The Return of the Legendary Golden-Handed Blacksmith - Chapter 21

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 21
21.
[Brass Steel Pickaxe]
-Attack Power: 30~50
-Grade: A
-Durability: 3500 / 3500
[A promising craftsman, Jin Woo’s brass steel pickaxe. The workmanship is exceptional.]
Jin Woo examined the completed pickaxe.
A beautiful brass-colored yellow light radiated outward from its surface.
The design was also quite refined, and it was even A-Grade in classification.
-You have crafted A-Grade equipment for the first time!
-You have achieved an Achievement!
-You have achieved the [Beginning of Legend] Achievement.
[Beginning of Legend]
You’ve made A-Grade equipment for the first time. This very moment marks the beginning of the history you will write!

-You have been registered in the Hall of Honor.
-Rankings are being recalculated.
All Stats +20.
“Hall of Honor? I thought that was only for quests?”
Jin Woo checked the newly registered Hall of Honor with a satisfied expression.
[Beginning of Legend]
Achievement Hall of Honor
-1. Jin Woo
-2. Starlight
-3. In Classic
……
-Remarkable Achievement!
-You have received additional Stat Points!
“Ho? First place? And I made A-Grade so late into the game too. Just how much have the second and third-place people been slacking off?”
From Jin Woo’s perspective, making A-Grade equipment at his current level could be considered rather slow. Still, he was satisfied with this much.
“Well, that’s fine. Crafting starts from A-Grade anyway.”
Jin Woo gripped the completed pickaxe.
“Mm.”
The grip felt quite good.
“Making it as one solid piece is much better. The head and handle won’t separate and break anymore.”
The pick head and body of a pickaxe wore down quickly with extended use.
That’s why the basic pickaxe he’d received from Red had already lost durability rapidly.
“Well, I’ve made my own pickaxe now.”
Jin Woo grinned.
“And I still have quite a bit of material left.”
It was time to start making money.
Whoooosh—!
Jin Woo began mass-producing pickaxes.
“Looking at them, the designs out there are all pretty mediocre, and the functionality is poor too. Plus the durability isn’t great either.”
It seemed there probably wasn’t a craftsman who specialized in pickaxes.
“Pickaxes can actually be used as weapons too. So you can’t just think of them as farming tools or mining implements—that’s boring. They need to be useful in various situations. Especially in mines with monsters around. It’d be good if you could just deal with them directly using a pickaxe instead of swapping weapons.”
Jin Woo designed the pickaxe with this in mind.
“But the Mining Skill function can’t be lacking either. That’s the core purpose after all.”
* * *
“Pickaxes for sale!”
Once Jin Woo arrived at the Mine, he set up a mini stall and laid out his pickaxes.
“Pickaxes?”
“Wait, isn’t that the guy from yesterday?”
“The one Red was teaching.”
“What’s this about pickaxes?”
Everyone looked bewildered when Jin Woo suddenly started selling pickaxes.
A miner who had been mining perfectly well was suddenly selling pickaxes.
“Did you make these yourself?”
“Yes, I made them myself. Yesterday I noticed everyone here was using pickaxes in pretty rough condition.”
Jin Woo gestured to a user.
The user approached him as if spellbound. Jin Woo handed him a pickaxe.
“The head and body are integrated into one piece. Go ahead, try swinging it down.”
It was certainly a refined-looking pickaxe.
“It should feel more comfortable than before.”
But weren’t all pickaxes basically the same anyway?
The user applied force with the pickaxe Jin Woo had given him.
“……Huh?”
He let out a sound without thinking.
A perfect, snug fit.
The user immediately swung the pickaxe down at the ore vein.
Crack—.
The moment the pickaxe struck the ore vein, he felt a distinct responsiveness.
This pickaxe.
“It’s different…….”
The feeling was different.
No, it wasn’t just the feeling.
Clang—! Crack—! Crack—!
He was a miner user.
Because of that, he could normally extract ore from a vein in fewer than ten strikes.
But the moment he used Jin Woo’s pickaxe, he extracted the ore in exactly five strikes.
Pop—.
An unidentified ore fell from the vein and rolled across the ground.
At that sight, everyone fell silent for a moment.
“What you’ve just seen is the proof.”
Jin Woo smiled and spoke.
A brief silence.
“I’ll b-buy one!”
“Give me one!”
“I’ll take one!”
Everyone began getting excited about Jin Woo’s pickaxes. They rushed forward with pouches of Gold, eager to buy.
“This is cheaper and better than what they sell at the workshop!”
“And it actually looks cool too.”
Jin Woo’s pickaxes weren’t just good in stats.
His unique sense of aesthetics shone through, making them visually quite excellent.
With the head and handle integrated into one piece, they resembled an eagle’s talon.
“Give it to me!”
“Please sell me one!”
“I’ll pay extra! Sell to me!”
“Please line up in order. I have plenty of stock.”
Of course, he’d brought quite a bit, but it wasn’t enough.
Ultimately, many users ended up unable to purchase Jin Woo’s equipment.
“When will the r-restock come!?”
“I have money! I’ll pay more. How much was it? 100 Gold? I’ll pay 300 Gold!”
Pickaxes used by miners were basically simple.
Only the materials differed.
Their functionality wasn’t particularly important.
Miner users didn’t pay much attention to it either. After all, if you leveled up your Mining Skill, you could extract from veins more effectively anyway. They focused on honing that instead.
But they’d just witnessed it with their own eyes.
Equipment mattered.
Depending on what kind of pickaxe you used, the effort required was fundamentally different.
Efficiency changed.
“I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“You absolutely must!”
“Please sell to me first! I’ll pay 500 Gold!”
Jin Woo grinned.
This was the first time he’d sold something directly himself. When he’d sold through Hoze, it hadn’t felt real, but this time it was absolutely tangible.
‘This is what it’s about.’
This is why craftsmen do what they do.
* * *
After logging out, Jin Woo opened his email.
“Oh.”
He hadn’t even noticed mail had arrived while he was absorbed in the game.
“They’re giving me a reward for defeating Rutten’s Steel Monstrosity?”
An email had come from Suomi, the company publishing New Generation. It was regarding the Rutten Steel Monstrosity incident.
-Hello, User Jin Woo! We are Suomi, the publisher of New Generation…….
“Hmm.”
The email was quite long, but summarized, it was saying they would grant him a reward for clearing Rutten’s Steel Monstrosity.
-If you choose a reward of your preference, we will grant it through cooperation with Logical, the superintelligent AI that oversees New Generation.
“You’re saying you’ll grant me one thing I want?”
Of course there would be limits. It seemed the superintelligent AI Logical’s balancing was involved.
“I can’t ask for just anything, then.”
Jin Woo had one thing he needed right now.
“I need a Workshop.”
Blacksmithing, potion crafting, gem-setting.
He needed his own Workshop where he could work on various things simultaneously.
“Not just any workshop though—I need a customizable one of my own. One where I can fully apply my skills. Without that, any other reward is meaningless to me.”
-Would it be possible to receive a Workshop?
A standard workshop wouldn’t do. Jin Woo detailed exactly what kind of Workshop he wanted in his reply email.
-I’d like one I can use anywhere. I’d prefer a summoned Workshop—a format where I can summon the entire workshop and use it as a mobile base.
A Summoned Workshop.
Literally a format where you could pull out a blacksmith’s forge from anywhere. This was something he’d only dreamed about during Eternal Sunshine, but it never got implemented.
That’s why Jin Woo had always spent long hours in the Workshop.
‘That was always a regret of mine.’
Right now, that was what Jin Woo needed most.
“If it doesn’t work out,”
Jin Woo grinned.
“I’ll just make one myself.”
* * *
“He asked for a Workshop? What was the minimum Workshop price these days? 50 million Gold?”
“Yes, that’s right. But it doesn’t seem to be a standard Workshop he’s asking for.”
Suomi.
GM Meeting Room.
The Vice President and Kim Na Yoon, the GM, were discussing.
They needed to grant the reward for clearing Rutten’s Steel Monstrosity, but Jin Woo had been unresponsive for quite a while, which was troublesome.
But conveniently, a message had arrived.
“If it’s not a standard Workshop, what does he want? Some 300-pyeong mega-workshop?”
Kim Na Yoon GM responded to the Vice President’s comment.
“Let me show you.”
It would be faster to show him the reply email than to explain.
The reward Jin Woo was requesting turned out to be more detailed than expected. In fact, Kim Na Yoon herself found parts of it difficult to understand.
“A summoned Workshop? That can be moved?”
“Yes. He says he wants a Workshop like that.”
“Does that even exist? Is that even possible?”
“That, I’m not entirely sure either…….”
She’d seen many top-ranked craftsmen before, but she didn’t know if such a thing existed. Most top-ranked craftsmen in the crafting category had joined guilds and used their Workshops for crafting.
Otherwise, they rented Workshops from NPCs or used rental Workshops in major cities.
“Since we need to grant the reward through Logical anyway, pass it to the Operations Department. If they say it’s not possible, we’ll think about it then.”
Logical couldn’t be controlled arbitrarily, even by Suomi’s headquarters.
Since Logical controlled all of New Generation, everything had to go through Logical. If the Operations Department submitted a request to Logical, it would be resolved.
“I thought he’d ask for Gold or high-quality materials.”
Asking for a summoned Workshop.
It was an unexpected request, but at least it was a reasonable reward—not excessive.
“What’s that user doing now?”
Just then, a notification sounded.
Ding—!
“……He created A-Grade equipment.”
The Vice President’s expression changed at once.
A-Grade equipment?
It seemed he’d only just started.
Crafting in New Generation has high difficulty, matching a realistic simulation.
That’s why complaints about the difficulty poured in during the early days of the launch, asking to lower the difficulty.
It wasn’t until other games’ top crafters came in that the balance was adjusted somewhat.
“How long has he been at this!?”
Top craftsmen’s skills had improved, but the core difficulty was still high.
“What level is he?”
“He hasn’t reached level 30 yet.”
“He made A-Grade without even hitting level 30? That’s way too fast. What level were the previous top crafters when they first made A-Grade?”
“Craft Han Upmul was 90. In Classic was 60, and Starlight was 50.”
“And the others?”
“They made it after reaching over 100.”
A-Grade was a symbolic tier.
In the crafting scene, making A-Grade equipment itself indicated a skilled crafter, and all good equipment started from A-Grade.
Equipment below that was treated as basic gear, and NPCs had huge price disparities between B-Grade and A-Grade.
That’s how difficult A-Grade was to make.
“So he…… made that without even reaching 30……?”
Even with high synchronization, this didn’t make sense.
“The Hall of Honor has been updated.”
Hall of Honor update.
First place was now Jin Woo.
“All crafters with the A-Grade creator Achievement must know about this by now.”
Starlight, who had held first place firmly for a long time, had surrendered her position.
“There’s going to be significant upheaval in rankings.”
He’d started late, so the Vice President thought he’d never reach the ranker tiers.
But now things could be different.
“Wait, no. He just made A-Grade. It was fast, but rapid progress can sometimes be disadvantageous too.”
People could stumble and fall.
The Vice President fell silent for a moment, then asked the question that intrigued him most.
What did he make A-Grade out of?
What equipment?
“Did he make a sword or armor or something? Or…….”
“A pickaxe.”
“……?”
“A pickaxe for mining.”
The Vice President’s expression became strange. There was not a single aspect of this that made sense.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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