Chương 29: The Hammer Was Also a Queue

Meno stared at the auction terminal long enough for the gold number to stop looking rich. [Balance: 4, 404 gold, 10 silver] Four thousand gold should have felt like power. It should have opened doors, bought respect, and put a real weapon in his hand. Instead, the auction house showed empty listings, predatory scraps, and apples priced like they had been watered with dragon blood. Viewers: 42, 188. The number had stopped bleeding for now. That was the good version of bad.

Forty-two thousand people watching him stand in front of an auction terminal with too much gold and nothing to swing was a miracle by his old standards, but his brain had already been poisoned by six figures. Everything below the peak felt like loss wearing a nicer shirt. He could end stream. The thought came fast and dirty. Turn it off, find a guild crafter in private, offer five hundred gold under the table, get a Rare I sword made behind some storage shed or locked crafting room. Someone would take it.

Somebody always took money when enough of it appeared with no witnesses. Then the stream would find out. Maybe a crafter clipped a whisper. Maybe a guild exposed him. Even if he got away with it once, it solved nothing. Rare I today. Epic later. Legendary after that, if he lived long enough to make the problem bigger. If every real upgrade required bribing someone else's supply chain, he would be rich for five minutes and broke forever. Meno closed the auction interface.

"I hate this," he said. Chat immediately tried to guess which this he meant. market? guilds? solo brain? call mom yes"All of it," Meno said.

"But specifically the next part." He walked out of the auction house into Westmarket's merchant noise. Players flooded the streets with emergency energy: running, shouting, buying, selling, arguing about Sleepwalkers, accusing each other of price-fixing. NPC clerks moved with brisk, hollow patience. Somewhere farther down the district, a wagon of spears rolled toward the military quarter under guard. Meno had never cared about crafting.

Crafting in every MMO started the same way: someone on a forum insisted it was secretly insane profit if a player built a spreadsheet with material inputs, market cycles, recipe paths, time value, failure rates, and enough dead-eyed patience to turn a game into a second job. Then the profitable recipes hid behind faction rep, daily turn-ins, rare drops, obscure quest chains, and raids that solo players could stare at from outside the fence. This was why he hit things. Maybe VR made it better.

Maybe it made it worse by forcing him to swing a hammer for six hours until his elbow cried. He flexed his fingers inside the Soma-X7 and looked at chat.

"Good thing I didn't learn Elemental Extraction." DO NOT START rare profession died for this declined magic mining twice not good he is trolling right"If I took it, I'd be locked. One profession slot. No options. Now I still have options." you are rich and naked learn begging Meno kept walking.

"That's it," he said.

"There's no other choice." Chat seemed to sense danger before he said it. no people left for this exact reason don't not cooking please no crafting arc"I have to learn blacksmithing." BORING NOOOOO hammerbeadgod stream killer 42k to 4k speedrun just pay someone I CAN CRAFT FOR YOU give me mats bro rare smith here trust my uncle works at forge Meno gave the spam a flat look.

"What am I supposed to do?" Trust chat, apparently, which was how a man lost his dragon spike to someone named xXForgeDaddyXx and became a cautionary edit. Any good crafter would have guild rules, contracts, supply obligations, and officers watching their hands. They were not going to break queue live on the stream of the most radioactive player in Veyrath. The only crafters volunteering publicly were trolls, scammers, or people desperate enough to waste materials for attention.

He opened a forum overlay while walking, filtering for blacksmithing variants, special professions, hidden info, and anything with the words weapon, rare, solo, or not complete misery. The results disappointed him immediately. Most public posts agreed on one thing: special crafting professions did not appear as special crafting professions at level one. Players started with normal trades, then evolved them through use, recipes, faction ties, discoveries, materials, achievements, or strange quest chains.

Blacksmithing had rumored branches, but nothing confirmed beyond basic weapon and armor work. No public Dragonblade Smith button. No convenient Tryhard Swordmaker route. Engineering had more interesting information, which automatically made it cooler. A public thread about a Zubra-linked engineering variant was already exploding: players claimed some early engineers could start a quest chain involving the catapults.

The screenshots showed compact devices, spring-cranked launch frames, and one recipe teaser for an emergency recoil harness. Meno stopped in the street.

"Engineering looks sick." learn engineering zubra arc catapult build weapon? no He read the part where it said not weapons. Engineering made tools, mechanisms, traps, mobility devices, siege parts, weird utilities, and occasionally ranged devices that did not count as normal weapons until much later. Excellent for players who wanted to be clever. Useless for the immediate problem of needing a sword that could make Compound Swing worth pressing. Meno closed the overlay.

"Of course the fun profession doesn't make swords." He turned toward the crafting district. The blacksmith trainer was inside a large public forge building at the edge of the district, separate from the emergency production halls where crown requisitions had swallowed private work. The place had wide doors, blackened beams, rows of workstations, fuel racks, quench troughs, grindstones, and a trainer platform marked by a hanging iron sign shaped like a hammer over an anvil.

The NPC trainer stood near the central forge: a thick-armed man with a shaved scalp, a leather apron, and a face arranged around permanent disappointment. He was helping a player reflatten a bent practice blade by saying, "Again," every time the player tried to speak. Meno approached.

"I want to learn blacksmithing." [Profession Available: Blacksmithing] Profession Slot Required: 1/1 Cost: 0 Accept Profession? [Y/N] Meno froze at the cost.

"Free?" The trainer looked him over.

"A reputable individual who wishes to support the craft during emergency should be encouraged." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Chat remembered the karma reward and became vicious. REPUTABLE OP black market access died for 10 silver +500 karma coupon value confirmed Meno accepted before the system could reconsider. [Profession Acquired: Blacksmithing — Level 1] The trainer reached below the counter and set a crude iron hammer and tongs on the bench.

Both were plain, dark, and aggressively unromantic. [Item Acquired: Common I Starter Smithing Hammer] [Item Acquired: Common I Starter Smithing Tongs]"A gift for beginning properly," the trainer said.

"Do not embarrass the metal." Meno picked up the tools.

"I'll try not to."

"You will fail," the trainer said.

"Then you will try again."

"Great. Very motivational." The trainer's expression did not change.

"Motivation is for people who believe heat cares." npc trainer based heat cares not sounds like my father insane 20s saved worth Meno pointed toward an empty workstation.

"Can I use one of those?"

"You may. Clean it after. If you burn yourself, do not scream near the bellows."

"Reputable really is overpowered," Meno muttered. He moved to the empty station and opened the profession interface. Blacksmithing was blunt at level one. The basic tab listed Common I variants for most martial weapons: dagger, one-handed sword, axe, mace, spearhead, arrowheads, shield boss, and a few simple tool parts. Everything used iron bars. Some required leather grips, binding pins, wood handles, or basic fuel. The UI looked almost too clean, which meant the misery lived inside the process.

Meno selected Common I Iron Dagger and read the required materials. Iron Bar x1. Common Leather Grip x1. Common Binding Pin x1. Common Forge Fuel x1. He looked at chat.

"How do I unlock better weapons?" The answers were garbage with occasional accidental usefulness. hit metal good level 15 uncommon trainer recipes only trash common II at five? just craft 9000 daggers make 2h weapons xp better fail tax Meno sighed and reopened the forums. After ten minutes of reading posts written by people who thought indentation was a conspiracy, he had the basics.

Blacksmithing unlocked the next basic quality threshold every five profession levels in the early brackets: Common II at level 5, Common III at level 10, Uncommon I at level 15. Rare I appeared at level 30. Better versions within a bracket required recipes the trainer did not teach, which meant drops, quests, reputation, experimentation. Of course. The craft itself had two phases. First, forging the blade or head. Second, finishing it with a grip wrap and a binding pin.

The binding pin was a small wedge of metal that locked the grip assembly into place. Without it, the system classified the result as a blade blank. A blade blank could cut someone's hand open, ruin a table, and maybe threaten a rat, but it was not a recognized sword or dagger to the equipment system. That last part mattered too much. Recognized weapon. Swing Master cared about recognized weapons. The Ashen Crown Tail Spike could pierce elemental bodies and delete enemies from orbit, but it did not count.

A properly finished piece of garbage did. There was also ore refining. Meno read one paragraph about turning ore into bars, decided the entire process was an attack on his attention span, and moved on.

"Bars," he said.

"We buy bars. I'm not spending half the day smelting." He returned to the auction house. Iron prices made him want to log out. Normal iron ore sold for one gold each. Bars sold for two. Two. Gold. For basic iron. A dagger used one bar. One-handed weapons used two. Two-handers used three. The forum agreed that profession XP scaled roughly with material commitment, so a two-hander could give triple the experience of a dagger if it met quality threshold. A two-hander also cost three times as much to fail.

Meno was suddenly very interested in daggers.

"Small failures," he said.

"We respect small failures." He bought fifty iron bars for one hundred gold and felt the number leave his soul. Then fifty Common Leather Grips for fifty gold. Then fifty Common Binding Pins at one gold each. Then fifty Common Forge Fuels at one gold each, from some seller whose entire contribution to the world was apparently making fire expensive. Total: two hundred fifty gold. [Balance: 4, 154 gold, 10 silver] Meno closed the auction interface and stared ahead.

"I just got rich," he said.

"And I'm already going poor at speedrun pace." 250g tutorial common bracket btw learned blacksmithing to buy 2g iron bars market won crafting is pain welcome to spreadsheets He carried the materials back to the forge. The workstation looked simple when it was empty. Forge to the left, anvil in front, quench trough to the right, grinding wheel at the end, bench close enough for tools. Meno laid the starter hammer on the bench, then arranged the leather grip and binding pin within reach.

He set the tongs where his right hand could find them without opening inventory. He equipped the tongs. A crude iron bar sat on the anvil, dull and ordinary. The Common Forge Fuel waited in a little tray beside the firebox. Meno had no idea whether the system would become a normal crafting bar, a minigame, or a form where he selected Make Dagger and prayed. He initiated the craft, and the forge flame rose as symbols snapped into his vision. Tool. Target. Target area. Action. Strength. Timing.

The marks appeared over the workstation like combat telegraphs, each one fading toward failure if he hesitated. The first was slow enough to read. The second arrived before he finished being surprised.

"Wait, it's a rhythm game?" The Common Forge Fuel hit the flame, and the forge answered with a hot white flare. Meno caught the iron bar with the tongs and shoved it into the marked heat pocket. The symbol tightened, pulsed, and accepted the placement [Good]. A hammer icon flashed. He dropped the tongs, grabbed the hammer, and struck the bar flat where the anvil mark glowed dull orange [Good].

The next mark ran down the centerline, narrow enough to punish slop, and he corrected the hammer angle with a short controlling hit [Good]. The bar wanted turning. Tongs again. He pinched the flattened iron, rotated it along the blue turn marker, and set it back on the anvil before the timing ring faded [Good]. Hammer back. The shape marker stretched into a crude blade outline, and he struck the heated metal into the first dagger blank [Good].

Smaller icons followed fast: spine line, edge line, two quick taps with barely enough windup to count as swings [Good] [Good]. The heat mark dimmed. Tongs. Back into the forge mouth, not too deep, not too shallow, until the color matched the symbol [Good]. The point came next. Tiny target. Short duration. Meno's wrist snapped down with a precise tap before he could overthink it [Perfect]. Chat surged, but he did not look. The tang base flashed near the handle end. Hammer strike, medium force, flat face [Good].

Tongs again, lift the blank, quench mark over the trough. Into the water with a hiss that fogged his vision for half a second [Good]. The temper icon appeared immediately over a lower heat pocket, so he pulled it free, shook once, and held it near the coals until the color passed through the target band [Good]. Cool marker. Back to the trough edge, not fully submerged, until the symbol accepted the drop [Good]. The tool icon changed to hands.

Meno almost grabbed the hammer again, caught himself, and snatched the leather grip from the bench. The dagger blank lay in a clamp with the tang exposed. He wrapped the grip where the ghost outline showed, pulling tight, not too tight [Good]. The binding pin flashed next, a small wedge icon with a narrow slot. He pressed it into place with both thumbs until the system took it [Good]. Grinding wheel.

He pulled the dagger free, set the edge to the wheel, and followed the final edge line in one smooth pass while sparks spat across the bench [Good]. The symbols vanished. [Pattern Complete] Type: Common I Iron Dagger Quality: 69% — Standard Durability: Standard Meno stood very still with the finished dagger in his hand. Sixty-nine percent.

After all that, after mostly Good feedback, after one Perfect, after not failing a single step, the system had the nerve to present him with a number that looked like chat had designed it as a personal attack.

"Sixty-nine?" Chat did what chat had to do. nice nice nice 69% god roll he is mad at nice number perfect point still mid crafting exposed him Meno set the dagger down harder than necessary.

"No, shut up. Why is it only sixty-nine? I got mostly Good." good isn't perfect genius read forums skill issue hammer edition boss dodger loses to fork technically dagger He opened the forum overlay again with the sharp, angry focus of a man checking a combat log after getting killed by an ability he swore he dodged. The answer came in a beginner guide posted forty minutes after launch by someone named MarginRat. Craft step scoring: Perfect = 3, Good = 2, Bad = 0.

Final quality percentage = points earned divided by maximum possible points. Profession XP only awarded for Standard or higher crafts. Higher quality improves sale value, durability variance, and chance of minor stat tags at higher brackets. Perfect crafts may grant bonus profession XP. Exact values under testing. Meno counted. Sixteen steps. Forty-eight possible points. Fifteen Good, one Perfect: thirty-three points. Sixty-nine percent. The system called that Standard.

Meno stared at the word Good in the forge log and felt personally lied to. The system had given him sixty-nine, which meant Good did not feel as good as the word implied, and Perfect was the actual target. He checked the blacksmithing XP bar. Blacksmithing Level 1: 34% A third of a level. Three Standard daggers to level two. Meno stared at the bar, then the remaining materials. Forty-nine attempts. The mountain to Rare I sat at level thirty, which suddenly looked farther away than BrineSaint.

Chat had shifted from mocking to arguing. avg players getting bads btw 69 first craft good perfect gives bonus maybe make 2h sword daggers efficient until stable this is content now? Meno picked up another iron bar. Compared to the dragon claw, the Forge Station was slow motion. Compared to dodging Tremor-Slam while maintaining chain uptime, the symbols were clear. They did not feint with upper-body motion then shockwave from their feet. They did not move, scream, or steal his sword on death.

"I'm used to fighting bosses while keeping a swing chain alive," Meno said, placing the second bar on the anvil.

"This is a weak boss with tool swaps." crafting streamer cope shut up not that easy accidentally good at boring streamer delusion Meno grabbed a fresh fuel piece.

"Time to find out if Perfect gives more XP." He initiated the second dagger craft and watched the first symbol bloom over the forge. This time, he did not talk. He waited half a beat less. The fuel hit the flame. Tongs closed on iron. Heat. Hammer. Centerline. Turn. Strike. Tap. Tap. Reheat. The point marker flashed tiny and quick, and his hammer came down perfectly again, because small timing windows were at least something in this world that respected practice. The dagger took shape under his hands.

It was not the weapon he wanted, not yet, but it was a route, and routes were what separated whining from climbing.