Chapter 213 - Time Flies (Part 1)
One of the clearest differences between the Frozen Winter Sword and the Blazing Scale Greatsword, apart from their obvious disparity in size, was that while the sword designated to Shangguan Bing Xue increased the power of ice-type attacks by 10%, Bai Zemin's greatsword increased the weapon's physical attack power by an extra 10% as fire-type damage.
Although both bonuses were similar, the difference in a few words changed everything completely.
"I guess I did it good." Bai Zemin sighed. After failing so many times during the forging process, even he was starting to feel a bit annoyed even though he knew that this was the first time he worked with bones as the core material in the smithy.
"You did great... I'm sure that woman named Shangguan Bing Xue will like the sword. Although considering her personality, she most likely won't let it show on her face."
Lilith's voice sounded beside him.
He shrugged and replied indifferently, "Whether she likes it or not, that's not my problem. As long as she makes good use of this sword and doesn't waste my efforts that will be more than enough thanks."
"I see..."
Bai Zemin noticed that Lilith was acting a bit strange but didn't think much of it. As she stared at the Frozen Winter Sword intently, he began working on a second leather armor.
Since he wanted to keep the Shadow Leopard's leather to maintain his own equipment, Bai Zemin used the leather of a First Order Frost Control Lion to forge Shangguan Bing Xue's armor.
Fortunately, the entire armor process only took him a little over two hours. This was mainly because he was slowly starting to get used to working with leather so slowly the time he needed to forge with this type of material was starting to decrease.
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[Frozen Aura Breastplate -
[Upper Armor]
[Rank: 1]
[Defense: 600]
[Diminishes the movement speed of nearby enemies by 2% due to the freezing energy surrounding it.]
[Durability: 600/600]
[Description: An armor created from First Order materials of attack and defense type.]
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[Ice Plate Pants -
[Lower Armor]
[Rank: 1]
[Defense: 450]
[Increases resistance to cold weather by 5% and has some chance to avoid 'Frozen' effect.]
[Durability: 500/500]
[Description: The blacksmith who forged this armor surely has deep knowledge about the word protection. Its special characteristic can be improved if the materials used were of better quality.]
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The upper armor of Shangguan Bing Xue was deep blue in color just like the Frozen Winter Sword. The only difference was that it had several silver-colored metal pieces on the chest, belly, and sides; protecting the most dangerous and vital areas of the body.
As for the lower armor, it was also deep blue but the difference was that it had much less silver compared to the upper armor. After all, the metal armor of the Armored Elephant would greatly obstruct the movements of the legs due to its rigidity.
Although it did not manage to evolve to Rank 2 like Bai Zemin's Bloodthirsty Wolf Full Body Armor, this was also to be expected. After all, he had been very lucky at that time. Still, the defense of both items and their special characteristics were very good.
Aside from the armor, he also spent another hour and a half forging two shoulder pads for it that ended up at Rank 1 where they both gave about the same amount of defense as Bai Zemin's own shoulder pads.
After a moment's thought, Bai Zemin decided not to forge gloves for Shangguan Bing Xue. It was not because he did not want to, but from what he had observed of her fighting style so far, she did not use her fists to crush enemies the way he did. She was more elegant and careful, so there was no point in wasting materials and time on something that would not be put to proper use.
After a quick meal and after receiving magical treatment from Kang Lan, Bai Zemin returned to his workshop to work. After the two daily casting of Lesser Healing, Bai Zemin's broken ribs healed completely thanks to his own Health and his extra 20% recovery from receiving healing, relieving the pain he felt a substantial amount.
Basically, except for the wound on his face, Bai Zemin had recovered almost 80%. He guessed that after two more treatments he would be back to his absolute peak.
"Such wounds would take at least 1 year to recover from and I wouldn't be surprised if after recovery the bones fail to return to how they were before considering that were practically turned to dust by the Archaic Bear's attacks. But after 48 hours after the battle, I'm practically as good as new..." Bai Zemin didn't know how to feel about this.
"Isn't that good?" Lilith asked confused noticing his complex tone of voice.
"...I guess so." He replied somewhat unsure of himself.
The evolution and changes that were happening to his body were simply too great and too abrupt. Bai Zemin knew that he was a special case as his stats were too high. He had grown simply too fast as he had faced enemies more powerful than him one after another. But even then, this couldn't help but make him feel strange, he felt less and less human.
"Let's get back to work." He shook off unnecessary thoughts and focused his mind with ease.
In the first 24 hours, he had forged his and Shangguan Bing Xue's equipment. This was surprising considering that the amount of pieces he had forged were about ten.
Of course, this was only possible due to the existence of the magic flame, the aid of mana, Bai Zemin's Strength, the Soul Record's knowledge boost on Blacksmithing, and many more things. But it was still surprising.
On the second day, Bai Zemin forged equipment for Zhong De and Fu Xuefeng. Both would be receiving upper armor, lower armor, a weapon, two shoulder pads, and a pair of gloves.
Fu Xuefeng would be receiving leather armor and a dagger. As someone who used all his stat points in Agility and Stamina, Fu Xuefeng would definitely not have enough Strength to lift heavy objects and would only be a nuisance to his fighting style.
On the other hand, Zhong De would be getting metal plate armor and a mace. Since he specialized more in strength and brutality, Bai Zemin judged that this style would suit him well.
During the third day, Bai Zemin forged equipment for Cai Jingyi, Kang Lan, and Wu Yijun; three upper and three lower armors, four weapons, six shoulder pads, six gloves. This was proof that as time passed, Bai Zemin became more and more adept in the use of mutated and evolved materials as well as the heated process of using the magic flame.
All the equipment of the three women was quite similar, with only minor differences such as color, some points less or more defense and attack due to different factors such as the materials used, the forging ability during the construction process, and so on. But basically they were pretty much the same.
The biggest differences were the weapons.
Cai Jingyi would be receiving two daggers; both were rank 1 daggers with 450 and 500 points of physical damage. One of the daggers even had a special effect of inflicting a paralyzing poison on the enemy. She was actually even more proficient than Fu Xuefeng with knives, so Bai Zemin judged that she would not have too much trouble controlling two weapons of the same type.
Kang Lan and Wu Yijun's equipment were the most difficult for Bai Zemin to forge. More specifically, it was their weapons.
Both women were mages by nature and their physical stats were not especially high. Therefore, Bai Zemin had to forge for the first time in his life what in video role-playing games was called a magic scepter or magic staff.
During the forging process, he had a lot of headaches because unlike the usual forging, he had to forge using his own Mana. By using his Mana to embed Soul Stones on top of different objects.
Because the bones of the Frost Control Lion were especially good for magical abilities, Bai Zemin used them as a catalyst. After securing a place on top to embed the Soul Stone, he began to move his own Mana in synchronization with the Soul Power of the Soul Stone, surrounding the entire blue bone with magical power.
This process was so exasperating that Bai Zemin was close to insanity more than fifty times! Worst of all, if the magic forging process failed, then the Soul Stone would turn into a pile of useless dust!
For obvious reasons, he did not dare to use First Order Soul Stones. What a joke! He had approximately fifteen First Order Soul Stones, if he failed and lost such a valuable Soul Stone just like that, Bai Zemin would definitely go crazy with anger and might end up banging his head against the wall to commit suicide.
Therefore, in the end and after several tries and failures where several dozens of Unclassified Soul Stones were destroyed, Bai Zemin finally managed to craft the following items.
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[Walker Freezing Staff -
[Two-handed magic weapon]
[Rank: 1]
[Magical Attack Power: 800]
[When casting magic spells, it has a 2% probability of freezing the enemy for 2 seconds.]
[Durability: 2000/2000 (Durability can decrease faster depending on the energy consumption of the Soul Stone used when casting magic spells)]
[Description: A magical item forged after several failures by a blacksmith who endured and fought until the last moment without giving up.]
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[Magic Boost Staff -
[Two-handed magic weapon]
[Rank: 1]
[Magic Attack Power: 750]
[Increases the power of your magic skills by 5%.]
[Durability: 2100/2100 (Durability can decrease faster depending on the energy consumption of the Soul Stone used when casting magic spells)]
[Description: After so many failures, its creator finally managed to create the weapon his mind was looking for through the use of different materials in exquisite synchrony.]