Out of over 50 people that came, only 12 managed to pass the monthly selections for the Blacksmithing Guild. Me being one of them, or at the very least temporary being one of them.

All 12 of us were brought into a room, and in front of the room stood a dwarf.

“So ya are the new recruits ha? I am Advanced Disciple Gregon! I shall be in charge of ya lot! From now on, here is what ya need to know as Junior disciples...”

We spent about 5 hours being lectured by Gregon about the details of this and that. All of it could be summarized into 8 simple points:

1) We will each be assigned a room and share that room with 3 other people

2) Food will be given twice a day at 7 o’clock and 20 o’clock

3) We are required to smelt 20 [Copper Ingots] and 10 [Bronze Ingots] per week, these ingots must exceed the quality of 1. We are allowed only a 10% failure rate. If we fail, no dinner for a week. If we succeed, 2 [Copper Ingots] and 1 [Bronze Ingot] are ours to practice with.

4) If the quality of our smelting and blacksmithing is good enough, we can ask for special permission to instead smelt 20 [Bronze Ingots] and 10 [Iron Ingots]. In doing so, we can keep 2 [Bronze Ingots], and 1 [Iron Ingot]. Above that, we need to become an Intermediate Disciple.

5) As a Junior Disciple, we are forbidden from publicly selling our wares. Private sales are allowed, but we have to hand over 90% of it to the guild. To sell publicly, we need to at least become an Intermediate Disciple.

6) We are allowed to receive private guidance once a month from an Intermediate Disciple and once a year from an Advanced Disciple.

7) To become a Intermediate Disciple, there are 2 methods. The first is to pass a test given once a year, and the second method is to win in the competition.

8) The competition is held once every 3 months, and is held between the Junior Disciples and Intermediate Disciples. During this competition, not only do you have potential to become an Intermediate Disciple, you also have a chance at being kicked out, as this competition is also used to gauge how you have improved. If they do not see much improvement during the competition, you will be marked as untalented and thrown out of the guild.

We were also required to sign the 2 year contracts, and given some general information.

After being shown to my room along side 3 other roommates. The first thing I did was head to where the ores were being smelted.

The reason being quite obvious…

You have acquired a new skill [NP][Smelting] Level 1

Congratulations! You have completed the class quest [Creationist: Improve your production skills]

+25 PER has been attained

Class quest [Creationist:Improve your production skills], has been reset.

And just like that, my [PER] pretty much doubled!

I spent around 2 hours staring at everyone to make sure I pick up the highest level smelting I could get. Which ended up with me getting [Smelting] to Level 4. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the limit in this area.

The issue is that the blacksmithing guild is divided up into 4 areas. North, West, South and East. Right now I am in the south area which is limited to Junior Disciples only. To get better skills I need to move to a different area, but those areas are forbidden for Junior Disciples without special permission.

Now that my smelting skill has reached such a level, I went to the counter and retrieved the first of my copper ores to begin smelting. When I was observing the others doing smelting, I wasn’t only looking to gain their levels but also paying attention to what they were doing, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken as much as 2 hours to take just their skill levels.

With the assistance of [Smelting] at level 4 and what I learned while watching, I smelt my first [[Copper Ore] into an ingot.

Copper Ingot

A poor quality copper ingot. Used in the production of metallic goods

Quality 1.23/10.00

Hmmm...well at least it surpassed the quality threshold of 1 that is required for our quotas...I am also seeing an extra decimal appear, is that due to my increased [PER] stat?

As I was thinking that…

[Creationist] quest unlocked!

[Creationist] Ingot creation

Produce 50 ingots with at least a quality score of 1.

Type: Continuous 1/10

Status: 1/50

Reward: 1 [PER]

Somehow I have this feeling of production being a total grind fest… * sigh *

Since the test and lecturers took up the majority of the day, not wasting any more time, I get more [Copper Ore] and smelt another ingot. This time around, being more familiar with the process, it took much quicker and the results were much better.

Copper Ingot

A semi-poor quality copper ingot. Used in the production of metallic goods

Quality 2.04/10.00

While I was rather happy with the improvement, I was still less than fully pleased. Based on the lecture given, the average [Copper Ore] has a quality score of 5. Considering my skill level, there should be no reason why I could not smelt an ingot with similar quality score.

Since it was already getting close to dinner, I smelted my last ingot for the day and managed to get a quality score of 3.26. So my improvement rate is at least quite phenomenal, but still a long way to go… Copper is just the lowest level metal after all.

Like everything else so far, metals are broken down into ranks:

Rank G: Copper

Rank F: Bronze

Rank E: Iron

Rank D: Steel

Rank C: Enchanted/Demon/Holy Steel

Rank B: Mithril

Rank A: Adamantite

Rank S: Orichalcum

Yup, a long way to go…

And my lack of strength is not helping either. I really need to level up or raise my [STR] stat...My arms are hurting like hell from just this.

I hand in my 3 [Copper Ingots], and head towards the cafeteria for dinner. The food was broth which was less than spectacular, as all things I have eaten thus far in this world. After that I headed off to bed while thinking about what I should do for tomorrow.

If not for my lack of strength, at the rate I am improving, I should be able to smelt 20 [Copper Ingots] per day. But due to my lack of it, I can probably at best smelt only 10. So my top priority should be raising my strength maybe?

The thing is that training stats has proven pretty unreliable. So the only reliable way to gain strength is to level up. Unfortunately the XP I am getting from smelting and smithing things alone is minuscule. Even if my ingots are used by others to smelt things giving me extra XP, it is far from enough.

So I would need to aim for raising my racial class if I want to gain strength...So should I go herb hunting tomorrow and attempt to trap some low level monsters? Though I would have preferred to do that at least after making better equipment…Who knows what can happen in combat...

Wait! There is another option isn’t there?!?! If I can somehow find someone who uses a skill that helps unlock another attribute, I may be able to improve my strength significantly in one go. Similar to how [AGI] and [SPD] have overlaps, there should be an attribute that overlaps with [STR] as well.

The question is... How would I find someone with such an attribute and learn it? My Unique Skill is limited to only when used on a valid target, so I can’t just go to a training ground and watch them hit target dummies with skills. I already tried when watching the middle aged man during training, and no dice. Of course if I can watch someone dueling with another person, that would probably work.

How about this...tomorrow, I’ll make about 2 [Copper Ingots] in the morning, then head to the Adventurers Guild. There, I will inquire the receptionist details about how often they have duels or other combat sessions going on under the pretense of wanting to learn live combat. From there, I will head to the forest and collect some herbs. Then when I come back, smelt 2-3 more ingots and call it a day.

Not to mention, if I can make over 40 iron coins tomorrow, that would put me at just enough to be able to access the library. Then I can visit it the day after and read up information about this world. If there are any books on blacksmithing, I can also improve on my ability in that way too.

Speaking of improving on ability, I should also probably use that private lesson from an Intermediate Disciple. But that should probably wait until next week. Judging from the smelting, I still have room to improve even on my own.

With my plans for the short term made up, I fall asleep.