Endless Extraction in a Game-Like World-Chapter 42: The Power of a 1-Star Blacksmith! A Fortress in the Newbie Plains!
Materializing inside his newly upgraded Level 2 cabin, Caelus noticed the expanded space. It actually had a bathing room!
He was genuinely dumbfounded. Naturally, it was just a simple water-drawing mechanism. The settlement was not advanced enough for modern plumbing yet. In fact, their technological era was currently stuck in the Victorian Age.
[Town Level: Victorian Age]
[Requirements to advance to Manapunk Era:]
[- All cabins reach Level 2]
[- 1x Origin Merit Stone]
[- Take over three towns (1/3)]
"It might take a while," Caelus nodded.
But it was fine. He could easily issue a mandatory town quest for everyone to upgrade their cabins. If he could manage it, the others could safely pull it off too.
Caelus toggled the privacy setting in his system tab to obscure his face. Now, even without his armor helmet, his identity remained completely hidden.
Speaking of helmets, he urgently wanted an Armor Diffusion Device. This blueprint became available for Town Leaders to purchase once they reached the Manapunk Era. It essentially allowed players to turn their equipped armor invisible.
Privacy secured, he left the cabin and stepped into the town square.
The area was bustling with chatter. The players knew he was logging in, so they had dropped their grinding and rushed back.
"I wonder what the Boss looks like," Lily muttered, standing with her party with a hopeful expression.
They all knew he had white hair and a strong physique from watching the World Boss broadcast, but the mask had kept his true face a mystery.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Footsteps echoed lightly across the square. The sound was quiet, but the towering knight that suddenly appeared beside Caelus commanded total attention.
Everyone turned to look, including Aron, Riya, and Arnold, who stared in pure bewilderment.
"Hello, everyone," Caelus spoke softly. "Are you all ready? We are going to build the Mana-Infused Steel Walls."
"Of course!" a girl named Sarah cheered from the crowd.
The others immediately chimed in with excited shouts.
Their lives in the newbie server were incredibly smooth thanks to Player 555. Even their real-world social status had skyrocketed simply by sharing a server with the famous expert of Server 513.
Within the crowd, Aron, Arnold, and Riya looked at Caelus with highly mixed emotions.
"To think he is our classmate," Riya mumbled, completely speechless.
Her death penalty cooldown had finally ended after two agonizing days, allowing her back into the Domain. For the past several days, she had desperately tried to contact Caelus in the real world, only to realize she never even saved his number.
It was fair. He used to be the laughingstock of the entire academy. Having his contact information would have felt weird back then.
She could not hide her shock when Player 555’s achievements were publicly broadcasted everywhere. She knew exactly who he was because her party had traded with him face-to-face.
He was a terrifying monster! Not even the elite students from the special classes could hold a candle to him.
People at school still mocked him. When he skipped the tournament yesterday, rumors spread that he was terrified of getting beaten up. But Riya knew the harsh reality. He would not even need a single move to effortlessly crush every student in their class!
The realization sent shivers down her spine. This man unmistakably possessed a trash E-Rank Affinity and lacked any powerful origin talent. So where did this overwhelming power come from?
He was a complete irregular.
Suddenly, notifications rang out.
[System: You have spent 30 Resource Points to meet the third condition to develop a Mana-Infused Wall.]
Right as the prompt appeared, Caelus pulled out his random profession card.
[System: Choose a profession:]
Without hesitation, he selected Blacksmith.
[System: You have obtained the Blacksmith profession.]
[System: You have obtained the profession skill: Flash Forge.]
[Profession: Blacksmith]
[Tier 1: Iron I (0/25,000 EXP)]
[Note: Creating a Common rarity item grants 5 EXP. Rare grants 25 EXP. Epic grants 250 EXP. Legendary grants 500 EXP. Mythic grants 1,000 EXP.]
The Blacksmith and Miner professions complemented each other perfectly. Miners extracted raw ore, which was the most crucial material for a blacksmith. The ore obtained by a player also had distinct rarities: Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic. A miner bringing in Mythic ore could directly help a blacksmith attempt to forge a Mythic item.
[Skill: Flash Forge (Tier 1: Iron I)]
[Description: Form a hammer of energy to temper and refine ores to shape items.]
[Effect: Can be used to patch the lost durability of equipment.]
[Cost: Restoring durability costs 5 Mana.]
Weapons possessed a strict durability stat, capping at a hundred points. Unless a weapon was of the Mythic rarity, its durability would continuously drop with use until it reached zero and shattered.
For example, his Epic Tempest Dagger only had 81 durability remaining.
[Item: Tempest Dagger]
[Combat Score: +3]
[Durability: 81/100]
Seeing this, Caelus attempted to perform Flash Forge on the weapon.
[System: Flash Forge failed.]
[System: Increasing your proficiency experience can help improve success rates.]
"..." Caelus’s expression immediately darkened.
Just then, a server announcement rang out.
[System Announcement: It has been detected that a 1-Star Blacksmith is present within the Town. The system will now integrate a Blacksmith Forge into the settlement.]
The spatial fabric rapidly warped, and a massive Blacksmith Forge erected itself from the ground nearby. It was highly expansive, boasting enough open stations to house multiple future blacksmiths.
Caelus ignored the new building for now and instead opened his Town Leader interface, bringing up the settlement’s architectural grid.
Blinking lights surrounded the town’s perimeter, indicating valid construction zones. This specific option was locked before, but acquiring the Blacksmith profession bypassed the restriction. Usually, a Town Leader had to delegate construction tasks to designated engineers and blacksmiths, but Caelus could now execute them manually.
He pressed confirm. The earth trembled violently as towering walls with a heavy metallic sheen slowly rose from the dirt, fully enclosing the town.
Simultaneously, Caelus immersed his consciousness into the blueprint’s customization panel. He knew exactly how to optimize the Mana-Infused Steel Walls. Without hesitation, he deployed several defensive watchtowers along the sharp corners. He also carved out heavily reinforced gates and integrated hollowed spaces near the base to serve as future military barracks.
[Mana-Infused Steel Wall HP: 10,000/10,000]
Within moments, the impenetrable fortress walls were complete.
The crowd cheered wildly upon seeing this. The protective wall was fully built right before monster sieges became a regular part of the server’s dangerous routine.
The players had already done their calculations. In a few short days, monster sieges would become the new norm. Having a sturdy wall meant guaranteed safety, ensuring their respawn cabins would not be destroyed, which would make things go from bad to irreversibly worse.
"Alright, now that this is done, we need to buy Transmutation Matrices," Caelus commented as he opened the Town Shop interface.
A Transmutation Matrix went for 1,000 Origin Credits each.
What was a Transmutation Matrix? They were essentially automated spawners for Animus Spirits that would fiercely protect the city. A Town Leader could place a matrix down, and within that designated area, loyal allied monsters would spawn. They could be leveled up using dropped materials. It was a one-time purchase and entirely worth the steep price, especially with the high probability of rival servers soon clashing with theirs.
Transmutation Matrices used inscribed Animus Spirit patterns to spawn defenders directly into the barracks or defensive zones designated by the Town Leader.
Each area had a strict population limit. Once full, newly formed spirits entered a queue, ready to spawn instantly the moment a defensive slot opened up in battle.
The entire process ran on natural mana extracted from beast drops. Players were subject to a mandatory minimum tax of ten percent on their gathered materials to actively power the barracks. The Town Leader could easily increase this percentage at any time to greatly accelerate the spawning process.
It was a seamless defense system sustained entirely by the players, for the players.
Without hesitation, Caelus bought eight of them, spending 8,000 Origin Credits in one go.
"I have bought eight Transmutation Matrices. Four will be placed down on the ground near the main gates, and four will go up top on the watchtowers. The lower matrices will spawn heavy Golems, and the upper ones will spawn ranged Arc-Weavers."
"For now, I need to try acquiring the specific blueprints for the Golems and Arc-Weavers. It will take me a day at best, since I am sure nobody in this server has those blueprints yet. I will try acquiring them in the real world marketplace. In the meantime, all of you focus strictly on building the physical barracks near the wall gates."
Caelus fired off instructions rapidly. For those who were not currently in town and were out hunting monsters, he issued an official system announcement to quickly catch them up to speed.
He issued two mandatory town quests to level up their cabins and construct the barracks.
[Town Quest: Level Up Cabin to Level 2 initiated.]
[Town Quest: Build Barracks initiated.]
With these two quests successfully issued, Caelus did not linger around. He swiftly made his way back to the second area of the newbie plains.
For any true player, managing a town was strictly secondary. The real treasures and ultimate opportunities were still hidden deep within the Domain itself and its endlessly sprawling map.
