Chapter 6: Chapter 6- The World’s First.
The Next Morning.
Leo jolted awake shouting.
"Nooo!!!..."
He sat upright in bed, his chest heaving loudly as his fingers twisted through his hair.
His face pale, gasping for breath, covered in sweat.
He had a nightmare.
The visions from the nightmare were stuck in his mind, hunting him — the bank, the auction notice, handing the house key to a stranger, sad faces of his father and mother.
It’s not real. Not yet. I can still solve this.
He had a debt to pay.
Without even bothering to freshen up, he immediately logged back into the game.
"CONNECT."
A golden light flashed, and he found himself back in the inn. Sunlight streamed through the window as usual.
He had planned to forge all day today — he needed to earn money quickly.
He still had some lingering thoughts about the nightmare but he soon calmed himself down and stepped outside with determination.
[Ding]
[Hidden quest reminder]
He could still see the persistent quest notification for the Memory of the First Fire, but he dismissed it for now and made his way to the forge district.
Even this early, the forge district had already came alive.
Hammer strikes echoed through the surroundings, and thick smoke rose from the dozens of chimneys.
The smell of hot iron filled the air.
Leo walked past all the shops and smithies until he reached Hugh’s smithy.
Hugh was already there, working on a pair of steel bracers. He didn’t look up when Leo entered. He continued working with unhurried hammer strikes.
Finally, he finished the bracers. Setting them aside he looked at Leo.
"What were you up to yesterday?" Hugh said wiping his hands on a piece of clothe. "You didn’t show up."
Leo grinned. "What? Did you miss me?"
"Miss your mother!" Hugh shouted back.
Leo laughed it off and puffed out his chest. "I went hunting. Killed eight wolves, and one of them was an Alpha. See." He showed his status window. "I leveled up!"
Hugh glanced Leo up and down. "You hurt?"
He shrugged it off. "Nah. They weren’t that strong."
Hugh nodded and pointed to the side. "You can take the charcoal from the bin, and you know where to find the ore. Don’t waste any."
With that, he went back to work.
Following Hugh’s instructions, he walked toward the forge, gathered the ores and charcoal.
He didn’t forget to use his Forge-Sight to scan the pile, picking out high-quality ingots for the work. He pinned the blueprint to the wall and got to work.
He was still riding high from his battle with the wolves.
That overconfidence messed up his rhythm immediately.
He almost ruined the first longsword from the start.
During the tempering stage, he messed up bad. The longsword billet warped into a sickening curl at the tip, which should have been sharply straight.
Come on, come on...
Still, trusting his Forge-Sight, Leo kept hammering, hoping to force it back into shape, but it only got worse.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
He could no longer straighten the metal.
This sword was the first item of the day, and yet he was already sweating buckets due to his error.
Hugh saw this and couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head.
On the other hand, Leo was in a very bad mood, cursing out loud.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
He tried to correct the warp, but it was useless.
He had no choice but to plunge the blade into the trough and quench it.
It had turned into a dark-colored sword with a twisted warp at the tip and jagged serrations running along the edge.
There was no saving it. The sword was a failure. It was unrepairable.
Leo was about to toss it into the bin when a system prompt sounded.
[Ding!]
[Forging Complete]
[IRON LONGSWORD]
Quality: Normal
Tier: Common
Effect: +1 Bleeding on hit.
Estimated Value: 70-80 Silver
[A sword forged in frustration. The smith’s overconfidence bled into the steel, and the warp turned the blade into something unseen. But even negligence has its virtues — the serrated edge cuts where a clean blade cannot.]
[Latent Growth Potential: This item may evolve with extended use.]
Leo was stunned as he read the notification.
His previously dark mood immediately lightened, and a grin slowly formed on his lips.
His SSS-class talent was too powerful.
Even my failures turned into a unique sword with the potential for growth.
He checked the sword once again but frowned.
Dark crimson veins were visible upon closer inspection. Leo knew that the system had compensated for his work and made it a useful weapon; this was an unplanned sword.
He set the sword aside and prepared for the next one. He could not afford to keep wasting the ore, or he wouldn’t earn anything.
This time, he decided to forge a sword known as an arming sword.
"Arming sword" was just a fancy name for the double-edged sword that most knights carried along with a shield.
The arming sword required a slightly different approach.
Leo had failed the first one, so he did not want to fail the second attempt either.
Let’s read the blueprint more thoroughly this time.
He read the blueprint twice, steadied his mind, and focused.
Checking all the materials, he followed the blueprint and got to work.
He heated the iron to cherry red, about 1,000 degrees, then set it on his anvil.
Using Forge-Sight, he struck with confidence.
CLANG! Then the second CLANG!
Third CLANG!...
The rhythmic clang rang through the smithy, shaping the metal with each strike.
The metal started to glow.
He felt like he knew what the metal wanted him to do.
The metal started to cooperate as he listened to it.
Adjusting his hammer grip and angles based on the feedback from each strike, he continued.
Halfway through, the blade went pale and the glow dimmed quickly; he had overheated the upper body of the sword, which was causing problems.
He set his hammer aside and let it cool down to get the temperature right in all parts.
Then, he heated it mildly and brought his hammer down in rhythmic strikes.
As he was hammering, he felt like he was onto something.
A faint thread... at the edge of his awareness.
Something reaching out....
A thread of connection between him and the metal.
Something more than just a technique.
He could not quite put his finger on it.
He slowed down his hammering pace, trying to grasp the feeling.
But the moment he slowed down, the feeling faded away.
He could not grasp it.
One moment it was there, almost caught; the next, it slipped away, vanished.
[Ding!]
[Forging Completed]
[IRON ARMING SWORD]
Quality: Good
Tier: Common
+1 DEX while equipped.
Estimated Value: 1 Gold
[A sword shaped with patience. The smith learned to listen to the metal. A good sword with perfect balance and an honest edge. It does nothing fancy — but it does everything right.]
Leo tested the blade, giving it a few swings, and found that it was good.
Hugh had been watching his entire forging session, nodding his head from time to time and frowning occasionally.
Finally this kid managed to produce something normal and decent.
Leo put the sword away and decided to forge a third piece. He reached for the purest high-grade ore, as he wanted to forge the highest grade possible.
Hope I can grab that feeling this time.
He lit the forge and let the eternal fire slip into it.
With the eternal fire, the heat rose quickly. Familiar warmth radiated toward him.
The metal was heated quickly. He placed the metal on the anvil. He channeled a small amount of eternal fire into the hammer — only to the degree the hammer could withstand — and used it to strike the metal for tempering.
This time, he didn’t chase that feeling, he didn’t push; he simply kept forging.
Each strike of the hammer came down with great focus and precision.
He felt some kind of resistance from the metal and grew worried that he might fail again.
But none the less, he kept trying to reach out to the metal.
Using his Forge-Sight, he did his best to hammer it correctly.
He continuously hammered away every flaw he saw through his sight.
Slowly, he was consumed in the work.
He had entered the rare state of trance once again.
The world narrowed down to metal and fire only. He kept hammering, oblivious to the time.
Then, the elusive thread of inspiration returned, slowly at first... barely there, like a signal from far away which could disappear at any moment.
Leo did not try to pursue the feeling; instead, he focused his full attention on forging the sword.
The thread strengthened.
The feeling grew stronger with every hammer impact.
The lump of steel started to respond to him, and a resonance began building between his will and the iron.
He let it flow and did not try to stop it.
Orange light and fire began to gather, dancing along the edge of the blade.
Minuscule flaws vanished under his strikes, and the fire itself merged into the grains of the iron.
This is it.
KAANG!
The final strike of the hammer hit the metal, marking its completion.
Leo plunged the blade into the trough.
Hissssssss.
Steam billowed.
He pulled it out and hammered a few strikes to fix the slight warps that occurred during quenching.
He then fixed the handle onto the sword and sharpened the edges of the blade until it shone.
The sword shimmered with a faint pattern of welded lines and occasional red-orange fire that flickered now and then.
The blade was finally completed.
[Ding!]
[Forging Completed]
[PATTERN-WELDED LONGSWORD]
Quality: Flawless
Tier: Rare
Damage: 24-32
+5 Fire Damage.
5% Ignite chance.
Hidden effect: Will-Fire Resonance — Fire damage scales +1% per 10% HP lost.
[A sword forged with the eternal fire and undying will. The smith reached beyond his limits. Fire sleeps in the ripples, waiting to wake.]
[Soulbound-Weapon: This weapon awaits a wielder’s blood. When the wielder spills blood upon the blade, the bond will form with the wielder — unbreakable, summonable, eternal, and capable of growing with its wielder.]
[Estimated Value: Unknown — no market reference.]
Leo stared in disbelief. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Rare... it really is a Rare-rank sword.
The thread of inspiration he had been feeling — that connection — turned out to be a soulbound effect.
Before Leo could fully process it, the system chimed in again.
[Ding!]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED]
Congratulations! You are the first player to forge a Rare-grade item in Myth Online from your world.
[A server-wide announcement will be made.]
[Do you wish to hide your identity?]
[Yes] [No]
Leo was surprised. When he forged the Ember-Touched blade, there had been no announcement as it was also a Rare-rank sword, but now there was going to be one?
Maybe the system tracks only newly forged ranks and not upgrades. He had heard there were other ways to upgrade the rank of items, so that must be the reason.
He selected Yes without hesitation.
The server-wide announcement rang across the server like a bell. Golden text blazed through the sky, visible to everyone.
[MONOMYTH SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT]
Congratulations to Player [****] for being the first player on this server to forge a Rare-grade item in Myth Online!
[ACHIEVEMENT REWARD]
Player [****] is rewarded with the title "Forge Pioneer" and 10 Gold coins.
MONOMYTH SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT .... (2nd)
MONOMYTH SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT ... (3rd)
Every player on the server heard the prompt and looked up, wondering who the player might be.
Leo didn’t have time to digest what was happening before another world announcement prompt appeared.
[Ding!]
[A global announcement will be made across all servers.]
[Do you wish to hide your identity?]
[Yes] [No]
He picked "Yes" again.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT — MYTH ONLINE]
[World First]
A Rare-grade item has been forged for the first time across all servers! Congratulations to Player [****] for being the first player across all servers to forge a Rare-grade item in Myth Online!
[ACHIEVEMENT REWARD]
Player [****] is rewarded with the Annals of Creation and a Permanent stat bonus: CHA +5, MFT +5, STM +2.
[A new Chapter begins.]
Global announcement ..... (2nd)
Global announcement ... (3rd)
Everyone was slack-jawed by the back-to-back announcements.
The smithy went quiet. Leo stared at the blade that had just caused the global uproar.
Hugh had stopped working. His hammer frozen in mid-swing, staring dumbly at Leo.
"What the hell did you just make?"
"A sword?" Leo answered in daze.
