The Cheerful Ring of the Hammer

The hammer rang out in a bright, lively rhythm.

The skills he was using were Sharpen Blade and Remove Rust.

Choi Sang-yun watched with a tense expression.

No matter how amazing Tae-hyun had been, that was a story from Fantasy Online 1. Right now, in Fantasy Online 2, his level was still low. No matter how skilled you were, if your level and skill levels were low, there were limits to what you could do.

"Here."

"Hey! Don't throw it!"

Tae-hyun tossed it over as if he were flicking a coin at a beggar.

"It's not like it's going to break anyway..."

Frowning, Choi Sang-yun checked the item.

If this thing so much as gets damaged, I'm never hearing the end of it... Huh?

"?!?!?!"

Even for a ranker like Choi Sang-yun, these were effects he'd never seen before.

"Wh-what is this?"

"See that?"

Tae-hyun puffed up proudly.

He'd become arrogant in an instant, but Choi Sang-yun was far too shocked to care.

The questions poured out of him.

"Blessed by a god? Holy damage? Did you get some kind of god-related class? A priest? A paladin?"

"Nope. None of those. I'm an Avatar."

The god itself.

An Avatar!

"Avatar? I've never even heard of that. Wait a second, if it's that level... Even Heroic classes don't have Avatars..."

"It's a Legendary Class."

"!!!!"

The friend who'd sworn up and down that he would never class-change had somehow become a Legendary Class holder.

"The guy who said he wasn't class-changing got a Legendary Class? How the hell did that happen? That's insane!"

"It's not like I was trying to get it, you idiot. I kept pumping Luck and got forced into it."

"You got forced into a class change???"

Choi Sang-yun stared, mouth hanging open.

"What about a class-change quest or something?"

"Nothing. If there had been one, I would've rejected it right away."

From Choi Sang-yun's point of view, that sounded exactly like something Tae-hyun would do.

Legendary Class or not, if he didn't like it, he'd turn it down without blinking.

"Wow. Seriously, this is ridiculous. A Legendary Class goes to a guy who hates class-changing this much? It should've gone to me instead!"

"Then you should've raised yours the way I did."

"Who the hell raises a character like that?!"

A deranged build with no class change and nothing but Luck.

If not for Rabbit Foot, it would've been practically impossible in the first place.

You'd have to avoid class-changing and keep pumping Luck until you were level 300 or 400 before it would even barely become viable.

"Man... that's seriously incredible. Figures. If someone's meant to make it, they'll make it no matter what."

Tae-hyun held out a hand.

Seeing it, Choi Sang-yun felt a little emotional.

Wasn't that what it meant?

Choi Sang-yun clasped Tae-hyun's hand.

"What are you doing?"

"...Wasn't this for a handshake?"

"I was asking for money, idiot. You thought you were getting this for free? I need cash if I'm going to level my Blacksmithing skill. Pay up."

"..."

Not even friendship earned him a discount.

"You already have tons of money..."

"Yeah, but I don't whale."

Grumbling, Choi Sang-yun pulled out some gold.

To be honest, it didn't hurt him that much to give Tae-hyun money. Their friendship was far too solid to be shaken by a little gold. He'd come here intending to help from the start.

Still, human nature was human nature. The moment someone outright asked for it, handing it over suddenly felt annoying.

"You should be grateful I'm even touching your gear. At this performance level, you couldn't buy a chance like this with money."

Tae-hyun wasn't wrong.

At the moment, even if you had money, you couldn't just hand your gear over to high-level blacksmiths.

Most of them were tied to guilds.

A guild-affiliated blacksmith usually only worked on gear for guild members. Blacksmiths outside guilds were rare, and the few that existed were booked solid.

That was why talented high-level blacksmiths were always in high demand.

"Hey. I came all the way here as a ranker to help you, you know..."

"Quit whining. Hand over the next piece of gear."

His Blacksmithing skill kept climbing.

Tae-hyun was in such high spirits that he worked over every last piece of Choi ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sang-yun's gear.

After checking the results, Choi Sang-yun nodded.

"This is seriously insane. Sharpen Blade, right? Even if it's temporary, the performance boost is absurd. It rivals most decent priest buffs."

The second word of this got out, people would line up to find Tae-hyun.

If he could buff gear this well, every party would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠want him.

"Right. That's why I need your help."

"Huh?"

"I was planning to make money with this, see? Set up a stall."

It was the sort of thing low-level blacksmiths did all the time.

They'd sit in the city square and advertise.

"Weapons tuned up!"

"Armor repairs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here!"

If low-level blacksmiths messed with your gear, it could get slapped with penalties, but low-level players usually didn't care too much. They leveled up fast and changed gear often anyway.

And players with truly valuable equipment would never hand it to blacksmiths like that in the first place.

"But if I do that, it'll be a pain in the ass. Guilds'll start swarming me right away."

"Well, obviously. Blacksmiths are ridiculously valuable these days."

"So I'm planning to use your face."

"Huh?"

"You're high level, and you've got a bunch of followers who like you, right?"

All he had to do was call, and players ready to lay down their lives would come running.

"So?"

"Go brag that you've got a blacksmith you know. Then when someone brings you gear, you pass it to me."

In other words, all the annoying parts would be Choi Sang-yun's problem.

"Hey! Then they're all gonna swarm me!"

"You're good at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠playing dumb. You'll do it, right?"

"Man, seriously..."

Choi Sang-yun nodded.

"Still, isn't Sharpen Blade and Remove Rust kind of awkward? They're basically on-the-spot buff skills."

Since they had time limits, they were best used right before a fight.

That was the nature of those two skills.

"Exactly. Repairs alone are awkward too. So I need to raise my Blacksmithing skill, learn crafting, and level enhancement some. But for enhancement, there are probably a lot of people better than me right now... And if someone's handing over gear for +7 or higher, don't they need to know your name first? Nobody's trusting enhancements to some blacksmith they've never heard of."

"What?"

"What?"

"+7?"

"Isn't +7 the point where items can start breaking during enhancement?"

Every time an item was enhanced successfully, a +1 appeared after its name.

If you succeeded again, it became +2, then +3...

And so on, all the way to +7.

When you attempted to go from +7 to +8, failure could destroy the item.

Back in Fantasy Online 1, seven had been the cursed number.

Enhance, or don't enhance!

Countless players had failed to resist the temptation of seven and wept bitter tears after trying.

No matter how skilled a blacksmith was, eventually the day came when an enhancement failed.

Tae-hyun was no exception.

Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

"That's in Fantasy Online 1. In 2, it's different."

"Huh? Really?"

"You didn't know? They cranked the enhancement standards way up. The breakpoint is +2."

"?!"

So items could be destroyed starting from +2 enhancement failure.

"Wait... then did the skill EXP change too? In the original, you only got enhancement skill EXP starting at +7."

That was one of the vicious things about Fantasy Online 1.

Enhancements like +1, +2, and +3, where failure carried no destruction penalty, gave almost no enhancement skill EXP no matter how much you did them.

If you wanted to level your enhancement skill, you had to enhance items to +7 or higher.

And from +7 onward, item destruction was on the table.

Even if you were working with low-level gear, collecting enhancement stones and materials, then dealing with success and failure over and over, was no small task.

That was why blacksmiths in Fantasy Online 1 all joined guilds.

Tae-hyun, who'd personally farmed every material by grinding alone, had been the freak exception.

"Yeah. From what I know, enhancement skill EXP starts coming in at +2."

"That sounds way easier for leveling blacksmiths."

In Fantasy Online 1, blacksmiths needed +7 or higher items to level enhancement skills.

But in Fantasy Online 2, they only needed items at +2 or above.

For the people doing the enhancing, of course, it was nerve-racking if items could break from +2 onward—but blacksmiths themselves ought to be able to grow faster.

"No. There are barely any enhancement blacksmiths right now. Unless a guild backed you from the beginning and raised you for it, there are almost none."

"...?"

"Because the item destruction rate got massively increased. You really don't read the forums at all, do you?"

"Too many useless posts..."

The kind of guy who wrote guides, but never read them.

"If you'd checked the forums, you would've known right away. People say the item destruction rate got so bad from +2 onward that leveling enhancement skills is brutal. That's why you barely see enhanced items around."

"Oh. So that's why..."

Tae-hyun thought back to Choi Eun-cheol and Kim Byeong-guk.

The items he'd gotten after killing them.

Things like the Belt of Grit and the Magic Tower Flame Stone Staff had been enhanced to +1 or +2.

At first he'd figured they were just poor and had only been able to afford +1 or +2 enhancements, but now that he thought about it, that wasn't it.

+2 had simply been the limit.

Go any further, and destruction became possible.

Wow... the dev team is vicious.

It was exactly the sort of system that would scare people into never enhancing anything valuable.

Of course, in reality this was the AI adjusting balance on its own—but the ones players always cursed at were the developers.

Can my Luck cover that?

Tae-hyun fell into thought.

His Luck was absurdly high, that was true.

But enhancement wasn't something to take lightly.

If the already low odds had gotten even lower in Fantasy Online 2...

Even with his Luck, he couldn't feel safe.

He did have the skill Urging, but Urging only let him reroll a failure once.

Even if you rerolled 1%, it was still 1%.

Betting on odds that low didn't mean much.

Guess I'll have to try it and see.

Tae-hyun rummaged through his inventory.

What did he have that was worth enhancing?

Ah. I still haven't opened this.

The set item he'd received from Gurendal.

Tool Set for Beginner Blacksmiths.

It was a packaged item that produced whatever was inside once opened.

Tae-hyun already had the hammer he'd used while training under Gurendal, so he'd left it unopened until now.

Now's the time.

Once again, he felt the kindness of a master.

Usually, set items like this came with several things together.

Besides a hammer, there might be an anvil or a chisel that boosted the performance of certain skills. Or failing that, maybe a blacksmith-exclusive belt or bracelet.

"...That's it?"

Only one alert window appeared.

The only item was something called the Ancient Hammer.

For Tae-hyun, who'd expected an entire blacksmithing set, it was a baffling result.

"No... why?"

Unless your luck was spectacularly bad, set items like this didn't usually spit out just one thing.

And Tae-hyun had stacked his Luck to absurd levels.

If anything, he should have gotten more, not less.

Item check.

"..."

As he read the description, Tae-hyun felt something rise in his chest.

Logically speaking, would something ancient really be better than something made now?

Are they screwing with me?

In other words, it was a dud.

But Tae-hyun was overlooking one thing.

His Luck affected item outcomes too.

And Tae-hyun was no longer someone who could pull a dud even if he wanted to.