Chương 17: Conjecture
Biên tập viên: Atlas Studios
Life skills were set in almost all games for a very simple reason. This was a means for players to earn money and survive, so it was essential. Unless one was a son of the game's chairman, solely relying on killing monsters and earning money from items was a heaven-defying stat, the kind that obtained a pile of artifact weapons from killing one monster. In that case, one did not need to learn about life skills…
A game like the Chaotic Era did not limit the number of life skills. In other words, as long as the player was willing, they could learn all life skills. However, nobody would be stupid enough to do so. It was not easy to be proficient.
After all, every life skill had a proficiency requirement that needed to be met before it was upgraded. If a player learned all the skills, the proficiency required by those skills could be exhausting, so the best way was to do the best.
Every mainstream life skill would have a corresponding set of raw materials and gathering skills. Mining needed to be learned for the forging skill, for example. How would a player forge their weapons without ores? Also, skinning skills were required for the tailoring skill. Potion making was matched with learning about herb gathering skills, blacksmithing with learning about smelting, gem crafting with learning about gem cutting, enchanting with learning about inscriptions, and so on.
To be honest, Fatty had a hard time choosing which life skills to learn because when he had just reached Level 10, he had learned Poison Crafting. After learning that, he'd realized that this was a skill similar to learning about potions. When crafting potions, he needed corresponding formulas and materials. If he wanted to upgrade this skill's level, he would have to wait until he was fully proficient.
This way, it would be akin to a life skill that he had learned in advance. Based on the principle of life skills, which was that quality counted more than quantity, it would be better for him to learn another herb-gathering skill. However, Fatty felt that being a potion dealer seemed somewhat strange because the customer target group was too concentrated and he could only sell to the Thief Class. Although the number of Venomancer players was smaller, the prices would be relatively firm, and no one could guarantee that he would sell anything…
The class with the widest customer base in the game still had to be the forging profession. A player did not need to have tailor-made armor, accessories made by a jeweler, alchemist-made special support potions, enchantments made by an enchanter, or a restoration potion from a pharmacist. However, nobody could survive without weapons!
Unfortunately, precisely because the forging target group was so wide, simply too many people learned this profession in the game. Even when Fatty had played a Berserker in the past, he had also learned the forging skill. At first, he had just been envious of the players who had their own forged high-quality equipment. He had dreamed that one day, he could have a weapon with his own name on it, which would make others envy his weapon. Thus, he had learned that skill.
After learning it, he had realized that being a forging personage was not simple. The game's explanation for the forging skill was that the higher the skill and proficiency, the higher the chances of forging a weapon with good stats! However, in fact, because the Weapon Crafting Blueprints were hard to obtain, this resulted in a costly market value. Fatty had been in this plight in the past, so how much money could he use to purchase the blueprints to increase his forging proficiency?
The less money he had to raise his proficiency, the fewer people would find him to ask him to forge their weapons. This was considered a vicious cycle. Players would find the personages who forged the highest-quality weapons and then others who learned the forging skill. However, the players who forged no quality weapons would be somewhat miserable. They could only forge when they needed to save on expenses. Some players couldn't even bother to learn the forging skill because they couldn't forge a better weapon after obtaining the blueprint. Instead, they went to find those personages to ask them to forge weapons for them…
As a result, many players in the later stages regretted their ignorant life skill choices. One by one, they turned to learning other life professions from square one…
Fatty had learned about this in the later stages. Theoretically, he could learn other life professions if he wished to avoid such a phenomenon. However, he couldn't help but hesitate when he had the chance to reconsider his choice.
This was because, after he had learned the forging skill with his Berserker in the past, although he hadn't become a famous forging master as he had wished, he had still had a forging heart. In this accidental situation, Fatty had discovered a secret that he hadn't known!
Forging was a very expensive profession. At the time, Fatty had lost a family fortune and used his remaining 40 Gold Coins to purchase four Level 40 Sword Blueprints and four sets of corresponding materials he had needed. Then, he had started forging. First, he had increased his proficiency. Second, it had been quantity over quality. He'd wanted to see whether he could have a chance to forge a highest-quality weapon.
When the first three swords had been forged, they had all been Normal Rank weapons. While Fatty had been mourning, the fourth sword forged had turned out to be a good one!
Fatty remembered clearly that the fourth sword had been forged into a Superior Rank! Although the stat bonus had not been very good, it had been far more powerful than the first three. The Superior Rank was second to the Legendary Rank, the best rank that players could forge. With just a sword, Fatty had managed to get back his capital!
However, when Fatty had sold that sword in high spirits, gathered materials again, and tried to continue forging, tragedy had repeated itself. Three out of the four sets of materials purchased the first time had ended up being Normal Rank. One of them had been a dagger forged to the Refined Rank. Before Fatty had gone back in time, he had sold at his stall the weapon and people had bargained even though the price had been 50 Silver Coins…
After learning to forge for such a long time, Fatty had forged a lot of items. Some had been Refined Rank weapons, but he had only managed to forge a Superior Rank weapon once. Fatty carefully recalled forging the Superior sword. Finally, he remembered a tiny detail!
Just as he had finished forging the Superior Rank sword, the system time had changed from day to night!
There was a certain time in the game. Every 6 hours of real time, the game changed from day to night or night to day. At night, the vision of the players and the monsters would be affected to some extent. Some monsters wandering around during the day would go to sleep, while some nocturnal creatures would respawn.
This was considered a kind of respawning process in the game. Then, Fatty started wondering if the equipment forged at the moment of the system respawn would have a higher chance of appearing in high ranks.
Some people might say that Fatty's way of thinking was very unrealistic, but in fact, it was rather reliable. In the Chaotic Era, there were more absurd ways of thinking than this. All players who had learned the equipment forging skills had a superstitious way of thinking. When some players made equipment, they thought it was easy to forge a high-quality piece of equipment if they went in a fixed direction, while others thought that weapons had to be made when there were few people around because the internet speed would be faster. Also, before they made the equipment, they would have to go to the toilet, as they thought it would bring them good luck…
There were different methods. No one could say whether something was right or not or whether it was useful or not. After all, regardless of the method used, the system would still give one a certain chance to have higher-rank equipment. Sometimes, these methods could occasionally forge good equipment, which made players believe in them even more. They would believe that it was because their forging method was correct and not because they'd happened to be lucky…
Fatty had thought about his conjecture for a long time. Eventually, he realized that such a conjecture was actually the most reasonable out of the currently known methods of forging equipment. Regardless of the perspective, this conjecture was more scientific. After all, the respawn of the system was more reliable.
However, before he had the time to verify this, Fatty realized that he had travelled four years back in time.
Therefore, when he had to choose life skills again, Fatty was unsure whether he should learn the forging skill. He wanted to verify whether his conjecture was right, yet he was worried that if it was wrong, it would all be in vain.
This was why he was at a loss…
In the end, after a lot of thought, Fatty thought that he should still learn the forging skill. He could verify his conjecture at a low-proficiency level. If his conjecture was wrong, he would give it up early. On the other hand, if his conjecture was proved right, he would earn a huge fortune!
Fatty still remembered that, in the later stages, when other players asked the so-called forging personages to help them forge a weapon, not only did they need to prepare their own blueprints and materials, but the one-time forging charge was also quite expensive. The cheaper ones would be around 10 Gold Coins, while the more expensive ones would reach dozens of Gold Coins. However, in fact, these so-called forging personages happened to naturally have more equipment of better ranks, as they had forged too many weapons. The players who asked them to forge equipment obtained equipment of good stats and a high rank. Thus, they would naturally try their best to promote them. Then, other players would rush to find them on a wild goose chase for forged weapons. The so-called forging personages were a result of this flattery. In Fatty's opinion, they might not necessarily have mastered a secret technique.
Nevertheless, if they really became a forging personage, the money they earned would come faster and would be more than the income of the other life professions!
Hence, after thinking it through, Fatty found the Learning Trainer for the forging skill, which was behind the blacksmith area. He then found the teleportation portal and teleported over…
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