abcnovels
Chapter 243:
Chapter 243:
Chapter 243:
“Hey, why do you have some special aura on you?”
When Frostfang Claw returned to the Blood Rat Gang’s hideout with the three girls after obtaining the hidden drop, “Razor” Dorothy, who was peeling an apple with her eagle claw knife while practicing her hand skills, immediately felt the vibration of the Computation Bead hanging on her wrist.
This meant that the first person to get the special “Rat King’s Echo” token was approaching her.
Thinking of Lord Murphy’s specific instructions, Dorothy pursed her lips, stood up, threw the thin apple slice into her mouth, and said with her hands on her hips to Frostfang Claw, who was both her warrior and currently one of her only two apprentices:
“Did you encounter something ‘unclean’ while wandering around down there?”
“Oh, a special dialogue has been triggered.”
Little Ashina, who was eager to see what the hidden drop was, immediately widened her eyes.
She pushed the wooden-like Frostfang Claw from behind, and the latter reluctantly stepped forward and briefly explained how he got the special token.
“Oh, so the Convergence Stone is that special spirit item that Lady Tris deliberately placed? I did hear that some lucky folks could be blessed by the goddess of fortune in the memory recollection and find something different that remains.
They say it’s a gift from the mysteries of spirit energy, anyway, I don’t understand it.I’m just an uneducated thief.”
Lady Dorothy shrugged and repeated what Lord Murphy had taught her to say.
This was a very perfunctory attitude.
Because she felt it was like playing house with children, but the more she acted like an expressionless NPC, the more the surrounding little players realized that this AI in front of them seemed a bit dumb.
Hmm, not as smart as other NPCs.
Could it be that the development team was lazy and made a inferior AI for this module? That can’t be right, Dorothy’s NPC modeling is actually quite good-looking, especially her proportionate figure which would definitely get high scores from many players, and she even has a very rare “social big sister” style.
“Come on, give it to me.”
Dorothy raised her Computation Bead, and Frostfang Claw also raised his bead.
The moment the two Computation Beads touched, the special token recorded on him was transferred to Dorothy’s Computation Bead. Then, while eating an apple, this carefree thief lady rummaged around in her tent for a while and finally threw out a rolled-up blueprint.
“This is your reward! In Lord Murphy’s words, it’s a reward for the ‘lucky one’.”
“Quick, let’s see what it is!”
Little Ashina and Fatal Orchid Huahua leaned in with expectant faces.
Frostfang Claw unfolded the blueprint in front of the three, revealing a bone scythe that looked very evil, along with a series of manufacturing parameters and specific forging methods.
Frostfang activated item identification, and the information tag for this thing quickly popped up:
Name: Forging Blueprint – Soul Reaper Scythe
Effect: To be learned by blacksmiths, enabling them to master the method of forging the special weapon ‘Soul Reaper Scythe’. The Quality and attached attributes of the finished product will vary depending on forging skills and materials used, but it will definitely have the two basic attributes of ?Dark/Death Spirit Enhancement? and ?Life Force Drain?.
Note!
This weapon is a composite manufacturing product, requiring the cooperation of an alchemist during the forging process.
Learning Times: ?1/1?
Item Description:
?The ritual scythe to which the Soul Reaper Scythe belongs is a signature weapon type of the Netherworld plane, which under certain conditions will trigger special reactions from spiritual beings. Therefore, you might want to think carefully about the adverse effects it might bring you before using this weapon.
What I mean is, if you’re very afraid of ghosts, then I really! really! really don’t recommend you play with this thing. – A kind reminder from Tris.?
“Wow, this is probably the first advanced forging blueprint in the game, right?”
Little Ashina said with sparkling eyes:
“And this thing looks so cool, it’s exactly the same as the weapon held by the spirit monster summoned by the final BOSS in the second phase of the Rat King Doomsday instance! Put it on and cast a levitation spell on yourself, and you can cosplay as the Grim Reaper.”
“It’s a magic weapon that can be used as a staff, and if necessary, can even be used for chopping,”
Fatal Orchid Huahua next to her said, rubbing her chin:
“Its appearance does have a very ‘hell style’. Is the ‘Netherworld’ mentioned in the Item Description the same kind of alternate dimension as the ‘Astral Realm’? This seems to point out some extended background of this game in terms of spirit energy.”
“Huahua, let’s make one for Lady Aqua!”
Little Ashina tilted her head and glanced at Lady Aqua.
She imagined in her mind how cool and awesome it would look if this monster-figured woman wore a priest’s robe but carried a huge hell scythe on her back.
She suggested to Fatal Orchid Huahua:
“The veteran weapons that Lady Aqua can exchange now are just those mystic staves from vampires, which don’t coordinate well with her own nature spirit energy, and the Adventurer’s Guild hasn’t opened up the exchange for Witch Hunter system equipment sets yet.
Why don’t we use this thing to replace the current white-quality Thorn Staff? It says that the attributes of the finished product can be adjusted by adding different materials during forging, right?
If we add natural spirit energy wonders to the forging process, the finished product will definitely have natural spirit energy enhancement.”
“Hmm, this idea is indeed good, and the cost-performance ratio is indeed quite high. We only need to spend some gold coins to save the effort of searching for suitable weapons for Lady Aqua everywhere. The saved instance badges can be exchanged for some life-saving accessories.
It’s just right for her to pass the trial.”
Fatal Orchid Huahua nodded and said:
“But compared to the reasons I mentioned, you must simply want to see the brutal appearance of the delicate Lady Aqua carrying a big scythe, right?”
“Tch, don’t you want to see it?”
Little Ashina retorted:
“Anyone would want to see it, okay? Lady Aqua should be grateful that I’m not a man, otherwise I’d fight to take her home as my mountain-top wife, making her wear all sorts of weird clothes every day~”
“But this thing isn’t ours,”
Fatal Orchid Huahua looked at Frostfang Claw and reminded:
“There’s only one production drawing, and there’s a spirit seal on it. Only by removing the seal can you read all the content, and there’s a limit to the number of times it can be learned. I guess this thing can only be learned by players specialized in forging.”
“Hey, brother, would you sell this to us?”
Little Ashina patted Frostfang Claw’s arm. The socially anxious player in night clothes hesitated for a moment, thinking that these three kind girls had helped him run the instance. If it weren’t for their help, he wouldn’t have gotten this thing no matter how good his luck was. So he didn’t hesitate much, rolled up the blueprint and handed it to Little Ashina.
“It’s for you, thanks for taking me through the instance,”
he said softly, his voice very low, as if the act of actively conversing with strangers had already consumed most of his energy.
“We can’t just take your thing for free,”
Little Ashina insisted on paying, but Frostfang Claw wouldn’t accept.
He said somewhat helplessly:
“I have thief profession quests, I really don’t need it. I can practice lockpicking by picking up boxes in the sewers, and occasionally get gold coin rewards. I’m not short of money!”
“Oh, alright,”
Seeing that he really didn’t want payment, Little Ashina’s eyes rolled and she said:
“Then how about we take you through instances again? The recruit and veteran badges are good stuff, you’ll need them for basic equipment when you take the Black Iron trial later, and exchanging for veteran equipment sets is always worth it.
In a few days, our Silver Moon Pride guild will be running instances and bringing in new players. You must come then.
Come on, let’s add each other as friends first.”
“Oh, okay,”
Frostfang Claw nodded, agreed on the time to run instances with Little Ashina and the others tomorrow, and watched them leave happily.
Before leaving, Lady Aqua looked “Razor” Dorothy up and down. Out of a designer’s “professional ethics”, she took the initiative to remind:
“The outfit you’re wearing is very well chosen, it really complements your outstanding waistline and leg shape that even I envy, but the color of the cloak is a bit too dull. I suggest you could try blue or red, it would better show your temperament.
Also, you could tidy up your hair a bit.
I think long curly hair would suit your face shape better. You’re clearly very young and have enough to be proud of, why do you have to dress yourself up like an old granny?”
“Mind your own business! You’re really meddlesome.”
Dorothy snapped back quite unhappily.
This unhappiness mostly came from her unique life experience, for the past ten years, she had to disguise her true appearance every moment to avoid trouble.
And a small part of the unhappiness came from Lady Aqua’s figure that all women envied and hated.
Faced with Dorothy’s displeasure, the professional designer just shrugged.
She didn’t get angry either, after all, she was just offering a suggestion, and it didn’t matter to her whether others accepted it or not.
After they left, Dorothy sat on the table angrily, continuing to cut and eat apples. She saw her currently only apprentice staying nearby, seemingly waiting for a task.
She sighed and said:
“You’re really like a piece of wood, not talking all day, even though you’re so skillful. Anyway, let’s proceed with today’s training. I know there’s a small treasure spot of the former Black Fang Gang near the 17th tunnel in the east area of the first level of the sewers. There seems to be a box inside that’s said to be very valuable.
Go and find it.
If you can open the lock, then as per our previous agreement, I’ll take 60%, and the rest is yours. I’ll also teach you a thief’s trick.
But there’s a group of wraiths lingering around there, so be careful.”
“Oh.”
Frostfang Claw accepted the task and was about to leave, but Dorothy called him back.
The leader of the Blood Rat Gang threw the last slice of apple, cut as thin as a slice of beef, into her mouth. Her slender fingers flipped, reverse-gripping two claw knives. She said to her apprentice:
“Just knowing how to steal doesn’t make you a thief. Being able to escape a beating when discovered is the true way of a stealth expert.
Come on!
Let me see if you’ve been slacking off these past few days, my warrior. This time, I won’t go easy on you.”
——
“A high-level forging blueprint dropped from monsters? Wow, this kind of exotic weapon can’t be made in reality at all! Even if it could be made, it would just be a craft item. To be honest with you, we two brothers have wanted to try these magic weapons for a long time.
Meow King still has a task that hasn’t been completed for someone.
Mainly because we haven’t made the thing he wanted before, so we didn’t dare to start randomly. This blueprint comes at just the right time!
With such detailed forging methods listed, it can give us brothers some practice.”
In the blacksmith shop in the camp outside the city, Master Broken Blade and Hundred Forging Great Horse, who were making KA-BAR military knives for Brother Stick’s team, immediately became interested when they saw the forging blueprint brought by Little Ashina.
After a discussion, the two brothers reached an agreement. Master Broken Blade said to Little Ashina:
“How about this, we keep the blueprint, you bring your own spirit energy materials, and we won’t charge a processing fee this time. We’ll make it for you for free! We’ll pay for the iron ingots needed out of our own pockets. We guarantee the finished product will be at the veteran level, how’s that?”
“What about masterwork? Don’t you want masterwork traits?”
Little Ashina chewed on fruit candy, crossed her arms, and put on a very street-smart pose, bargaining with the two older brothers:
“Don’t try to take advantage of us just because we don’t understand everything. This scythe is for Lady Aqua to use. She’s also a master tailor, and she’s already told us that even for equipment of the same rank, standard craftsmanship and masterwork craftsmanship are completely different things.
We even spent money to buy this blueprint from a big red-handed player.
There’s only one in the game right now!
So it must be masterwork craftsmanship at veteran Quality, of course, if it can reach ‘Commander’ Quality or have very rare traits, then standard craftsmanship is fine too.”
Master Broken Blade and Hundred Forging Great Horse looked at each other, hesitated for a moment, exchanged glances for a few seconds, then Master Broken Blade said through gritted teeth:
“Fine! But we need to see the required materials first.”
“Hey, I knew you guys were reasonable. Please, go ahead.”
Little Ashina stepped back and made a “please” gesture. The two blacksmith brothers came forward, tore off the spirit seal on the blueprint, and browsed through the complete forging diagram.
Then the two brothers found that the crafting process for this thing was a bit more complex than they had imagined.
Master Broken Blade frowned and said:
“Following this method, it would take at least 3 days to make a blank, and it would need to be processed with alchemy techniques before final quenching. However, it is indeed possible to attach different traits depending on the different materials added.
But there’s one material we don’t have here.”
He turned to Little Ashina and said:
“We need a set of creature spine bones imbued with death spirit energy, the more complete the better, with no less than 7 vertebrae, and we need a rib bone as decoration for the scythe blade.
The note on the blueprint says these can be found on ghouls, water ghosts, or similar undead creatures.
You’ll have to handle this yourselves, after all, my brother and I aren’t good at fighting, and we have a lot of orders piled up now, so we don’t have time to go to the sewers to ‘restock’.”
“Alright, no problem, we’ll go dive into the sewers right away.”
Little Ashina grinned, agreed that the materials would be delivered in 3 days, and then bounced out of the forge. But on the way, she discovered a new stall being set up on a cart.
Several alchemy apprentices were arranging some bottles and jars there, with a homemade sign next to them that read “Heavenly Fire” in Chinese characters.
This was clearly something players had come up with.
The NPC residents of Transia couldn’t have learned such complex ideographic writing as Chinese.
Little Ashina immediately became interested. She ran to the stall, picked up a bottle, examined it in her hand, and activated item identification:
Name: Alchemical Molotov Cocktail – Classic Otherworld Explosive
Quality: Standard – Consumable
Traits: Impact Explosion – Intense Burning – Toxic Smoke Dispersion
Crafter: What Color is Loyalty
Item Description:
?This is the art of war from another world. After alchemical substitution and processing, its crude yet terrifying power has been reduced rather than increased.?
“Damn! Is this the legendary Molotov cocktail?”
Little Ashina startled, almost throwing the incendiary bottle in her hand.
But she quickly realized that this was obviously a good thing, especially for a ranged shooter like her who lacked close combat skills. It was absolutely a “standard supply item”.
Something that could be lit and thrown easily and could burn continuously was much more convenient than the heavy and expensive Witch Hunter bombs they were using now!
“How much is this?”
The little dwarf grabbed an alchemy apprentice player and asked. The latter looked and said in a drawn-out voice:
“20 silver each!
Don’t think it’s expensive. That dog Brother Loyalty has applied for a patent for this thing’s formula with Lady Tris. Now even if we apprentices make it ourselves, as long as we use the tools and materials provided by Lady Tris, we have to pay Brother Loyalty 5 copper ‘patent fee’ for each one sold.
It’s really infuriating.
It’s a craft that can be seen everywhere, but that guy is too cunning!”
“It’s a bit expensive, this is a consumable item!”
Little Ashina wanted to bargain.
The little player rolled his eyes and said:
“How about you buy in bulk? Brother Loyalty only said to sell this cart, he didn’t say we couldn’t sell it all to one little rich lady at once. I’ll give you a discount. There are 50 incendiary bottles here, how about 9 gold coins?”
“8 gold coins! Final offer, if you don’t sell, I’m leaving.”
Little Ashina snorted and rolled her eyes.
The little player selling the items didn’t want to give in at first, but then he thought, anyway, his wholesale price from Brother Loyalty was only 10 silver coins each, so even at the price Little Ashina offered, he would still make a profit. The saved time could be used for leveling up, so he simply nodded.
Both parties completed the transaction very happily.
The little rich lady used a special spirit bag for weapons to pack all 50 incendiary bottles and threw them in. She was in a good mood, humming a tune as she was about to go back to find Lady Aqua and Fatal Orchid Huahua. However, just a few steps out, she heard Brother Loyalty’s hoarse voice shouting:
“Freshly made incendiary bottles! Essential for monster hunting and instance running, a symbol of power players! Carry 10 of these and easily pass the Black Iron trial! Come and buy quickly, first day promotional sale today, only 15 silver coins each!
For 15 silver you can’t go wrong, for 15 silver you can’t be cheated, come quick!”
“Huh?”
Little Ashina was immediately enraged when she heard this shout.
The incendiary bottles they developed themselves are only selling for 15 silver, and you, a middleman, dare to add a third to the price? You’re really looking for a sucker!
And he actually found one!
Herself!
She was the sucker!
Although she had a lot of money, she couldn’t stand such spending. She angrily turned back intending to argue with that cunning guy, but he had already disappeared in a flash.
“What was that guy’s name again? Scholar something? Xiao Zhou? Or Xiao Li? Hey, I knew nothing good comes from those with such names!”
Sword Saint Ashina gritted her teeth and shouted on the spot:
“Don’t let me catch you, Scholar, or I’ll shove your incendiary bottles down your throat and blow you up! You even cheat your own people, you bastard, you really have no conscience!”