I Became the Blacksmith NPC

Liu Kongkong felt like crying but couldn't shed a single tear. "Why does a Starter Village even have an attribute cap — and if you go over it, space collapses?! What kind of god-awful design is this?!"

Complaints aside, Liu Kongkong still opened the system mail, and his expression shifted the very next second.

[Dear player Liu Dameng, we have detected that your stats are approaching the upper limit of Zone No. 0113. To maintain the stability of this zone, please ensure you continue allocating stat points after completing this item.]

He retrieved a black cube from the mail and held it in his hand, glancing at it: [Curse God Ring Mold: Completion 0/100,000]

"That's all you're giving me? You could at least include some instructions…"

Before he even finished speaking, the several thousand Water Drops scattered across the floor all began to move at once! Liu Kongkong's eyes went wide. He immediately sensed something was wrong and tried to put the mold away — but it was already too late. The Water Drops shot toward the Curse God Ring Mold as if guided by some invisible will!

"Stop! That's money! All of it!" Liu Kongkong gripped the violently shaking mold with all his strength, watching the Water Drops sink into it one by one, his heart bleeding with every piece. He'd already planned out the selling price — he was going to sell them to Ye Weinuan for 999 gold! Setting that aside, he'd spent an entire day crafting those things! Every last one of them was his blood and sweat!

"Stop going in! I can't take this anymore!" Liu Kongkong let out a miserable howl!

Players passing by outside the door exchanged strange looks. Was this blacksmith Liu making that much noise behind closed doors?!

But the Curse God Ring Mold paid him no mind. Only when the last Water Drop sank into it did the completion meter reach 82,220/100,000, and the frantically trembling mold finally went still.

"Ugh… I can't go on. My heart hurts so much." Liu Kongkong set the mold on the ground and crouched in the corner with a wounded expression, clutching his chest. He was usually the one making others bleed — and now a mold had thoroughly screwed him over!

What made it even more infuriating was that the thing had swallowed over eight thousand Water Drops and the progress bar still wasn't full!

"But why weren't the ones on the table absorbed?" Once he'd recovered his wits, Liu Kongkong looked at the cyan "cloth piece" on the table — a half-finished product he'd previously forged from over 1,700 Water Drops. Since it hadn't taken final form yet, every field on its panel simply read "Unknown."

Did this thing only accept finished goods?

He pulled a longsword from storage and, sure enough, the mold swallowed it without a word, adding 10 points to the completion meter.

Since things had already come this far, Liu Kongkong checked the warning — 58 minutes remaining on the countdown. He raised his hand and looked at himself, noticing faint hairline cracks beginning to appear in the space around his arm!

"Is the Starter Village actually going to collapse?"

Losing weapons and equipment just meant earning less money — but losing the Starter Village would be a real disaster! Without a second thought, Liu Kongkong pulled out every weapon and piece of equipment from storage and frantically fed them to the Curse God Ring Mold. When that felt too slow, he simply tossed the entire mold into storage! Because with every passing second, he could see the spatial cracks spreading from his arm across his entire body, while every material and tool in the blacksmith shop began to tremble faintly, filling the air with a constant clinking and clanging.

"Is it done yet?" After about a minute, Liu Kongkong carefully opened his storage.

He found that a pile of equipment had vanished — and in their place were two rings.

"Wait — this mold isn't single-use?!" Liu Kongkong immediately took out both rings and the mold. What a nightmarish item! Still, there was nothing valuable in storage to begin with — he always kept his prized possessions in his personal backpack — and everything had already been swallowed, so what could he say? The most pressing matter right now was to put on the rings!

Even though he'd become an NPC, Liu Kongkong still had an equipment slot. Since he spent every day in the blacksmith shop, he'd never bothered changing his gear and had always worn the blacksmith's plain cloth outfit. But when he tried to place the ring in the jewelry slot, he found it simply wouldn't go in.

"Does that mean I have to…" Liu Kongkong held the ring in his hand and slipped it onto the middle finger of his left hand. The spatial cracks vanished! The clinking and clanging in the blacksmith shop fell silent. At the same time, he felt a heaviness settle over his body, and he opened his stat panel once more.

Name: Liu Dameng (Hundredfold Attribute Suppression Active)

Class: Apprentice Blacksmith (Level 20, Cap Reached)

HP: 1000.01/1000.01

Mana: 100.01/100.01

Strength: 10.00

Constitution: 100.01

Agility: 10.00

Intelligence: 10.00

Spirit: 10.01

Available Points: 2.37

Skills: …… (No changes, omitted)

Hundredfold suppression? Liu Kongkong's jaw dropped. This ring was terrifying — it had even suppressed the unspent skill points!

But once it was on, could he even take it off?

Wondering about this, Liu Kongkong pinched the ring on his middle finger and gave it a gentle tug — it slid right off. But the moment it did, the frantic warning messages flooded back, startling him into jamming it back on immediately.

Phew. So for now, whether to wear it or not was entirely up to him. Once it was on, his attributes would be suppressed to one percent of their original values. Liu Kongkong moved around the shop — judging by movement speed alone, he was indeed back to a normal pace.

But I have two of these things now. If I put the other one on too…

Driven by curiosity, Liu Kongkong slipped the second ring onto his ring finger. His stats shifted again in an instant!

Name: Liu Dameng (Ten-Thousandfold Suppression Seal Active)

Class: Apprentice Blacksmith (Level 20, Cap Reached)

HP: 10.0001/10.0001

Mana: 1.0001/1.0001

Strength: 0.1

Constitution: 1.0001

Agility: 0.1

Intelligence: 0.1

Spirit: 0.1

Available Points: 0.0237

Right then — wearing both turns you into a complete waste of space.

Having figured that out, Liu Kongkong removed one ring and tucked it into his backpack, then glanced at the ring still on his middle finger.

Curse God Ring (No Grade): Wearing this item suppresses Divine Power by one hundredfold. Note: If the wearer suffers a lethal attack while wearing this item, the item will be destroyed and the suppression effect will automatically be lifted.

So this thing only suppresses attributes — it doesn't even add a single stat point? Liu Kongkong picked up the Curse God Ring Mold from the floor. If the ring gets destroyed by a lethal hit, and that limitation carries over outside the Starter Village… this thing needs to be kept safe.

For now, inside the Starter Village, probably no one could kill him. But once he left and players leveled up with higher attack power, his current 1,000 HP might genuinely be wiped out in an instant.

"Still, this thing does have one upside." Liu Kongkong slowly allocated his two stat points into Strength. "Allocating points is a lot easier now."

After that, he looked at the cyan "cloth piece" on the table. Reforging over eight thousand Water Drops from scratch was clearly out of the question. During this period, many players had been absorbed in running dungeons and rarely came to him for quests, so the materials left in storage were running low.

Most of the weapons and equipment had already been swallowed by the mold, and the remaining materials still needed to be used to craft a fresh batch of weapons and equipment to restock the shelves.

"If nothing else works, maybe I can think of something? Make a pair of bracers?"

Turning the cloth into bracers and selling them for 199 — that didn't sound too bad either…

But that could wait for later. Right now, there was another problem staring Liu Kongkong in the face.

My stats in the game are being suppressed by the Curse God Ring — but what about my body in the real world? Is it being suppressed too, or have I already turned into some kind of muscle freak?!

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