The Return of the Legendary Golden-Handed Blacksmith - Chapter 40

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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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Episode 40
Episode 40.
-Red Stone Armor
Thirty thousand Gold.
Someone had immediately placed a bid of thirty thousand Gold as soon as the auction opened.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
-New bid received. Thirty-one thousand Gold.
-New bid received. Thirty-two thousand Gold.
One after another, new bidders began placing their offers.
-SS-Grade armor in what auction house?
-No, who is this person anyway?
Currently in NewGene, no one was listing equipment of S-Grade or higher.
Since all craftspeople belonged to Guilds, S-Grade and higher equipment typically changed hands through direct trades.
-Even when items do get listed, it’s only S-Grade or SS-Grade equipment. Wow, this is actually SS-Grade?
-Everyone, check the options. It has Life Drain on it.
-Life Drain!?
-Isn’t that a Tier-1 Option?
Options themselves had tiers.
NewGene equipment possessed countless options, but many of them were useless. Because of this, players had ranked them.
So many people loved making tier lists that the rankings solidified quickly.
Life Drain was confidently sitting at Tier 1 among all those options.
It made sense. Armor recovered health equal to damage received, and weapons recovered health equal to damage dealt.
This allowed for far bolder attacks and enabled aggressive tanking.
But precisely because of this, attaching the option was quite difficult.
-You need Darkness Stones or Life Stones for that.
-Those Darkness Stones and Life Stones have run dry. The top-tier Guilds locked down the hunting zones that produce them.
The top Guilds were controlling the hunting zones where good materials spawned.
Of course, complete control wasn’t possible, so materials occasionally appeared, but even those sold for exorbitant prices.
-Equipment with Life Drain options goes for millions of Gold!
The SS-Grade armor now listed had the Life Drain option attached.
Eyes couldn’t help but widen.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
That’s why the bid kept updating frantically.
-Wait, isn’t this the person who was making A-Grade items a while back?
-But this is SS-Grade? It’s definitely SS-Grade.
-I can’t believe this. How is this kind of leveling possible in such a short time?
Miner players were utterly bewildered.
Jin Woo had been crafting Pickaxes just recently.
Of course, the Pickaxes’ quality had been quite excellent.
The A-Grade Pickaxes were the best optioned ones they’d ever seen, and the design was outstanding to boot.
-Could this be a different person with the same name?
-That can’t be it—there are Pickaxes in their sales history.
-Everyone, looks like this person had rapid growth. There’s a thread about it on SharkNet.
Once the Red Stone Armor was listed, SharkNet began filling with mentions of Jin Woo.
-This is a crafter who reached S-Grade. You get an Achievement when you reach S-Grade crafting, and they have the Hall of Fame where the first place holder just updated—that’s Jin Woo, and they’re the one who listed the Red Stone Armor.
-When did that happen?
-Just a few days ago.
-Wait, so they went from S-Grade to SS-Grade in just a few days? Straight up?
-Can someone explain how remarkable this actually is?
-It’s like someone in Gold tier hitting Challenger and becoming a pro gamer in just days.
-This is insane.
-Or like someone running a marathon in under two hours.
-Isn’t a two-hour marathon impossible?
-That’s the level we’re talking about.
-So they’re inhuman.
-Yes.
Jin Woo’s reputation was skyrocketing. Naturally. Someone who was making A-Grade items just recently had now made S-Grade and then SS-Grade.
Moreover, the specs on the SS-Grade armor were outstanding.
-Finally.
-Our miner community finally got a knight in shining armor.
-Please, an S-Grade Pickaxe. Please, an S-Grade Pickaxe!
Miner players were growing excited.
What was listed today was armor, but surely they’d list a Pickaxe again soon. When that happened, they’d be able to get an S-Grade Pickaxe.
-Holding my breath from now on.
-I’m practicing breath-holding from this moment. Breathe.
Meanwhile, the bidding war for the Red Stone Armor continued.
Ding!
-Bid updated. One hundred thousand Gold.
Breaking through a hundred thousand Gold.
Less than an hour after listing, the Red Stone Armor had easily surpassed a hundred thousand Gold, and this was only the beginning.
People who’d seen the SharkNet thread were now joining in.
-At this price, it’s practically a steal!
-I’m definitely buying this.
* * *
Suomi Company, Monitoring Room.
GM Kim Na Yoon hadn’t been able to leave work.
“No, the alarms were going off so intensely I thought it was because of the Unique Job acquisition. But it was these overlapping.”
She, who had been about to file a report on Jin Woo, had just learned that he’d reached SS-Grade.
A Unique Job and now SS-Grade crafting as well.
The pace was simply too fast.
“It’s Jin, after all.”
It was possible because it was Jin, but even so, GM Kim Na Yoon couldn’t help but feel some bewilderment.
“The Synchronization Rate must have contributed, but the year of data I’ve accumulated is now worthless.”
The path Jin Woo was walking had nothing in common with any of the data she’d gathered so far.
Jin Woo was walking entirely his own road.
Kim Na Yoon quickly finished drafting the SS-Grade crafting report and headed to the Vice President’s Office.
Knock, knock.
“Vice President, it’s Kim Na Yoon!”
The Vice President was in a meeting with the Team Lead.
They were discussing the new Unique Job user that had appeared and the full-scale event details.
“GM Na Yoon, have a seat. Give me the report.”
“Ah, yes.”
GM Kim Na Yoon also had quite a bit of work to do regarding this event—SNS advertising and the like—so she didn’t mind joining in.
“Whose report is this? Is it another Jin Woo user by any chance?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
GM Kim Na Yoon was managing quite a few users, but recently she’d been reporting on nothing but Jin Woo.
“So what’s this report about?”
“The user Jin Woo has succeeded in crafting SS-Grade.”
“……?”
The Vice President frowned, wondering if he’d heard correctly.
He’d been briefed about reaching S-Grade.
He’d heard about updating the Hall of Fame.
“You mean SS-Grade, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct. Immediately after crafting S-Grade, he succeeded in crafting SS-Grade.”
The Vice President fell silent at her words, then quickly spoke again.
“How exactly——”
The Vice President asked in amazement.
“Just how fast is this? How fast are we talking about?”
GM Kim Na Yoon brought reports from the existing top crafters.
“According to the attached reports,”
GM Kim Na Yoon said.
“Starlight reached S-Grade and was the fastest to craft SS-Grade. The timeframe was thirty days.”
And Jin Woo took two days after reaching S-Grade.
“That’s a twenty-eight day difference, and the level gap is——”
The level gap was even more striking.
“The level difference is over two hundred.”
“Starlight crafted SS-Grade at level 258, and this user, Jin Woo, did it at level 55?”
“Ah, and this should have been the first report I gave.”
“Wait.”
The Vice President blinked rapidly.
“The final Unique Job user is Jin Woo?”
He’d been genuinely curious about who it was.
He’d naturally assumed it would be one of the existing users.
“No, how——”
The Vice President withdrew the thought he’d had when he first heard about Jin Woo.
“I don’t understand this.”
He’d thought that a latecomer could absolutely never catch up.
“My common sense is completely shattered. I can say this with certainty—even our Logical AI would’ve said this was impossible!”
Even the hyperintelligent AI had deemed it impossible.
Yet Jin Woo was now achieving it, so the Vice President couldn’t help but be flustered.
“I’m dying to know exactly how he’s crafting. Did he join a Guild?”
“No.”
“What about the Major City?”
“He hasn’t visited the Major City yet.”
Visiting the Major City triggered an Achievement.
Jin Woo didn’t have that Achievement.
That meant he’d crafted SS-Grade without ever visiting the Major City.
“If he goes to the Major City, he’d have access to even better materials. But then how did he craft SS-Grade with such rare materials unavailable? What materials did he even use?”
“According to our records, he used Red Stones.”
“Red Stone? What’s that?”
“It appears to be a material he obtained upon advancing to his Legendary Job.”
“Ha. Well then, so he didn’t craft SS-Grade with poor materials.”
“That much is uncertain.”
“…….”
Now the Vice President was curious about Jin Woo’s exploits.
The Vice President wasn’t particularly shocked anymore, but the Team Lead listening beside him was quite amazed this time.
“What!? Did I hear that correctly?”
The Team Lead asked in considerable bewilderment.
“He crafted SS-Grade without even visiting the Major City?”
Only the Vice President received direct reports from GM Kim Na Yoon.
That’s why the Team Lead was quite shocked. A Unique Job, S-Grade, and now SS-Grade.
“The Auction House wouldn’t sell rare materials freely, and you can’t obtain materials without going to the Major City region hunting zones, dungeons, or climbing the Tower. How in the world did he make it?”
The Vice President chuckled at the Team Lead’s astonishment.
“Now that’s the right reaction.”
Then he looked at GM Kim Na Yoon.
“That’s why I said it was that Jin—wait——”
“Jin. Jin, you say? Is this user the Jin from Eternal Sunshine?”
“It’s not certain, but according to GM Na Yoon, that appears to be the case——”
The shocked Team Lead soon took on a calm expression.
“Ah, well then that makes sense!”
“Why are you like this, seriously!”
The Vice President heavily frowned. The world seemed to be spinning oddly.
* * *
-Settlement complete.
Jin Woo converted some of his Gold to cash.
“And it hasn’t even been a month.”
In Jin Woo’s hands sat thirty million won—a considerable sum. And that wasn’t even all the money converted.
“Let me just——”
He immediately texted his brother Dong Woo.
-I made money. Let’s grab something good to eat.
At the same moment.
Dong Woo, Jin Woo’s younger brother, was tutoring.
“Teacher. Do you not play NewGene?”
“Me? I’m in exam season right now. And my free time’s taken up teaching you.”
“Come on! There must be lots of friends at university playing NewGene! So what do you guys talk about then?”
“I don’t have friends.”
Dong Woo shook his head at the tutee’s words.
Of course there were friends.
At school right now, NewGene was all the buzz.
Dong Woo’s friends were all playing it. The number of people not playing NewGene right now was minimal, including Dong Woo himself.
Ironically, despite buying his older brother Jin Woo a capsule, he himself hadn’t been able to play.
There was interest, but that was about it.
“If crafting is difficult, what about that?”
“Yes! Seriously! I have decent manual dexterity myself!”
Saying that, he pointed to the chair Dong Woo was sitting on.
“I made that.”
“Oh, really?”
“But I quit the Blacksmith job. Too hard.”
‘So the difficulty really is no joke.’
His brother was probably playing with the Blacksmith job right now.
‘The Synchronization Rate came back insanely high though.’
Since crafting jobs were so difficult, he was a bit worried about whether his brother was playing well.
In Eternal Sunshine, he’d been overwhelmingly skilled, but this NewGene was a completely different game, wasn’t it?
He’d heard that Semi-VR and Full-Immersion VR were really different.
‘I don’t even play games, yet I know way too much.’
Friends chattered about it constantly, and various tutees and their tutors had filled him in on information.
“If someone’s been playing for less than a month, what grade equipment could they make?”
“A month? Probably D-Grade?”
“What if they’re skilled?”
“Maybe C-Grade? But you probably need over level 100 to reliably hit B-Grade. A month is definitely D-Grade though!”
“You’re excited talking about games, huh?”
“I could score a 100 in NewGene.”
“When NewGene Studies comes out, you teach it.”
“Any other questions? My school grades are so-so, but I’m flying in NewGene. I’m level 127!”
“If I get curious about something, I’ll ask. For now, focus on solving problems.”
“……Yes!”
After the lesson ended.
Dong Woo checked the text from his brother.
“You made money?”
Dong Woo frowned.
“Brother…… I know everything. I already know.”
But Dong Woo didn’t know anything at all.

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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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