CH 40

Chapter 40 – I’ll need to get some consultation on this

By the time I finished making enough Magical Formations to cover the requests, there were only two hours left before the store opened. I sent messages to everyone, telling them that I had finished their order, then updated the information on the blog with what products were available. I got quite a lot of views on the update post, but I didn’t particularly care about that.

Then, I went to the guild to get all my Magical Formations evaluated. It seemed like the rank experience earned from two Magical Formations was a bit more than what I got from a single Iron Equipment, which was quite nice… There was still a long way to go before 5* though, but it’s fine to take it one step at a time.

After that, I got the materials purchased by the clerks at the store into my personal warehouse, put the newly produced items on sale, adjusted their price… And by the time I was done with that, it was almost time to start the clerks’ shift, so I just read some books while waiting for them.

When the clerks arrived, they told me that there was a bit of a line in front of the store… Probably because plenty of people saw the blog update.

Though well, the line was still small when compared to when I had just started making Iron, so I think this is fine.

While I talked to the clerks a bit, they gave me the usual reports on whatever happened in the last times the store opened, as well put the products on display.

Once that was done, while waiting for the store’s opening time, I decided to go back to the waiting room for a bit to read. After that, the next step would be to go deliver all the Magical Formations I made.

******

I visited Rush, Armilate and Hime to sell the Magical Formations and chat a bit, but we quickly parted ways after that. I couldn’t sell them to Mika yet, because she didn’t reply to my messages even though it was already 11am in ‘Real Time’, so she must still be sleeping… Well, she’ll probably get up some time after noon.

Rush and Armilate also told me that they’ll participate in the battle against the Lich, but it seems like Hime will instead be focusing on cutting Demon Logs instead of fighting the boss. Apparently, she finds that more fun.

However, the last patch seems to have dropped Hime’s efficiency a bit. She said that, according to her tests, her damage output with the woodcutting axes fell by about 18%.

She was still extremely efficient though, so she had no intention of stopping her amazing woodcutting services with a multitude of axes.

******

Once I was done selling the Magical Formations, I made a quick stop at the library and then proceeded to the Rental Production Facility. I hadn’t finished all books that I had borrowed, but it didn’t hurt to give back the ones I did finish and to borrow some new ones. It took less than 10 minutes to do that after all.

… I did want to spend more time at the library though. But I also really wanted to experiment with the Magic Ingots, so I couldn’t afford spending too long reading books.

Also, the store will surely finish selling the items I made soon, so I’ll need to make more items to restock it as well. I’ll have to leave the experimenting time for after I finish making the Iron Equipment.

I’m already pretty used to it though, so it only took about three hours to make enough Iron Gear for the restock. Then I took my usual lunch break, and after logging-in again… It was experimenting time!

First, it’s the Magic Copper Ingot, to test out how easy it is to make the Magic Ingots. Differently from the normal Copper Ingot, the Magical variant also required a Sapphire Gem and a Magic Stone.

The process was fairly easy though, and it was done in less than two minutes… I guess it can’t be helped when the base material is Copper.

Let’s see the result, then.

——-

Magic Copper Ingot

Material/6*

——

It was about as good as I expected from the feel of handling the materials. The rank was high enough to the point that I feel safe making Bronze, so let’s jump right at it!

To make the Magic Bronze Ingot, I needed to use about twice as much Magic that was accumulated in Magic Stones when compared to the Magic Copper Ingot, but the rest was about the same… Except, of course, that the Copper Ingot used Copper Ore, and the Bronze Ingot used Bronze Ore.

And the result was…

——

Magic Bronze Ingot

Material/4*

——

It’s not bad, but I guess I can’t try making a Magic Iron Ingot when the result of Bronze is 4*. I’ll probably only be able to make 2* Ingots or even 1*… Or worse, the infamous Substance X.

Oh well, it can’t be helped when I only recently became able to make regular Iron Equipment, so let’s not mind it. Instead, I’ll make some more Magic Ingots and work on a prototype item right away!

It wasn’t too hard to mold the ingots into a tablet shape, but it took a while to engrave the Magic Circle into the tablet… About two in-game hours passed, but the result was…

——

Bronze Tablet

Magic Circle – Physical Support Magic: Small Enhancement of Offensive Power

Item/3*/4 uses

——-

The prototype seems to be a success! A working substitute of Magic Paper that can be used twice as many times as it!

… That’s less than expected though. Could the Bronze Tablet have a low durability? There is no recipe for it, but it was not registered as an original craft either… It was basically just a simple tablet in the end, after all.

Well, let’s try making a simple Copper Tablet with the leftover Magic Copper Ingot to see the result…

——

Copper Tablet

Item/6*/Durability 20

——-

It really has a small durability. Even if this was Copper, I’m sure that the Bronze one won’t be much higher.

I guess I need to carve the Magic Circle into a piece of equipment after all. A tablet doesn’t cut it.

Let’s go with the Large Shield like I tried before. I can’t really make use of the standard Bronze Recipes for this though, so I’ll have to just reference them as a sample and work from that.

I also had to use some wood to reinforce the shield, and it was quite tough to do it without a recipe… However, I had done this many times, so I was still able to pull it off.

And of course, I carefully carved the Magic Circle on the Shield before I did the ‘Complete Process’ action.

Now what was the result this time around?

——

Magic Bronze Shield

Large Shield/Heavy Equipment/4*/DEF +13/MDEF +9/Durability 80

Magic Circle – Physical Support Magic: Small Enhancement of Offensive Power

16 uses

——

Now this is amazing! Definitely worth the three hours it took to complete it!

The DEF is a bit lower than normal, but I guess the MDEF compensates for that. That’s probably a property of the Magic Ingots.

But more importantly than that, 16 uses is ridiculous! This is definitely something worth registering as an original creation.

Let’s try it out!

… Well, that’s a bit of a bummer. I can’t use it from a quick shortcut like I can do with normal Magical Formations that use Magic paper. All that putting it on a Shortcut does, is equipping or unequipping it.

I could still use it by touching the shield though, but… That reduced its Durability by 5. It’s quite the considerable amount, as Durability isn’t lowered that quickly while in-battle.

The number of uses was also lowered to 15… I wonder if the item will just become damaged if I use it until its durability reaches 0, or will it disappear just like Magic Paper does? I’ll need to test that out.

But first, let’s repair the item. I wanna see if recovering the original durability will also replenish the number of uses.

… It does. The item is back at 16 uses… Isn’t this amazing!?

Wait, not amazing, dangerous! The demand for Magical Formations might completely disappear if you can just repair items with Magic Circles engraved upon them!

… Though well, even I struggled a lot with making this item, and I’m very good at drawing Magical Formations and at crafting Bronze Items.

It also took me three hours to make this, so I suppose mass production is simply impossible due to how much time and effort it takes… Though maybe this might be changed once a recipe for this is registered.

Also, the Magic Circle has a fixed output, so I suppose it would become obsolete as people get stronger and end up needing better and better support spells.

… But it still seems dangerous to sell an item that allows for infinite uses of the spell within the Magic Circle for as long as it is regularly repaired. After all, a spell that doesn’t cast mana, nor has a casting time, nor takes a slot in your skill frame is very worth its while.

Well, there is also the disadvantage of needing to touch the shield to use the spell, differently from Magic Circles engraved into Magic Paper, that can be cast from a simple shortcut.

I mean, sure, it is an equipment, so touching it would be trivial if you were wielding it, but it’s a bronze equipment that quickly loses durability in a time where I can already produce Iron, so I’m not sure if it would be very useful as a shield.

Troublesome… Well, let’s do some more tests first. I need to check some other things about it, like what happens when the durability reaches 0.

… It just became damaged. I repaired it and it went back to 16 uses after that… This really is a quite the troublesome item, isn’t it? I’ll have to consult with Mika and Hime to see what to do about this.