Homesteading in a fantasy world

With a proper belt made for my tiny hammer, it was time to test out my new ability. Before I started to make weapons and armor for my company members, I needed to know the limits of the item set ability.

For starters, I tried to make my current armor into a set, and it worked perfectly fine. Adding the chainmail and gambeson was a bit more difficult, but in the end, they were made part of a set.

The ability gave me feedback, so I knew that I could add more items to this set even long after I completed this ritual of set-making - I think that would be the best description.

To my surprise, adding my mind companion ring into the set was easy, as was the leather bracelet of energy control and the hydra pendant. What didn't fit was the tiny hammer; perhaps I should rename that to the hammer of crafting. I don’t think it would appreciate being called a tiny hammer, even if it didn’t have a mind to disagree with me.

It took me a little bit of feeling out the ability to understand why I couldn’t add the hammer of crafting. The answer was quite simple: It didn’t fit the set I had in mind.

Currently, in my mind, I was thinking of a regular defensive set, so trying to go against this was a bit too hard for my current level. That being said, there was a good chance that no amount of levels would add the hammer of crafting to this set.

There was also a lot of resistance when I tried to add my sword to the set. This time it was different. The sword was simply too strong to be properly a part of the set. It was a strange resistance, perhaps more to do not just with the strength of the sword but with the sword's intent.

I often give personalities to objects; I have done that all my life, but the sword definitely has some sort of will, similar to the hammer of crafting and a few other of my more unique items. It seems that their will also dictates this ability's capability of adding them into a set and increasing their power.

There was one incredible feature of this ability. Something I never imagined: items could be part of multiple sets, although I did feel there might be a limit, but definitely, one to three would work perfectly fine. That was good news because I wanted multiple sets for different activities, and especially some of my more unique items could fit multiple different sets.

When I was done experimenting and finished with the current set, I felt the ritual end and could finally see how it improved items. First of all, it unfortunately did little as making strong items seem to require some additional materials. Also, my current equipment isn't well-suited for the enhancements this ability could provide.

The armor was overall more defensive, as the set bonus strengthened the metal a little bit. What was a more noticeable difference were the added stat points I got from the hydro pendant.

Before the set it only gave 500 to my stats but now constitution, endurance, and strength were boosted by 600. 300 extra stat points just from making this set, which took me, if I hadn’t experimented, about an hour. Also, my leather bracelet of energy control seemed to be a bit more powerful, but only a bit.

So, in conclusion, it seems that this ability improves the base material only a little bit, it gives a modest boost to unique items with more complex abilities, and a decent boost to the stat points of an item. There was also no doubt in my mind that this was a complex and deep ability that will take me a while to get to the true depth of.

As I finished, I looked up at my tools. All of them rank one and are barely used. First task: make second-rank tools, not just for my workshop here but tools that we can use out in the field and to help improve our holdings near the outer ring.

For the first item, I required a lot of fire clay and some rocks that I needed to pulverize and mix with the clay so it would survive the heating and cooling process of rank two metal.

There was also a chance that I was going to melt my smithy down with the heat I required, but hopefully, the person I bought the rank two heating coals from didn’t lie when they said that they would only radiate heat upwards.

The only difference in this process and the ones that I have done earlier was the materials; otherwise, this seemed quite familiar. There weren't enough materials for me to make a proper-sized anvil, so a half anvil would have to be sufficient.

I continued to work and didn’t even notice that night had come before I looked outside after finishing the anvil crucible and letting it cool off. It would take a few days before it's completely cooled down.

There was a need to replace a few firebricks that made up the forge. That didn't take long as we had backup supplies of those bricks. I made a mental note to look for a clay deposit in the outer ring so I could make some stronger bricks.

In the meantime, there was a lot of other work to do. Since I already knew what items I was going to make, there would be no problem premaking handles and other parts that didn't require metal.

An entire day was also spent on making the strongest bow that I could make for our one archer. There was also a need to make two sets of daggers, two long swords, and one shield. Everyone also required armor pieces, some more than others.

One thing I didn’t know how to do was how to make wands or staffs for magic users. Also, people who used mana and energy actually required completely different wands or staffs. Another thing I needed to learn or pay a lot more to acquire.

Then there were the tools needed not just for gathering materials but also for processing resources and of course, butchering the creatures we killed. Something I wasn’t even going to try to learn how to do; possibly I couldn’t even without the necessary abilities were extended bags or dimensional bags, however you want to call them. Those were going to be expensive.

A lot of things were going to be expensive, but fortunately, thanks to the abilities I have, at least we will be able to get started without going into large debt.

There was no missing the good-looking buildings in both Connection and Breach where you would be invited in with open arms and big smiles to give you coins. In their minds, they just see you as walking bags of money that will continue to bring them profits without them having to do anything.

There was no way I was going to make that mistake again. Being in debt once was more than enough for me. Days passed quite peacefully; the anvil turned out good enough, and I was getting plenty of practice using the higher-rank materials to make tools, weapons and armor.

Hopefully, I will get enough practice that I would feel comfortable enough to start working on my own armor because the current one I was wearing definitely wasn't going to cut it if we met a monster.

Currently, the two fights I had were against beasts, highly evolved and high-ranked beasts, but still, they were just beasts. Monsters, on the other hand, had a core inside them and were a lot more dangerous.

They were also hunted whenever one was spotted, and from my brief observation, the quests that were most sought after. One of those monsters would be worth multiple times what any beast could be worth, simply because of that core.

That was going to be so unfortunate because I needed monster cores for my seeds, and while I didn’t destroy the cores when I collected the different elemental seeds, their value would certainly be diminished because of what I took out.

For me, they were just seeds, but for other crafters, and possibly myself as well - if I start crafting with them - they would be fuel to enhance any item we make. With powerful cores, items could be given special abilities—perfect examples being my hammer of crafting.

The more I dived into crafting, the more vast it seemed. Sometimes I feel that I have only scratched the surface of what this world has to offer, but I am also somewhat starting to see the end of it.

Inside the inner ring, there are monsters and beasts so strong that I couldn’t even imagine right now. Would I ever be able to reach that far? Having only three class slots was not a good start. If I didn’t get amazing classes at my next advancement, there might be a chance that I don’t actually make it to the very top of this world.

That made me glad that I chose this path I’m currently on. If I can’t make it to the top, hopefully, I can help others do so who think like me and would want to see United Freeholds be a safe place.

Perhaps one day, I could be an old man tending to a farm and not have to worry about what's going on in the greater world. It was a nice dream and made me smile as I started to work on the next sword.