《The Will of the Strong》Grinding and Goblins
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Once again Thorin was woken up at the break of dawn.
“Why do I feel like you enjoy my suffering.” Thorin complained to Cynar.
“We have no time for this Thorin you should just get used to it.” Cynar said while shaking his head.
“Fine, but we aren't working all day I want to spend some time unwinding. Otherwise I'm going to go insane way before I can get strong.” Thorin said hoping to get some time to relax.
“That is reasonable.” Cynar said realizing that unlike himself, Thorin didn't have unlimited stamina.
“Alright then let's enchanting.” Thorin said happily as he went back over to his desk.
He brought out the dagger from yesterday and set it on the table. He made a small cut on his index finger and created his mana flame
“Okay, I’m ready what do I have to do.” Thorin asked.
“You already know the rune’s pattern, so you just need to inscribe it into the dagger using your mana flame. While you're doing this focus on making the magic bond with the metal not destroy it.” Cynar explained.
“Alright doesn't sound too hard.” Thorin said as he pulled the runes pattern up in his head.
He began to trace the design of the rune on the blade while focusing on making the blade absorb his mana.
At one of the more intricate parts of the rune, Thorin's concentration lapsed. The result was his concentrated mana biting a hole through the dagger ruining it.
“Fuck” Thorin shouted as he dropped the steaming hot dagger.
“Try again” Cynar said while Thorin pulled out a new dagger.
Thorin started again this time with ironclad focus. This time the dagger received all of the mana, but the rune unraveled due to his pattern being off. He failed again but already this time the dagger was still usable.
Thorin sighed as he tried once more this time finding a happy medium between focusing on the mana and the design. Having to be careful, he inscribed at a very slow pace.
After an hour of excruciatingly slow enchanting, Thorin shouted out with joy and held up his creation.
Cynar glanced over at it.
“Decent for your first one, keep on going it will get easier and faster.”
“Great I’d hate for it to take me a day just to enchant twelve dagger.” Thorin said as he prepared to start again.
For the next five hours Thorin sat there engrossed in enchanting daggers. He eventually became more confident and slowly sped up his speed with each dagger. By the time he ran out of daggers to enchant he had made seven and brought his time down to forty minutes per blade.
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“Alright, Cynar I’m off the clock now.” Thorin said gathering all of his newly enchanted daggers into his backpack.
He then went downstairs grabbed some food from the kitchen and left the inn. He walked around the small town until he came across the smithy.
He walked into the building, where he saw various tools, and weapons lining the walls. He could hear a loud banging coming from the back where the forge was. Thorin decided to go up to the counter and wait patiently. Within fifteen minutes, the banging finally stopped.
“Ello’ someone there.” A deep voice boomed out.
“Yes, I’m here about selling some of my wares.”
“One moment lad be right out with you” The smith said as he walked into the store front.
He walked over to the end of the counter where there was a bucket of water. He splashed his face and wiped of the soot sticking to his arms.
“What do you got for me?” He said after finishing up.
“Some crudely enchanted daggers I made to practice. The enchantment is sturdiness.” Thorin said while he took all eight daggers and placed them on the counter.
The smith walked over and looked at each of them. He tested their sharpness, weight and looked over the enchantment.
“Now I have only worked with enchanted gear on a couple occasions. Each one involved a good amount of money. The problem is that the enhancement isn't that useful, and that they are daggers.” The smith said apologetically.
“It’s tough to sell daggers, especially if I charge more for the enhancement. Now if these were swords, well then we be taking easy gold. The best I can do is one gold and sixty silver at twenty silver a piece.”
“Wait so enchanted swords sell for more and are easier to sell, how about to give me fifty silvers for some pocket money. You can pay for the rest by giving me swords that I would enchant and bring back.” Thorin said hoping to strike a good deal.
‘This way I can practice more and make some more money while I’m at it.’ Thorin thought cleverly.
“Doesn’t sound too bad, but I have to get your word you won't sell your enchanted gear at any other store in town. I’ll give you your fifty silver and five swords right now. How soon can you get them enchanted?” The smith asked.
“By tomorrow most likely. Sounds like a deal, by the way the name is Thorin Black.” Thorin said happy with the exchange.
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“My name is Stephen Brighter, good to be doing business with you.” Stephen said as he reached out and shook hands with Thorin.
After picking out the swords and getting his fifty silver coins Thorin made his way over to the inn. After that he went on a much need shopping spree spending almost of his money on changes of clothes, a history book and more supplies just in case he had to leave town.
After this Thorin decided to indulge himself with his last silvers, hanging around the main floor of the inn, drinking, dancing and having fun. He felt the wound up stress he had built up in his short journey start to unwind. He let himself in enjoy this moment, he wouldn’t know when he’d get another chance.
For a week, Thorin stayed in that inn, working on enchanting. He learned new runes like, sharp, light, and self-repair. Thorin continued to sell to Stephen, and receiving more swords, axes and other weapons. He kept some of these weapons for himself while at the same time making quite a large sum of money. He also started to familiarize himself with the local culture and read the history book which to his surprise completely omitted the Great War. He became quite good friends with Stephen who he started drinking with regularly. Thorin even somehow befriended the grumpy Inn owner, by helping throw out a drunk how punched one of the bar maids. Surprisingly his name was Jeffrey.
Finally at the end of the week he made a total of a hundred and twenty gold coins and had a small armory in his dimensional space. Also due to his hard work his willpower and intelligence increased by three each.
He was getting bored though. When he saw that his inn room reservation ran out he decided to find something else to do. He was randomly walking through the market when he found a board full of requests put up by the town and its people. Most of them were request for laborers or even a nanny job. There was one that Thorin found particularly interesting.
It was a bounty request. That said goblins over population making migration to human kingdoms. The Mayor of the town will pay anyone fifty copper for each goblin ear collected. Goblins, last sighted in the forest east to the town. They are in small groups of three to five.
‘This would be a good chance to get stronger while at the same time make more money.’ Thorin thought.
“It would be a good chance for you to use your new spells to and advance” Cynar said agreeing with Thorin's decision to pursue this request.
Thorin then went on to prepare for his new journey, by buying provisions and saying his goodbyes.
He then left the town and made his way east. As he entered his forest and was able to summon his skeletons again. It was weird it was almost like he missed their company. He continued to walk westerly in the woods until, one day he found a group of goblins.
There were about ten of them eating a deer roasted over a fire. They had crude weapons, but weren’t on guard and Thorin was able to slip away and make his own camp a half an hour away.
Not wanting to take any chances, Thorin sent Cynar out in his invisible form to scout out the goblins.
After two hours, Cynar came back.
“There isn’t any small groups, Thorn only scouts.” Cynar said in a panicked voice.
“Wait what are you talking about, calm down.” Thorin said confused.
“I went past that group of goblins because I saw smoke in the back of the tree line. I followed it and saw more than just small groups, I saw a war tribe. At least a thousand or so. Enough goblins to make quick work of us and the town.”
“Well shit we can't let that happen and we won't be able to get news of this back to the town with enough time to prepare before the goblins get there.” Thorin said.
“Looks like it’s up to us.” Thorin said with determination filling his mind.
Name: Thorin Black Class: Necromancer Lv 5 12/50 XP Health 240/240 Mana 1420/1420 Stats: Strength: 26 Vitality: 24 Stamina: 16 Endurance: 9 Intelligence: 42 Willpower: 55 Agility: 12 Dexterity: 11 Skills Summon Familar Rank S Summon Skeleton Rank D Life Siphon Rank D Skeletal Refinement Rank D Talents Affinity with Death Dimensional Storage Head Start Magic Reserves Strong Soul Blood Lord Thorin's Forces Skeleton 3
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