Chapter 75: The Pen is Mightier

Aegis found himself listening attentively to an old human male NPC, [Grand Architect Shermak - Level ??], as he paced in front of him. Shermak had a white goatee and short white hair with crow's feet around his eyes, and dark pockmarked skin. He had very muscular arms that were on display with his sleeveless t-shirt and brown cargo pants on, accompanied by thick leather boots reinforced with iron.

Shermak was in front of a large open roofed room as Aegis looked on into it while listening. The room had narrow stone paths that divided four evenly sized square plots of land covered in sand. Beside each plot was a stockpile of cut stone, wooden planks, and other tools and parts used for construction.

“Welcome to the Hectrin School of Architecture. Founded by the Legendary Architect Hectrin himself, who built the city of Kordas with his bare hands. He believed in teaching those his craft before he parted from this world, in the hopes that one day someone would walk in his footsteps and continue his work to rebuild Kordas to its former glory.” Shermak explained as he stopped pacing in front of one of the plots of land. Aegis took note that unlike the weapon intermediate quest area, this place had no other players present.

“You are one such hopeful, on the path to becoming a great architect. It is unusual to see a Priest of Eirene attempt to walk this path, but not unheard of. No doubt you have plans to build great cathedrals in her honor?” Shermak asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Before I can teach you the techniques necessary to take your craft to the next level, I need you to first prove to me that you have a strong grasp of the basics. Thus, I have prepared a test for exactly that.” Shermak finished as he waved his hands at the plot of land he stood in front of.

“Build me a tower with these materials you see here, and only these materials. Use the tools provided. The requirements are that the tower be three stories tall, and sturdy. Once you’ve completed the task, let me know and I will come to inspect it.” Shermak said as he held his hands behind his back.

Quest: Shermak has requested that you prove yourself to him by demonstrating you have what it takes to become an intermediate Architect.

Objective: 0/1 Shermak’s Test Passed.

Quest Giver: Grand Architect Shermak

Reward: Architecture(Intermediate)

Difficulty: Medium

Restrictions: Architecture(Beginner): 30

Once Aegis hit accept on the quest, Shermak walked past Aegis to leave the testing chamber and enter the door behind them from which they had entered from. Looking up at the afternoon sky through the open roof he could see some of Kordas’ taller buildings in the distance over the top of the tall walls of the room, a large flock of birds soaring by.

“This shouldn’t be too hard.” Aegis said to himself as he cracked his knuckles and stepped forward onto the plot of land, preparing to plan out where to start building the tower, but he realized right away that something was missing. His sense of distance, the weight and positioning of pillars, nothing was coming to him. He was drawing complete blanks on all fronts.

Aegis tried squinting and focusing, but nothing but his memories of his previous constructions came to mind. He could remember what he built previously, but not how he knew to build those buildings. It sunk in as he thought about it - everything Tullan had said about the training wheels coming off, and everything Lina had said about the skills not helping you for the quest. The game was blocking his Architecture skill from assisting him for this quest, he’d have to build it on his own.

He took a deep breath and looked at the planks and stone in the stockpile. His confidence wasn’t shattered yet, he still remembered the basics from what he’d built so far, and his brain was nothing but logical and good at problem solving. He grabbed some of the resources, the available copper hammer and nails, and got to work.

The further along in the construction Aegis got, the less confident he became, sticking the parts together to get the tower up to three stories high turned his construction into a desperately simple design. The requirements weren’t that the tower looked good, right? Aegis lowered his standards more and more as he built a simple set of four pillars, braced and reinforced in the best way possible to his knowledge, and added a ladder to the side that allowed him to climb up to a third floor where it was possible to stand on a small platform.

He stood back once it was done and looked at it with satisfaction. Sure, it was simple, and it wasn’t pretty, but it looked functional - it was a three story tower. Nonetheless, as he turned to call Shermak back into the building, he knew deep down, just by comparing what he had to do for his Shield Mastery, that this wasn’t going to cut it.

Shermak followed Aegis back into the testing chamber to look upon his creation, crossing his arms with visible disappointment.

“This is what you have to present to me?” Shermak said emotionlessly.

“Y-yeah. It’s three stories, it’s a tower. That’s what you asked for, right?” Aegis shrugged nervously.

“Yes, it is the bare minimum of what I asked for.” Shermak grumbled. “Now allow me to put it to the test.” He said as he pulled out a large majestic wand from his inventory, smoothly carved from what Aegis recognized to be Wildwood. It looked significantly more powerful than the wand of Identifying he’d seen before. Shermak gave the wand a quick flick towards Aegis’ tower, and Aegis watched as the isolated plot of land that the tower was built on began to quake violently.

“This land is a Floating Island. Filled with threatening beasts and dangerous magics. A structure that you build must be trusted by those who step inside it. It must offer them safety, shelter, and protection, up unto it’s last breath.” Shermak said as Aegis’ tower began to break apart and collapsed within seconds into a pile of broken wood and stone, but the quaking continued for a good 15 seconds after that point.

“Your tower is an insult to this school and I pity anyone who steps inside anything you’ve built. If this is the best you can do, then I urge you for the safety of the people of Kalmoore that you never construct anything on this island ever again.” Shermak glared at Aegis for a moment before walking back into the building. His words stung even though Aegis was expecting something like this. He prided himself on his ability to pass tests, and this one was an absolute failure. He decided to put off Architecture for now and focus on the other intermediates in the time he had left before the Airship would depart, but the results didn’t get much better from there.

“My lil' three year old could forge a better sword than this, It’s barely a sword at all, it’s a lump of garbage is what that is.” [Grand Blacksmith Yvonne - Level ??] shouted condescendingly as she inspected Aegis’ attempt to pass the intermediate blacksmithing quest.

“You call that steak cooked? A skilled druid could still bring this back to life!” [Master Chef Gordinus - Level ??] yelled at him after eating his attempt at cooking steak for his Intermediate cooking quest.

“Y’know, you’re supposed to stay ON the horse.” [Selfina - ??] mocked him as he lay on the dirt in a horse obstacle course, having been bucked off his palomino as it ran off ahead without him, causing him to fail his Riding intermediate quest.

“This is… are you insulting my mother on this page? I can’t tell because this is completely unintelligible gibberish.” [Great Scribe Edgar - ??] said while placing a parchment that Aegis had written on into the flames of a candle on his desk to burn it. He’d failed his intermediate Scribe quest.

“It’s a miracle you’ve gotten any ore with technique like that. D’you even know what you’re doin’ lad?” [Master Miner Corel - ??] mocked Aegis’ technique as he failed his intermediate mining quest.

Failure, after failure, after failure. Aegis was getting progressively more frustrated as he entered each test with confidence in his knowledge, only to learn that once the game's skills abandoned him, he barely knew anything about these crafting professions.

It wasn’t until he took on the intermediate alchemist quest that some semblance of skill was able to shine through. He sat at an alchemy station within the Alchemists Hall of Kordas, having prepared a simple elixir based on a recipe he’d been tasked with following. Using the alchemist station and the herbs given he’d manage to apply his knowledge of medicine he’d obtained from out of the game to complete the recipe rather easily.

“Very impressive. You’re a natural. It has been quite some time since I’ve seen such a high quality elixir, and it was on your first attempt.” [Master Alchemist Zibble - ??] gave him a respectful nod as he inspected the vial of red liquid that Aegis had brewed. Aegis was relieved that he’d finally passed at least one of these quests after his long streak of failures, and also happy to have finally learned the recipe for basic healing potions thanks to that being the focus of the test.

“You pass with flying colors. I look forward to seeing what recipes you add to our collections in the future. Do not be afraid to experiment, but be cautious with your creations. A skilled alchemist can not only cure the deadliest of ailments, but create them as well.” Zibble warned him as Aegis got a quest complete message and saw that he was now an intermediate alchemist. Zibble left the room but Aegis stayed sitting on a stool in front of the alchemist station in the dimly lit room for a few moments.

He was able to pass the alchemy quest because he had knowledge of the subject without the game’s help. So if he wanted to pass the other tests, he knew what he had to do, and as the realization dawned on him, a big mischievous grin grew over his face.

“You want to challenge me, game? To a studying contest? You don’t know who you're messing with.” Aegis said while opening his interface to send a message to Chax.

“Chax, how’s the sale going?” Aegis asked him.

“Done, I’m on my way to Rene now but I’ve got your share of the profits. Deducting 400 000 gold for the money I sent you, and the Kordas tax, and my fees, you’re left with another 120 000 gold. Pretty good, right?” Chax replied to him in text.

“Instead of holding the gold, can you convert that into real world currency for me and send it? There’s something I need to spend it on.” Aegis asked him.

“Sure, you got it boss.” Chax replied, and a few moments later, Aegis got the system message that Chax had sent him real world currency.

“Okay Shattered world, let’s do this.” Aegis smirked as he logged out of the simulation, but didn’t exit the Simbox - he instead switched over to his office simulation. Pressing a few buttons he opened up a store menu and sifted through the available materials in the shop, adding a plethora of textbooks to his shopping cart until he had a decent sized collection, and he purchased them all.

On his desk in the office environment, all of the books appeared on his desk neatly stacked. ‘Architecture for Dummies’, ‘Structural Integrity and You’, ‘Blacksmithing in the Middle Ages’,’Great Weapons of the Past and How They Were Made’,’Cooking to Impress the Unimpressible’, and many more. Eli looked over the collection, snapped his finger to cause a pencil to appear in his right hand, sat at the desk and then waved his hands in front of him to cause multiple video viewers to appear in front of him. Within minutes he was not only reading books on the topics, but watching tutorials and guide videos, treating them like podcasts as the knowledge filled his ears and his eyes scanned the pages of the books open in front of him.

He had four weeks at simulation speed 4, or one week in the real world to learn these skills well enough to pass the intermediate quests before the Night Hunters would be ready to travel across the Shattered World, and he was determined to do it. Studying was nothing but another Monday to Aegis.

Three Weeks Later…

Aegis leaned back against the wall of the testing chamber of the Hectrin School of Architecture. His tower stood proudly, three stories tall in the square plot of land he’d selected to use for the test. Structurally sound, braced properly, solid foundation, reinforced everywhere it needed to be. Simple, yet sturdy. Shermak inspected it closely, eying it up and down and walking around it, running his fingers over the wood frames. After a moment, he gave Aegis a blank stare, it was clear he still hadn’t forgotten their first encounter.

“It looks like you took my words to heart and worked hard to improve. It certainly looks much better than the last one, but…” Shermak said as he drew out the wand from his inventory, moving to stand beside Aegis. “Let’s see if it’s more than just looks.” Shermak waved the wand, and the plot of land began to quake violently. The tower shook, its foundation vibrating rapidly. Aegis watched nervously as a crack began to form in one of the wooden pillars, growing with every second that past, but in the end after 15 seconds, the building remained standing.

“Good. Much better. It seems you’ve learned the importance of building not only aesthetically pleasing structures, but structures that keep those within protected from harm. A sturdy structure is a welcoming one.” He put his wand away and pressed his large hand on Aegis’ shoulder. “Perhaps there’s still hope for you yet, but you’ve got a long way to go.” He let go and turned, leaving Aegis to read a ‘quest complete’ message.

“Hell yeah!” Aegis shouted excitedly, taking a moment to stretch his arms under the bright afternoon sun, gray clouds scattered about above him. He quickly popped open his character interface to look over all of the skills. As a result of his studying and retesting, he’d gotten through almost all of them in the course of the past three weeks. Outside of his class skills, there were now only two remaining that were still beginner skills, his Leadership skill and Craftsman Mastery.

It took a bit of asking around, both Players and Kordas guards, until Aegis got clear directions on where he needed to go for the Crafting Mastery intermediate quest. Ultimately ending up in the Crafting District of Kordas, inside the Storage hall. The storage hall was a simple building used by crafters, allowing players to rent out space to hold their excess items. The second floor of the building was made up of a maze of hallways and doors, each of the doors with a nameplate hammered onto it.

Aegis wandered the wooden hallways, lit by lanterns and open windows, in search of the door with the name of the Storage Hall Keeper, who he’d learned to be called Terpus. As he searched he saw a lot of familiar names on the doors, most of them belonging to the Master Crafters whose tests he had completed, but eventually at the end of a long plain hallway he found a door marked with Terpus’ name.

He knocked on the door and waited for a response, hearing a voice call out from the other side.

“I’ll be with you in a moment.” He heard a wheezy voice shout from the otherside. Aegis waited a few moments until the door swung open to reveal a familiar face, [Tullan - ??].

“Oi, what’re you doin’ ‘ere?” Tullan shouted up at him with a stack of parchment in his hands. Aegis looked at the dwarf, then looked over top of him to see inside the room on the opposite end [Master of Trade, Terpus - ??] sitting behind a desk. He was wearing baggy gray robes and had a long white beard and a receding hairline, with old wrinkled skin, not looking at the two but rather staring at some documents on his desk.

“I’m here for the intermediate crafting mastery quest… what are you doing here?” Aegis replied somewhat defensively.

“I’m organizin’ our available goods to trade on behalf of Kordas, for our lil trip to Kriene. Gonna make the most of that two week long journey yer draggin’ everyone on. But, you, doin’ the craftin mastery quest? Hah, this oughta be good.” Tullan gave him a mocking grin. “Better hope ye’ don’t get blacksmithin’.” He added as he stepped aside to let Aegis into the room, but rather than leave he remained in the doorway to watch as Aegis walked across the large hexagonal shaped office. Each wall of the room had a different crafting station or tools and benches to perform various crafts and refinements, including a small furnace built into one of the walls that was making a hissing sound from the bellows blowing into it unmanned, as if it were enchanted to do so. Aegis wasn’t sure exactly what Tullan meant by ‘get blacksmithing’ but he felt confident in his abilities now and proceeded without hesitation.

“Yes, young Priest, how may I help you?” Terpus asked as he looked up from his desk of papers, speaking in an old wheezing voice.

“I’m looking to become an intermediate crafting master.” Aegis asked politely.

“Ah, yes, of course you are. I can tell by your hands and how you walk, you’ve put your body to work in a great many labors. It’s only natural you would want to learn how to bring them all together.” He said as he opened a drawer in his desk. “There’s great merit in learning multiple crafts, and mastering them as one. You learn something from one skill, and it helps you improve your hand at another. But to properly combine them all together is not something that just anyone can do. If you wish me to teach you further, I ask that you first impress me.” He pulled out a small rounded object from his desk drawer and held it out to Aegis in his palm.

It was a single 6 sided dice, but none of the sides had numbers, instead they had shapes that Aegis recognized at once when he took the dice from his palm and looked at it, rotating it in his own hands. One side represented Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Alchemy, Stonecutting, Sewing, Leatherworking, and lastly Cooking.

“Roll that on the table here.” He gently tapped his desk as Tullan approached to watch from behind. Aegis was hoping for Alchemy as he shook the dice gently in his palms and rolled it out onto the table, watching it roll around until it bumped into a stack of papers and stopped. The symbol for blacksmithing was facing upwards.

“Hah, yer screwed.” Tullan laughed when he saw it.

“It appears you’ve landed on smithing. I shall decide what it is you make to impress me. Do bear in mind that I am a much stricter judge than the craftsman that have come before me. I will not judge you on blacksmithing alone, but also how you use your other crafts to enhance it.” Terpus explained as he looked Aegis in the eyes, and Aegis couldn’t help but listen and stare back in his kind expression.

“Hm. How’s about a short sword, I see you’ve got one there on your waist.” He motioned to Aegis’ sheathed shortsword on his belt.

“Hoo boy. This’ll be good. Mind If I watch ye?” Tullan grinned.

“Knock yourself out.” Aegis replied confidently as the quest appeared in front of his peripheral vision and he hit the accept button. He turned to scan around the room and understood now why all of the various crafting stations were present. He’d of course need the forge, but Terpus was inviting him to use everything he could to make the sword.

He looked to see a small crate off to the side of the furnace filled with unrefined copper ore, and knew where he needed to start. The moment he bent over and picked up the copper, he could feel that his skills were disabled - they wern’t helping him. Luckily he’d studied hard the last three weeks and he knew what the game wanted him to do to refine these. The refinement process for ore and the metal properties different greatly from this world and the real world, but most of the concepts were the same.

He filled the ore into the smelting pot and got to work, refining it to remove impurities first. Tullan took a seat on one side of the desk and alternated between reading the documents he had in his hand and watching Aegis work, while Terpus did the same with the pages on his desk, occasionally writing things in on them. The sound of the bellows whistling, the shuffling of papers, the scribbling of quills, and people walking along the streets outside the open windows of the room were all that could be heard at first.

Once Aegis moved on to hammering the shape, the tinging sound of the available copper smithing hammer banging on the copper anvil echoed off the walls, until Aegis had finished with the blade and hilt, making sure to keep the counterweight the right size to balance it with the rest of the blade. For this part in particular, Tullan paid great interest and watched as Aegis did the final steps.

“Hrm, looks like you’ve done some work researchin’. That’s lookin’ a whole lot better than the junk you threw up on the auction house a few weeks back. It’s gonna take more than that ter’ pass this quest though.” Tullan smirked as Aegis took a step back and looked around the room once more. Artistry and stone cutting was next. Aegis used a jewelcrafters kit in the room to cut several quartz stones down to gem like shapes, then used them with his refinement and blacksmithing to cut in holes to inset them into the hilt, giving it a decorative design. He then combined that with his scribing to engrave a name for the sword at the base of the blade without upsetting the balance, writing ‘Tullan’s Bane’ in Shattered World lettering. Finally, for the finishing touches, he sharpened the blade and wrapped leather strands tightly around the hilt after properly curing a crude hide that was laying in a crate off to the side of the room, mixing in his alchemy to create a blue dye and dying the ends of the leather to give it a unique styling that matched what he was already wearing on his own leather armor.

Once the weapon was completed, Aegis headed to the enchanting station in the room that had a single available lesser enchanting orb and used his Bless skill on the orb, then added the enchantment to the blade as the final touch. Though the processes were sped up and completed much faster than they would've been in the real world, the entire craft still took Aegis several hours until he felt ready to present the sword to Terpus. He did some sharpening using a grindstone as best he could before placing the sword neatly down on the desk in front of Terpus.

“Is this your finished craft? Are you ready for me to examine it?” Terpus asked as he looked up from his documents, while Tullan stood up from his chair to take a look.

“Yes, I’m finished.” Aegis replied, though his confidence had waned and nervousness began to fill his mind as he prepared to be judged.

“Ye’ve certainly improved, no doubt about that. If you’d made yer Iron swords like this, yer’ pockets’d be a lot heavier I’d wager.” Tullan looked at the sword impressed. “Not a fan of the name though, ye’ cheeky bastard.” Tullan noticed the writing on the blade. Terpus gently picked it up with one hand on the hilt and one on the blade.

“Quite sharp, very deadly, yet beautifully made. I can see a great deal of care was put into this creation.” He slowly rotated the shortsword around in his hands to look at it from all sides before holding it upright by the hilt. “Well balanced. As light as it can be while maintaining its effectiveness in combat. Wonderful detail so that the short sword stands out from the many others out there in the world. Certainly the one who would wield this would do so with great pride, and it would leave a lasting impression on anyone who saw it.” Terpus gently waved the sword around in front of himself a few times before slowly placing it back down on the desk.

“You’ve impressed me, consider the test passed, and I will add this sword to my collection. I like to collect the crafts made by promising Craftsmen, sort of like a token, to show off when you one day achieve greatness. Yes, I see great creations in your future.” Terpus smiled as Aegus got a quest completed notice.

“Well done then lad. It’s a shame yer’ given up your Iron source now that ye’ finally know how to craft the good stuff.” Tullan said mischievously as he watched Aegis fiddle around with his interface. Aegis turned in the quest to get the reward, and was hit by several notifications. One that he was expecting, and one that he was not expecting.

Congratulations! You have advanced from Crafting Mastery(Beginner): 30 to Crafting Mastery(Intermediate): 30. You may now level this skill up to a maximum of 150. [WORLD NOTIFICATION]

The player [Aegis - Level 30] has become the first player in the world to reach intermediate in every crafting skill.

Tullan saw the notification pop up in front of him and had a dumbfounded expression on his face, his jaw slowly dropping down as his eyes opened wide. Aegis stared back at Tullan with an equally dumb blank stare of shock.

“I was not expecting that.” Aegis whispered in disbelief.

“I was not expecting that.” Shinji whispered as he watched Aegis viewership numbers suddenly shoot upwards rapidly.