Shoddy Workmanship, Steady improvement, It Takes Time

After hearing Jarid's challenge, Eidiri first thought to analyze what Jarid did in order to get such a result.

"Hmm... one of the most important things here is to keep steady. Unsteady movements would most certainly screw up the end product. However saying to keep a steady hand would most certainly be easier said than done," he mused.

Reaching for the ores, he unceremoniously places them into the loading tray, while the movements aren't as clean as the ones that Jarid performed, they would do for a novice.

Following that, he lit the coals in the furnace, raising the heat so that the furnace would become hot enough so that the metal would melt.

Watching this from the side, Jarid commented, "Kid, you're going to want to breathe into those bellows over there, provide some damn air for the flames," hearing this, Eidiri followed the instructions, wildly breathing into the series of tubes.

The wild breathing resulted in the flames spreading erratically, fiery tongues reaching out, trying to spread outside the furnace.

Seeing this, Jarid quickly interrupted him, "Kid! Stop!" at this Eidiri's body seized up, wondering what he did wrong.

"You don't do it like that, you got to breathe in a controlled manner. Sheesh, what did you expect to happen? Steadiness doesn't just apply to pouring things. You understand?"

Eidiri nodded, "Thank you master for your guidance." He had received another point to his forging mastery, soon enough he would be able to develop into a novice forger, one who is able to craft the most basic/rudimentary of tools.

He then turned back to the bellows, blowing consecutive breaths at regular intervals, the flames dwindling to more manageable levels.

"Okay now keep the flame burning at that level when the metal is practically glowing, remove it quickly, we don't want the ingots getting too brittle now, do we?" Jarid guided him through the process.

After 3 or so extra minutes, the metal was finally done smelting enough so that Eidiri could pour it into the molds.

"Okay, so now that that's done, you're going to pour it in," Eidiri hefted the kiln upwards and slowly tipped it over, slowly pouring the contents into the casts, "Okay that's good. Just like that," Jarid encouraged from the sidelines.

The melted scrap was slowly poured into the casts and then left to cool in order to form the completed ingot.

"Okay, now take a break for a bit. Your muscles are probably aching now, you realize that smithing is hard work now right? We'll wait for these to cool and then examine to see if you did it right."

After making that statement, Jarid heads off to one of the forge's backrooms.

-

About half an hour passes without much event, during this period of time Eidiri decided to reflect on his experience with his first forging attempt.

"How could I make the end product better?" he asks himself. "Maybe I'll just ask Master Jarid."

Then a server announcement occurs, "Congratulations to Player Eidiri for crafting the first item. As such they shall be rewarded with some basic crafting materials."

A notification appeared in a corner of his vision, "You have received 1 parcel of basic crafting materials."

Upon opening this parcel, it filled his inventory with 5 iron chunks, copper, coal, leather, as well as some already split logs.

This system announcement caused a rather explosive reaction among the players, resulting in wide discussion to how someone could already be so advanced as to be able to craft even the most basic of items, while the rest of the community were struggling to even be deemed as humans by the NPCs of the game.

In the forums, many irate players were demanding for this "Eidiri" to give up their secrets.

"Brother, for the sake of the community, let's help each other out. Just tell us how to do it and it'll be all fine."

"Come on Brother, we've got to outperform the other servers, our NA server has always been the beaten dog in this kind of thing. Let's obtain glory for our country together!"

Many people made these kinds of outlandish cries, using various excuses in attempts to coerce Eidiri into giving up his method.

Such actions were despicable, these people adopted guises of righteousness, but in reality, it was solely derived from self-interest in developing themselves within the game.

As such, Eidiri just directly ignored such comments.

In addition to all the comments screaming for his secrets, there were some guilds and groups who had extended offers to him.

As he scrolled through his practically bursting mail, he saw many offers, all wishing for him to offer up information and labor in exchange for signing a contract.

As he saw this kind of offer, he scoffed, "They actually want me to sign the slave forms. Ha! Disgusting."

See the issue here is that the majority of offers would be fake, in that they would get the information from Eidiri, working him as a slave. When he realized how he could've secured better deals with more reputable companies, he would be chained by the contract, milked as if a cow.

He took a glance over at the cooling ingots, it looked like he still had a bit more until they were finished.

As such, he decided to take this moment of time to write his next blog post, detailing his experiences with obtaining a profession and how one can obtain one.

"In other games, one would typically have to go to some sort of crafter's guild/association and register to become a particular profession. But here, as long as someone imparts their knowledge, or even if you develop this knowledge yourself, you can acquire pretty much anything from what I've experienced."

At the end of this particularly informative post, he decided to end it off with this statement, "I'll be honest, I'm not too well off in reality. As such, I hope you can understand my decision to instill a price upon the information I provide. Of course, the prices will be fairly reasonable, and those who can't afford such prices will still be able to access it, just at later dates."

"So with that, I'll be heading off, for now, I hope you understand my decision and that you have a great day.

- Eidiri."

At finalizing his message, he posted it, and then signed off of the forums, preferring to check on the state of the ingots prepared.

They had cooled off to the degree where they could now be touched. Seeing this, Eidiri called for Master Jarid, "Master Jarid! The ingots are done cooling!"

Hearing this, Jarid lumbered out of the room he had holed himself up in, examining the ingots, "They're passable. There's certainly room for improvement, but for a complete rookie. They'll be passable."

"Welcome to the forge kid," he warmly said.