I Became the Blacksmith NPC

Several players wailed and begged for refunds. Liu Kongkong had no choice — after some persuasion, he reluctantly sold them the Death-Defying Ferris Wheel at five gold coins apiece.

"I'm selling at cost here, not making a single coin. Don't go spreading that around," Liu Kongkong said with a sigh.

Refunds were out of the question — his shop didn't even have that feature. If you couldn't wield the Death-Defying Ferris Wheel, you could always set up a stall at the village entrance and see if some kindred spirit came along.

As for weapons, the blacksmith shop currently only produced standard equipment up to level 15. Higher-tier gear came from the 30-player dungeon and field bosses. Even so, level-15 equipment was more than enough to carry a player through to leaving the Starter Village.

But level-15 equipment was something Liu Kongkong no longer needed to bother crafting — it had become a self-sustaining cycle in his shop. Players bought it, went to fight bosses, got killed, the gear dropped back to him, and then he sold it again…

Still, there were plenty of materials sitting in the warehouse. Sticking to the principle of not wasting anything, he started researching new equipment — and the Death-Defying Ferris Wheel had been his first product.

"The biggest drawback with this thing is the Strength requirement is way too high. Good thing I managed to sell the only one." Liu Kongkong pulled out all manner of weapons from the warehouse and lowered his head in thought.

Something suddenly occurred to him. He reached into the warehouse and pulled out the Sword of Radiance.

Once a special weapon like this had been sold and returned, it became "contraband." Other players had no idea that dungeon-dropped equipment would come back to him, so he hadn't put it back up for sale.

Should he reforge it again? The weapon had a special effect, and leaving it sitting there unsold felt like a waste. But what could he turn it into? At this stage, equipment wear and tear was brutal for players — even Night's Gentle Chill and the others probably wouldn't shell out big money for a weapon that could drop at any moment. Besides, the Void Space was his own creation, and that dungeon lacked everything except damage output — level-15 weapons were already more than sufficient.

"Then just keep making it look better?" Liu Kongkong picked up the Sword of Radiance. If its light effect could be carried over to the next piece of equipment, it would certainly drive a certain someone wild. But before that, he'd probably need to level up [Looks Are Justice] a couple more times.

He'd noticed before that [Looks Are Justice] at level one could only handle simple shapes and etch basic patterns onto equipment. To add light effects, he'd need to level it up a few more times first.

But none of that was a problem. Leveling up was as easy as drinking water for him now.

He hammered and tinkered away for an entire day, and before long it was closing time again.

"Sorry about this, guys." Liu Kongkong mentally apologized to the scalpers. To level up, he'd been forced to craft several thousand pieces of equipment — if they wanted to sell any of it, they'd probably have to take a loss.

By now, his level had reached 19.

He opened his character panel. Over the nine hours from opening to closing, he had accumulated a total of 2,304 attribute points.

"Not bad. More players will gradually hit level 18 and join the pioneering teams, so there's still room to grow." At this rate, tomorrow's attribute point haul would be even more explosive.

He casually distributed the points.

Name: Liu Dameng

Class: Apprentice Blacksmith (Level 19)

HP: 30,001 / 30,001

Mana: 3,001 / 3,001

Strength: 375

Constitution: 3,001

Agility: 301

Intelligence: 301

Spirit: 301

Available Points: 0

Skills:

Passive Skill: Sharp Eye (Level 1) — Observe a target's level.

Time Is Money (Level 6)

Looks Are Justice (Level 4)

Life Needs Miracles (Level 6)

Let's Upgrade (Level 2)

Good Enough to Get By (Level 1)

Thirty thousand HP at level 19 — anyone else who knew would think it was absolutely broken. Yet Liu Kongkong still wasn't satisfied. His current imaginary enemy was the entire Starter Village. Factoring in collision volume, thirty thousand HP should let him hold out for a while, but to escape or actually win a fight, he was lacking in Attack. So he distributed his points in a balanced manner once again.

That way, even if I learn a skill from any class later on, I'll still be able to deal decent damage.

Skills were Liu Kongkong's biggest weakness right now. Because his class was Blacksmith, all his skills aside from Sharp Eye revolved around crafting weapons and equipment. So even if he held the same weapon as a player — or no weapon at all — his basic attacks dealt roughly the same damage as a player's skill hits. Of course, they had cooldowns. He didn't.

"Skills… where am I supposed to learn a skill?" He could ask the class trainers in the Starter Village, but Liu Kongkong had never tried that — his interactions with them had mostly been at the Village Chief's place.

Maybe he could sneak over tonight and have a chat with Ding Dazhuang. But would he even teach him? Or maybe he should figure it out himself — did this game even have a system for creating your own skills? He was still mulling it over when he noticed it was almost time for the meeting. The Village Chief had said before that he didn't need to pay anymore, but attending the meeting was still expected.

He strolled leisurely over to the Village Chief's house and ended up arriving first, as usual.

Agility did provide a small boost to movement speed — not much, but adding 300 points at once still added up. Liu Kongkong found that rather reassuring. Being fast enough that others couldn't catch you was also a valid survival strategy.

"Ah, Little Liu is here…" The Village Chief felt a wave of awkwardness the moment he saw Liu Kongkong. In his mind, even though the person in front of him looked exactly like Liu Dameng, he was almost certainly a substitute. According to the ancient texts, whoever built the Void Space would be kept within it, and the Divine would dispatch a puppet to take their place so the Starter Village could continue functioning normally. The person standing before him now was most likely that divine puppet.

Soon, all the villagers had gathered. But not one of them dared to look directly at Liu Kongkong — even Wang Xiuqin only stole a single glance before lowering her head again.

Something felt off, but it suited him just fine. He'd expected to be the center of attention when he came back, and he hated being stared at. Having everyone ignore him was actually a relief.

With no one saying a word, the meeting was naturally much shorter than usual. When it came time to collect fees, Liu Kongkong simply stood up and left. The Village Chief didn't stop him, just watched him go. Only after Liu Kongkong had walked far enough away did the room erupt.

"The Divine truly has boundless power — this substitute looks exactly like Liu Dameng!"

"And it seems he even has Liu Dameng's memories."

They were, of course, referring to the Village Chief's promise that Liu Kongkong wouldn't have to pay dues for a year.

"So… are we still building that cenotaph?" Ding Dazhuang whispered to Ning Wei.

"Build what cenotaph! If this 'Liu Dameng' sees it, won't that just make things even more awkward?"

Back at the blacksmith shop, he tidied up the warehouse a bit.

He pulled out the Sword of Radiance again. [Looks Are Justice] was now at level 4 — crafting something truly magnificent should be well within reach. And his target was clear: Ye Weinuan.

"Since it's not a real cosmetic item, it'll take up one of the equipment slots, so the stats and effects can't be too weak — it needs to be useful at least up to level 20."

There were many factors to consider if he wanted this piece of equipment to fetch a good price.

"Let this be the magnum opus of my career." Liu Kongkong had always crafted equipment on a whim, so he was curious to see just what he was truly capable of now.

As for the price — it would be astronomical, no question. But only if it made people feel it was worth every coin.

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