Experiments, Results, And Minimizing Risks

Since it would still be the better part of a full day before the rest of Tragedy's Travelers showed up to the raid, I decided to take back the sword bars of our original alloy that I had laid out for the rest of the party and force my current two assistants to be my guinea pigs.

The very first set of ten swords they made were just shaped and tempered fuller swords that came out with an oddly glittering blue rare quality name. They were simply called 'Fuller Bastard's but they had physical attack ratings of exactly thirty and a matching MATK. On top of this they carried an innate perk called Conductivity that increased the effects of mana based skills and general magic by twenty percent when using the swords.

For something made from the steel we were using when we left Sierra, these swords had a pretty sturdy physical attack to begin with. Pairing that with an MATK that passively raised the strength of offensive magic and skills more than qualified for the rare grade of the weapons. That Conductivity perk, though, at least explained the glitter.

After they managed to make these ten sword in under an hour, I performed my generic random blessing while raising the next sets of bars up to the sky. Nothing happened, as far as we could tell. However, an hour later, my efforts came to fruition.

Lil and Go's next sets of perfectly matching weapons came out with all the same effects, quality, and perk. However, the names were now 'Blessed Fuller Bastard's to account for two new weapon effects. Of the two effects, all twenty swords of this generation shared the same plus-ten-percent damage to undead and unholy enemies but along with this effect were random buffs and abilities.

No two swords had the same secondary effect, whether it was something simple like raising one of the wielder's stats or something desirable like reducing the cost of low ranking magics.

Hoping to test not only the quality and effects of the craft by increasing the amount of effort put in but also the effects of blessings on such crafts, I made Lil and Go craft two more sets of weapons. These sets, though, were both folded for one hundred layers while the second set were crafted from blessed bars. The changes were almost drastic.

All second generation swords came out with a PATK of fifty-eight and MATK of eighty and a ten-percent increase to the Conductivity perks. The swords from the first set of second gen weapons all came out with glittering blue names that read 'Enhanced Fuller Bastards'. However, despite the stark difference in the previous swords, it was not until the weapons were blessed that their names broke into the epic level with the color purple.

These blessings had not actually changed much. The stat damage to undead went up to fifteen percent but the random attributes were all relatively the same. There was still a surprising variety, but the few swords that came out with plain stat buffs were all of the same strength as the first generation of blessed sword.

Next, I decided to look for a medium in the middle of the epic and magic quality blessed swords by having my assistants craft a new set of generation first-point-five swords. The were all weapons made from blessed bars but they were only folded ten times overall.

Just as I had hoped, the name remained the same divine-magical glittering blue while carrying blessings. The PATK and MATK were up to forty-eight and sixty respectively, but the blessings were at the same strength as as the first generation of blessed swords. These would be the lowest quality blessed swords I would sell, just to keep up a certain appearance in quality.

With the passage of several hours and the rise of several levels from my current top assistants, I finally let them rest and sent them over to the food pavilion with my current stock of ingredients to make themselves some food. Being my two most committed teammates, I was pretty sure they both had the Cook title and all of their dishes would have better qualities than anything I had cooked so far.

Going about my own business while they were busy cooking, I briefly tested my own abilities and effects by making my own sets of sword. The first set of swords started at ten-layer swords crafted by hand followed by the same swords crafted by magic. Then I produced another set of two swords from blessed steel.

The first set of physical swords did fifty-two physical damage and sixty-five magical, four and then five more than the equipment made by the assistants while still maintaining the glittering blue quality and twenty-percent Conductivity. The magical swords were only slightly different, their physical attack remained the same while their magical attack had risen to seventy-five.

As well, the magical version was named 'Fuller Alchemy Bastard' while the hand-made one was named 'Strengthened Fuller Bastard. When the blessings were introduced, though, both names received the addition of the word 'blessed' and purple coloring to match their fifteen-percent undead damage bonus and secondary perks.

Next came sets of second generation one-hundred-layer swords. As I expected, the handmade normal sword came out with the name 'Empowered Fuller Bastard' of epic quality one the spot. Its PATK was a whopping sixty-five and its MATK was a solid one hundred.

Its empowered alchemy counterpart, on the other hand, suffered a loss of five PATK in exchange for a gain of twenty MATK. Both swords had the same increased Conductivity of thirty percent, so the only notable differences between the assistants' and my crafts were the base qualities and general strength of their blessings.

Making the next set of blessed second generation swords, I find myself much more than pleasantly surprised with their effects. The undead and unholy damage modifier rose to twenty percent and the strength of the stat buffs alone had risen by at least three points on the lowest finding. This was honestly very gratifying, I did not think the blessing strengths would go up again until I hit the thousand-layer mark.

Of course, just because my body was still able and my magic was still willing, I made two final sets of swords from the old alloy recipe. These fuller bastards were folded for three sets of ten, creating swords worth one thousand layers. Without the ancient alloy that allowed me to fold each set more times than safe for normal steel, this was the most folds I was confident with using.

The handmade 'Inspiring Fuller Bastard' and 'Inspired Alchemy Bastard' had matching PATK of seventy-seven while the alchemy version had a difference of thirty points at one-fifty. The inspired bastard raised offensive magical skills by one-fifty! Both swords still also shared the same level of Conductivity except that the level was now at thirty-five percent.

By the time the blessed versions were complete with tempering and boiled leather grips, nothing had changed except that the names of the weapons became the silvery purple of quasi-legendary. This change was finally brought on by the swords having increased to twenty-five percent as well as a marked rise in the strength of the random attributes.

These were seventh physical tier weapons with third or fourth tier magical effects. Considering they were made from mostly mundane materials besides arcanite, the MATK and Conductivity attributes could be considered hardcore for most magic-using warriors. Even if they were not actually magic warrior classes, they would increase the average player's firepower by a fair amount even in the Winter Wood.

The most stunning factor of all was that this one-thousand layer sword was currently capable of doing seven more damage than my own Hauntings! Sure, this was made with the full accumulative power of my crafting abilities, but Hauntings was a unique weapon made of an even more unique alloy, now! Any player could make the steel I was using now.

I was more than ready to start throwing a fit like a spoiled little kid, but I quickly talked myself out of it while checking the sky to check the time. The others would be here soon and I had long since worked out the various stages of products as well as the various stages of access. Not just anyone would be allowed to buy a blessed weapon of a thousand layers and not just any VIP would be able to have access to the next level weapons that would be made from ancient alloy.

Considering that these were the original standard ten-pound swords that were made for sales after remaking Hauntings, I quickly set to work crafting a thousand-layer twenty-pound fuller sword similar to Hauntings in everything but spirit and material. Half an hour of hasty work later, I wanted to smash the sword into the anvil until one of them broke!

This uniquely named 'Heavy Inspiring Fuller Bastard' had a physical attack rating of ninety-two fucking points! The magical attack alone was stuck at one-fifty, seeming to be the cap for this alloy by itself, but the physical attack was probably one of the strongest swords used by players at the moment.

Nothing else about the blessed sword had changed, the Conductivity and strength of the blessings remained the same and so did the divine-epic coloring of its name. However, the difference in raw attack power alone was so great that I felt like I had been cheating myself by not remaking Hauntings as soon as I received the newest crafting buffs.

Tiredly calming myself down while comforting myself with a reminder that I could still fairly casually remake my primary and come out with an awe inspiring weapon. However, it would have to be the very last thing I craft in order to ensure that it was strengthened by all of my skills and buffs with little chance for missed opportunities.

Placing the sword in the clan store, I quickly send a message out through the party to look at the newest weapon added to the store. This would hopefully give the others some idea about what they would be doing when they met up with us at our new raid camp while also showing them the new standards of our equipment. I already knew the others would be unhappy once they arrived and were put to work.

Luckily, I had been involved in four hours worth of crafting between supervising Lil and Go as well as running my own tests duplicating the swords they made. This would ensure the near perpetual ability for all of us to work and fight with minimal rest thanks to the physical and magical recovery boosts from my work hours. That, though, could continue to wait until after I had taken some time to rest and think.

Enjoying the combination of pastries and meat dishes Lil and Go prepared to their respective tastes, I find myself reviewing what little information I had managed to acquire through my experiments. The original 'worked' alloy swords I made had come out to the lower thirties in damage, scaling up ten points from the twenty damage of regular steel fuller swords.

However, that number had jumped to a full forty PATK when made by my assistants and would be even greater if crafted by my hands. By comparison, whenever I craft something it will be several or even ten points greater than PATK of swords made by my Divine Assistants. This was not much of a leap, but in comparison to less blessed crafters the assistant stats were enormous.

In this way, I could automatically guess that even if another craftsman supplied the materials and designs, my assistants would create a sword with stats in the next tiers from what the previous craftsman could achieve. If they made a fifth tier sword with damage in the fifties, Lil could copy the process and produce a sword almost exactly ten damage more. On top of this, if neither Lil or the craftsman used magic, the ensuing weapon would also have an MATK when made by Lil.

While other craftsman could surely produce dual-rating weapons, I could not help but wonder what kind of processes they would have to use as well as how effective they would be. The common theme for making magic based weapons was to simply use alchemy. Albeit, the durability of the weapon even after enchanting could not be compared to a worked alchemy sword that was also material and other enchanted before and after creation.

Just thinking about this brought on an entirely new headache, however, because I realized that the most extravagant refinement or augmentation done to the sword bars used earlier was my blessings. Otherwise, the swords were just basic alloy that got beat the shit out of and folded a bunch of times. There were no resilience or other material enchantments performed on the steel before or after its creation, meaning anything we made with actual magic processes would once again come out cracked out.

If not for the delicious food in my way, I would have started banging my head on the table while struggling to keep track of this new information as well as coming up with various formulas based on the unused processes to estimate the results of the final products. A thousand-layer 'basic alloy' sword made by my combined magic and handiwork would certainly exceed the as-of-yet untouched tenth tier. By a large margin!

After gathering all of this information and speculation, though, I could finally start working on a guideline for the weapons we could craft and also expose to the public. Basically, anything one hundred layers with a blessing would be open to the general public while one thousand layers could only be offered at extortion prices or as gifts to curry favor.

Anything made from ancient steel could only be offered to the clan and even then they would have to be restricted to one hundred layers. Anyone could be foolish enough to take a bunch of weapons from the clan store and try to resale or even just ditch the clan with everything they could get their hands on. To minimize this risk, we would have to minimize availability.

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