fragments of rubies too. Naturally gilding it hid away the etched designs in which Weed had to cut into to make them appear once more giving the impression that it was covered in silver lines. The angel was giving a tiny sapphire fragments lined up into a circle around her pupils imitating the fact that the human iris was actually a mix of variation of the same color.

“Your majesty, please I have prepared a carriage for you.” Rodriguez said to Weed as he led them outside to his gate to reveal two carriages with four horses attached to the reigns each. The horses were all of them same color, chestnut, and each had powerful muscle as evident by the bulging on their fur. But large and powerful they may seem, they were incomparable to a warhorse.

A warhorse was even larger and where the carriage horses had stamina they lacked the power of war horse that gave their riders, typically knights, the penetrating power they needed.

The journey to the castle hardly took ten minutes  yet for Pale and co it was agonizing and unnerving for them. They were making Royal Road history! And they were only at around level 130, none of the other high level players or even rankers and accomplished such a thing yet!

For Weed it was a good ten minutes as he started to work on another sculpture, this time made of emerald.

The arrival at the castle could be nothing less than grand as their was trumpets announcing their arrival. Weed and Rodriguez proceeded in as if it was natural while Pale and co gaped in amazement before they chased after the two.

If they thought the arrival at the castle was amazing then they were even more surprised at the ballroom hosting the king’s birthday. The inside was absolutely gigantic and filled with rows of banners, most of them depicting the symbol of the Rosenheim Kingdom and what would seemed to be the house symbols of various nobles.

Immediately the group separated from Weed as they each tried to strike up conversations with various nobles, at first it seemed like the conversation would go well but it wasn’t before long the nobles lost interest in them and found rather lame excuses to leave such as recognizing another noble and this happened several times.

At a loss the group sought out Weed only to be surprised to find him engaging in quite a casual and almost friendly topic with a noble, a duke no less! Fervent in their determination to find out the difference between, the group stayed within hearing and eavesdropped on Weed’s conversation.

The way Weed talked was completely different! He flattered the duke, but it wasn’t overdone but in a rather casual yet reverent tones and done in between talks of other topics. The duke seemed absolutely enthralled with Weed, not only that Weed would purposely leave out some sentence as if he didn’t want to talk about it and the duke would insist in which Weed would finally ‘give in!’

They learned more tips from listening in on Weed for over two hours, they made sure that it wasn’t overt and took turns to eavesdropped after Weed left the duke for another noble. The biggest trick they acquired was that to maintain the mysteriousness of their pass and ability. No noble would be truly interested in their abilities and past of they straight out told them, after all they were only level 130s. But if they pretended to be humble and insist that they are nothing special in a rather casual way they would seem more special and bonus points for mentioning their best moments in a casual way and downplaying making it seem that they had accomplished something even greater!

With this knowledge Pale and co smirked or smiled at each other and left for their own targets, the party was already half over and they needed to make use of it now. Of course they weren’t experienced as Weed but they made far more progress and grew more accustomed to speaking with nobles.

As for Weed himself, he was currently listening to the king talk about his past and how he established the great kingdom known as Rosenheim. He gave a few quips of admirement when he should generally just listened.

Earlier he had gained an incredible amount of Art stats from looking at the priceless decoration such as paintings and statues within the castle and even better he acquired the ability to make Rosenheim noble clothing after talking with a few nobles. The same applied to his cooking skills as he sampled the food and even took some into the Gate of Babylon when no one was looking. Naturally he conversed with several nobles yet none of them seemed to give him any quests although they did express interest.

It was after conversing with several nobles that Weed decided to finally speak with the king who had kept his eyes on Weed for nearly the whole party. It was at the moment when Theodarrin finished talking about his past did the look in his eyes change.

“I noticed that you have an unfinished sculpture on you.” The king said as he eyed the unfinished emerald sculpture poking out of Weed’s pockets.

This of course was a deliberate part on Weed as nobles were very interested in art and having it poke out of his pocket made great conversation and raised his value in their eyes.

“Ah yes your majesty.” Weed said as he took the unfinished emerald piece out and showed it. “Unfortunately I have not finished this, but perhaps you would like to see my other masterpieces?”

“Do show, in my years I have not seen another sculpture with such mastery at such a young age save perhaps Zahab himself.” The king easily spoke of the taboo subject known as Zahab but Weed easily ignored it as if he didn’t know the secret history.

Instead he took out the same three pieces that was used to buff him and his party during the Orc hunts. “Marvelous.” The King couldn’t help but admire the exquisite detail on such a small scale. “But I can’t help but wonder why a king such as yourself, not to mention carrier of the god’s blood would do such a laborious work?”

Seeing this as a chance Weed gave a humble smile. “Ah, but your majesty I am an admirer of human ability and crave the ability and knowledge of all things. People say it is strength and I agree but on the same level I admire art and as such taught myself these techniques.”

Hearing Weed’s words the king’s eyes that was gazing at Weed changed once more. “Please call me Theodarrin after we are both kings.” Weed smiled victoriously inside but outward gave a as you wish look.

“As fellow kings, warriors, and admirers of art I have a favor for you.” The sincerity from the king’s words held no falsehood and for Weed it was the moment he was waiting for.

“If it was within my ability I will do so and push myself to my limits for a fellow king, warrior and admirer of art as you have said.”

“Thank you,my friend. I have no doubts that within a year’s time I will leave the kingdom and the rulership to my heir, but I want to remain not physically but as a symbol and legacy for all to see. I want you to build my tomb.”

Author’s Note:

So...this is kinda a transitional chapter in my view since Weed has a better accomplishment in the next chapter with building the King’s tomb and all. Of course it won’t be pyramid and sphinx. It will be something crazy and awesome.

Also for events that are bound to happen and is already covered by the novels such as Weed’s entrance to college or the Princess Knight event, well I’ll mentioned them but mostly in passing. I’m sure you guys don’t want me to retell events and would rather be interested in newer scenes and plots :3

Also for the percentage I made, I’m assuming 10 million players play the game world wide. Well that’s what I think I remember reading so correct me if I’m wrong.

Truth be told I actually wrote like half of it in one but suddenly lost motivation due to getting sucked into reading Ark and Arifureta on Japtem and then I got sucked into Mushoku Tensei. It’s epic XD

Jacob ‘ReapeR’ Smith Approves of this chapter! I’m glad to have helped beta this chapter and get it ready for everyone that will read this chapter! (Incase you still haven’t figured it out, I’m the new beta reader! XD)

5/31/15: I just realized what happened. When I first posted it, it was whole. I think some part disappeared due to the update that occurred.