The Jackpot That Wasn’t
At first, Tae-hyun grumbled. “Come on, what kind of dud is this...?”
But once he looked past the hammer’s description and checked its actual performance, his mind changed.
It was pretty decent.
What he liked most was that it had no class restriction, no level restriction, and no stat restriction.
Most good blacksmithing gear was locked to blacksmith-type classes. And for Tae-hyun, even if he could somehow deal with level or stat requirements, class restrictions were impossible to bypass.
The Ancient Hammer had none of that.
On top of that, equipping it raised skill levels. He didn’t know by how much, but as an option on blacksmith gear, that was excellent.
And finally, it had infinite durability.
If it can’t be destroyed by ordinary means, then...
No repairs needed, no worrying about special monster attacks, no having to baby the item unless something truly absurd happened.
That alone made it valuable.
An idea struck Tae-hyun.
This would be great for enhancement, wouldn’t it?
“What are you doing?”
When Tae-hyun stopped and fell into thought, Choi Sang-yun asked.
“Hey. You’ve got enhancement stones on you right now, don’t you?”
At Sang-yun’s level, he’d surely have some.
“I do, but...”
“Hand them over.”
“Did I deposit them with you or something?!”
If it couldn’t be destroyed by ordinary means, then...
...that means failed enhancements should be fine too, right?
It was perfect as a test subject for enhancement experiments.
Tae-hyun eagerly pulled out an enhancement stone.
For a +1 enhancement, he needed one stone.
Attempting enhancement.
Holding the enhancement stone and a basic hammer, Tae-hyun carefully began tapping the Ancient Hammer.
Other blacksmithing techniques varied depending on the player’s actual skill, but enhancement didn’t work that way.
It was all luck and skill level.
You just placed the enhancement stone on the item and smacked it with a hammer. That was it.
Enhancement successful.
The Ancient Hammer has become Ancient Hammer (+1).
Your Enhancement skill has increased.
Ancient Hammer (+1)
Durability: ∞ / ∞
Attack Power: ?
When equipped, blacksmith-type skills can be used, and the level of blacksmith-type skills increases.
Cannot be destroyed by ordinary means.
Attack power is determined by the Blacksmithing skill.
An item once used by an ancient blacksmith. Logically speaking, would something from ancient times really be better than what exists now?
Nothing had really changed.
The item’s specs are kind of vague.
He wouldn’t know how much the blacksmith skill level increased, or what the attack power was, until he equipped it.
As a result, the description window barely looked different.
Then on to the next one.
For +2, he needed two enhancement stones. Then four. Then eight.
It doubled each time.
Attempting enhancement.
Enhancement successful.
The Ancient Hammer (+1) has become Ancient Hammer (+2).
Your Enhancement skill has increased.
Attempting enhancement.
Enhancement successful.
The Ancient Hammer (+2) has become Ancient Hammer (+3).
Your Enhancement skill has increased.
“Hey, hey... aren’t you going way too hard on this?”
“Give me more enhancement stones.”
“Did I leave them with you?!”
“What if the gear breaks? You okay with that?”
“It won’t break.”
Even the enhancement stones Tae-hyun had gotten from Gurendal weren’t enough.
So he shook down Choi Sang-yun too.
“You got any more?”
“I’m not even a blacksmith! Why the hell would I carry around a ton of enhancement stones?”
“You said you had a lot of followers, right? Contact them and wring some enhancement stones out of them.”
Not even a second of hesitation. Pure, ruthless practicality.
“Hey!”
“Who benefits if my enhancement skill goes up? Don’t you want your gear enhanced?”
And then came the shameless threat.
In the end, Sang-yun shut his mouth and started sending messages around.
What a scummy bastard!
Meanwhile, the Ancient Hammer kept changing.
It had long since passed +3, the point where destruction became a real risk.
Tae-hyun charged straight on to +5.
At that point, a faint flame began flickering around the hammer.
“Oh. It looks like Torbjörn.”
The hammer reminded him of a character from an old game he used to play.
Though Tae-hyun had preferred Hanzo.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, a broadcast was going on somewhere else.
A blacksmith ranker, Lucas, was streaming.
Strictly speaking, Lucas was underleveled to be called a ranker.
But people still treated him like one for a simple reason.
He was a blacksmith.
Production classes lost far too much efficiency when it came to leveling.
“All right! Today, I’m going to attempt a +7 enhancement! The viewers supporting my stream have sent enhancement stones and gear to cheer me on. Thanks again, everyone!”
Lucas’s stream was packed.
Everyone had gathered for one reason.
To watch him enhance.
Lucas was one of the rare blacksmiths in Fantasy Online 2 who had gone all-in on the Enhancement skill.
And since he didn’t belong to a guild, his popularity was even higher.
This is my chance to take off again.
When other blacksmiths joined guilds, he’d gone the opposite route.
Guild membership got you support, sure. But it also cut you off from support from everyone else.
So while everyone else joined guilds, Lucas gambled that if he stayed solo, people would flock to him.
And he’d been right.
People couldn’t commission work from guild blacksmiths freely, so they all came to him.
On top of that, viewers showered him with enhancement stones, gear, and cash gifts, urging him to enhance on stream.
From a strategic standpoint, it had been a huge success.
He’d made a name for himself as a blacksmith ranker and carved out a firm place in the scene.
Guilds contacted him with offers. Broadcasts reached out from time to time too.
But Lucas wasn’t satisfied.
He wanted to climb higher.
Like Kim Tae-hyun from Fantasy Online 1.
To every blacksmith, Kim Tae-hyun from the first game was an icon.
While production classes stood in the back pounding away with hammers, Kim Tae-hyun had picked one up and beaten rankers to death with it.
Lucas admired the skill, sure—but even more than that, he wanted that kind of reputation.
Blacksmith meant Kim Tae-hyun, and Kim Tae-hyun meant blacksmith.
That kind of fame.
He still had a long way to go.
And since he didn’t have guild backing, he needed another route.
What he was aiming for this time was a title.
Usually, if you were the first on the server to do something, you got a title for it.
The first blacksmith to succeed at a +1 enhancement had gotten a title. Same for +2, +3, +4, +5.
But no one had yet succeeded with +7.
Which made sense, if you thought about it.
You needed a massive number of enhancement stones to pull off a +7.
And since the item could break at any point along the way, you also needed a huge pile of spare items.
You couldn’t risk a rare item. No sane person would enhance one while accepting it might shatter.
Which led to a simple conclusion.
The most likely way to achieve a +7 enhancement was to take a common, cheap normal-grade item and brute-force it with an enormous number of enhancement stones.
Who would do something like that?
Lucas would.
Partly for the stream. Partly for the viewers.
But he also had his own calculations.
If this succeeds, the Enhancement skill experience will be insane.
Even previous breakthroughs through destruction-risk stages had given tremendous experience.
If he hit +7, his Enhancement skill would leap far ahead of everyone else’s.
At the moment, his Enhancement skill level was 3.
A level bought with blood, sweat, and tears.
Skill levels in Fantasy Online varied wildly from skill to skill.
Some could be raised to level 10 with ridiculous ease.
Others were agony just to get to 2.
Enhancement belonged firmly in the second category.
Even reaching skill level 2 required you to burn through enhancement stones like your life depended on it.
Still, it was worth it.
Skill level 2 meant your enhancement success rate doubled.
Skill level 3 meant it quadrupled.
The enhancement rates in Fantasy Online 2 were brutal.
Each stage halved the odds.
Luck had some influence, but since nobody invested in Luck, that hardly mattered. Roughly speaking, +1 was 50%.
+2 was 25%, +3 was 12.5%...
By the time you got to +7, it dropped below 1%.
The only thing that could even begin to fight those odds was the Enhancement skill.
If he could reach skill level 4, it would be enormous.
He’d already done enhancement attempts in the thousands.
And he was still only at level 3.
That was already the highest level on the server.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say enhancement was made from the blood, sweat, and tears of blacksmith players.
I’ll make it happen this time and hit skill level 4. Based on the previous titles, a +7 success title should raise Enhancement skill level by at least one.
The title for succeeding at +6 had already been absurdly good.
+7 would be even more amazing.
Lucas clenched his teeth and began.
“Here I go!”
Failure, success, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, success, failure...
The viewers were getting tired.
Lucas was getting tired.
And then—
Attempting enhancement.
Enhancement successful.
The Cheap Leather Shoes (+6) have become Cheap Leather Shoes (+7).
Your Enhancement skill has increased.
And that was it.
No title appeared.
“...?”
“Uh... everyone.”
“There’s... no title.”
And then the chat exploded.
Attempting enhancement.
Enhancement successful.
The Ancient Hammer (+5) has become Ancient Hammer (+6).
Your Enhancement skill has increased.
You have received an additional bonus for consecutive successes.
Attempting enhancement.
Enhancement successful.
The Ancient Hammer (+6) has become Ancient Hammer (+7).
Your Enhancement skill has increased.
You have received an additional bonus for consecutive successes.
Tae-hyun charged ahead without a shred of fear.
After all, the hammer couldn’t be destroyed anyway.
“Huh?”
Tae-hyun was startled.
Nobody had successfully reached +7 until now?
Well, whatever. No reason to turn down a free title.
Check title.
To succeed at a +7 enhancement must have taken tremendous patience, countless enhancement stones, and a mountain of items.
And luck, too.
Enhancement Skill Level +1
Luck +25% when enhancing items
“That’s a nice, simple effect.”
“What? What popped up?”
“A title. Says I’m the first one to succeed at +7.”
“You got +7?!”
Choi Sang-yun was stunned all over again.
He already knew Tae-hyun was ridiculous, but for him to break through the fabled wall of +7 right there on the spot...
A guy who was meant to make it would make it no matter what.
For some reason, Sang-yun even felt proud himself.
“Hey. Give me some more enhancement stones so I can go for +8.”
“I seriously don’t have any left! You’ve already used over a hundred!”
“Be grateful I didn’t fail. I didn’t waste them, did I?”
“That’s not the point! Aren’t you at least a little attached to an item that hit +7? If it were me, I’d treasure it forever!”
“It’s fine. This thing has the option that says it can’t be destroyed by ordinary means.”
“What? Don’t tell me that’s why you enhanced it?”
Sang-yun’s face turned pale.
Tae-hyun, not understanding at all, asked, “Why?”
“You... you didn’t know enhancement doesn’t count as an ordinary method?”
“What are you talking about? Of course enhancement counts as an ordinary method.”
“That was in the first game! In 2, it doesn’t! If enhancement fails, it gets destroyed!”
!!!
For the first time in a long while, Tae-hyun felt a chill run down his spine.
If he’d failed by accident, it would’ve shattered on the spot.
Now that it was +7, the Ancient Hammer was blazing with flame.
Suddenly, it felt incredibly precious.
Tae-hyun quietly put the hammer into his inventory.
Then he fell backward onto the floor.
Enhancement was over. For now.