Shi Feng took the key to the Intermediate Forging Room and headed upstairs, paying no attention to the alluring young woman.
The first floor of the Blacksmith Association was filled with ordinary forging rooms. The Intermediate Forging Rooms were on the second floor.
Compared to the first floor, the second floor was much quieter. Only NPCs walked back and forth; no players came here at all. There were only twenty Intermediate Forging Rooms, unlike the fifty ordinary ones.
The Intermediate Forging Room was larger and more elegant, and its equipment was better than that in an ordinary room. The hammers and flames used for forging were particularly special.
Shi Feng casually picked up the silvery-white little hammer lying on the anvil.
Hundred-Refined Hammer (Bronze rank)
Items forged: Increases the success rate by 3% when forging items.
Usage requirements: 4 Strength.
Even this Hundred-Refined Hammer was hard to get. The most players could buy from NPCs was an ordinary iron hammer, which gave no bonus to the success rate. As for taking the Hundred-Refined Hammer away, that was impossible. Players couldn't take anything that belonged to the forging room.
The flame here was special, too. It burned red and cyan instead of reddish-yellow. It wasn't an ordinary flame, but a Strange Fire.
Shi Feng scanned it as well.
Crimson Demon Fire (Tier 1 Strange Fire)
Special item: Its extremely high temperature can make smelted materials purer. It also increases the success rate to some extent when brewing potions or forging items.
Strange Fires were powerful flames found between Heaven and Earth, and they were exceedingly rare. They were divided into nine tiers according to their abilities, with Tier 1 being the weakest and Tier 9 the strongest. Even a Tier 1 Strange Fire wasn't something players could obtain easily.
In God's Domain, Strange Fires were extremely valuable because they were so rare. Since both Alchemy and blacksmithing required them, their value was even more astonishing.
A Tier 4 Strange Fire had once caused more than ten first-rate guilds to fight over it. After hundreds of thousands of players had died, Dominating the World finally claimed it. Not long after, one of its Alchemy Masters advanced to Grandmaster Alchemist, greatly increasing the guild's strength.
Looking at the burning Strange Fire, Shi Feng yearned for it intensely. It was the desire of every blacksmith.
As Shi Feng's thoughts raced, he suddenly remembered something.
In the second month after God's Domain opened, the third-rate guild Glory of God had discovered a Tier 2 Strange Fire, Ice Blue Demon Flame, in Hundred Ghost Forest. The sight had made countless guilds envious. At the time, many lifestyle players had signed up with Glory of God, causing its strength to surge and making it the overlord of a small city. Many guilds had secretly tried to find out how to get their hands on a Strange Fire. The Shadow Guild was no exception.
They had learned the Strange Fire's location and how to obtain it from someone inside Glory of God. Unfortunately, this Strange Fire had appeared only once and had never shown up again, leaving many guilds with nothing to show for their efforts.
Thinking of Ice Blue Demon Flame, Shi Feng immediately began scheming to get his hands on it. If he could obtain it, it would be a tremendous help in developing his own guild in the future, and it would greatly aid his advancement as a blacksmith.
However, to obtain Ice Blue Demon Flame, Shi Feng would have to plan carefully and prepare a lot of things before he had any chance of getting it.
Shi Feng stopped wasting time. He took out the design for Guardian Armor and chose to learn it.
System: You have learned to forge Guardian Armor.
Shi Feng then placed all the materials on the stone table, took out the incredibly precious Book of Forging, and began forging.
Shi Feng was a Basic Blacksmith Apprentice. His success rate for crafting Level 0 common equipment was only 20%, and a successful craft had a 40% chance of granting him 1 proficiency point. If he tried to craft the Level 3 Bronze Equipment, Guardian Armor, his success rate would definitely be below 5%. However, success with Bronze Equipment granted bonus proficiency, guaranteeing 2 points.
To advance to Intermediate Blacksmith Apprentice, however, he needed 1,000 proficiency points. That required a massive amount of resources, far beyond what an individual lifestyle player could afford.
Guild lifestyle players started by crafting common equipment. No guild dared to have them begin with Bronze Equipment. Even if they had the designs, they couldn't do that: the success rate was too low, the materials too expensive, and each failure cost more than one silver coin. No guild could afford it, and they couldn't collect that many materials anyway.
Shi Feng, however, had no such concerns. He had the Philosopher's Stone and wasn't short on resources. The materials for Guardian Armor were also cheap: only 5 bottles of Magic Essence, 5 pieces of Bronze Ore, and 20 pieces of Copper Ore. The cost was only eighty copper coins—over twenty copper coins less than that of other Bronze Equipment. Its stats were excellent, too, so he wouldn't have to worry about finding buyers.
Most importantly, there was the Book of Forging.
The Book of Forging increased the success rate for crafting common equipment by 70%, Bronze Equipment by 50%, Mystic Iron Equipment by 30%, Mithril Equipment by 20%, Adamantite Equipment by 10%, Dark Gold Equipment by 5%, and Epic Equipment by 1%.
With stats like these, players could easily advance to Forging Master without any obstacles.
A Basic Apprentice already had a 20% success rate for crafting common equipment. Adding 70% brought it to 90%. With the equipment in the Intermediate Forging Room, the rate was over 99%, excluding the possibility of mistakes. Unless someone was a complete idiot, failure was impossible.
That showed just how terrifying the Book of Forging was.
As for Guardian Armor, Shi Feng had a 5% success rate. Adding the Book of Forging's 50%, the equipment's 3%, and the Strange Fire's effect brought it to 60%. Even a 60% success rate for common equipment would drive crafting players wild, let alone for Bronze Equipment. No forging player would ever dare dream of such a thing.
Following the design's instructions, Shi Feng began carefully crafting Guardian Armor. First, he put the Copper Ore and Bronze Ore into the fire to temper them. After five minutes, the ores melted and gradually fused into a single mass. He then added the Magic Essence and, after burning it for another minute, took out the red-hot metal and placed it on the anvil. The scorching heat made Shi Feng sweat, but he didn't dare let his guard down. The most important part was still to come.
Once he was ready, Shi Feng picked up the Hundred-Refined Hammer and prepared to strike the glowing metal.
Clang, clang, clang...
Sparks flew in every direction, and the sound echoed throughout the spacious forging room.
Shi Feng was extremely careful with every strike.
In his previous life, he hadn't studied blacksmithing; he had only learned gathering skills. Still, he knew quite a bit about blacksmithing, having talked with a Forging Master many times and picked up a few insights. At least he wouldn't make any basic mistakes.
After striking it hundreds of times, Shi Feng felt the work was nearly perfect. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, carefully clicked on the red-hot metal's interface, and pressed the completion button.
The glowing metal began to change. In less than five seconds, it had turned into a silver-gray suit of armor. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it on the surface, but a piece of equipment's success wasn't judged by appearance alone. Its quality mattered too, including its stats and rank.
Poorly forged Bronze Equipment could end up as common equipment, or have stats that failed to meet the requirements, among other issues.
Shi Feng opened the armor's stats to see whether he had succeeded.