"-p… WAKE UP!"
*Twack*
"AH! Sh*t!" Jim yelled, falling off of the carriage and onto the dirt below.
"Huh, what? Eh?" Jim exclaimed, looking around while still half asleep.
"We're here. Introducing the capital of Starke! And up ahead, the Royal Palace!" Amelia exclaimed, pointing up ahead. Jim rubbed his eyes and looked at the building in front.
It was a tall marble castle, decorated with flags and gold shone in the rays of the rising sun.
"Wow. You were right. This does look different from what I saw before," he said. "It's way more fancy than what Jarvestia had."
"Indeed! With the coming of the new king the financial situation has improved. Our weapons are some of the highest quality amongst the kingdoms and our military power is unrivaled!" Amelia bragged.
"Ooh. Then we should visit the blacksmith's shop while we're on the way to the castle. Can you show me around?"
"Sure. But after that we are going straight to the castle, alright?"
"Sure sure. So, lead the way my friend!" Jim said as he began walking to the castle.
[]—
"Hi, welcome to my shop. What can I do for you?" a man said. He was leaning back on his chair with his feet on the counter and a drink in hand.
"Hi, I'm looking for your hammer section. Where can I find that?" Jim asked, looking around. The man pointed to the side where Jim saw one lonely hammer. The shop looked a lot emptier than he thought it would be. Instead of weapons on the shelves, Jim saw a few weapons scattered here and there, and a table with costs next to the door.
Weird. I expected more weapons.
"Where are all the swords and shields?" Jim asked, walking around the shop.
"I make weapons per order. People bring me materials, tell me how high the quality should be, and the time frame. Then I make it and hand it to the customer when they come in. Making a bunch of weapons no one will ever actually buy is useless if you have a good reputation like mine."
I guess? Usually you have at least a dozen weapons on display so that a customer can judge the man's work. But I guess if everyone knows who you are there is no point in wasting materia- wait, choose quality?
"What do you mean by choosing quality?"
"Just that. What quality do you want? If you want higher quality stuff, you gotta pay more."
"Interesting. And how much time would it take you to make a divine hammer out of random materials?"
"Depends how much I'm getting paid. The default is 1 week. You can pay extra for me to finish it faster."
"I see. I guess I'll keep that in mind for next time," Jim replied and walked up to the one hammer on display. It was just a simple shiny metal hammer. Other than it being shiny, there didn't seem to be anything special about it.
Reinforced Iron Hammer N
Abilities Unmastered: "Zweit Bash"
[O, O]
I take it all back, this one has the best stats. It's of such high quality that before I upgrade it, it already beats my powered up boss hammer! And I can transfer two effects! Hm, which ones do I pick? Also I guess a new skill is epic too.
"Don't break it! You break it, you buy it!" the blacksmith yelled from his counter.
"Alright, well, I'll be out of your hair then," Jim said, exiting the shop.
What a weird guy. Kinda reminds me of a burnt out retail worker from my world.
"Are you done with everything now?" Amelia asked. Jim nodded and she sighed in relief. "Follow me to the castle then."
Jim was led to the front gates, getting a good look at the streets. There were plenty of street food stalls where he got some food on the way to the castle. Some people smiled and waved at him when they saw his hammer.
Several minutes later they finally made it to the castle gates. Jim turned to Amelia, but she already melted into the shadows. A clicking noise and the turning of gears was heard as the drawbridge.
"Come on. Oh, and try not to do anything weird or break anything," Amelia said, leading Jim inside.
The inside was even more decorated than the outside. Golden rims decorated the interior. Sets of shiny armor with different weapons stood at the sides, as if prepared to guard the place. Jim wanted to copy a hammer on one of the sets of armors, but most of them had a sword, a spear, a shield, a bow or an axe. A few even had a crossbow or two.
Amelia led him into a guest room. There was a large table, several couches, and a large bright chandelier.
Ooh, fancy.
"Wait here. And this time, don't cause any trouble," Amelia said, disappearing into the shadows yet again.
With nothing to do, Jim began to pace around the room and look at the decor. Gold decorated a lot of things in this room, including the pillars, the chandelier, the table, the chairs, and even the shiny mirror on the wall.
"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the strongest of them all," Jim muttered, taking a closer look at the mirror. He raised his hand to try to wipe away a smudge on the top, when suddenly his mirror started glowing. Before he could even do anything, the mirror disappeared.
[Royal Mirror Hammer Unlocked]
"OH SH*T!" Jim yelled, shaking his hammer. "WHY DO YOU KEEP ABSORBING EVERYTHING?!"
Jim looked around in a panic for another mirror or something to replace it with, but a noise caught him off guard.
"Mister, who are you waiting for?" the voice asked. Jim looked behind him and saw a little girl standing in the doorway, hugging a teddy bear in her arms.
"Oh, uh… I'm waiting for a fellow hero. Apparently he wants to meet me, and the two of us will be able to help each other in ways only we can. What about you, kiddo?"
"Hm? Oh, I live here," she replied with a smile. "My name is Maira. This is Teddy."
Maria lifted the bear for Jim to see, and Jim smiled.
"I'm Jim, though people call me the crafter hero," he replied, raising his hammer. He began to spin it and rapidly swap between different weapon forms.
"Woah! That's so cool!" the child said, looking at the weapon in awe. "My dad has a ring like that."
"Your dad has a ring? As in, it can transform and has a fancy gem in the middle?" Maria nodded. "I see. Then I'm here to meet your dad. Do you know where he is?"
"He said he's busy with a meeting right now. Something about preparing for waves," she said, sitting down on one of the couches.
"I'm also here to talk about the waves. I actually just fought one on my way here," John bragged. "So far they aren't too bad, but we should be able to take care of them easier if we share a few things with each other."
"Will you fight the waves together? I heard my dad beat a wave recently, but a few people got hurt."
"If all things go well, then I don't see why not. Having more heroes should make the waves easier and help us avoid casualties."
"Yay! I'll go call my dad then. See you later mister hero," she replied, running out of the room
Oh my god, that was adorable.
Jim began to look through the stats of his hammer, and swapped to the one he found in the shop for its skill.
I guess this vassal hero has been here for a while, so he should have a lot of equip bonuses. I should keep stacking mine so as to not fall behind.
"Hello there, Crafter Hero," a male voice called out to him. He raised his head to see a man, not much older than him, looking back at him. He wore a small crown on his head, and his robes looked pretty fancy, yet they didn't seem to be restricting any movement. A bright ring shone on his finger with some magic twirling around the gem.
"Hello! Ring Hero I presume?" Jim asked, reaching out for a handshake. The man smiled and shook his hand.
"I'm known as the king around these parts, but yes, I am in fact the hero of the vassal ring. I'm glad to see you made it here safe and sound. Shall we take a walk as we talk?" he asked, gesturing to the hallway.
"Of course. I have a few questions regarding this world and also our weapons," Jim said, following the king.
"Very well. Ask away," the man nodded.
"What are the countries here like? I mean, I don't know much about the powers of this world."
"Well, as you already know, the country we are in is Starke. It has been named this way by a previous hero many years ago, and it holds almost all the land East of the Mountains of Divide. West of the mountains is Jarvestia, which holds almost all, if not all the lands in the area. Unfortunately nor me, nor the previous king could see eye to eye with Jarvestia, but we have managed to temporarily obtain a truce due to the waves. I fear we will all be wiped out if we can not unite against this otherworldly threat."
He had a solemn look on his face as he said that, but Jim ignored that. He opened up his status and looked at the method list.
"Right, speaking of the waves. I heard from Amelia that you also have your upgrade methods, and that they are shareable between users?"
"I'm afraid the vassal weapons only have 1 method. But I am curious to know how many you have."
"Four. How about I tell you two, you tell me yours, and I tell you the other two?" Jim asked.
"Very well. Let us walk to the hourglass of this country while we talk," the man nodded while making a turn.
Let's see. Which ones aren't the most useful? I guess these two? I won't tell him about synthesis buffing quality until I know he can be trusted.
"Alright. The first method is Crafting Level. As the hero crafts many things, he gets crafting exp. This is then used to level up the second level bar which has its own stats. It's like having an alt account with levels and layering the stats. Unfortunately, you don't get base stats as a bonus," Jim explained. The man looked at something in the air and nodded.
"Alright, the second method is Quality Up. You can turn extra items to energy and use that to upgrade the quality of your weapons. This raises their stats by a decent amount. But you do have a chance to fail."
"I see," he said. His ring seemed to shimmer several times, and the magic swirling around his gem seemed to glow brighter. A smile crept onto his face as he looked at the ring.
"Your turn," Jim reminded him.
"Of course. Microtransaction Enhancement. You can absorb and spend money to lower the chance of failure of other methods. It can also level up the methods up to level 10, increasing the stats you gain from the other methods."
A few new things appeared in Jim's status screen. When he looked at the method list, he saw a level up bar appear next to them.
Quality Power - Lvl 0
Crafting Level - Lvl 0
Quality Up - Lvl 0
Weapon Synthesis - Lvl 0
Microtransaction Enhancement
Upgrading quality methods and crafting would probably upgrade the stats. Will I get more slots by buffing weapon synthesis? Or maybe I can buy those directly?
"So it is a buff to other methods. That's pretty cool! So is G just gold?"
"Not exactly. If you absorb a copper coin, you will get 1 G. A silver is 100, and a gold is 10000. However, as I can see the price gets pretty high. Why don't you give it a try?" he asked, tossing a gold coin to Jim.
He threw it into the gem and saw 10k G added to his status screen.
"Interesting…" he muttered, looking through the new settings. Other than leveling up the methods themselves, a few extra options showed up next to his weapon status.
Now Quality Up success chance could be raised to 100%. He could also buy extra slots for the synthesis method. It was when he looked over his boss hammers that he remembered something.
"Oh yeah, by the way, do you have the material for the boss of the past wave? I don't have materials for that one, and if I recall correctly, they could give a pretty good weapon form when combined."
"Combined?"
"Right, that is where the third method comes in. It'll be easier to show than tell, so let's trade boss heads and see what happens," Jim said, pressing on the inventory. However, to his disappointment, nothing happened.
"Huh. How do I pull this out?" he grumbled, pressing on the status screen.
"Ah, are you trying to pull things out of the weapons inventory?"
"Yeah. Do you know how to do it?" Jim asked. The king nodded and pointed to the set of double doors. The knights guarding it pushed the doors open, letting them in.
Inside Jim saw the familiar dragon hourglass, spinning around with sand flowing downwards.
"If you want to pull things that aren't monster drops or auto crafted items, you have to use an hourglass. Like so," he explained, pulling out a Fenrir head, similar to the one Jim absorbed from the boss, except this one's fur was black and red, and flowing like a flame, instead of being yellow and jagged like lightning.
"Oh, I see it!" Jim said, after he registered at the hourglass. A new option popped up and the Fenrir head he kept as a souvenir plopped onto the floor.
"Huh… nice. I didn't know we had stuff like this. Alright, trade," Jim said, almost ripping the fenrir head from the king's hand.
[Flaming Fenrir Head Hammer Unlocked]
Thunder Fenrir Head Hammer N
Abilities Unmastered: "Flaming Burst"
Special Effects: Burning Mallet, Fire Resistance (Weak)
[O]
Jim swapped to the new hammer and looked at the effects. The hammer itself looked just like the thunder version, however, instead of sparks of electricity covering the hammer, its fur was on fire. He guessed that that was the effect of 'Burning Mallet'. He also noticed a small switch that appeared next to the weapons status, which he turned off, making the fires disappear.
"Nice! Now I just need to find the last boss of the second wave and I'm golden. Speaking of which, watch. See how this new mallet is constantly on fire, but nothing else? I'm going to synthesize the thunder version into this one and watch what happens."
Jim poked the status screen again and a wave of electricity surrounded the head of the hammer.
Thunder Fenrir Head Hammer N
Abilities Unmastered: "Flaming Burst"
Special Effects: Burning Mallet, Fire Resistance (Weak)
[Paralyzing Thunder]
NICE! I can buy another slot with the money method and then have a triple head fenrir hammer.
He saw the vassal hero swap through several rings until he picked one. A weird aura circled around the ring and he smiled.
"I think I got the hang of it. What about the last method?"
"Right. The last one is Quality Power. Unlike Quality Up, this one is a passive buff. The higher the quality of the weapon you copied or material you absorbed, the higher the stats. Really good stuff if you have or are a blacksmith," Jim smiled. Suddenly, he felt a terrifying pressure erupt from the king as he once again swapped through his weapon forms.
"Interesting, interesting. Very well. This has been very useful," he said, reaching into his pocket. "But I am afraid I can not let you destroy my kingdom."
"Huh? What the hell do you mean by that?" Jim asked, equipping another hammer. A clicking noise rang out and Jim felt the floor below him disappear.
"Goodbye crafter hero," the king said, as Jim began to fall into a pit.
"WRONG LEVEEEEEEEEEEEEER!" Jim yelled, falling down into the dark pit. The trap door closed and the king began to walk away.
"Pft, I didn't expect that," he giggled, as he remembered the reference.
"Sir, should we dispose of him and try to summon another hero?" one of the shadow sisters asked.
"No, Amanda. Hero or not, he was summoned by a holy weapon. There is a reason he was summoned. We should just keep him there for a while until the waves blow over," the king replied, petting her head. "Now call over your sister and let's plan for the next wave."