The Return of the Legendary Golden-Handed Blacksmith - Chapter 6

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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 6
Chapter 6.
“What?”
Crafting Hanwuul.
He was a rather famous player in Eternal Sunshine.
Among blacksmith-class players, many were known for their speed, but the most famous for that speed was Crafting Hanwuul himself.
True to his name, he had only ever pursued Crafting, and countless players in Eternal Sunshine had used his equipment.
But he could never reach the summit in Eternal Sunshine.
There was a legendary blacksmith in the way.
He had challenged countless times, only to fail each time, and could never craft equipment better than what that legendary blacksmith made.
Especially the top rankers of Eternal Sunshine all used equipment from the legendary blacksmith—Jinwoo.
Some did use his equipment, but only those who had no access to Jinwoo’s gear.
If anyone could use Jinwoo’s equipment, they all would.
And this situation persisted until Eternal Sunshine shut down.
The legend remained a legend, but Crafting Hanwuul did not give up.
When he started New Generation, he showed the same mastery he had honed in Eternal Sunshine.
He had already distinguished himself in the Tutorial Quest he received right at the start, and by now, his name was proudly on the blacksmith rankings.
“This can’t be right. My ranking dropped?”
One of the Tutorial Quests.
The “Help the Self-Defense Captain” quest had become quite the hot topic among players.
It was both where players obtained class quests and their first encounter with a New Generation quest.
Not many people could perfectly clear a quest they suddenly received in such an unfamiliar state.
But Crafting Hanwuul had managed to clear it quite flawlessly, drawing on his experience.
The Hall of Fame ranking he earned was third place.
“Who on earth?”
The surprised Crafting Hanwuul checked the Hall of Fame rankings.
The Hall of Fame displayed both rankings and scores.
“I struggled so hard just to break 100 points.”
That quests were free meant there were countless, infinite ways to reach a quest solution.
Each person’s own way.
With each person’s own perspective, quests could be cleared.
Though the saying goes all roads lead to Rome, even this freedom had points assigned to it.
Though he didn’t know exactly how points were calculated, there was clearly some precise standard.
Looking at it narrowly, the “Help the Self-Defense Captain” quest also literally just says to help the Self-Defense Captain.
It doesn’t specify how or in what manner to help.
“I heard that in the early days there were no guides like this.”
For that reason, individual judgment was absolutely critical.
“This is insane.”
Crafting Hanwuul was quite flustered when he checked the ranking scores.
His ranking could drop.
Playing New Generation, what he always felt was that there were plenty of talented people.
But this was absurd.
“150 points? 150 points did you say?”
It was an overwhelming score gap.
His own score, in third place, was 108 points. How much effort had gone into earning those 108 points?
In fact, he had repeated creating and deleting accounts several times.
It was for a perfect first start.
It was something he had done frequently even in Eternal Sunshine, so he was quite familiar with it.
These 108 points he had earned that way.
But 150 points?
“How would you even get 150 points?”
The previous first-place score was InClassic’s 130 points.
InClassic had been a top ranker in Bridge, a semi-virtual reality game.
“Who is this?”
He had been shocked when he saw InClassic’s 130 points.
But the score that now lay before his eyes far exceeded that shock.
Who could it possibly be?
New Generation had absorbed Korean gamers wholesale.
All the talented players must have started by now.
“Could it be—”
Then one name suddenly came to Crafting Hanwuul’s mind.
“No, it can’t be. I heard rumors he went back to real life.”
The overwhelmingly ranked first in Eternal Sunshine and legendary blacksmith.
Jinwoo.
“It can’t be.”
That person couldn’t have come here.
“If it really is him…”
Crafting Hanwuul shook his head back and forth.
“Even if it is, it doesn’t matter. There’s a one-year gap.”
Even if it were that legendary Jinwoo, there wasn’t much he could do.
“New Generation is a completely different game from Eternal Sunshine, after all.”
* * *
SharkNet.
It was a community site for those who enjoyed New Generation.
It had considerable scale.
Anyone who played New Generation was on SharkNet.
Together with MiTube, a video site, SharkNet formed the twin pillars of the platform.
A peculiar post had been made on SharkNet.
-Did you guys see the new record on the Tutorial Quest Hall of Fame scores?
-A new record?
-Who set it?
-There shouldn’t be any new records possible, right?
Everyone showed interest in the mention of a new record.
-That’s just attention-baiting.
-There aren’t many Tutorial Hall of Fame records. Those are all incredibly difficult highest scores.
-Who beat Slayer’s 192 points? That guy defeated a wyvern.
-Still can’t believe how a level 1 defeated a wyvern. That’s crazy.
-Isn’t there a video recreating that?
Of course, most didn’t believe it.
Tutorial Hall of Fame scores had a limited number of points available.
Not only that, as time passed, quite a lot of high-score strategies had emerged.
Even with high-score attempts, breaking 100 points was difficult. Once you’d cleared a quest one way, you couldn’t get the same points by clearing it the same way again.
-I heard about this too—apparently there’s a new record on the blacksmith side of the Tutorial.
-The class selection tutorial?
-That quest where you help the Self-Defense Captain?
-The blacksmith one?
-Isn’t there no one left on the Crafting side who could do that?
-The Crafting side has incredibly high difficulty from the start.
-How many points if it’s a new record?
-They say 150 points.
-150 points?
-?????
-150 points?
It was an unbelievable result.
-Wasn’t the previous #1 on the Crafting Hall of Fame 130 points?
-Bruh that’s a 20-point gap.
-A 20-point gap like that is nearly impossible to close no matter what you do.
-How did they even get 150 points;;;
The players knew better than anyone how difficult the Crafting side was.
From the very start of New Generation, users had all tried Crafting at least once because of the high difficulty proportional to the freedom, and they had all tasted its harshness.
High difficulty.
The Crafting field was one where even beginners could barely touch it.
And on such a Crafting field.
150 points in a tutorial quest, no less?
This was absolutely impossible.
-Who on earth is it?
-Whose alt account is it?
-That doesn’t make sense.
Players began to grow curious about the user who had achieved this new record.
* * *
Whoooosh!
As his body felt the sensation of lifting, Jinwoo found himself arriving in a vast city.
-Your starting city has been selected based on your Tutorial results.
-Welcome to the small town of Luton!
-From now on, your story will unfold as you choose.
-Go forth and forge a new era!
“So it’s really starting now.”
Jinwoo looked at the Crafting Hammer held in one hand.
“Let me look around first.”
The first thing he wanted to do was, naturally, Crafting.
“After just repairs, my hands are itching to get back to work.”
Bounce, bounce.
Crack! Crack!
“As expected.”
As Jinwoo wandered the town, he saw people bouncing around and others swinging their fists.
“If new players are still coming in, this game really is the real deal.”
He’d heard the player count had exceeded 50 million.
It was a game that launched globally and communicated seamlessly through real-time translation, but maintaining 50 million players was almost unheard of these days.
The fact that it continued to gain new players in such circumstances meant it truly was the real deal.
“Especially when the capsule costs 30 million won.”
Jinwoo looked at the crowd of players in the distance.
“That must be the Field over there.”
Players were streaming out toward the Field.
There were monsters in the Field.
“Hunting is the fastest way to level up early on, but hunting isn’t fun.”
But Jinwoo did not head in that direction.
Hunting was never what he wanted in the first place.
“Hmm.”
Jinwoo took a deep breath.
“This way then.”
A faint scent of fire.
Of course, there was a sign, so he’d partly just guessed right.
“Already got the Crafting Hammer.”
Jinwoo wanted to craft. And after repairing the Self-Defense Captain’s sword, that desire had only grown.
“Let’s see what it’s like.”
It was time to see how difficult Crafting really was.
* * *
“Get out of here!”
“Damn it. Isn’t this enough? What’s the difference? I swung the hammer just like you did!”
“This is why outsiders—how many outsiders like you do you think have come here? With clumsy hammer-work like that, what could you possibly accomplish?”
A massive, muscular NPC wore a fearsome expression in front of the player.
“Blades, I can make them anytime. If I use a skill, even my five-year-old nephew could make a dagger. But that means nothing. Equipment without soul is worthless. Would I teach skills to someone like that? Nonsense!”
“But look at my level. Level 5. How am I supposed to make something like that at level 5? How do you even craft something with soul?”
“Soul doesn’t mean crafting magnificent equipment. If you can’t understand that, I have no intention of ever teaching you a skill.”
In front of the bustling smithy.
A player and NPC stood their ground, neither backing down an inch.
It was fairly common for NPCs and players to clash.
Especially in the starting cities. Players trying to min-max according to guides tend to move by existing strategies, and as NPCs learned from such optimization attempts, they began to show different responses accordingly.
In essence, it meant the correct answer kept changing.
“I heard they didn’t block this route until recently. Asking someone to craft without a skill doesn’t really make sense.”
Crafting in New Generation was difficult enough as it was.
“I chose the Crafting path because I wanted to go a road others weren’t taking.”
No matter how hard you tried, certain things were impossible at low levels.
“Sigh.”
Haram, the player kicked out by the NPC, shook his head.
“Damn.”
Haram wanted to learn a skill and advance his class. But from the very beginning, it wasn’t easy.
“Why is learning a skill so hard?”
Skills were quite important on the Crafting side.
The quality of equipment you could create depended on which skills you possessed.
Of course, you could craft equipment without skills, relying purely on manual dexterity. But in that case, the bonuses would be removed, and you’d have to rely entirely on skill.
“That’s impossible.”
The difficulty had already been proven.
“I could’ve done pretty well in real life.”
All the New Generation players with Crafting-type jobs were those who were confident in their manual dexterity in real life.
But they couldn’t bring that same skill to bear in New Generation.
The reason was simple.
It was Synchronization.
“Ironically, to raise your Synchronization rate, your physical stats have to go up insanely.”
In other words, if you had a low Synchronization rate, it meant your manual dexterity really wasn’t that good.
“It’s like being told by a super-intelligent AI that my manual dexterity is mediocre.”
But he couldn’t just stand idle.
“I can make up for it with skills! If I can just learn a skill, I can walk the path of a crafter no matter what!”
He already had strategies in his head.
“I’m never giving up.”
And just as he was about to head to the Field to hunt.
Someone entered the very smithy that had just kicked Haram out.
“Excuse me.”
Haram called out to him.
“Yes?”
“You’d be better off coming back later. The smithy owner’s mood is really bad right now. If you go in, you’ll just get kicked out. Unless you have a certain level of skill, he won’t even let you touch a hammer.”
The Crafting field is brutal.
Helping each other is good.
Watching Haram like that, the newcomer Jinwoo smiled warmly.
“That actually sounds good.”
“Huh?”
“Wouldn’t that make it more fun?”
At the newcomer’s words, Haram’s expression turned puzzled.
Then he chuckled softly.
Everyone thinks that way at first. Plenty of players come with confidence in their own dexterity, wanting to pursue Crafting.
Hadn’t he himself come to the smithy thinking he’d dominate?
“Well, if that’s what you want.”
He had certainly given a warning.
If he insisted on going in despite the advice, there was no reason to stop him.
There were many in the world who only learned by tasting it themselves.
Haram stepped back slightly.
“About 30 seconds, probably.”
That’s how long it would take for the blacksmith to kick out the newcomer.
10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds.
Three minutes passed, and the newcomer still hadn’t come out. Moreover, there was no shouting from inside.
“What?”
Clang!
Instead of shouting.
The sound of a hammer began to ring out from inside.

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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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