Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ - Chapter 94 – No no, I’m plenty happy

Good morning.

Today didn’t seem to be as hot as usual, as it was raining outside.

Though of course, in Frontiers the weather was fine as always. And as usual, it was midnight during my morning login.

I wanted to make more event items, but it was more important to work on steel gear with Options in them. The profit margin of the latter was just too big to be ignored.

Well, the difference in profit between steel items and event items isn’t that big if I use rare event materials, but it’s still hardly comparable to steel items with Options in them.

And well, I still want to upgrade many of my facilities, so I might as well focus on that while I have the steel monopoly.

Not to mention that Artisan’s Blacksmithing should be approaching level 100, which means another evolution is on its way.

Unless the evolution level changes at tier 3 skills, but I find that to be unlikely.

Moreover, the Skill Points that I was planning to use to evolve Language will be used to evolve Artisan’s Blacksmithing, so it should be possible to evolve it as soon as it reaches level 100.

I currently have 30 Skill Points. Evolving Improved Blacksmithing took 25 Skill Points, so I should be fine on that end. I doubt it will take more than 30 points to evolve to the next tier.

Then, let’s get started! I’ll do my best while praying for good Options!

******

“And that’s the gist of it.” Mika told me.

“Understood. Thanks.” I replied.

“You’re welcome. Talk to you again later.” Mika said.

“Sure sure.” As I said that, we ended our talk.

Mika had called me while I was making some steel gear.

Today Mika had no classes, so I guess she stayed up all night and decided to give me this report before going to bed.

The contents of the report were the results of her testing of the Shadow Destroyer Throwing Stone.

As expected, how much durability it loses depends on how good one is at throwing.

Moreover, its effect is indeed similar to the Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formation, but the stone only affects the enemy that was hit, which makes it less convenient than the Magical Formation.

However, the stone also seems to be more effective against strong mobs than the Magical Formation is, so it’s not like this item is useless.

That said, Mika’s party has nobody that is good at throwing, so the stone can’t be used many times before it runs out of durability, so it feels a lot worse than the Magical Formation, especially with the Enchanted Magic Ink further increasing the total uses by 10%.

So, overall, Mika’s party prefers the Magical Formation, but the stone is still a fairly useful item against strong mobs that fight alone. It’s a bit situational, but very powerful nonetheless.

And well, since crafting the Shadow Destroyer Throwing Stone gives a lot of event points, I wanna make as many of them as possible.

I guess I’ll sell the Shadow Barrier Destroyer Magical Formation preferentially to Mika, while the Shadow Destroyer Throwing Stone shall be simply sold at the store.

If people can use the stone to defeat strong event mobs more quickly, then more materials to craft the stone might be dropped, which leads to me making even more of them!

At this pace, the Singing Cat Minicot will be within my reach!

Or maybe even more. Maybe it won’t be a dream to collect all Minicots!

******

After listing the best items with Options on the private section of the blog, I went to the Guild to get my items evaluated, as usual. It’s the only way for me to raise my Guild rank, after all.

Well, my rank is fairly close to the rank of the top combat-focused Pioneers, so there is no problem with that. Not to mention that I don’t think any other crafter is as close to the top combat-focused Pioneers as me.

In any case I went inside the Guild and started looking around to see if I could find someone from the Gospel Clan to add as a friend.

… Though I only remember that Izreel person that greeted me the other day. His party members just gave a slight bow to me from afar, so I don’t think I’d be able to recognize them even if I saw them.

Well, Izreel was pretty remarkable, so I should be able to notice him if he is here at the very least.

… Oh? Would you look at that? If it isn’t the big handsome guy holding a large steel shield with my signature lily symbol in it? Seems like I found Izreel.

I go to the Guild all the time to get the items I make evaluated, yet I kept on having a hard time finding him… Seems like I got lucky today though.

“Excuse me, you’re Izreel, right?” I quickly approached him and asked just in case.

“Oh, Bucket? What do you need?

“Ah, I just sold some material to your store. I hope you find it useful.” He replied.

“Thank you for that.

“Anyways, would you like to add me as a friend?” I asked him.

“Oh! That would be much appreciated. Thank you very much.” He quickly agreed.

“Thank you too.” I replied.

It really was fairly easy to recognize Izreel of Gospel. I was a bit worried that I could have mistaken him for someone else, but it seems like there was nothing to worry about.

We then shook hands and registered one another as friends, so mission accomplished.

“But I’m impressed. To think I’d be able to get your approval, Bucket.

“I guess my clan’s hard work paid off.” Izreel said.

I laughed at that, “Oh, come on, it’s not that much of a big deal.”

“You don’t need to be this humble.

“I mean, take a look around. You can see how much of an honor it is to get a friend request from you.” Izreel replied.

I only realized it after he said that. There were a lot of people staring at me and at the other members of Gospel.

Moreover, quite a few of the onlookers were rubbing their hands right now… As one needs to shake hands in order to register someone else as a friend, I can get what’s going on through their heads to some extent.

However, the onlookers aren’t trying to force it. Probably because they’re aware I’ll ban the annoying ones from the store.

… It has been quite some time since I registered anyone as a friend, hasn’t it? The last people I registered were the other members of Works if I recall correctly.

And well, most people are aware that I do give priority sales to acquaintances to some extent, as the people close to me are always the first to get their gear upgraded.

In other words, becoming my friend means having easier access to good items.

I completely forgot about it because it was my first time registering someone as a friend in quite some time, but I should have probably done that in a conference room… I mean, it seems excessive for a simple friend registration, but the current situation speaks for itself.

If not for people fearing getting banned at my store, the surrounding players would definitely be flooding me with requests right now.

… How awkward, should I try renting a conference room now?

“Izreel, I rented a conference room.” Just as I thought that, one of the Gospel clan members said those words.

“Thanks.” After replying to his friend, Izreel turned towards me, “Then, Bucket, considering the situation, should we move to a private location?”

“Ah, sorry for that, and thank you.” I nodded.

While I was at a loss, the members of Gospel were already making the necessary arrangements… It’s surely nice to be around smart people, isn’t it?

The Guild’s receptionist has yet to finish evaluating all the gear I made, so let’s go to the conference room while she does that.

******

“I see, so that’s how your priority sales worked.” Izreel replied after I explained the gist of it to him.

“Well, there are still people that I give higher priority to than others, so if you aren’t okay with that, please just buy the items directly from the store.” I told him.

“No, no, I’m plenty happy with being able to buy things without lining up. No complaints here.” Izreel said.

“Ah, right, there are also some things you wouldn’t be able to buy even if you did line up, for the record.” I told him.

“I see… By the way, I’ve read about it on the forums, but is it really that hard to make steel gear in large numbers?” Izreel asked.

“Yeah. There are way too many intermediate-tier materials that need to be processed to make steel equipment.

“And of course, I need the results of the processing to be at a high rank, or I won’t get any Options when making equipment.” I explained.

“So even you struggle with this kind of thing… I guess it will take a while for other crafters to start working with steel then.” Izreel replied.

After going to the conference room, I shared the private section of the blog with the members of Gospel.

People at the forums have known about the long crafting time of steel gear for a while now. At first there were some theories about how I was raising the price of steel by limiting the supply, but as the recipe to make steel items has been publicly available from the start, such rumors were quickly proven false by other crafters who had a notion of how long it would take to process all the necessary materials.

Of course, the rumors weren’t necessarily ill-intentioned. Someone that doesn’t craft might not be aware of how much longer it takes to craft steel when compared to iron, which already takes significantly more time than bronze and copper. Steel really needs way too many intermediate-tier materials. It just can’t be helped that the supply is small when considering how long it takes to craft those items.

“Excuse me.

“Bucket, I finished evaluating your items, would you like to retrieve them here?” The receptionist suddenly went inside the conference room and said that.

“Ah, yes please. Thank you very much.” I replied.

“Then, here are the results of your evaluation.” The receptionist then quickly gave me the items back while telling me how the evaluation went.

I was a bit surprised that she came to the conference room for this, but I guess it would cause a bit of a fuss if I moved back to the reception room right now… What should I do now, then?

“Then, Bucket, would you like to leave through the back door today?” The receptionist asked me.

“Oh, that would be perfect.” I then turned towards Izreel, “Then, if you have any questions. Feel free to call me or send me a message.

“Well then.”

“Ah, thank you for today, and for all your hard work.” Izreel told me.

“Thank you, Bucket!” The other members of Gospel said.

“Thank you too for your patronage… See you!” As I said that, I started leaving.

The members of Gospel had a bit of a stiff image because of their ‘good behavior’ reputation, but they also seem to be nice people overall. I think Mika could get along well with them.

Also, they’re both top combat-focused Pioneers, so they should be able to cooperate on something in the future if necessary.