Chapter 245 - Target: Dark-Gold
Before s.h.i.+ Feng started forging the Arclight s.h.i.+eld, he decided to first forge a few Basic Mana Armor Kits to serve as a warm-up.
After G.o.d’s Domain evolved, the process of forging grew more complicated, greatly increasing the difficulty of producing an item. Unlike the Advanced Whetstones and Basic Mana Armor Kits, which were still considerably simple to make, items such as weapons and equipment had a much more complex forging procedure.
“It should be about time I give the s.h.i.+eld a try.” After s.h.i.+ Feng produced tens of Basic Mana Armor Kits, he finally retrieved the Silver Ore and Gold Ore needed to forge the Arclight s.h.i.+eld. He had also received the Magic Crystals from Gentle Snow in advance.
Gentle Snow had wanted to obtain the Arclight s.h.i.+elds as soon as possible, so s.h.i.+ Feng required her to send him the Magic Crystals in advance.
s.h.i.+ Feng had received a total of 200 Magic Crystals from Gentle Snow. Such an amount was sufficient for 20 attempts to produce the Arclight s.h.i.+eld.
s.h.i.+ Feng only had a 20% success rate for forging the Arclight s.h.i.+eld. It was the lowest success rate he had ever had since he started forging equipment. However, if any other forger were in his shoes right now, they might not be able to produce even one Arclight s.h.i.+eld out of several hundred sets of materials.
Those conceited Guilds thought that they could easily produce the Arclight s.h.i.+eld after obtaining its Forging Design. However, if s.h.i.+ Feng had not won the bid for the Forging Design, by the time those Guilds managed to produce a single Arclight s.h.i.+eld, the 50-man Team Dungeons would have long since been conquered.
In order to gain experience, when s.h.i.+ Feng started his first attempt at forging the Arclight s.h.i.+eld, he went through the process slowly and steadily, carrying out each step to the best of his abilities.
Before he knew it, s.h.i.+ Feng had spent over 20 minutes producing the first Arclight s.h.i.+eld.
Compared to a normal s.h.i.+eld, the Arclight s.h.i.+eld had a crescent-shaped design. The entire s.h.i.+eld was colored in silver, and many runic patterns were carved on the s.h.i.+eld’s body. Although the s.h.i.+eld looked mighty and powerful at first glance, it was still unknown whether it was a failed or successful product.
s.h.i.+ Feng then chose to generate the s.h.i.+eld’s data.
After ten seconds of waiting, the identification process for the s.h.i.+eld was completed.
“As expected, it’s a failure,” s.h.i.+ Feng sighed when he took a look at the s.h.i.+eld’s data. Although it was indeed an Arclight s.h.i.+eld, its quality was a rank lower than the original; it was only Secret-Silver rank.
[Arclight s.h.i.+eld] (s.h.i.+eld, Secret-Silver Rank)
Level 15
Equipment Requirement: Strength 90
Defense +330
Block Rate: 31%
Strength +10, Endurance +20
Evasion +3
Additional Pa.s.sive Skill 1-
Sound of Life: Every attack received will grant user with a stack of Power of Life, increasing maximum HP by 2% and received healing by 1% for 1 minute. Maximum of 10 stacks.
Additional Pa.s.sive Skill 2-
Refraction: Triggers once every 50 seconds. Becomes immune to one attack.
“From a general point of view, though, it is not a bad result, all the same. At the very least, it is still a Secret-Silver ranked s.h.i.+eld. I should be able to sell it for a good price even then.” s.h.i.+ Feng was relatively satisfied with this failed product. After all, a Secret-Silver ranked s.h.i.+eld remained a rare item at this stage of the game.
According to s.h.i.+ Feng’s knowledge, a majority of the core MTs of second-rate and third-rate Guilds were still using Mysterious-Iron ranked s.h.i.+elds. If he sold this failure, he could still earn around 6 to 7 Gold Coins from it.
Although he had failed this time, it was not a complete failure. At the very least, it did not turn out as a sc.r.a.p item. This partial failure indicated that he must have made a mistake somewhere during the forging process.
“There shouldn’t be any problems with the forging of the main body itself. I must’ve messed up when I was carving the runes on the s.h.i.+eld, preventing it from reaching Fine-Gold rank,” s.h.i.+ Feng concluded after carefully reviewing his actions. According to past experiences, if a problem had truly occurred during the formation of the s.h.i.+eld, then the Arclight s.h.i.+eld wouldn’t just fall by a single rank. It wouldn’t even be unusual for the s.h.i.+eld to end up being Bronze rank or lower.
Afterward, s.h.i.+ Feng did not rush to start his second attempt. Instead, he carefully studied the runes he had carved on the Arclight s.h.i.+eld.
The inscription of the runes were mainly done using the Magic Crystals. However, the process of completing these runes was not easy, as s.h.i.+ Feng did not truly understand their meaning. He could only make blind imitations of the drawings.
Although he did not understand the meaning behind the runes, if he practiced drawing them over and over, it should still yield some positive effect.
Hence, s.h.i.+ Feng started practicing drawing the runes.
Once… Twice… Ten times…
Every drawing took around four to five minutes to complete. However, as the number of times he practiced increased, he grew more proficient at drawing the runes. The runes he drew now also started resembling the original.
This cost-free way of practicing was much more economical than learning through actual production. s.h.i.+ Feng naturally wouldn’t mind more practice.
“This should be enough.” s.h.i.+ Feng looked at the latest rune he drew, feeling extremely satisfied with it. This imitation of his looked practically the same as the rune shown on the Forging Design.
Hence, s.h.i.+ Feng started his second attempt at producing the Arclight s.h.i.+eld.
This time, the entire forging process of the s.h.i.+eld flowed very smoothly. s.h.i.+ Feng had only spent around 10 minutes to complete the second Arclight s.h.i.+eld. However, his attempt this time ended in complete failure.
s.h.i.+ Feng’s 20% success rate did not stand on his side this time around.
Following which, s.h.i.+ Feng consecutively produced ten Arclight s.h.i.+elds. Moreover, with each successive s.h.i.+eld he made, the time he spent producing them also decreased. His hands also moved with much more proficiency. Out of the ten Arclight s.h.i.+elds he made, only two barely achieved the pa.s.sing standard, two ended up as defective products, while the remaining ones were complete failures. As for the two defective s.h.i.+elds, one was Mysterious-Iron rank, while the other was Secret-Silver rank.
In general, the results were quite good.
However, s.h.i.+ Feng was still unsatisfied with the quality of the Arclight s.h.i.+elds.
“Now that I am proficient at making the Arclight s.h.i.+elds, the next step would be increasing its quality. If I can let Cola use a Dark-Gold ranked Arclight s.h.i.+eld, our chances at clearing the Demon’s Castle would become much higher.” s.h.i.+ Feng decided to take out the Runic Gold, the reward he obtained for his promotion to Advanced Forging Apprentice.
Not only could the Runic Gold increase his success rate by 10%, there was also a small chance for it to increase an item’s rank by one, up to a maximum of Dark-Gold rank.
Unfortunately, s.h.i.+ Feng only had five of these things, meaning that he only had five chances to produce a Dark-Gold ranked Arclight s.h.i.+eld.
The Runic Gold was a piece of ore that gave off a metallic glow and contained runic energy within it.
After refining the Runic Gold, s.h.i.+ Feng poured the molten Runic Gold into the Silver-Gold alloy. Immediately, a change occurred in the alloy. The originally bright red alloy turned dark red in color. Moreover, it also started greedily absorbing the energy of the Ice-Blue Devil Flame.
As the amount of energy it absorbed increased, the alloy started emitting many golden runes, slowly forming an array of runes.
Knowing that the fusion was completed, s.h.i.+ Feng immediately retrieved the scorching hot alloy from the furnace, placed it on the anvil, and started hammering on it. Slowly, the piece of alloy started taking on the shape of an Arclight s.h.i.+eld, and on the s.h.i.+eld’s surface, there was even a layer of naturally occurring golden runes. The s.h.i.+eld looked incredibly holy.
After hammering for several minutes, s.h.i.+ Feng finally formed the Arclight s.h.i.+eld. Immediately, he retrieved a black liquid and started drawing the runes on the s.h.i.+eld. The black liquid was the liquified product of the Magic Crystals.
s.h.i.+ Feng concentrated his full attention on each and every stroke, afraid of making even the slightest mistake.
When he completed the final stroke, the naturally occurring golden runes on the s.h.i.+eld actually melded together with the runes s.h.i.+ Feng had drawn. Together, they formed completely new golden runes possessing no resemblance to the black runes found on the previous Arclight s.h.i.+elds s.h.i.+ Feng made.
“Please be a success!” s.h.i.+ Feng timidly selected to identify the s.h.i.+eld.
Although the Arclight s.h.i.+eld looked absolutely perfect appearance-wise, whether it was a success or a failure still depended on the final data.
One second… Two seconds…
This time, even after 20 seconds had pa.s.sed, the system was still unable to determine the s.h.i.+eld’s exact data. This situation caused s.h.i.+ Feng to grow slightly nervous.
The longer identification time indicated that even the system itself was hesitant. In the end, is it a success or a failure? s.h.i.+ Feng had carried out the entire forging procedure perfectly. At the end of the day, however, his success rate was only 30%. Oftentimes, when the identification process took longer than usual, there was a higher chance that the result was a failure.
Finally, after 30 seconds pa.s.sed, the system returned the identification results.
System: Arclight Guard has been successfully forged. Forging Proficiency increased by 2 points. Obtained 80,000 EXP.