THE STRONGEST THUNDER SWORD, VOLUME 4 - Season 7 Episode 80

System: Congratulations! You are the first player to be promoted to an Advanced Forger. Rewarding 10 Magical Gold and 20,000,000 EXP.

…

The system notification repeated three times. Upon the arrival of this system notification, Shi Feng finally stopped producing Intermediate Mana Armor Kits.

He had required a total of 24,000 Proficiency Points to advance from an Intermediate Forger to an Advanced Forger. That was double the amount necessary for the promotion from a Basic Forger to an Intermediate Forger.

“It really is tough work.” Shi Feng abruptly collapsed into a chair, breathing out a sigh of relief. “With this standard, I should be able to manufacture the core component of the Magic Device.”

Even if he was producing Intermediate Mana Armor Kits, it normally should not have been possible to gain 24,000 Proficiency Points in just four days. However, he had the Forging Talent “Forging Genius” that every forger dreamed of obtaining. With each successful forging, he had a fixed chance to receive an additional two Proficiency Points—equivalent to successfully producing one more high-level item. The Luck from Icarus’s Heart also helped increase his chances of triggering the effects of Forging Genius. Only with the combination of all these effects did he manage to become an Advanced Forger.

Nevertheless, his success rate at producing the core component of the Magic Device would still be very low, even though he was now an Advanced Forger—roughly 10% at most. If he became a Master Forger, though, his success rate could be as much as 30%.

However, time waited for no man.

Moreover, even if Shi Feng had the Book of Forging, the Blacksteel Insignia, and Forging Talent, advancing from an Advanced Forger to a Master Forger would still be extremely difficult. That promotion was no longer a problem of Proficiency or success rate.

One of the requirements for a player to become a Master Forger was the creation of their own weapons and equipment without relying on readily available forging designs. Doing so would not take days but rather months or years, instead. Hence, even after a decade had passed, remarkably few players had managed to reach the level of Master.

Setting aside the fact that Shi Feng needed to advance to his Tier 2 class within a short period, just the test for the Tier 2 class was already quite challenging; the test for one of the Ten Great Saint Legacies could only be more so. If he wanted to clear the test quickly, it was naturally better for him to be stronger.

Solomon’s Treasure might allow him to improve his strength further. Needless to say, he had to complete the quest as soon as possible.

During these four days, many things had also occurred in the vast God’s Domain. The most popular matter had to be the activation of the Divine Battlefield at the Divine Colosseum.

The Divine Battlefield was a place for players to wage war against each other. Players could obtain points for killing other players in the Divine Battlefield, which they could then use to exchange for rewards. A wide selection of rewards was available, although the most attractive rewards were still weapons and equipment. The best reward players could trade for was Dark-Gold Set Equipment. However, the number of points required to do so was immense. Moreover, the weapons and equipment received were nontradable and were usable for only the person who exchanged for them. Hence, even if the items dropped upon the owner’s death, other people could not avail of said items, though they could sell them to NPCs—at dismal prices.

To exchange for Dark-Gold Set Equipment, players were first required to reach the highest-ranking battlefield. The Divine Battlefield was divided into multiple ranks—Soldier’s Battlefield, General’s Battlefield, Marshal’s Battlefield, King’s Battlefield, and Hero’s Battlefield—with each succeeding rank having increasingly higher entry requirements.

Only after reaching the Hero’s Battlefield could players collect points to exchange for Dark-Gold Set Equipment.

However, this was also a good way for experts to upgrade their equipment. After all, even Guilds had a hard time obtaining Dark-Gold Weapons and Equipment.

Hence, everyone’s passion for the Divine Battlefield deepened.

When Fire Dance and her team participated in the Divine Battlefield, they would occasionally get slaughtered as well. The players visiting the Divine Battlefield did not come from just a single kingdom or empire. Instead, the entire God’s Domain shared a single Divine Battlefield. Against monstrous experts or the encirclement of three or four top-tier experts, even Fire Dance and the other Zero Wing core members could only accept fate.

This experience also allowed her and the others to realize that, no matter how strong they had become, there was always someone stronger than they were. Even if they ranked at the top of a weak, little kingdom like Star-Moon Kingdom, they were still insignificant beings in the vast world of God’s Domain.

Meanwhile, the situation at the Stoneclaw Mountains was also heating up. Many teams had already begun clearing the monsters wandering in between the outer and inner areas of the Dungeon, and upgrading their equipment very quickly as a result.

Zero Wing was also sending large numbers of members to the Regional Dungeon to grind and level up.

For a time, competition within the Stoneclaw Mountains rapidly intensified, and quite often, friction and fighting would break out between players in the Dungeon.

With the passage of time and the continuous improvement of the system, many more experts would emerge in God’s Domain. Hence, Shi Feng was in a hurry to improve himself further.

“Guild Leader, here are the items you’ve asked for.” The Alchemist Nine Coasts stacked a pile of components on top of the stone platform. Respectfully, he said, “These are all the components we’ve managed to make during these past few days. There are 70 sets here.”

After striving for four days, he and Ocean Smile had managed to manufacture only 70 sets of components. Despite receiving an endless amount of materials, their success rates were far lower than their initial estimates. They had spent a full 1,000 Gold on manufacturing a mere 70 sets of components. If converted to Credits, that amount of Coins would be worth several million. At this point, they just wished they could crawl into a hole and die.

After all, the materials required to manufacture each component cost roughly 30 Silver. With over 1,000 Gold, they could have produced over 3,000 individual components. Yet, the both of them combined had only managed to make 140. Their success rate did not even reach 5%.

“Okay, you can go back and continue making the components.” Shi Feng nodded. He was not surprised whatsoever by this abysmal success rate.

All things considered, those were components required to manufacture a Magic Device. Their failure to achieve a 5% success rate was entirely within his expectations.

After Nine Coasts left, Shi Feng sorted his mood out and began producing the core component of the Magic Device.

The core component required only a few materials. However, they were all rare materials. Even after the Guild’s combined efforts as well as purchases through Gentle Snow’s connections, he had managed to collect only 100 sets of materials. The cost of one set was roughly 10 Gold, so one hundred sets cost about 1,000 Gold. Meanwhile, Shi Feng’s success rate was only around 10%. Even the Star Alliance and Ouroboros would not be willing to take such a gamble.

“Fortunately, I’m earning quite a lot of money through Stone Forest Town and the Candlelight Trading Firm. Otherwise, even I wouldn’t dare to take this risk,” Shi Feng muttered, smiling bitterly as he looked at the materials in his hands.

The core component he was going to produce was a ball-shaped object. Just refining the metals required was already a difficult task. However, by relying on the Ice-Blue Devil Flame, the metal he refined had relatively good color. What came next was molding the metal into the desired shape. If he was off by even a single millimeter, then the final product would end up as a failure. As for the last step, he had to engrave runes onto the metal ball.

Time crept past.

Shi Feng went through 70 attempts in one go.

In the end, only three out of the 70 attempts had succeeded.

The difficulty of producing the core component was much higher than his initial expectations.

I’m generally familiar with the process already. I should start using the Magical Gold now. Shi Feng considered the materials he had left, feeling that he already had sufficient practice.

The Magical Gold rewarded by the system was an extremely rare material. Not only could it increase his forging success rate, but it could also evolve an item at a fixed chance. Its market value was no less than 100 Gold per piece.

Initially, Shi Feng had taken 50 tries to produce one core component. Afterwards, however, he had managed to succeed twice out of 20. Without a doubt, his success rate had increased significantly, which was all due to his continuous experimentation using the Simulation Device. If he did not possess the Simulation Device of the Special Forging Room, he would have most likely failed all 70 attempts.