Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~

Chapter 42 – A Win-Win Situation

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Mika told me that there were some discussions related to the latest bugfix on the forum, so she suggested I checked it out.
There was apparently some confusion about it since this was the first time a bug fix was done by an official message instead of by a post in the main website.

Figuring that it would be nice to clarify things a bit, I decided to make an anonymous post on the forums briefly explaining the situation.
However, I only talked about how the bug involved an easy way to increase the ‘Heavy Equipment’ skill.
I didn’t mention anything about Magic Ingots or the Magical Formations.

That was mostly to avoid having people speculate too much about what exactly caused it, or eventually end up arriving at me being involved in the bug report, as that could make Mika’s party members suddenly wanting gear made with Magic Ingots, and… Well, it could get messy.
Popularity has its downsides, I suppose.

In any case, since Hime was going to continue her woodcutting work, which would provide me plenty of materials, I decided that I wanted to start making accessories with the Magic Ingots as soon as possible.
Hopefully their MDEF wouldn’t be too low.

So, after parting with Hime and Mika, I went to the Rental Production Facility to get things started.
I didn’t stop by the library this time because it was midnight on in-game time, so it was closed… And also because I didn’t finish reading the books I had currently had with me.

And so, I immediately rented a private room and started working on iron gear to replenish the store’s supply, so that I could work with the Magic Ingots in my next batch of crafting.
I had enough materials to spend the whole day making stuff with iron, but I didn’t do that.
Instead, I just made a small amount to replenish the store’s supply, then logged out.

******

After solving my usual offline things, like eating and bathing, I logged in, got my gear evaluated at the guild, then took it to the store.

Then, as usual, I updated the blog with the gear for sale, put the items on the store warehouse, and started reading while waiting for the clerks.

… Coming to think of it, I haven’t done much embroidery lately.
I hope I didn’t get rusty.

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“Good morning, store manager.” As I thought that, today’s clerk, Anya, arrived and said that.

“Good morning.” I replied.

After that, she gave me a quick report on what were the latest things that happened on the store.
There wasn’t much to be said though, so this was done quickly.

Once she was done, I told her that we wouldn’t need to buy Magic Stones from the store, as I’ll get them directly from Hime, who was getting tons of them from her woodcutting work.

******

With the usual shop report out of the way, I immediately returned to the Rental Production Facility to make Magic Bronze Ingots.

I wanted to make items with Options, so I tried being extra careful during the crafting process for them… Though I’m always careful during that, so I wasn’t sure if I would get a different result from last time.

——

Magic Bronze Bngot

Material/5*

——

The rank did go up.
5* ingots made it easy to get Options, so that was nice… Was this because of my extra care? Or maybe because I got more used to it? Or perhaps because my Improved Blacksmithing level went up?

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… The latter is unlikely, since that skill is leveling really slowly right now.

Oh well, rank fluctuations when crafting something when you’re on the verge of starting making the higher rank stuff regularly are normal, so I suppose I shouldn’t worry about it.

Instead, let’s focus on what happens next, which is the real deal.
There are no recipes for anything made with Magic Ingots, so everything I try making will be an original.

Luckily enough, accessories are fairly simple to make and they don’t take that much time to be crafted either, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get them done.

For now, I’ll go with a ring, which is the easiest thing I know how to craft.
I also made sure to add my trademark lily symbol to it during the process.

And the final result was…

——

Magic Bronze Ring – Lily

Accessory/4*/ MDEF +7/MHIT +4/Small Magical Accuracy Enhancement/Durability 10

——

The lily design was a bit deformed during the process because the area available to craft it was too small… It would look better on a bracelet, I guess.

That said, the experiment was a success! The amount of MDEF gained was almost as high as what I got on the Magic Bronze Shield, and the Option that came with it was also great!

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The best part is still the MDEF, of course, but I won’t complain about being lucky with the Option.

The time it took to craft it was about twice as much as what I’d take with a recipe, but this was fine, as accessories are quick to make, so even doubling the time spent was no problem.

It could be even faster if I didn’t engrave the lily, but then it wouldn’t be as fun… And well, I get extra experience points like this.

Since this seemed to be going well, I sent some messages to my acquaintances to ask their opinions on it, and continued crafting until they gave me a reply… Let’s aim to make a recipe for this! To make the production speed become much faster!

******

By the time I finished the third ‘Magic Bronze Ring – Lily’, everyone had already replied to my messages.
They all seemed interested in buying it, but nobody really had a clue about what the right price for it would be, since it’s a new item.

It’s usually not that hard to price original items, since we can just compare it to similar equipment, but… Well, the things made with Magic Ingots not only have no recipe, but their performance is also completely different from regular items, so it’s hard to have a baseline for those.

Because of that, the price will probably be based on how useful the item is.
I guess they’ll discuss it on the forums to see how much people would be willing to pay for those accessories, then suggest me a price based on that… And since Mika said she’d try getting me a good price for those, I decided to leave this part to her.

Therefore, let’s go back to making ‘Magic Bronze Ring – Lily’! Each person can equip two accessories, so I need to craft two for each acquaintance!

And of course, Mika and Hime will get priority on receiving the items with the best Options.

And… I guess I won’t try supplying anything in particular for Mika’s party.
I’ll make the things for my acquaintances, then decide on what to do with the items without Options to them later.

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The most important part now, is to make plenty of ‘Magic Bronze Ring – Lily’! Not only to get a recipe, but also because they give an absurd amount of experience points! I needed to craft so much iron gear to get a level of Improved Blacksmithing, but three of those rings was already enough to give me another level! Those rings are an experience goldmine!

So well, this was a win-win situation.
My acquaintances would get good accessories with Options, and I’d get a lot of experience on Improved Blacksmithing! Let’s keep on working hard!

******

And in the process of making more rings, the Crafting skill finally reached level 100… Even after all my hard work of grinding other skills for the sake of accumulating Skill Points, I only had just enough Skill Points for its evolution.

I still evolved it anyways, so now I had the Improved Crafting skill.
It felt pretty great to have it, because I was now able to properly craft my lily symbol even on the small surface of the ring.

But ‘Leatherwork’, ‘Woodwork’ and ‘Tool Making’ were almost at lv 100 too, and there’s no way I’ll be able to grind enough skill points to evolve all those at the current rhythm…

Moreover, all of those are skills that I really want to evolve.
The first two are important to raise the rank of the gear I craft, and ‘Tool Making’ would allow me to have better tools, which would definitely lead to better results on my crafts as well…

That said, I don’t have a recipe for any tools aside from the beginner set, so this shouldn’t be a priority, I suppose.
It’s probably better to leave ‘Tool Making’ for later, until I have a new recipe at the very least.

So for now, the priority will go to either ‘Leatherwork’ or ‘Woodwork’… Both of which are skills that I don’t have enough Skill Points to evolve.

I guess I have no choice… I’ll have to go outside to grind skills that I can’t level during the production work! Since I have my summons and my Magical Formations, I should be able to fight to some extent! And potions should compensate for anything else that I lack!

Let’s go on an expedition! I don’t care if it’s for Mining or Foraging, as long as I can get some Skill Points through it!

… Though I guess I should ask Lolita for some pointers before I go.
She went on plenty of those before, so she might be able to help me.