Don't worry, I'll be getting into more action and progressing the story more soon.

I have no connection and own nothing related to The Gamer

Chapter 10

The Next Day

Kain was summoned to the clan head's office. Kain was standing in front of Nagato's desk, waiting quietly for him to speak. After another minute, Nagato finally acknowledged him. "Sorry about that, there's some paperwork I had to do to prepare for some things. I summoned you here because I'd like you to choose what your current position in the clan is."

"What options have you chosen for me?" Kain asked.

"I think best suited for you would be something inside the area or somewhere you can be protected by clan members. People still are very wary to attack you because of our presence, but if you were closer to the edges of our reach, you would be at risk. So these are the options for you. You can try a trade such as blacksmith or potion creator, since you can probably learn those skills fairly easy. You could work on making us money. Murkuro mentioned that you're able to gain money and items from spirits from the illusion barriers. Or you can help run our lower class training, mostly with training new recruits in martial arts. You've become pretty proficient in several different martial art forms, so it wouldn't be an issue to teach beginners."

"Would I be able to choose more than one?" Kain asked, thinking of how he could best help the clan.

Nagato thought about it and then nodded. "Yes, I suppose you could. It'd be stressful however, we ask quite a bit of you."

"So, for example, if I wanted to help with gaining money, how much would I need to get to meet the quota?"

"Since you're just beginning, the first few months would be about one million won a month." Nagato said.

"I can do that." Kain grinned. "And I would also like to take up the blacksmith position and potion position. I might try to do some teaching later when I'm more skilled."

Nagato raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure you can handle that much? Just the money one could tire you out."

Kain reached into his inventory, grabbing 2,000,000 Won out of it. "Here's the first two months. I'll try to get more before the month is over, but I want to learn a bunch of the other stuff first."

Leaving Nagato with his mouth agape, he was pointed towards the building that would hold the blacksmith. Kain grinned the whole time, he loved surprising people with his ability.

When he entered the building, he was immediately blasted with a huge amount of heat. There many different kinds of machines surrounding him, and he noticed that most of the light was being provided by the fires lit to help form the shapes of the metal.

"What can I help you with? You lost?" a large man asked. He was well built and had a short but full black beard. His hair was shaggy but short as well.

Gun Vanos Lv 51

Head Blacksmith of Crimson Rain

"No, Nagato assigned me to become an apprentice blacksmith so I can be useful to the clan." Kain replied.

"You?" Gun scoffed. "You're much too small, I'm not sure you got what it takes. It's hard work."

Kain was a little annoyed by his response. "I got what it takes. What do you want me to do to prove it?"

Still looking down on him, Gun pointed over the huge fire. "I'll show you one of the steps, and if you can get it right before the day is up, I'll take you as an apprentice." They walked over to it. The heat got nearly impossible to stand near. Kain began sweating profusely, but Gun showed no signs of discomfort.

"We'll skip a few steps. What I want you to try to do is to shape this metal into something useful." Gun pointed at a hot piece of metal. He grabbed the end of another that was close by and grabbed a large hammer. He began striking it. Kain watched closely, and he noticed there was a small glow around the hammer. He realized that Gun was releasing a small but steady amount of ki to help guide the process. A few minutes later, Gun had forged a rough shape of a dagger. "This is pretty shitty quality, but at least its an object of use. If you can make another like it, you might not be completely horrible at this. Just don't break any of our shit. If you do, you're paying for it."

Assuming Kain would take quite a while, Gun walked away, leaving him alone. Picking up the hammer and grabbing onto the piece of metal, Kain tried to recreate what Gun did. After a few strikes, the edge of the metal broke. "Shit," Kain muttered under his breath. He retried it, but he broke another piece off. "Okay, small but constant flow of ki..." Kain calmed himself down and slowly let ki go into the hammer. When he struck it again, a notification popped up.

Crafting Skill Leveled Up By 1

"Oh, cool! So doing this is part of my crafting." Kain went back to focusing on the task in front of him.

Nearly an hour later, his crafting skill had raised by 4, but he had yet to form the correct shape. He had started to get it, but it was still being difficult.

"Damn it, this is a lot harder than I thought," Kain said. He set down his equipment and went over to Gun, who was working on something not far away. "Hey, could you-" Kain cut himself when he saw the object Gun was making. It was a beautiful sword, made with pure steel. It had a simple look to it, but it was made with such perfect craftsmanship.

Gun stopped and looked up. "What do you want, brat? Help?" He grinned at his own comment.

"That sword is amazing!" Kain gasped.

"This thing? It's not bad. I could do better. But you won't be able to make anything like this just staring at it! Get back to work and put some damn effort into it." Gun began ignoring him and working on the piece again.

Pulling himself away from the craftsmanship, he went back over to his poorly made piece of metal.

Another hour had passed, and his crafting skill increased four more times. He finally had it shaped like a dagger. He unlocked a blueprint. Dagger (Poor Quality) After it had cooled down, Kain brought it over to Gun. Gun held it in his hand and looked it over. "The craftsmanship is pretty shitty, but I suppose you pass. Okay, you can be an apprentice." He shrugged Kain off.

Getting annoyed, Kain spoke. "Hey! I just spent two hours doing that, could you at least teach me something?"

Gun glanced at him with a blank look on his face. "There's a book over there, I don't feel like teaching you right now." He pointed over towards a desk.

"A book?" Kain glanced over towards where he looked. "Who's is it?"

"Mine," Gun replied, barely paying him any attention.

Kain grinned and walked over towards the book. "If he's gonna act like that, then I guess I don't mind doing this," he spoke under his breath as he picked up the book. He learned its contents, destroying Gun's book.

Crafting Skill Leveled Up By 5

Blueprints added: 24

After reading the book, he understood what he was doing wrong when he was creating the dagger. "Damn, I wish I could have learned it before I wasted two hours doing that. Though I guess Gun might have considered it cheating." Kain walked over once more to the fire and decided to forge a sword. It took him another hour, increasing his crafting skill once more, but it was successful. This time he got average quality.

Walking over towards Gun with the sword in his hand, Kain called out to him. "Here, I hope this is good enough for today. By the way, I destroyed your book." He threw that last part in after he had already handed the sword to Gun. He had turned around before he could see Gun's face getting red from anger.

"You brat, that was a good fucking book! I hadn't finished it!" Gun yelled out at Kain, who was already walking towards the exit. He then looked down at the sword that Kain had handed him. "Damn, did that kid really make this? This should take at least a month of training under me. Well, at least this will pay for my book."

Kain walked out the door and headed towards the building that held the alchemy master. After being in the room with the forge for so long, the cool air and the different aromas that came from it nearly shocked his system. "Hello?" he called out as he opened the door.

"Hi there, little one," an older lady replied. She had graying hair and was wearing casual clothes. She was in good shape for obviously being past her 50s.

Mira Remin Lv 47

Head Alchemist of Crimson Rain

She walked towards Kain to greet him, but tripped suddenly and nearly lost her footing. "Ah, clumsy me. So how can I help you?"

"I'm Kain, the clan head approved of me becoming an apprentice." Kain looked at her. She didn't appear to be very powerful, but her level obviously said otherwise.

"Oh are you now? As an alchemist, I presume," she replied, stepping up next to Kain.

"Yep. So how should I start?"

"Well, you're definitely going to need to know some basic mixtures before I let you touch anything. There's some books you can read about it over there." She pointed towards a bookshelf.

"Umm, do you have any copies?" Unlike with the blacksmith, Mira was treating him kindly, and he didn't really want to destroy her only set.

Mira smiled. "I've memorized all of those. You can take them with you if you want for free."

Kain smiled back and walked over to them. He picked up several different ones that she pointed out. "How much do these cost normally?"

"Those are just the very basics, so probably all of those would be about $100,000 Won. But you don't need to pay me."

Though Kain was perfectly willing to pay her for it, after hearing the price, he stuttered. "..$100,000 just for three books?"

She smiled. "You haven't bought much yet have you? Things like that aren't cheap at all. If you bought spell books, I know of some that can reach upwards of a billion won."

Kain's jaw dropped at that. When he recovered, he brought out the money and set it on a table for her. "I know you said I don't have to pay, but since these books aren't gonna last me very long, I feel like I should."

Mira glanced at him quizzically. "What do you mean?"

He learned the three books.

Crafting Skill Leveled Up By 6

Blueprints added: 31

"Oh my, that's an interesting technique," said Mira, looking around for any evidence of the books.

"I think I can make some beginner stuff now." Kain said. "I'm glad this is part of my crafting, too. That means doing both alchemy and forging will boost its level," he thought.

"If you're sure." Mira walked away, letting him walk towards the chemicals. She tripped on what appeared to be nothing as she backed up.

Kain made a simple poison. "Good job, Kain." Mira remarked. "If you can make enough money off some of your potions, I'll let you use that skill on the more expensive books." She smiled.

"Oh, I have something I could trade you for," Kain said as he opened his inventory. "Here." He handed her two of the health potions that he had got from the ghost drops.

She inspected them and then smiled. "I don't know how you got these, but you bought yourself two books from the next step up."

Kain walked over and learned those as well, gaining 5 more levels in his crafting and 19 more blueprints.

Crafting (Passive) Lv 27

Creating items from scratch is no easy task.

Success rate is dependent on quality of item

The Gamer of Crimson Rain

Kain Rockbear Lv 22 Exp 0.62%

Health: 290/290

Mana: 630/630

Vit: 29 + 12% + 14%

Str: 34 + 12% + 14%

Dex: 30 + 11% + 12% + 14%

Int: 36 + 12%

Wis: 31 + 12% + 6%

Luk: 2

Points: 100

Money: 183,500 Won