Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ - Chapter 89 – You skipped it huh…?

Before the evening logout, I mass produced the Enchanted Magic Ink and drew a lot of Magical Formations. It was a truly lovely time.

And since the Enchanted Magic Ink only increases the number of uses, there is no change on the amount of time it takes me to draw each Magic Circle.

Nonetheless, the effect is remarkable, as an increase in the number of uses naturally increases the market price as well.

And if it is applied on a Magical Formation whose base price is already high, then the increase will make its profit margins fantastic. This is especially true for Magical Formations that use rare items, such as the Large Shadow Crystals.

The overall increase in price seems to be around 20% of the base price, which can quickly add up to a very large number if I draw a lot of Magical Formations.

Seems like I’m getting one step closer to purchasing advanced facilities.

Before putting the Magical Formations on sale on the store though, I decided to make a post on the private section of the blog with the best ones I made, so as to let my acquaintances get access to those nice Magical Formations with increased uses before the rest.

I didn’t post about the Shadow Barrier Destroyer on the private section of the blog though. I just messaged Mika directly about it.

She’ll definitely buy it, after all.

In any case, after this much time drawing my beloved Magical Formations, I have now completely recovered my motivation.

And to earn a good amount of money, it’s still better to make steel equipment instead of Magical Formations, so let’s get back to it! I’ll do my best!

******

“Thank you for your patronage.” I told Mika.

“Aah! I’m out of money again!” Mika exclaimed.

“Well, that can’t be helped.” I replied.

“Ugh! I wouldn’t be in so much trouble if the event mobs appeared in the high-level areas!” She said.

“I can’t do anything about that though.” I told her.

“I know… Well, in any case, I can confirm that using this Magical Formation on strong event mobs ends up making them considerably easier.

“This item is not one to be wasted!” Mika exclaimed.

While I was making steel gear, I received a reply from Mika regarding the Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formation, so we met up to make the transaction.

Seems like she and her friends tested it out in combat, and the effect was quite amazing. All event mobs on the range of the skill end up having their shadows peeled off, which ended up considerably reducing their resistance against non-attribute attacks.

It doesn’t completely remove their resistance, but it’s still incredibly helpful as normal attacks end up doing a lot more damage during the duration of the skill.

However, the Shadow Barrier Destroyer doesn’t seem to last long, so it’s horribly inefficient to use it against small fry, especially with how expensive this Magical Formation is.

So instead, they’re saving it up for when they face the stronger event mobs that have a chance of dropping the Large Shadow Crystals.

Sadly, the drop is not guaranteed, so Mika is troubled for money as she is not getting many good drops from the event.

Moreover, her entire party is frustrated by those event mobs by now, as they had to interrupt the exploration of new areas to hunt the event mobs. They’re really hoping that the higher-level areas start getting event mobs on them soon.

Mika is expecting the new areas to be filled with shadow servants at around the halfway point of the event.

And well, as the higher-level areas already have stronger enemies by default, the event mobs would be even stronger there… But that’s exactly what Mika is looking forward to, because hunting a bunch of small fries after she was already used to beating strong enemies has been incredibly frustrating throughout this event.

I also want the new areas to be affected by the event soon, as the enemies in those areas will probably drop better loot.

If I can get Large Shadow Crystals more often, I’d be able to make many Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formations, after all.

Moreover, I still don’t have enough points for the Singing Cat Minicot, and making items with rare materials gives a lot of event points, so if I became able to draw many Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formations, I’d end up getting my expensive Minicot in no time!

So I’m really hoping that the event mobs start appearing on the new areas soon… Though well, that is also relying on the supposition that they’ll be dropping Large Shadow Crystals more often in the high-level areas.

******

I finished restocking the store before my last logout of the day. I have now three in-game hours left before I go sleep.

And when I restocked the store, I also collected the purchased materials as usual, which included a Large Shadow Crystal. Apparently this one too was sold by that Gospel clan.

As expected of a clan that can compete with Mika’s. They’re truly top-tier players alright.

And well, they seem to be having better luck than Mika’s party, as they’re getting the Large Shadow Crystals with some regularity… It’s also nice that they’re coming to the store to sell rare items like this.

I could try adding them to the list of people that have access to the private section of the blog, as they’ll be able to get better equipment more easily like this… And well, the better their gear, the faster they’ll clear mobs, so they’ll end up getting more good materials and sell them to me.

Let’s talk about it on the next time we meet.

… I don’t know when is the next time I’ll meet them.

I haven’t registered them as friends, after all, so I’d need to either ask around to see if I can find their clan’s base, or find someone who has registered them as a friend, or ask about it publicly on the forums…

Or well, I suppose I can also just leave a message about it with the clerks? The people from Gospel do come to sell materials often, after all.

But at the same time, it’s not like I put many items up on the private section of the blog, so it doesn’t matter as much. At least not until I start making steel gear with Options on them.

Well, I guess it’s okay to just wait until we meet up again by chance. I do visit the Guild often to get the items I make evaluated, so I’m fairly sure we’ll be able to meet again soon.

So, it’s only for a short period, but I’m on free time now.

As expected, I’d get tired if I went back to making steel gear right away, so let’s not do that this time.

It’s important to raise funds for advanced facilities, but it’s also important to take breaks, so… Let’s draw another Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formation! My beloved Magical Formations are waiting for me!

******

Good morning. I logged in after doing my usual morning things.

I had a pretty good time yesterday, as I ended up drawing Magical Formations even in my dreams, which led to me waking up in a very good mood.

Well, it is around midnight in-game though.

In any case, I’d like to start crafting while making use of this good mood, but I saw that I had an unread message right now. It probably arrived while I was asleep.

It must have been from the twins… Let’s see…

Yep, my prediction was correct. They told me about the inventory expansion quest and what they had to do in order to clear it. Just like how we had agreed upon when they gave me the recipe for the Enchanted Magic Ink.

And the contents of the quest were indeed different from the quest I took. Seems like that disgusting guy didn’t have a weird habit of asking elementary school boys to pour drinks for him.

Instead, he asked Mii and Muu to craft some intermediate-tier materials that can be produced by Alchemy. They were fairly difficulty to make, but it was no problem for the twins, so they successfully got their inventory expanded.

Let’s forward this result to Mika and everyone else. With this we can be sure that one won’t necessarily need to go through the sexual harassment quest to get their inventory expanded.

Well… This was probably because Mii and Muu are boys though, so Mika and her friends might end up being looked at in the same way that I was.

That said, the inventory expansion is still incredibly important for combat-focused Pioneers, as they don’t have easy access to warehouses all the time, so it’s still worth trying it I’d say.

Having a precedent like this one is important for negotiations, so… Do your best, Mika!

******

Oh?

While I was fully focused on making steel gear, I ended up receiving a message… I wonder when it arrived. I was paying too much attention to my crafting, so the “new message” icon has probably been there for a while now.

The sender was… Mika?

But shouldn’t she be at school right now? Why is she online then…?

I checked the contents of the message, and she said she was apparently sick, so she ended up not going to school in order to rest… But if you were supposed to be resting, then why are you playing games, Mika?

That doesn’t look like you being sick at all!

I’ll have to scold her about this later, but in any case, she seems to have also done the quest to expand the inventory.

She seems to have used the knowledge of the twins’ quest as leverage in order to avoid the sexual harassment… That guy still requested one of the female members of Mika’s party to pour drinks to him at first, but after enough pressure from her party by telling him that they knew he gave a different kind of quest to males, he eventually changed the quest content to subjugating something.

A successful negotiation then. Seems like it is not easy to convince this guy, but it is definitely possible. Those are good news.

With this knowledge in mind, Hime should also be able to challenge the inventory expansion quest. Well done, Mika!

… Wait a minute. Mika’s entire party was there for this quest? Then… Didn’t they plan to go there and expand the inventory this morning in advance?

Yeah, this was definitely planned for in advance, no doubt about it.

Therefore, I replied to Mika’s message while telling her about the new Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formation that I crafted.

And of course, I said nothing on the message about the scolding that she’ll receive. It will be a surprise sermon.

Otherwise, she won’t even come to my workshop!

You have to go to school properly, Mika!