Several days had passed since Ethan had arrived at the Hephaestus Familia, and things were still the same as on the first day. He went from his room to the forge, and from the forge back to his room. He did nothing but forge alongside Tsubaki.
Over the past few days, she had decided to stay by Ethan's side, helping him with anything he needed.
He forged many different things.
His storage room was filled with swords, daggers, axes, hammers, armor, and more. Most of the items were made of iron, though he had also used steel a few times. Tsubaki recommended that he start forging with better materials, but Ethan refused.
He said he wasn't ready yet.
In reality, however, he thought forging with other materials would take longer, and he wanted to forge as many items as possible every day.
Ethan climbed the stairs and entered his storage room.
"I forged all of this in just one week?"
Most of the items inside that room were Gold-rank. There were a few Silver-rank items, but they were in the minority. After his Luck had increased past 400, Gold-rank items had become much more common.
However, most of them still only had three stars.
Four-star items were rare.
In total, he had five four-star items.
Three swords, one suit of armor, and one knife. One of the swords was the one he had chosen for personal use. He had forged it on his first day after arriving at the Hephaestus Familia. He had also decided to keep the knife with him.
It was common for adventurers to carry both a sword and a knife.
"I'll probably start forging higher-ranked swords once my Luck goes past 600, won't I?"
Ethan was curious about the strength of a "Purple"-rank sword. The system hadn't told him the actual name of the rank; he only knew that its color was purple.
A three-star Gold-rank sword normally had between 700 and 800 Attack Power, while a four-star Gold-rank sword had somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500. At least, that's how it seemed to Ethan.
"A Purple-rank sword will probably have over 2,000 Attack Power and some incredibly powerful abilities."
Ethan let out a sigh and opened his status.
Name: Ethan Walker
Familia: Alecto Familia
Level: 1
Strength (STR): S 936
Endurance (END): E 401
Dexterity (DEX): A 815
Agility (AGI): S 967
Magic (MAG): G 233
Luck (LUK): D 559
Available Points: 1,780
"So many points... and yet I'm still Level 1."
Ethan was beginning to think it might be impossible for him to level up. He remembered that in the original story, a god had to update an adventurer's Falna for them to level up. And his Falna had been granted by Goddess Alecto.
Even though he could see his status increasing in real time and could physically feel the changes, he had begun to suspect that he would only level up once his Falna was updated.
Then he thought, 'That doesn't make sense.'
If that were the case, then his Falna wouldn't be updating automatically every time he added points to his status. 'I guess I'll just have to wait until the system tells me what I need to do.'
Ethan went downstairs and found Tsubaki, who had just entered the forge on the floor below.
"Ready to get to work?"
"You're going to help me again today? Don't you have work to do?" Ethan asked.
"I don't have that much work to do, and I enjoy helping you. What? Does my presence bother you?"
"Not really. I'm grateful to you."
"It's nice to hear that. Want to try forging with another material today? You've been using nothing but iron and steel every day, haven't you? You need to experiment with other things."
Ethan sighed.
"Alright, I'll give it a try. But I'm only forging one or two items today. I'm tired. I've been doing this all day for the past several days."
Tsubaki laughed after hearing his words.
"It actually took you longer than I expected to get tired. No one can keep doing this all day for several days straight without wearing themselves out. Alright, I'll help you so we can finish faster today."
"Okay. Oh, and after we're done, I'd like to speak with the Goddess. Is that possible?"
"Hm? Why?"
"We need to talk about all the items in the storage room. I want to sell everything, but I think it's better to leave that to Hephaestus."
"I see. We'll talk about it afterward."
####
Ethan picked up a piece of mithril to forge a sword. It felt strange working with such a different material after spending so much time using iron and steel. He needed a lot of Tsubaki's help to avoid making any mistakes.
Working with mithril required far more precision and was also much more difficult.
Throughout the entire forging process, Ethan kept a serious expression and didn't make a single mistake. It was something that impressed Tsubaki. When the mithril blade was finally complete, Ethan smiled in satisfaction.
'Please... at least four stars.'
While Tsubaki watched, Ethan touched the sword and activated the gacha.
The coin began to spin, and the colors rapidly shifted one after another. But to Ethan's disappointment, although gold was the dominant color, the coin itself ended up silver.
'A Silver-rank sword? Seriously?'
He was extremely disappointed.
Sword (Silver) ★★
Attack: 988
Magic Conductivity: 1,189
Ability: Magic Amplification
However, when he looked at the sword's stats, he was surprised. Its Attack was much higher than that of an iron sword of the same rank. Well, it made sense that a weapon forged from a far superior material would perform better, even if it shared the same rank.
Ethan sighed.
"I'm going to forge one more sword before I stop. There's enough material for another one, right?"
"Ah, yes. Of course."
Ethan immediately began forging another sword.
Once he finished it, he placed his hand on the blade, activating the gacha. This time, he hoped he would finally get a Gold-rank weapon.
But contrary to his expectations...
Once again, the coin turned silver.
Growing impatient, Ethan didn't even bother checking the sword's stats before leaving the forge with Tsubaki.