The Blacksmith

The Competition of the dwarves had begun. The Annual contest was met with great excitement from the contestants, each being a crafter or blacksmith in the tribe, competing against others to see who was the best.

During this year, the winner of the previous year’s contest had to defend his title to continue holding on.

Under the excitement from the crowd, watching as stones were being chipped and hammers struck burning ores. A Dwarf named Dulgol longingly gazed as the masters of various fields crafted amazing artworks and weapons, some which would later be used for war and others which would only be put up for decorative uses should they be considered as beautiful.

"One day, I am going to emerge the winner and keep the title for a long time." He said with a resolute voice, watching as the masters brought out their greatest masterpieces to the front of four dwarves, each wearing a deep blue robe covered by an iron mail sash.

“Bravo!” One of the four commented before raising the hand of one with a red beard, "I hereby dub thee as Grandmaster."

As time passed, Dulgol, who happened to be a young dwarf grew up to become a blacksmith.

One fateful day, while striking his hammer against a metal ore. His eyes spotted something right on the earth's floor as the place where he stood had countless minuscule blue crystals.

“Where did that come from?” He thought, using a pair of metal thongs to carry the flattened ore before placing it elsewhere to cool. Then he bent down to take a closer look at the crystals strewn on the floor before picking up one and analyzing its features. It had the shape of a diamond gem with lines that were evenly separated, but upon closer speculations, he noticed that the lines were glowing. "I wonder what this would look like on a weapon or a tool?" He thought.

So he spent every day learning how to craft and forge weapons with the gem-themed ore or rock, but no matter how he tried, he was unable to properly forge the gems with the ore.

“It's like two distinct materials,” He said before adding a log of wood to increase the heat, watching as the gem crystals laid on a flat metal plate suddenly intensified its light. After an hour of continuous burning, the crystal's light returned to normal but remained intact in its glowing nature.

Curious to test it out, Dulgol raised an iron rod and pushed the small crystal gems only to reveal a face of shock when the two melded together.

“Excellent,” he smiled before returning to the forge and bringing out liquid ore.

“If it doesn't meld then this might as well be considered a great error.” he thought while pouring out the liquid ore onto a metal plate with the shape of a sword etched inside before adding the glowing gemstones at the hilt region and allowing it to cool.

To his surprise the glowing crystals stuck to the sword when he dipped it into water and brought out a sharp blade with its base having a set of crystals patterned into the form of a spiral, emitting a deep, incandescent light.

“But what is this for, not just decoration right?” he deeply pondered about the effectiveness of the weapon.

“Mana stones!” His eyes widened in realization as soon as he had swung the sword to the right with force, leaving the side with the crystal spiral open as a large gust of wind swept out of the sword's hilt. Luckily, his forge was just a large open structure relying on pillars for support while its thatched roof provided shade, so the attack continued to the outside till it clashed against the surrounding rocks spilling debris all around and creating a crack in the ground.

“Yes!” Dulgol screamed with excitement, he had unknowingly created the key to his victory as he continued his crafting with countless small crystals he spotted popping out of the rocky earth on which he stood, going forth to win the annual contest of the Dwarves in his tribe

"Master, I hope that you will keep the title of great crafter for a long time," his apprentice said with a smile, complimenting him.

"Good things and positions can only be gotten by hard work and luck also plays a key role,” Dulgol said before slamming his hammer down onto the melted ore.

The Annual contest came, and everyone in the tribe got together to watch the great hands, craft materials, weapons, artifacts, sculpting works, and many more.

"We have all come to participate in this this year, but only one will go with the title of Grandmaster," Dulgol announced as he looked at his comrades.

“How cocky?”

“I'll show him!” Spiteful voices rang out of the mouths of Dwarves who listened to his statement.

Dulgol, wielding a large hammer, would then go on to craft one of the most powerful artifact weapons in the tribe and defeat them.

During the annual contest, he was able to forge a hammer, which he named Flom, by carefully heating the ores to liquid form and striking them down to be properly flattened before using a pair of sticks to transfer the heated gemstones onto the spine of the body of the weapon and forged a hammer of glittering stone.

It was a pity, though, that although this hammer couldn't be used for anything other than being gawked at, the artifact used decoration because the temperature used in heating the gemstones had been below the standard that he used and was an intentional act.

While being the Grand Master he continued to learn about the craft with mana stones and would win the annual crafting contest for forty consecutive years till he renounced his title.

No one had been able to craft a gem-themed weapon or tool like he did, as each of his apprentices could manage to reciprocate only a skill of his at best, while the others only grew to be decent crafters who couldn't forge the mana stones that were starting to reveal themselves to the clan.

Seeing the knowledge and secrets that Dulgol possessed Shawn thought about making him a higher being so he clicked on the higher being tab and said, "System choose Dulgol to become the higher being of crafting,"

*Deducting 600CP from Creator.*

A bright light flashed in front of Shawn as he saw a red-bearded dwarf appear in front of him holding a sledgehammer.

"Congratulations, Dulgol, you have been chosen to become the higher being of crafting and forgery." He said. "I'm honored Master Shawn," Dulgol replied with a smile.

"Good now go and meet the rest of your siblings to help them discover the secrets of the world,"

Before he could continue, a bright light flashed in front of him, and upon dimming, Dulgol disappeared.

"There is one last race left," Shawn said before turning to Blan.

"System, is it possible to make a long-gone person a higher being?"

*Yes,*

Noting the system's reply, he now faced the silver wolf,

"How about you become a higher being and watch over the rest of your kin?"

Blan was silent for a moment, lowering his head and staring at the floor for a while before answering, "It will be an honour Master."

"Great, now let me make you become the Higher being of Bravery."

“Is it possible?”

*Yes, as long as you're available in the higher beings list, or you can just make them directly.* The system responded.

"Ok," Shawn said before checking the higher beings tab.

"Blan is not on the list how much will it cost to make him a higher being directly,”

*Well, it'll cost you 900 CP since you're making him directly, as the system is not suited for him to be a higher being.*

"Alright, then, 900 CP." The Kid replied with a smile.

A bright light flashed across the wolf sitting in front of him and soon receded, showing a Blan with full grayish-white fur now as stripes.

All the time the wolf had been with him, Shawn only seemed to notice now that the wolf seemed a bit transparent in skin color, and then Blan disappeared from Shawn’s view and, this time, revealed himself in the physical realm.

"System show me the tasks.” Shawn requested the moment he sat on the couch.

A tab then appeared in front of his face, showing all of the tasks both completed and uncompleted.

Complete all Quests

1 Earn at least 35,000 CP - 31,000/35,000.

2 Witness a new change that occurs in the world - 1/1 - C

3 Create 2 new realms - 1/2.

4 Create 2 new energies to place into the world - 2/2 - C

5 Have 8 higher beings - 8/8 - C

6 Give yourself a name to be addressed by the races- (It can be together or a separate name for each race) - 1/1 - C

7 Complete at least 15 quests - 15/15 - C

8 Set rules concerning certain aspects of the world -

At that moment he heard a certain notification ring near his ear.

*Congratulations you have completed the quest of higher beings and received 1600 CP.*

*Congratulations you have completed the 15 quests mark and received 1,200 CP.*

"I still have two tasks, I can still complete it before I log out of the world. Also how exactly do I solve the issue of me logging out and it affecting my daily life in the real world?"

*When you reach the next rank, which is rank 4, you will be given an ultimatum to continue or put a fixed time within the game world and real world, or you can choose to leave.*

"Why were you toying with me when you told me that I had to make a choice concerning leaving the real world and the game world?!"

*Well you asked to know about it and I decided to give you an element of surprise.*

"You are truly not a human being; I am not some mind reader System," He said, clicking his tongue with an angry look.

*What can I say except you're welcome?*

"In that case, I'll complete the last two quests," Shawn instantly changed the topic, checked for the realms in Ornio, and tapped on the new realm before describing it using his voice.

“The new realm is known as the higher being realm. The higher beings that I have chosen and made will be in the realm and associate together. They will have policies of their domain and will be able to make laws concerning the domains they have within the realm. Only them or someone who they allow can access these worlds.”

*Congratulations, you have received 2000 CP for completing the realms quest.*

He looked at the last quest, which included making laws for the world, and suddenly remembered the laws that had been figured out by a science assignment given to him by his teacher.

"How about I put this into the aesthetics concerning the energies and many other properties?" He said, remembering the words he had written on a piece of paper while awake.

"How do I create laws for the world of Ornio?" He asked.

*All you have to do is go to the World tab and click on laws.* The System replied.

Shawn did as the system said and checked the laws tab.

Number of laws - 0.

He saw a button underneath called create laws and clicked on it allowing a new tab to appear in his front. He began voicing all he had prepared when writing on that paper when he was awake and created 50 laws concerning the world of Ornio and its interactions that had to be clearly defined and checked the World tab again.

*Ding! Congratulations you have completed the last quest and broken through the third rank!* A notification rang, informing him of his new status.