Divine Glitch: I Regressed With Endgame Knowledge-Chapter 49: A New Discovery and a Bold Move

Ryan stayed logged into the game, idly browsing the forums of the other factions to check their progress. To his quiet satisfaction, not a single race had managed to clear their first official dungeon. Naturally, this only emboldened the human players, who flooded the boards with smug taunts. In response, players from every other faction seemed to unite—if only in their shared disdain for humanity.

"This is going to be a problem," Ryan muttered, scratching his head with a grimace. "The Dark Horde factions, fine, whatever. But why are the Night Elves and Dwarves piling on, too? If we ever need cross-faction cooperation for joint quests, we’re just setting ourselves up for isolation."

He scrolled through a few more threads, then figured enough time had passed. Time to get back to work.

Roughly thirty minutes later, he’d finished crafting 1,000 Crude Sharpening Stones—enough to finally push his Blacksmithing skill to 20 points. The process had left him with over a hundred stacks of crude stones. If his inventory hadn’t been so large, there was no way he could’ve carried that much.

He kept just two stacks—forty stones total—and dumped the rest on a nearby NPC vendor. The payout was less than 20 silver.

Crude Sharpening Stones were basically junk—byproducts of leveling up the profession. One player could churn out enough to supply dozens, so they were always in oversupply. On top of that, few players in human territories even bothered with crafting at this stage. Ryan’s higher-than-average buying prices had temporarily inflated material costs, making things worse. Technically, he could sell them to other players, but he didn’t have time for that.

The Trade Dummies could only buy, not sell, and he wasn’t about to stand in Goldmine Town hawking low-tier items just to make a few gold.

Just as he was about to pick up a new profession skill, a message popped up from Evelyn.

"Thanks."

One simple word. But it was the first time Ryan had ever seen her express anything like that. It caught him off guard—and reminded him just how vicious the forum trolls had been. Too far. They’d gone too far.

And Ryan wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Back near Goldtooth’s corpse, a few players still loitered, reading Ryan’s forum post while watching the drama unfold. Their expressions were cold, amused.

"These guys only know how to bully the weak," said a mage named Noob, his tone sharp with disdain. "Soon as someone with real power shows up, they go quiet. Featherlight mocked them to their faces, and all they can do is argue in the comments. Not a single bold word from them."

He glanced at his teammates, his smile turning sly.

"Wanna throw more fuel on the fire?"

One of the warriors shifted uneasily. "There’s a lot of guilds involved... Laughing Spirit from Pantheon, Ironblood Blade from Ironblood Covenant, Wanderer from Free Spirit Guild. Not the strongest, but still... poking them might not be worth the heat."

His voice said caution, but his eyes betrayed something else—excitement.

"What are you afraid of?" Noob snorted. "This game’s officially backed now. Every other game will shut down eventually. All the guilds will end up here, fighting for territory. If we’re scared of second-rate players now, how are we going to survive against the big dogs later?"

He leaned forward slightly, energized.

"We need to keep hitting them—again and again. Build momentum for our guild. That’s how we carve out our place in this world."

Then, without waiting for a response, Noob took a screenshot of Goldtooth’s body at his feet and posted it directly in the thread.

"The Red Tide Guild stands with Featherlight. We condemn those who bully the weak and cower before the strong. Also, we’ve cleared the official dungeon. Anyone looking for a serious guild—join us!"

Not content with just one strike, Noob took things further. He began tagging the identities of individual players who’d been stirring up trouble in the forum thread.

"Boss, you’re being way too impulsive," said Six Hands, the warrior, shaking his head with a helpless smile. But the fire in his eyes told a different story—he was more thrilled than concerned.

"Stir up the waters," he added, almost gleefully. "Then we go fishing."

Behind them, a priest known as Six Eyes stepped forward without a word and picked up the quest item from Goldtooth’s remains. His voice was low and ominous when he finally spoke.

"Let them talk. They’ll scream louder once the fire spreads."

Back in his own corner of the world, Ryan was still absorbed in leveling his professions. When he finally noticed Noob’s post, he didn’t comment. He just sighed and moved on.

"Lucky bastard," he muttered.

In truth, if Ryan hadn’t been reborn into the past, it might’ve been that team that claimed the coveted Glorious Achievement. As it stood, Ryan’s own paid post hadn’t received a single purchase. No buzz. No momentum.

It wasn’t until well past midnight that Ryan finally exhaled in satisfaction. He picked up the set of green plate armor he’d crafted, equipped it piece by piece, then stashed the rest at the bottom of his inventory for later.

His Blacksmithing skill had reached 60, unlocking green-quality plate armor recipes from the profession trainer. He’d grabbed several Level 10 recipes and crafted them one after another, using the best materials he had.

Throughout the evening, Ryan had been operating like clockwork—carefully tracking every minute. As soon as his Hearthstone’s cooldown ended, he planned to teleport back to Astral City and visit the Wandering Merchant in hopes of scoring something rare.

But luck, it seemed, had run dry. Maybe he’d used it all up earlier on that cooking recipe, because everything else the merchant had on offer was junk. The only halfway decent items were a few stacks of copper ore and some emeralds.

Not exactly a win.

Ryan already had hundreds—maybe even seven or eight hundred—stacks of copper ore sitting in storage. And emeralds? He could get those just by disenchanting copper ore with his Jewelcrafting skill. At best, he’d saved himself a single gold coin.

After offloading and sorting his inventory, Ryan checked the Hearthstone cooldown—still over ten minutes left. Not wanting to waste time, he pulled out the last of his Crude Stones. All 110 stacks. They nearly filled his entire bag space.

His plan was simple: use the Crude Stones to level up Engineering. He’d teleport to Astral City, head to the inn, buy some drinks, and settle in to craft gunpowder. Once the crafting queue started, he could let the game idle until it automatically logged him out after thirty minutes.

If things went smoothly, he’d wake up tomorrow to find 110 stacks of Crude Gunpowder waiting—and his Engineering skill bumped up by 30 points.

At 25 Engineering skill, he’d unlock his first stun bomb. It only incapacitated enemies until they took damage, but that was more than enough for Paladins, who notoriously lacked crowd control options.

As the final seconds ticked down on his Hearthstone, Ryan stood from the forge and left Stormhold Fortress in a flash of green light.

Just like clockwork, he made his way to the Wandering Merchant. The moment he opened the merchant’s interface, a strange feeling hit him—a little jolt in his chest, like something good was coming.

"See? My intuition’s always spot on," he said aloud, grinning to himself.

Right there at the top of the list, gleaming in rare-quality blue, was a shield. It required Level 15 to equip, but Ryan didn’t hesitate. He bought it instantly.

It might not be usable yet, but it was still a win. A shield like this wouldn’t normally drop until you were grinding Level 20 mobs in the wild. Getting it now? That was a stroke of fortune.