After letting the dummy beat the ever-living shit out of me for a full hour to earn my three constitution bonus points, I queued up a quick meal from the cookpot, raised my cooking skill to four, then settled down in front of the forge.
<…No.>
I swallowed a mouthful of fish stew and grinned. I deflated a little. Recipe: {Bronze Breastplate} Requirements: 13 Bronze Bars, 3 Medium Flux, 8 Leather Strap. {Bronze Breastplate of the ??} Grade:F Item level: 10 Slot: Chest Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: Random combination of Str/Dex/Con (primaries will be generated upon item creation). Armor: 18 Durability: 40/40 Modifier available: {Mysterious Scale} Result: ?? Chance of Success: 50% Chance of Failure: 40% Chance of Catastrophic Failure: 10% 25% 50% 75% Success! You crafted {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution}! Your skill in Armorsmithing increased by 3! Progress to Intermediate Armorsmithing: 78/100 Ding! You procced a random upgrade! {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution} has increased in quality to rare! {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution} Grade: F Item level: 14 Slot: Chest Type: Plate Quality: Rare Durability 75/75 Primaries: +5 Constitution Secondaries: +15 Frost Resistance Armor: 22 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} {Iceshard Set} 2/8 piece bonus: ?? 5/8 piece bonus: ?? 8/8 piece bonus: ?? I said. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Recipe: {Bronze Greaves} Requirements: 12 Bronze Bars, 3 Medium Flux, 7 Leather Scrap. {Bronze Greaves of the ??} Grade: F Item level: 10 Slot: Legs Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Armor: 12 Primaries: Random combination of Str/Dex/Con (Primaries will be generated upon item creation). Durability 50/50 Modifier available: Mysterious Scale Result: ?? Chance of Success: 50% Chance of Failure: 40% Chance of Catastrophic Failure: 10% 25% 50% 75% The bar halted at a little under ninety percent, then disappeared. Catastrophic failure. All materials have been destroyed. I sighed and cued up another pair of greaves. Which failed ten percent into the creation process. Thankfully, it’d just been a regular failure, so I hadn’t lost the scale I’d used, and I had so much bronze on hand between the bars I’d forged before the invasion and the raw materials I’d farmed up via the golems that losing raw materials wasn’t worrisome. I kept at it, eventually getting my Armorsmithing up to eighty-four and forging the greaves as well as a helmet: {Iceshard Greaves of the Wildfire} Grade: F Item level: 12 Slot: Legs Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +3 Strength, +2 Dexterity Secondaries: +10 Frost Resistance Durability 65/65 Armor: 16 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} {Iceshard Helm of the Mountain} Grade: F Item level: 12 Slot: Head Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance Durability: 45/45 Armor: 12 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} Damn. I’d forgotten about that, too. The idea of being able to specialize made want to hold onto my scales even more. Wait…I didn’t need to use a scale to level up, right? I’d learned the bronze pieces pretty recently, so it seemed like they’d still give points with or without the use of modifiers. I queued up another helm, since that was the cheapest of the three pieces I had. The helm finished successfully—the bronze items themselves didn’t seem to have a chance of failure—and I earned two more points in Armorsmithing, bringing me up to eighty-six. So the scales hadn’t been accounting for all that much of my growth, then. Interesting. I made two more helms and bumped my skill up to ninety, unlocking the recipes for five more pieces of gear: Recipe: {Bronze Epaulets} Requirements: 12 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 1 Leather Strap Recipe: {Bronze Gauntlets} Requirements: 9 Bronze Bars, 1 Medium Flux, 3 Leather Strap Recipe: {Bronze Boots} Requirements: 8 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 3 Leather Strap Recipe: {Bronze Belt} Requirements: 5 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 2 Leather Strap Recipe: {Bronze Bracers} Requirements: 5 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 2 Leather Strap I shrugged. I went to work…in that I watched the forge go to work. Two more failures occurred before I completed the set—both failures being of the normal variety—and I also hit ninety-nine in Armorsmithing. Unfortunately, I’d also received a series of profession prompts: Congratulations, you’ve hit the Grade F Armorsmithing cap! Progress to Grade E to unlock Intermediate Armorsmithing. All further Armorsmithing gains are now disabled. The upgrade was a little bittersweet: the stats were just about perfect, but it seemed like it would have been a lot better to proc an upgrade on a piece of armor with a higher stat budget, like the greaves or the shoulders. I threw the bracers as well as the shield on with everything else I’d just crafted. {Iceshard Set} 2/8 piece bonus (active): +20 Frost Resistance 5/8 piece bonus (active): 20% chance to absorb frost-based spells/abilities (100% of spell damage is converted into health, but this effect has a fifteen second internal cooldown). 8/8 piece bonus (active): Absorbing a frost-based spell/ability grants you 5 seconds of immunity to subsequent frost-based attacks. {Iceshard Bracers of the Mountain} Grade: F Item level: 14 Slot: Wrist Type: Plate Quality: Rare Primaries: +1 Strength, +2 Constitution Secondaries: +6 Frost Resistance Armor: 8 Durability 35/35 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} {Iceshard Shield of Constitution} Grade: F Item level: 12 Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +5 Constitution Secondaries: +15 Frost Resistance Armor: 40 Durability: 80/80 {Iceshard Belt of the Mountain} Grade: F Item level: 12 Slot: Waist Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +2 Strength, +1 Constitution Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance Armor: 9 Durability 35/35 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} {Iceshard Boots of the Wildfire} Grade: F Item level: 12 Slot: Feet Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +2 Strength, +1 Dexterity Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance Armor: 11 Durability 35/35 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} {Iceshard Gauntlets of the Volcano} Grade: F Item level: 12 Slot: Hands Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +2 Dexterity, +1 Constitution Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance Armor: 12 Durability 35/35 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} {Iceshard Epaulets of Strength} Grade: F Item level: 12 Slot: Shoulders Type: Plate Quality: Uncommon Primaries: +5 Strength Secondaries: +10 Frost Resistance Armor: 15 Durability 50/50 This item is part of the {Iceshard Set} I couldn’t agree more. The set was midnight blue, so dark that it was verging on purple, and the smooth surfaces were etched with tiny white snowflakes. I winced. Ezzie laughed through the link. {Silas} Level: 9 Base Class: Brawler Gear level: 80 > 163 Grade: F Strength: 31 > 46 Dexterity: 15 > 20 Constitution: 23 > 39 Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 7 Charisma: 8 Physical Attack: 22 Magical Attack: 13 Health: 330 > 490 Stamina: 230 > 390 Mana: 80 Armor: 75 > 145 (57% physical mitigation) Magical Resistance: 37 (24% magical mitigation) Frost Resistance: 20 > 104 (52% frost mitigation)