The Almighty Ring

The moment Jiang Fei logged into the game, Isabela, appeared beside him and promptly asked, “Where the hell did you go?!”

The game operated in a way where it closed all day, only opening up at 10pm. Those hours of downtime would be equivalent to a split second in the game. From Isabella’s perspective, Jiang Fei had just flashed in and out of existence.

Jiang Fei bit his lips and said, “Just where all the adventures go. The Adventurer’s World.”

“Oh wow. Adventurer’s World… Could you please take me there?” Isabella asked.

“What? Of course not!” cried Jiang Fei, knowing all too well that it was impossible.

“Hmph! Niggard…” Isabella mumbled underneath her breath. However, after that short burst of temper and a roll of eyes, she kept quiet and spoke no further about the “Adventurer’s World.”

…

“Buying all Level 20 and above, Green Smithing or Jewelry Crafting Recipe!”

“Buying all Level 20 and above, Green Smithing or Jewelry Crafting Recipe!”

“Buying all Level 20 and above, Green Smithing or Jewelry Crafting Recipe!”

Jiang Fei entered the day that day with a sense of purpose. He immediately spent 100 gold coins to put up advertisements all over the city.

“Brother Fei, are you really buying Green graded recipes?”

The first person to message Jiang Fei was Smart Tomato. From his perspective, Jiang Fei was the richest, dumbest person in the game. Like a man with an indispensable amount of cash, Jiang Fei bought anything without even attempting to haggle! Ever since Smart Tomato had befriended Jiang Fei, his earnings had doubled!

“Oh yea. I’m buying those. Do you have any of them?” Jiang Fei replied instantly.

“As a matter of fact, I have two. A Level 25 Chainmail Chest piece and a Level 20 Wristguard. Both Green.”

When Smart Tomato learned that Jiang Fei was a Divine Blacksmith, he dared not approach Jiang Fei when it came to dealing with recipes, fearing that the recipes might be too low a grade for someone like Jiang Fei, renowned Blacksmith. To prevent himself from being humiliated, Smart Tomato was smart enough to avoid offering anything that was as cheap as his Green recipes. However, what Smart Tomato did not know that Jiang Fei had never thought that Green recipes were cheap, to begin with. Sure, Blue grade equipment were stronger, but the cost of the materials and the success rate of actually crafting one was just too much for Jiang Fei to handle at that time. Jiang Fei wanted the Green graded recipes to feed the ring. Even though Jiang Fei was rich, his wealth was not infinite.

“How much are you selling them for?” Jiang Fei asked bluntly.

“I’ll give you a lower price if you take both. 1,500 gold coins,” said Smart Tomato. Knowing Jiang Fei’s appetite, Smart Tomato offered a slightly higher-than-market-value price. As long as it was not too much, Jiang Fei would always agree.

“Deal. Please come to XXX,XXX.”

As expected of the Divine Blacksmith, Jiang Fei did not even talk about the price. All he wanted was to quickly feed the ring. He had no luxury to think and lament about a few hundred gold coins as a huge loss. He was only able to be in that situation because Zhao Feng had helped sell that Jewelry Box. As a result, Jiang Fei had over 4,000 gold coins in hand. He was able to spend money, precisely because he had money! Of course, he had his lucrative sources of income.

Smart Tomato quickly met up with Jiang Fei. He would not keep such a generous benefactor waiting.

“Ahh! Thanks for your patronage,” said Smart Tomato with a large smile on his face.

“Don’t mention it. I’m sorry, but I have things to attend to now. I’ll take my leave.” said Jiang Fei as soon as he got the recipes.

“Ding! You have learned to craft Refined Iron Wristguard!”

“Ding! You have learned to craft Solid iron Chestplate!”

Jiang Fei immediately used the recipes and found that they did not take much to make. Jiang Fei was so pleased that he immediately started searching for the materials.

“Brother Ning, I have plans to craft a bulk number of Blue grade equipment. You want some?”

Jiang Fei contacted Han Tian Ning via private message.

The message was clear, yet Han Tian Ning was not dumb enough to miss out the underlying message, that was “I need materials to craft a large amount of Blue grade equipments!”. However, Jiang Fei was still a man of gratitude. The equipment that came out of Jiang Fei’s hands were all of top-notch quality. He would not want them to end up in the hands of some random players.

“Give me a number, and I’ll have Happy Drunk deliver them to you!”

Han Tian Ning went straight to the point. Even if Jiang Fei had blatantly asked for materials, he would never reject him. He was the kind of man that would do anything in the game just to have his fun. The man had money, power, and people. If he wanted something done, he would get it done, by his own way. He had no care for guild benefits, loss, economy, and other trivial matters!

Such a man was both a threat and a nightmare to players like Lady Casanova. The actions of such a man would be akin to the first push of a series of cascaded dominos falling down. The last piece, being the downfall of the other guilds. If such a thing did happen, the other players would not sit quietly about it. If I fall, I’ll drag you down with me. A zero-sum game. However, Han Tian Ning would not falter. A man in his position would not care about such a result as long as he had his fun.

Being at the far end of the spectrum in terms of leadership, Han Tian Ning had led Fafner in the Azure to a point where the other three major guilds have begun to make their move. From their perspective, Fafner in the Azure was doing things without logic nor fear of consequences. The entire situation would be the same as a group of individuals playing poker. Fafner in the Azure would be the kind of guy that had been winning several games, and the other three major guilds have had their patience tested time and again. It would come to a point where the other guild would be so disgruntled that they would just flip the poker table over; no one gets to play anymore. That was the point that Lady Casanova had reached.

…

Upon Han Tian Ning’s order and consent, Jiang Fei had ordered the materials he needed. However, even though Han Tian Ning never asked anything in return, Jiang Fei would never want to just take things off for granted. When Happy Drunk had his men deliver the materials, Jiang Fei immediately started crafting. In his schedule, he had cleared out everything else and planned to craft for the entire day. Green graded recipe had a higher success rate of crafting, after all! All the Green graded equipment crafted would be fed to the ring, while a few Blue ones would be reserved for the Heavy Armored users in his guild. Any surplus would be given to Fafner in the Azure as a means of payment for the materials.

A Level 20 Green graded equipment would take at most 20 seconds to finish. Accounting the time taken to retrieve materials from the storage, Jiang Fei would have crafted two articles of equipment in a minute. The problems rose when there was a mountain of materials and a large quantities of equipment to be crafted. Time would be wasted.

Bang! Bang!

Jiang Fei did not stop to ponder about the time wasted and immediately start hammering at the Blacksmith’s Workshop. Level 20 Green graded equipment had over 60% when it came to success rates, and a lower 30% Ascended bonus upgrade rate. Statistically, after every 10 sets of material used, Jiang Fei would produce six equipment, of which, two of them would be Blue graded while the rest would be Green graded. This was but a rough estimation, since RNG in every game was unpredictable. If the deity of RNG was on your side, you might even produce 10 Blue grade. However, that also meant that you might end up failing all 10 attempts.

As Jiang Fei was busy bringing metal to anvil, he had an idea. He called out for his “pet” Isabella and had her work for him. Being a sentient pet; possessing intelligence and will, she would be Jiang Fei’s assistant. As he smithed, the little girl would go back and forth to the bank and fetch him more materials and store all the equipment produced. However, as she was not considered an Adventurer, Isabella did not possess an Inventory system. Everything she carried in her hands was all she could carry.

As a result, she had inadvertently “showed off” the equipment to the entire city. However, Jiang Fei had zero worries for the little girl. She was a Level 34 pet with over 80,000 health points. Her attack power was off the charts, and she could one-hit KO all Light and Cloth armored players. Tank type players would last only for three to four hits before being minced meat. That, and the fact that no one could attack anyone in the city. A single player would never survive if they tried anything on the girl, or even an entire guild!

One by one, Jiang Fei stored all the useless Ascended equipment into the red slot of the ring’s storage and let it have its time “eating it.” Eventually, the familiar marking on the ring appeared. Even though the progress was painstakingly slow, Jiang Fei had thrown in several hours of work into it. It was worth every drop of blood and sweat.