Chapter 55: Server Shutdown Part 1
After both he and Tank recovered all of their health, along with testing out his new recipe for the <Natural Health Recover Potion>, Kirou was now back in the forge section of the village armory. Before Kirou laid a pile of weapons and armor that he had 'recovered' from the set of players that have antagonized him since he started playing the game. Granted, Kirou had a lot more within his inventory and personal bank storage but right now he had his eyes focusing on the items before him.
Kirou spent a few minutes looking them over before he took up a piece from the small pile, examined it for a bit before using some specialized tools to break the item down into its base materials. For weapons, he would remove or break the handles before tossing the blades into one of five cauldrons within the forge based on the metal type. As for the armor, those made of metal, he hammered into submission on his anvil and tossed the broken pieces into the cauldrons and for fur, he just straight up used a small knife to undo all the stitching holding them together. For all intents and purposes, Kirou was dismantling the items for parts he found useful.
This went on for a few minutes, during which time he received a system prompt. Kirou only took a glance at the prompt before he focused his attention back on the pile of gear before him which was now reduced to a pile of materials. Satisfied with his work and his now somewhat large pile of scrap (cough cough).....I mean spare materials, Kirou then decided to pay attention to the prompts currently disturbing his vision.
[Generating skill...]
[Skill Generated: Dismantle]
Skill: Dismantle
Skill Level: 1/10
Rank: C(S)
Cost:
Skill Creator/Generator: System/Kirou
Description: This skill allows the user to break down a piece of equipment back to its base materials, pre forging. Following this method, the materials recovered will be less than the materials used to create the equipment in the first place. Success results in the user obtaining materials while failure results in the user obtaining slag. It is advised that the user not try to dismantle equipment above the threshold of the skill as that will fail (Sk. Lvl1- Equip 1-10, Sk Lvl 2- Equip 11-20, etc). Skill can be used via automatic or manual mode. The user is advised to use the method that best works for them.
Kirou only raised his eyebrow after looking over the skill's description. It seems that the system recognized all of his previous actions of breaking down the equipment as a method of dismantling. In fact, it even went as far as to point it out along with telling him that there was another method to do so as well.
Feeling curious, Kirou took out a random piece of equipment from his inventory. This was one of the knives belonging to the personal kit he made to dismantle monster corpses. This time, he activated the <Dismantle> skill, only to have the knife in his hand turn into a mass of light which then turned into a small piece of metal. Kirou looked at this with squinted eyes before taking out another knife and breaking it down manually following his own method. When he was done, he compared the gains for both methods before shaking his head and tossing the pieces of metal into one of the cauldrons in the forge.
"It seems even with this skill, manual mode is still the best route to take." Kirou released a sigh as he said this. While he only received a small piece of metal from using the skill on automatic mode, Kirou received more when he broke the weapon manually. In fact, he still had the parts needed to remake the handle after reforging the blade.
Kirou then put pieces of the knife handle away before paying attention to the pile of items now staring him in the face. While the quality wasn't anything good, in his eyes at least, it was still a lot of materials before him. As he stared at the pile, he recalled his words to Mistaken Fox about making him a weapon.
"I wonder if there are any designs that I could take a look at," Kirou said to himself as he opened the game's forum page from the game menu. This was a menu that Kirou rarely used since starting the game as he had no interest in joining any discussion or sharing any information with other players, at least not yet. This time, he was browsing the forums to get a lead on how to craft Mistaken Fox's weapon.
After spending a few minutes on the forums, searching the weapon tabs under the equipment pages, Kirou closed the menu while feeling slightly dejected. It seems that none of the other players so far have come in contact with any weapon blueprint even remotely similar to a medallion. At least, none that were willing to talk about it. Kirou could only then take out the medallion of the Carapace Armored Shield Minotaur from his inventory, with a picture of Tank on the front.
Kirou stared at the medallion for a bit, trying to come up with ways on making a new weapon from this design. After a few minutes, Kirou decided to store the medallion back in his inventory before making his way over to the pile of materials. Apparently, he had an idea that he wanted to try out and those materials would make the perfect testing ingredients.
While Kirou was busy with this, both Bladesmith and Old Wolf exited the room that they were previously in holding discussions and were now watching what Kirou was up to. They could have stopped him since he hadn't started working on his item yet but both were curious as to what he planned on making this time since the items he chose looked 'peculiar' in their eyes.
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Meanwhile, in the forest around Thousand Wood Village, Mistaken Fox was currently taking on a group of monsters before him. Unlike before when he was busy using the blades that Kirou had gifted him, he now held a medallion within his hands. More specifically, it was a medallion with the picture of the Stone Axe Minotaur on it.
Contrary to Kirou's knowledge, Mistaken Fox wasn't in too much need of a weapon since he could just use the medallion for his minotaur as a weapon. The only downside to this is that he wouldn't be able to summon the Stone Axe Minotaur to fight alongside him as the medallion was now being used as a means for Mistaken Fox to channel his mana and make use of his skills.
Mistaken Fox was currently facing a small group of treants, trees that have been turned into monsters after absorbing a lot of mana from the world around it. Usually, a few of these creatures can be found in just about any forest but they ignored other creatures as long as they don't intrude on their territory.
Unfortunately for Mistaken Fox, he had done just that and before he could even summon out his minotaur, he was forced to dodge the violent attacks from said creatures. The only upside from this was that Mistaken Fox had realized that he could use his minotaur's medallion as a weapon to channel the skills of his arcane summoner class.
Following this discovery, Mistaken Fox stopped trying to summon out his minotaur and has been practicing the usage of his class skills so far. At the moment, Mistaken Fox only had access to three arcane summoner skills; Rune Arrow, Arcane Void Pit, and Rune Swap. Along with these three skills, he had access to a fourth skill and this was a direct result of him using the medallion for Stone Axe Minotaur. This skill was known as <Spirit Summoning>.
Mistaken Fox and the treants were locked in combat for over ten minutes before he finally managed to take down the group. Finally able to relax, Mistaken Fox quickly collected his spoils from the battle before climbing up a tree to rest. Following that, he then took a look at the skills he was finally able to use after obtaining this new class of his.
Skill: Rune Arrow
Skill Level: 1/5
Rank: C(A)
Cost: 10 MP per Arrow
Skill Creator/Generator: System
Description: This skill allows the user to summon a rune that will transform into an arrow that can be used to attack targets from as far as ten meters away, dealing 85% of the user's attack as damage. Based on the skill of the user, multiple runes can be summoned at any given time, allowing the user to deal continuous damage to the target. At the moment, the max runes that can be summoned are three and this number will rise with the level of the skill.
Skill: Arcane Void Pit
Skill Level: 1/5
Rank: B(A)
Cost: 50-100MP
Skill Creator/Generator: System
Description: This skill allows the user to create a pit trap using arcane runes within a five-meter radius of the user. The width of the pit can be widened based on the amount of mana used on the skill. Whenever a creature steps into the pit, they will be temporarily be stuck within the void for a few moments, forced to lose 5% of their max health over a ten second period before they are released and the pit trap disappears.
Skill: Rune Swap
Skill Level: 1/3
Rank: B
Cost: 50 MP
Skill Creator/Generator: System
Description: This skill allows the user to swap places with any target within the user's line of sight. This skill only works on targets that the user is capable of seeing the full body of. It is recommended to use this skill in conjunction with Arcane Void Pit for maximum effectiveness.
Skill: <Spirit Summoning>
Skill Level: 1 (Max)
Rank: A+
Cost: 30% MP
Skill Creator/Generator: System
Description: This skill allows the user to summon out the spirit of the beast trapped within the medallion they use as a weapon. As a spirit, the creature will only have access to 70% of its stats and can only stay in battle for five minutes or be killed before it is forced to return to the medallion to recover.
Looking over the skills, Mistaken Fox had a wide smile on his face as he also took out the medallion for his Stone Axe Minotaur to stare at. The smile on his face quickly dimmed, however, when he noticed that the image of the minotaur on the medallion looked a bit faint. Mistaken Fox climbed down the tree and summoned out his Store Axe Minotaur. Upon its summoning, Mistaken Fox was able to realize that the creature seemed to be very tired. Apparently, summoning out its spirit to battle alongside him earlier is now reflected on the creature when it's summoned via the medallion as it shows that the minotaur is still tired from combat.
It seems this was another limitation not mentioned in the skill description for <Spirit Summoning> that Mistaken Fox has discovered. Seeing this, he could only give the minotaur a wry smile before turning it back into a medallion and putting it away in his inventory. It seems that he truly won't be able to make use of his class skills without giving up something in return at the moment so he could only continue to level it up the normal way while using his daggers and wait for Kirou to contact him.
Then again, having tasted how it felt to finally use the skills of the arcane summoner class, Mistaken Fox wasn't sure what he should do about combat now. He took out another medallion and tried to summon out its spirit, only to realize that he cannot as he doesn't have a connection with it. Besides that, he was still able to use his arcane summoner skills, but they seemed much weaker than how they came out when the Stone Axe Minotaur's medallion was in his hands.
'It seems that I should aim for another <chimera> before I think of using that spirit skill again or wait on Kirou to come up with a stronger weapon. If these daggers are anything to go by, the medallion will be able to allow me to use my arcane summoner skills as they should without suffering too much at the lack of a spirit.' Having thought up to hear, Mistaken Fox tightened his fists around the daggers now in his hands. Mistaken Fox then put the daggers away before disappearing via <Stealth>, heading somewhere else to find monsters to kill.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
PopcornSectMaster
PopcornSectMaster Hello people. Sorry for the late chapter, stuff happened.
The absolute worst thing any writer can do while writing is finding a novel to read in his spare time. Even worse, I made the mistake of finding 2 over the last 4 days. The good news is, I finished one of them while I've finally relieved the urge to read the other. That being said, here's today's chapter.
I'll try to update some more but I make no promises.
See ya later, people :)
*Munches on popcorn*
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