Two Months Later.

Kerta,

9:52 am, 13 th Peniel 1091.

Over the past month, news of Cashy, the painter with a great love of money spread around Kerta like wildfire. Summoned and Residents alike flocked to the strange daeben who spent a couple of hours every day at Kerta’s Northern Gate with his pet direwolf to get a portrait of themselves or purchase one of his figurines or paintings. Warriors got their weapons repaired and paid for the insane boosts from his delicious meals.

The daeben’s flora paintings were the most sought-after of all his goods, and by the end of each day, when he finally closed up shop, he was raking in profits of several dozens of Syros.

Over the past month, Kashi kept a strict schedule. At first light, he would purchase the necessary materials and ingredients for his crafts from the shops. After which, he spent three hours in the morning repairing and cooking morning meals for adventurers heading out to the fields or dungeons. Following this, he would go hunting with Kira. Well, by hunting, it was more like Kira would go hunting while Kashi painted and sculpted the products to be sold that night.

Kashi also gave Kira pointers while she hunted, helping her to become an even more effective hunter. In return, he made sure to take full advantage of the corpses she left behind. The ability to gain the entire carcass of beasts was one advantage Kashi had over other Summoned. This phenomenon existed because Kira was not Kashi’s pet, but a native monster of the world who just happened to be tagging alongside the daeben.

Of course, the downside to this was the fact that Kashi and Kira did not share experience points. However, Kashi did not care about this as the lack of experience points paled in comparison to the boon of obtaining a full carcass as animal drops others found rare were easily obtained by the daeben.

There was one other disadvantage to this, and one that actually hurt the daeben a little. Monsters killed by Kira did not drop any random loot. So, he could not get things like skill books, money and weapons this way. Also, if he assisted the battle in any way, even if was a single distraction shot, the game would count that against him, and the beast would ‘burst’ into petal light and leave random loot.

Well, tit-for-tat. The daeben swallowed this loss. After all, from the standpoint of a craftsman, the current situation could not have been any more advantageous. His endless supply of increasingly higher-leveled meat meant he effectively had a monopoly on the chef business. At the very least, some Summoned who tried to copy his business were mortified to find they could not match his productivity.

Just as the gods of capitalism intended, it was not long before copycats began to pile around the Northern Gates to leech off the daeben’s success. Several artists, chefs, and blacksmiths sent by various Guilds suddenly popped up around the daeben and began to undercut his business by selling similar products and services at lower prices. The situation did not immediately take a nosedive as the daeben’s name and consumer-friendly business practices enticed some consumers to remain.

Unfortunately, the Guilds could afford to take certain losses in the short term. They severely undercut the daeben’s prices to the extent even some of Kashi’s most loyal customers could not resist the temptation and switched to the other salesmen.

Kashi found he was not as annoyed by the guild’s interference as he had thought he would. This was because, even though he had been making an enormous profit, most of his skills had stopped improving because most customers asked for similar products.

If there was one thing the daeben had learned during his time as a craftsman, it was the fact that uninspired products significantly slowed down the progress of skills. As proof, despite all the works he had done, his Handicraft, Painting, and Sculpting skill was stuck at Beginner Level 9, refusing to enter the intermediate level.

The only skills with real progress were his Chef skill which had entered Intermediate level 2, and the newly acquired First-Aid skill which had reached Beginner Level 6, learned and improved by bandaging and treating Kira's injuries after her hunts.

With all these in mind, Kashi resolutely closed down his shop and returned to the city. The guilds’ craftsmen and merchants celebrated when he left. After all, even though they had succeeded in undercutting him, the daeben’s skills meant he was always a dangerous threat to their profits.

Oblivious to the thoughts and worries of the worries of the guilds, Kashi spent the next month on a new schedule. This time, he spent most of his days either in the blacksmith, tailor or the leatherworking shops. By this time, Kira was as tall as a regular dog and about as strong as a regular level 10-12 Summoned, so he took her hunting at night to fight against the stronger predators.

During this period, Kashi spent 95% of his time in-game, only exiting for three hours every three days for a shower and brief workout in the real world. This crazy schedule paid off as one month after he closed the stall, the adventurers were quite pleased to see Kashi open shop once more.

The various guilds’ merchants and craftsmen watched the daeben’s opening with narrowed gazes and trepidation in their hearts.

Oblivious to the merchants’ emotions, Kashi greeted his customers with a bright smile, "My apologies for closing so suddenly. I needed the time to create even better goods that are deserving of your continuous patronage.” Kashi took out some items from a large sack he was carrying and neatly arranged them on the table. “ I am pleased to announce a new line of products, for the beautiful ladies and strapping gentlemen of Kerta."

Kashi had spent the last month taking advantage of his solid foundation in smithery, leatherworking, and tailoring to devise a strategy to quickly upgrade his crafting skills.

The first thing Kashi did was buy a new set of advanced tools for all the professions ranging from a blacksmith's hammer to a tailor's spinning wheel. These purchases cost him a lot of money, 500 Syros to be exact, because he did not belong to any of these classes, and hence did not get their discount.

Following this, Kashi purchased 200 Syros worth of iron ore, which translated to about six thousand iron ore. In regular games, it would have only taken him a few seconds to change these to iron ingots item. Live no Evil was nowhere as forgiving.

Kashi could have chosen to directly buy iron ingots, but he decided to purchase ores because of their smelting process. To effectively smelt the ore, he was forced to expose himself to the blast furnace’s incredible heat. This, in turn, increased his fire resistance. It took a whole day, but he successfully converted all six-thousand ores to iron ingots.

Following this, the daeben had two options to hammer the ingots into the desired shape: cold smithing and hot smithing. Cold smithing involved beating the nugget into the desired shape with brute force. With over 70 points in Strength, Kashi more than met the requirements of this method for low-level metal. However, he opted to go with the hot method to save time and expose himself to the heat of the furnace.

Kashi heated each ingot in the forge, then hammered them into the shape of helmets. Luckily, he already had a strong foundation and high handicraft skills. As a result, it took a short period for each helmet to be completed. His handicraft skill did not rise at all, but the Blacksmith and Armory skill rose to level seven.

Kashi sold the finished products to the blacksmith shop and gained his gold back, along with a small profit of a few large silver Syros. Kashi immediately bought a new set of iron ingots and repeated the painstaking process over and over until he hit level 9 in both blacksmithing and armory, at which his stats ceased to improve any further.

The entire process took Kashi close to a week. This was annoying and tedious work. It was no wonder craftsmen were so few among players. The daeben would have quit if he were not so innately stubborn.

Kashi saw that his blacksmith skills had hit a dead end, and switched targets to the tailor shops. He purchased several yards of hempen cloth, along with some leather strips, then spent the entirety of the day crafting different hempen products, ranging from hempen hats to hempen pants and slippers.

Just like with the helmets, Kashi made a small profit on the goods by selling the products back to the shop, then bought a new set of materials to repeat the process. This continued for a few days until the Tailoring skill also halted at level nine.

Kashi once again switched to another skill: Leatherworking. Of all his crafts, this was the one where he needed to spend the least. This was because he obtained most of the required materials while hunting with Kira at night. By this point, Kira could easily hunt down foxes, wolfs and Bisons, providing Kashi with a vast amount of materials.

After each hunt, Kashi provided the location of the slain beast to the Adventurers’ Guild then tanned the skinned pelt at the leatherworker shop. Kashi crafted leather hats, leather jackets, and trousers with the tanned leather, then sold the products to the shop. Even though he paid to use the shop’s utilities, he still earned a very tidy profit. His stats finally hit Beginner Level 9 by the end of the week.

When he was done, Kashi took a look at his skill window.

Skills

Category

Name

Level

Proficiency

Cost

Ki

Mana

Crafts

Identify

[6/20]

37%

-

-

Sculptor

Beginner [9]

74%

-

-

Chef

Intermediate [2]

34%

-

-

Artist

Beginner [9]

99%

-

-

Blacksmith

Beginner [9]

90%

-

-

Armorer

Beginner [9]

90%

-

-

Tailor

Beginner [9]

56%

-

-

Leatherworker

Beginner [9]

23%

-

-

Handicraft

[9/40]

99%

-

-

Combat (Passive)

Archery

Beginner [8]

24%

-

-

Combat (Active)

Silent Feet

[15/20]

28%

30

-

Rapid-Shot

[2/20]

14%

30

-

Multi-Shot

[2/20]

16%

40

-

Homing Arrow

[1/20]

86%

50

-

Keen Eyes

[6/20]

96%

30

-

Keen Sense

[7/20]

83%

70

-

With all his crafting skills at nine, Kashi prepared for the final phase of his plan. For this stage, he spent every Syros he had on raw materials from each respective craft. Kashi already had the recipes for generic weapons and armor, but he was not one to do things the easy way.

The daeben separated the materials into two. One half was to be used for clothing or armor, while the other half was to be used to craft weapons.

Kashi’s high Strength and boosts from the Handicraft skill meant the daeben could craft weapons for adventurers as high as level 70 and below. However, the daeben chose to start small, and craft high-quality works for adventurers ranging from level 30 – 50.

Kashi’s unique crafting method began to shine from this point on. First, he crafted several sword, spear and ax blades, then utilized his leatherworking skills to craft comfortable hilts and gorgeous sheaths. The handles improved the wielder's grip, which in game terms, boosted their Dexterity. The daeben took the process one step further by utilizing his sculpting skills to engrave stylish designs onto the hilts and blades of the swords, which made his weapons immensely stand out from the bland stuff they sold at the weapon store.

After the completion of his first sword, all the crafts Kashi utilized simultaneously jumped into the intermediate level, and though they did not increase as fast, subsequent creations helped increase his stats.

Kashi, through similar crafting processes, created several high-level armors. However, rather than taking the game’s shortcut of pounding out an entire armor, the daeben chose to individually craft each piece of the armor. This allowed him to carve designs onto certain parts before joining them together. Kashi then utilized his leatherworking skills to pad the interior of the armors to make them more comfortable, and thereby increase the user’s Agility.

Many classes did not utilize full armor. For these classes, Kashi took a page from the costumes used in Chinese folklore. He employed mixtures of tailoring and leatherworking skills to craft eye-pleasing cloth, and leather armor then reinforced their protection through greaves, armguards and thin layers of breastplate armor.

Kashi especially kept mages in mind who lacked Strength to don heavy armor, and could not wear too much metal as it interfered with their magic casting. For these mages, he crafted cloth robes, then used hardened leather to provide protection to critical areas.

Kashi ensured the final products were functionally and aesthetically superior to every other product on the market. The daeben was definitely successful in his endeavors, and he spent the remaining two weeks crafting several products. Although he could not make every single product unique, he ensured there were only at most ten copies of the same kind of creation. Finally, he marked all his products with the emblem of a howling wolf in honor of Kira’s mother.

After all that hard work, it was time to see if it would pay off. After crafting himself a small stall at his usual spot outside the gate, Kashi put the items on display and waited for the adventurers to give their verdict.

Their reaction was much better than the daeben could have ever anticipated.

Summoned and Adventurers rushed to his stall, clamoring to buy the gear he had crafted. Who could blame them? All of Kashi’s works were at the very least Uncommon. A couple reached Rare, and even a handful managed to reach the Epic rank. As a result, Kashi’s products could be used for five to ten levels above their initial recommended level.

Furthermore, Kashi’s new line of paintings featured men and women donning his products, striking down monsters, or stuck in one badass pose or another. It was such an advertising success that those who could not get their hands on the products made sure to at the very least, buy the portraits.

Before the sun dropped, the daeben’s shop was wiped clean, and he made a profit of two-hundred gold (20,000 Syros) for his troubles. This was far more than he knew what to do with, as he had already increased his crafting skills to satisfactory levels. To be honest, he was tired of anvils and needles. Having made a tidy profit that left the other guilds’ merchants blue in the face, Kashi decided to slow down and find a nice distraction.

Only one in-game month remained before Kashi and Kira’s appointment with Fladnag. Looking at everything he had accomplished, the daeben decided the only thing left to increase was his ridiculously low mana. There were two methods for Summoned to improve their wisdom and intelligence outside of stat points. Those methods were through Meditation and Reading.

Unfortunately, Meditation skills could only be acquired through ultra-rare skill books, leaving the most common method to be studying and reading books. Kashi knew it was going to be difficult for him to gain wisdom by reading because of his level, but it would be even more challenging to increase his Wisdom through bonus stat points due to his race.

Kashi's new path took him to the Cat's Glass, the largest tower in all of Kerta. Now that he thought about it, it was quite odd he had never gone there before. It served as a government office, library, and housed various apartment offices for several guilds.

Kashi had no business with any guilds, so he made his way to the library. It was quite large, housing several books neatly arranged into sections. Out of curiosity, he checked the magic section and was appalled to find only books on fire, ice and healing spells on the shelves. It seemed that if one wanted to learn sophisticated magic, this was definitely not the city to be spawned into.

Kashi took out a few foundational books explaining the origin and manipulation of mana from the magic section row, then took several books from different crafting sections, encyclopedias and guides. He checked the calendar to confirm how many months there were in a year in this world.

Month

Days

Seasons

Jundalph

34

Winter

Muriel

34

Winter

Banem

34

Winter/Spring

Zelyr

33

Spring

Ryanem

34

Spring

Sachem

33

Summer

Peniel

34

Summer

Maha

34

Autumn

Mazem

34

Autumn

Ryzul

34

Autumn/Winter

Derpol

35

Winter

Furthermore, he was finally able to confirm the days of the month: Suchiel, Mochiel; Tuchiel; Wenchiel; Thruchiel; Frochiel; and finally, Stachiel.

The library charged him five gold to rent the books - he would get four gold coins back if the books were returned in excellent condition.

Kashi placed the books into his inventory and exited the library. On his way out of Cat’s Glass, three humans blocked his path.m. Two of the humans were male, Cerulian warriors, sporting huge, intimidating weapons, while the third was a Masonian female rogue.

"Are you Kashi?" Warrior#1 asked. He was rather tall, with spiky blue air and wore a full set of heavy armor.

"Who's asking?" Kashi questioned as he glared at Warrior #1. He did not appreciate having his path blocked. Especially when the person doing the blocking had such a smug, self-important expression.

Kira, who in the past month, had nearly doubled in size, issued a low warning growl as she glared at the warriors.

"The name's Nyte,” Warrior #1 introduced himself, evidently not scared by Kira’s bloodthirsty visage. This was a man who had a strong opinion of his own strength. “My partner is Blade. The rouge's Sasha."

Kashi snorted and replied, "Nice to make your acquaintance."

"Wow, he really does talk like that." Blade chuckled. He was skinnier and wore lighter armor compared to his friend. Judging the spear strapped to his back, he was a Lancer.

"We would like you to join our guild, Silver Hand ," Nyte said.

"Why would I do that?" Kashi did not mean to be overly rude, but something about the way they ambushed him raised alarms in his head.

"There are currently over 500 members in our guild. We are the strongest in Kerta, and have cleared several high-level dungeons." Blade boasted proudly.

"I am not looking to join any guilds." Kashi’s irritation began to cause his formal speech to slip.

"You would benefit from your cooperation,” Nyte patiently explained. “We can offer protection and high level items."

"Like I said. Not interested." Kashi brushed past them, choosing to leave, but Nyte grabbed his arm and held him in place. Kashi’s gaze hardened, and a sliver of bloodlust clouded his eyes as he warned, "Let go.”

"You misunderstand. This is not a request. You will join Silver Hand ." Nyte abandoned all pretense of diplomacy, opting instead to threaten the weak merchant.

"If I refuse?" Kashi's glare intensified as he shrugged off Nyte's hand.

"If you refuse to join, then you must cease all crafting or turn in a percentage of your profit to our guild," Sasha answered. She had one of those deep, wise lady voices commonly used in movies.

"I rather enjoy crafting. It earns me a lot of money, and I have no desire to give you a single coin,” Kashi replied with a mocking shrug. “What do we do?"

"This city cannot have craftsmen that do not work under Silver Hand,” Nyte warned. “It will upset the balance we have constructed."

Kashi finally grasped the reason for their ambush. Their guild most likely held the monopoly on crafted products before he came along. Since there were little to no painters or sculptors, they had not bothered with him before. But the massive success on only his first-day selling armor and weapons, coupled with the uniqueness of his designs, had become a considerable threat to their income.

"Then tell your craftsmen to step up their game and chase me out the right way.” The icy hatred in Kashi’s eyes chilled the assailants down to their blood marrow. “I will never concede to those who bully others to get what they want."

"The plains can be very dangerous." Nyte looked at Kira and warned. "To both you and your pet."

Kira’s eyes turned blood-red, and she almost attacked, but Kashi placed a hand on her head and scratched her ears. "I'll take my chances," Kashi said and confidently walked away, knowing they could not openly attack him inside the city. The act of murder within a city was punishable by several years in prison or execution.

However, Player-Killing (PK) outside settlements resulted in infamy and a temporary ban from cities. If there were no witnesses, it was even better as they would receive no penalty except increased Infamy.

"I told you it would be a waste of time to talk to such a weak player." Sasha laughed at Kashi's retreating figure. "Just look at his gear. I bet he chose to upgrade his crafting skills because he was afraid of dying."

"It does not matter,” Nyte replied. “Since he chose to defy Absalon-sama, we will have to teach him a lesson the next time he leaves the city."

Ignoring the glares from his ambushers, Kashi walked to the Archery Practice hall to devise a plan on how he would spend his remaining month.