Chapter 377: Xavier's Plan, Finding Help? |
After finishing breakfast, today was a rest day with no need to venture out on adventures or missions. So, Lin Mo lay on the sofa, enjoying the little maid's massage, passing a leisurely stretch of time.
Of course, he couldn't just idle around forever. Around nine in the morning, he stood up, ready to head out.
There was an important matter today: a trip to the Master Craftsman Forge to check on the progress of the mithril gloves design plan.
This recent adventure to the Nasadok Dungeon had lasted several days. Logically, Grandmaster Xavier should have made some headway by now.
He would go over first to see if there was anything that needed to be prepared in advance, so as not to delay the official forging work later.
The reason for choosing to go at 9 AM was also to avoid the morning rush hour when adventurers flocked to the forge.
If he went at that time, the forge would be packed with people, and he'd just be waiting around, also hindering their business.
By around 9 AM, most adventurers would have already entered the dungeon to begin their adventures. At this time, the crowd at the forge would be much smaller.
Sure enough, when Lin Mo arrived with his companions, there were only a sparse few adventurers coming and going in front of the Master Craftsman Forge.
There weren't many customers in the shop, mainly a few staff members were busy. Besides them, there was that kid Edgar, helping his grandfather manage the business, which also counted as accumulating some experience in running such a large-scale forge.
Seeing Lin Mo, he immediately waved over and jogged up: "You guys are finally here. The old man has been waiting for a day."
Lin Mo's eyes instantly lit up. Did that mean the planning for the equipment forging was going very smoothly?
He immediately couldn't wait and had Edgar take him to find Grandmaster Xavier.
Arriving at the back area of the Master Craftsman Forge, they proceeded forward and soon reached Grandmaster Xavier's forging room.
Edgar carefully knocked on the door. An impatient voice immediately came from behind it: "Brat, didn't I tell you? Don't bother this old man unless it's something important!"
Edgar shrank his neck, then said, "Old man, it really is important. Lin Mo and the others are here."
Hearing this, there was a few seconds of silence inside the forging room. Then, the door was pushed open.
Appearing before them was indeed Grandmaster Xavier. However, compared to a few days ago, he now looked somewhat disheveled, with heavy bloodshot eyes, messy hair and beard that seemed unwashed and untended for a long time.
Although his face showed some signs of weariness, his mental state was still extremely excited. Seeing Lin Mo, he quickly strode forward: "Young man, you're finally here. Come in with me quickly..."
Seeing his utterly impatient expression, Lin Mo felt a surge of joy in his heart. It seemed things were probably settled.
Being able to open a super-large forge recognized by almost all adventurers in an important place like Nasadok Town, Grandmaster Xavier's skill was naturally beyond doubt. Even among the ranks of forging grandmasters, his craftsmanship was among the best, hailed as one of the two most likely to achieve a universal promotion to Legendary Blacksmith.
The other one was his "mortal rival," Grandmaster Theo, currently residing in the Roxez Empire.
Anecdotes about these two forging grandmasters were also widely circulated across the continent. The two met in their youth, studying under the same forging grandmaster as master and disciple, becoming senior and junior brothers. Grandmaster Theo was Grandmaster Xavier's junior brother, but his forging skill was in no way inferior to Xavier's. The two were roughly on the same level, sometimes Theo being slightly stronger, sometimes Xavier being slightly stronger.
Precisely because of this, they particularly loved competing with each other. From their youth, they had been competing all the way to the present, never yielding to the other.
Even the two empires had engaged in countless discussions over which grandmaster's skill was superior. Of course, people from each empire believed the forging grandmaster from their own empire was more skilled, once becoming a common topic of argument among the people of both nations.
In short, these two were considered top-tier, first-rate blacksmiths across the entire continent.
If even the Grandmaster Xavier before him couldn't design a good plan, then the equipment Lin Mo wanted to forge would probably be hard-pressed to find a suitable blacksmith.
There was no need to even ask. After Grandmaster Xavier briefly greeted them, he eagerly led them to his workbench. Like a child showing off a treasure, he lifted the parchment on the workbench and displayed it before everyone.
"Look, this is the plan I've designed... Different from the usual approach to crafting mithril gloves, I haven't chosen to use that piece of Spirit Vein Mithril as the main material. Instead, I'm using that Mountain Giant's Heart as the primary material. While preserving the characteristics of mithril, it maximizes the potential of this special Mountain Giant's Heart. However, besides that, some other materials are needed..."
He pointed at the long list of materials listed on that parchment.
"A total of 18 auxiliary materials are still needed. Among them, 13 are available in the shop. I can give them to you for free. But the other 5, you'll have to figure out yourself."
Give them for free, just like that?
Lin Mo was stunned. Although they were auxiliary materials, the value of these materials was also not cheap. Most were upper Exceptional-Grade, or even lower Epic-Level materials, generally worth tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand gold coins. The 13 types combined might be worth close to a million gold coins.
"This... this isn't appropriate, is it? Wouldn't it be too costly?" Lin Mo had taken advantage of many bargains before, but the value of those hadn't been very high. This time was different. Materials worth a million gold coins were no small sum. The other party was offering generously, but he couldn't accept it with a clear conscience.
"Hey, it's fine."
The little old man raised his arm and patted Lin Mo's... well, patted his arm—he really couldn't reach his shoulder.
"This opportunity to forge Quasi-Legendary Level equipment is also extremely precious to me. It's not something I encounter anytime."
"So, although I'm helping you forge the equipment, for me, this is also a great opportunity. Strictly speaking, we aren't in a complete client-contractor relationship, but a cooperative one. And these materials aren't much to me... You just need to hurry up and gather the remaining 5 types of materials."
Lin Mo thought for a moment and stopped being stubborn, nodding: "Alright, I'll definitely complete it as soon as possible."
Grandmaster Xavier was right. A million gold coins, while not a small sum, truly wasn't a huge amount of money for a peak-level Grandmaster Blacksmith.
The blacksmith profession was the life profession with the fastest money-making speed, second only to alchemists. For a peak Grandmaster-level blacksmith like Xavier, he had no shortage of customers; plenty of adventurers came to his shop to buy weapons and equipment. Besides that, including major powers like the Adventurers' Association and the Empire would also cooperate with him, commissioning him to forge items.
The resulting income was at least hundreds of thousands per day, often reaching the million level!
This was true, massive wealth—monthly income in the tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of gold coins. The wealth of one person could surpass that of many medium-sized kingdom's royal families.
To him, materials worth a million gold coins indeed weren't considered very precious things, at least not compared to the opportunity to forge Quasi-Legendary Level equipment.
Lin Mo carefully looked at the 5 materials currently missing, as marked on the parchment.
These 5 materials weren't all extremely high-grade. Two of them were only Exceptional-Grade materials. Among the other three, two were lower Epic-Level materials, and only one was a mid-tier Epic-Level material.
However, these 5 materials were indeed relatively scarce and not commonly found.
Grandmaster Xavier, standing to the side, offered a reminder: "The three in the middle can all be obtained within the Nasadok Dungeon. It's just that the corresponding magical creatures aren't numerous, and they aren't used very often, so the shop doesn't have them in stock right now. But the two at the beginning and end are more troublesome."
One Exceptional-Grade material, one mid-tier Epic-Level material. These two were the hardest to obtain on the entire list.
That Exceptional-Grade material was called Eclipse Moon Grass. Although it was Exceptional-Grade, its value exceeded many lower Epic-Level materials. The reason was simple: rarity.
Scarcity increases value. Even if the absolute value of this material didn't reach that height, as long as it was scarce enough, there would inevitably be varying degrees of price inflation.
The place of origin for this material was the northern Serya Empire, located in the border region between the Serya Empire and the Orc Empire. That area was exceptionally dangerous, and orcs often went there to plunder, making this already scarce material extremely difficult to obtain.
At least, it was fundamentally unavailable on the open market.
Lin Mo frowned. Did he have to personally go to the Serya Empire and search for this material at the border?
A border region like that was no joke, especially now with the Orc Empire's activity increasing more and more, clearly showing a trend of intending to start a war. Even with his current strength comparable to an Epic-level powerful expert, the possibility of things going wrong in such a place wasn't zero.
If the Orc Empire truly intended to start a war, a large group of Epic-level powerful experts had likely already gathered in the border area by now.
And most importantly, that place was simply too far. The round trip would take too much time. Adding the search time, it would probably take over half a month.
Right...
Just as Lin Mo was worrying, he suddenly remembered Lily, who hadn't come along.
She was currently staying at the Association, practicing skills in the Association's training room.
Given Lily's identity, perhaps she might have a channel to obtain this plant?
After all, she was a princess of the Serya Empire, and among the princesses, she held a very high status.
Besides Lily, there was also Finnie's sister, Loren. The Oxivis Family had extensive connections and was also one of the continent's largest merchant guilds. Their inventory might possibly contain this material.
As for the last one...
Blazing Sun Tiger King · Bytelend, a powerful magical creature located on the 37th floor of the Nasadok Dungeon. This guy... was more about being troublesome due to its strength.
The main activity range for adventurers active in Nasadok Town was actually floors 1 to 10 of the dungeon.
This was the place where the vast majority of adventurers made their living. The overwhelming majority of the town's adventurers operated within these areas, and these areas themselves were sufficiently vast. The resources and number of magical creatures within were extremely abundant, completely enough to support generating sufficient missions, allowing these adventurers to live quite comfortably.
Going further down, the elite among adventurers basically operated between floors 11 and 20. These adventurers were already the best among their peers. The missions they undertook were more difficult than others, and the rewards were greater.
Then, there were the extremely few, totaling only a few hundred teams, with less than five thousand individuals: the Gold-level adventurer teams.
These adventurers sometimes also operated on floors 11-20, but most of the time, they would go above floor 20, seeking higher rewards.
But even these Gold-level adventurer teams mostly operated below floor 25. Those daring to go above floor 25 were only that small handful of teams ranked at the top of the leaderboards. For example, the adventurer team Lin Mo and the others encountered on the 26th floor of the Nasadok Dungeon previously.
As for above floor 30...
The starting point was Epic-level magical creatures, not something ordinary people could deal with. In Nasadok Town, the concept of Epic-level adventurer teams hardly existed.
Adventurers who reached the Epic level basically rarely formed teams, and it was hard to form them. Because the number of Epic-level adventurers was far too scarce. With such scarce numbers, and everyone being an expert with their own ideas, most were unwilling to be subordinate to others, so forming teams was difficult.
Epic-level adventurers either fought alone on floors 25-30, or those with slightly stronger strength, for example, those who reached around level 35, would operate on floors 31-33.
These Epic-level adventurers all knew each other. Their relationships weren't particularly good, but not particularly bad either. Although they wouldn't formally team up, they occasionally cooperated. When encountering a particularly troublesome foe, if they felt they couldn't defeat it alone, they would retreat first, then cede a portion of the benefits and find a companion to help.
With Lin Mo's current strength, he definitely couldn't contend with a level 37 magical creature. So, his first thought for obtaining the material was to find a powerful adventurer to cooperate with.
But... he wasn't familiar with those adventurers. Could he really trust them?
If he wanted to find a companion capable of taking down a level 36 magical creature, the other party's strength would necessarily be considerably greater than his.
Lin Mo frowned, somewhat hesitant.
Or should he not rush it and train his level for a while?
But aside from the big boost brought by a special profession and profession class universal promotion, the improvement from leveling up now, even if he did, wasn't that significant. Yet the attribute gap between each level of Epic-level magical creatures was immense. To reach the standard of a level 37 magical creature, reaching level 27 was far from enough. Level 30 might not even be enough...
And the time required for that was also too long.
Tough problem!