SEO ch5 pt 2

Diego was in charge of the line that night and I could tell at the beginning the other cooks complained of the lack of quality, but being friends with the lead cook for the shift definitely had its perks. It also helped that Jihoon was expediting, this means he was calling out tickets and making sure they were coming out in the right order at decent times, and knew how fast I worked. All in all I got paid 20 copper, it seems my bad start and my higher quality dishes at the end cancelled each other out. The cooks had high expectations of me the next time I worked though as they saw how quickly I worked at manual speed.

After work I headed towards the Adventurers' Guild and caught John on his way out. It seems he was looking around for members to help with a raid as most of his guild were busy on the night he wanted to get it done by. It seems these things must be done quickly as it isn't like old school MMOs that had a separate instance for raids and dungeons. Unnaturally high leveled mobs would come out from time to time and it became a race to kill them, it helps if information hasn't been leaked yet. This particular one was discovered by Chelsea and Cory while they were off questing together, so right now it was only known by members of EAT. He had room for a few more, but was confident he could beat it with the members he had now. He asked me to come along if I wanted and the meeting time was tomorrow night at 9pm real world time, or in game's terms First Earth time (FET), over at EAT. He said the members were mostly mid to high 20s, but I could come and observe so that I could find out what party fights were like. It sounded fun so I decided to tell him I'd be there, and asked if I needed to bring anything. He said the journey from the town would take 2-3 days so to make sure I had some food and any other supplies I might need to camp. I didn't want to spend money so I decided to just stick with the meat I had gotten from hunting goblins, which would be plenty. As far as other equipment I decide I'd just need to buy some spices, and probably a small carving knife to cut up the meat and make some skewers. Otherwise I'll just rough it out as I'm still tight on money, but I'll figure that out after turning my quest and devising a plan.

I entered the Adventurers' Guild, and it was as busy as ever. I spotted Gustav working one of the lines and decided to go and turn in my quests with him. He instantly recognized me and got enthusiastic as I approached, he was surprised with the quest results. He said usually people only go for part of the quest as they rush to get it in, but he also admitted that there aren't any rank 1 adventurers anymore. He asked how the northern forest was, as nobody had been there in a while. I told him that I didn't know as I only hunted at the edge, as I wanted to catch the goblins as they finished their own hunt. I told him I got some extra loot too, that I could probably have finished a few other quests just from the drops of the goblins. He asked why I wasn't didn't then, and I just replied I was going to use the meat for food later, and I wanted to learn how to craft so I'd use the pelts too. He just laughed and said I was really all over the place. Then got down to business as he handed back my crystal ball along with 8 silver and 25 copper saying that there was a 10% bonus for bringing in everything. He said that I only needed to make 175 copper more to make rank 2. He then recommended that I go to the Crafters' Guild and ask for Victor and to tell him that he sent me.

I did as he asked and met up with Victor who's class turned out to be Master Craftsman, and very much an expert with all crafting skills. He gave me crafting skills the way Gustav did over at the Adventurers' Guild using crystal balls again. He was going to leave it at that, but I asked if he could show me the manual process too. He was quite shocked and pleased and laughed saying he understands why Gustav sent me to him. He showed me the finer points of all crafting skills which he said judging from my clothes I already knew that and laughed as he clapped my back. Victor was a big guy, and I thought he wouldn't be very dexterous. He proved me wrong when he showed me how to sew and how to put in runes and add effects by channeling mana into the thread as I sewed. He showed me how to take various materials and spin it into cloth, which I could not get the hang of. He told me it would come in time, and that raising my -Tailoring- level will help. He then showed me how to use -Leatherworking-, which if you went completely manually would take several days. He showed me how to cure, wash, lime, delime, pickle, and then tan the pelt. Tanning needed a special mixture made with the -Apothecary- skill. He also mentioned that I could take off the hairs after liming if I so wanted, but most people opt to preserve it. The process takes about 5 minutes using the skill, and he let me use one of my wolf pelts as an example. He produced a 10 quality wolf leather and mine was a 5.

Next he went on to -Alchemy- and -Apothecary-, which he admitted his lowest leveled skills. He said that both skills sometimes made absolutely no sense to him. Victor said that he always went by recipes with this and never experimented, as he could only grasp the basic rules the skills went by. At higher levels, there were 2 guilds specifically made for studying the subjects. There were even different classes that had completely different processes and recipes that only they could use. He did say though that the specific classes for each of the crafting skills did have its own advantages too. He shared with me what he was able to comprehend with the two skills. -Alchemy- could be used to convert lower level materials into higher level materials or the other way around. However to convert from a lower level 5 of the material must be used, and to convert from higher to lower one only gets 3 of the lower. The ratios can be improved with higher levels, and aided by items. An example of using this conversion system is turning 5 iron ore into 1 fine iron ore. -Apothecary- had 3 basic steps which were drying, crushing, and mixing. Victor showed me a recipe for a basic health potion using 3 herbs that he put on a mortar. He carefully put it over a fire and dried it, then crushed it with the pestle into a fine powder. He then put the herbs into a flask and added drinking water, and with that all he needed to do was to put it into a bottle and a basic healing potion the healed 50 hp was done.

He then showed me his favorite skill, -Smithing-, and went into great details about it. He showed me how to process ore by melting 5 pieces of them and then pouring it into a mold. He said you could pour it into any shape, but most just go with a standard bar. Then he took the bar and heated it while he pounded away saying it took out the impurities, which would produce higher quality material. This produced a 10 quality fine iron bar from an iron ore. Not only was the quality top notch, but he got a better bar out of it! He then said the bar could be melted down again with several others and poured into a mold. Which was then hammered to be bent into the human shape in case of armors or given an edge when it came to swords. He also showed me how to hammer the steel into itself to make thicker and better quality products, which meant a 25% extra material, 25% larger mold. He said that it was learned at level 50 usually, but he said I could use it before then with practice. He also reminded me that I could channel mana during each step, so the more steps I did the more enchants I could put on. Next he showed me how to etch in runes using a small chisel and hammer, which he said how he got the [DEX] for sewing. This further added enchants if the crafter had a mind to do so. He said most others just relied on the crafting skill for the addition of runes, but you got a weaker enchant that way. He explained that it not only relied on the skill level, but [INT] and [MND] too, which he was low on so he did it manually so as not to decrease his already sub-par enchantments. He showed me how to craft jewelry too, which was like armor and weapon making, except it took much more [DEX] and finer tools.

Lastly, he showed me -Woodworking- and -Masonry-. He showed it to me last as he used it to build 2 storage units. He said he didn't particularly like this skill on manual as it was very time consuming. So he just showed me how to make different materials for -Masonry- and to treat the wood for -Woodworking- to make it water resistant and such using various potions. He then set out the blueprint and the required materials needed to make it, and used the corresponding skills to make each storage unit. Victor showed me that doing so still made sturdy structures, he did say that the HP of the building did drop by 5% with his skill level which wasn't very high. He also showed me how to fashion a bow using -Woodworking- with different materials, like horns and such. Each material had a different process and needed different mixtures to soften it the right amount. He then reminded me that I could carve in runes if I wanted.  He then mentions that putting in runes was a skill onto itself called -Runework- and channeling mana into the pieces was -Enchanting-. He then sold me a set of tools for all the crafting I'd need for 2 silver. I later found out that if you bought everything separately it was 6 silver and as a set it was 5. He told me as long as I didn't get in the way of his work that I was welcome to use his workshop, but to mind that I don't leave a mess, use my own materials from now on, and not to complain about how basic some of the equipment are. I thanked him and reassured him I would never do such things as to insult a honored Master Craftsman as himself. I was now set to adventure with John, as I got both a carving knife and spices with the basic kit!

Afterwards I decided to hit the market and sell off the clubs, bows, arrows, and quivers to one of the shops. I had briefly contemplated on using one of the weapons, but I didn't have a clue on how to handle a bow. I would have considered training in it, but I didn't think I'd have enough time to become proficient in it before I met up with John. I was sure training in such a thing would require at the very least 2 days before I got used to handling a bow and figuring out the shooting system in the game. The clubs weren't to my style, and I held absolutely no interest in using them. I didn't say I couldn't, but I always thought of them as crude and unwieldy weapons. I briefly thought about whittling the heads down a bit to make some fighting sticks, but I also discarded that idea as the durability on the clubs were low enough as it is. Also, I'd really need a weapon mastery skill with those for them to be up to par with my unarmed skills. All in all the weapons netted me another 3 silver, and made me feel that much more secure in just hunting instead of having to work at the restaurant again. I could also afford to kill some time in the training hall before I met up with John!