Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ - Chapter 96 – Those are some wonderful tips!

I put the Steel Short Spear with a Large Attack Power Enhancement on sale on the private section of my blog.

It’s still early evening in real time though, so the people working have yet to return home. Therefore, I’ll keep the priority sales of this spear up for longer in order to account for them.

Or that was the plan, but it didn’t take long for me to receive two messages about the item.

One was, as expected, from Armilate.

The other was from Izreel of Gospel.

Apparently, some of Izreel’s party members do use short spears, so they’d like to buy it. I haven’t talked to the people of Gospel that much, so I can’t say I remember much about their gear myself.

Nonetheless, I do remember that Izreel was a tank with a large shield, and that most of his party still had plenty of iron gear, so I guess they would like to make a big investment to get a considerable jump in power with this Steel Short Spear.

After all, if one can buy steel items with Options, then there isn’t much of a point in buying the items without it.

That said, getting this message from him was a bit surprising. I was expecting Armilate to be able to purchase it, but not Gospel… I guess they’re truly part of the top combat-focused player Pioneers. They wanted to purchase an item with such unreasonable price right away.

Rich people are surely quite something.

But well, this time it’s not first come, first served. I put a long sales time on purpose in order to be able to better choose who to sell this to.

And well, Armilate is on the top of the priority list. The only people above are Hime and Mika, but neither of them use Short Spears, and I think their party members didn’t either, so this item will probably go to Armilate.

******

“Thank you very much!” I told Armilate.

“I should be the one thanking you. This item is a wonderfully polished gem… You have quite the talent, you know?” Armilate replied.

“It was just luck though?” I said honestly.

She giggled, “Being able to get this luck is also a form of talent then.

“In any case, this has made me stronger again, so thank you.”

“Alright. I will contact you again if I make another nice item.” I told her.

“I’ll look forward to it.” She replied.

In the end, the spear was sold to Armilate after all. It’s too bad for the people of Gospel, but that can’t be helped.

Also, apparently Armilate’s main weapon has always been the short spear. The sword was her sub-weapon.

However, good longswords seem to be easier to obtain than good short spears, so she ended up being able to only use her longsword recently due to it having higher attack power.

But now, with this new Steel Short Spear, she can finally return to using her proper main weapon… It sure is nice to use one’s favorite weapon, isn’t it? I’m glad I could help Armilate with that.

That said, it seems like even Armilate was troubled by the price of this item, even if she still paid it right away.

And well, my wallet was quite happy with this transaction.

Useful Options are truly wonderful, aren’t they? I hope Options as good as this one keep on occurring from now on.

“By the way, I happened to get this item, would you like to buy it?” After looking at her new spear for a while, Armilate seemed to suddenly remember something, so she took out an unknown item that has yet to have any information about it posted on the forums.

——

Earth Crystal

Material/5*

——

No matter how I look at it, this is a material that can infuse an attribute to an item.

The only attribute-related materials that were discovered so far were the Lich Bones, so this is quite the find.

I mean, there are the shadow-related ones for the event, but that’s just because they’re event-dedicated things. They don’t count.

“Where did you even find this?” I asked her.

“A strong monster inside the Stone Citadel dropped it.” Armilate replied.

“I see… That’s quite something.” I muttered.

“Well then?” She asked.

“Please let me buy it.” I instantly replied, “It may be a material that has little information about it available, but I’m sure this is a useful product! I’ll gladly pay even above the market price for it!”

“Thank you, but the market price is fine. I’m quite indebted to you already, so think of it as a way of maintaining our good relationship.” Armilate told me.

“Alright, then thank you very much.” I said.

“Thank you too.” Armilate replied.

The event mobs should have already appeared in the Stone Citadel that had been unlocked during the previous event, but Armilate seems to have not minded that and went deep inside the depths of that area right away.

She may act together with Mika and others from time to time, but most of her hunting is done solo.

And as I got no information on this from Mika, she probably obtained this item on a solo hunt… As expected of Armilate. Seems like the strength of the NPC Pioneers is still beyond the reach of the player Pioneers.

Of course, the same can be said in the world of crafters, as I’m still far from people like Master Merget or Haldrin.

Still, Armilate, who was already so strong has now become even stronger. Mika and her friends really can’t compete with her.

Even if Mika actually has the better gear, overall.

******

After seeing Armilate off, I tried looking at the recipes I know to see if I could find something to do with the Earth Crystal right away.

And of course, I found nothing. It’s a material that we have no information on, after all.

Also, steel is the highest tier of item that we know how to make, so anything beyond that would be on the level of rumors at best.

For now, all that I could found were threads made by players that speculated about possible materials that would be available in the game’s future, with the Earth Crystal being on the list of speculated materials.

It’s understandable, since a Large Shadow Crystal exists at the event, so it’s normal for people to theorize that other attribute-related crystals exist.

Still, that was just theory-crafting at the forums, so it’s not particularly useful to me who have the real item and need a recipe to use with it.

In the future, Armilate might sell more of those to me at the store, but right now I only have one, so it’s hard to experiment with it.

Especially because it’s most likely impossible to break it into small pieces for crafting. Anything that I try doing will probably consume the entire crystal in one go.

Therefore, I’m unable to do a test run.

It would be different if I knew the processing method in advance though, like how it was back when I processed Lich Bones.

… Oh, right! If I don’t know it, why not ask someone that probably knows!?

If that doesn’t work, I guess I’ll have to leave it on storage until I either get a recipe or new information appears on the forums.

It was a somewhat expensive material, but its price can hardly be compared to the price of the spear I sold Armilate anyways, so leaving it on storage is not a big deal.

And in terms of in-game time, it’s still daytime. I’d hesitate if it was night, but there should be no problems in asking for advice during the day.

I’d like to make a call right away, but he should be at work right now, so I’ll send a message first.

******

“Those are some wonderful tips! Thank you for taking some time to aid me while you’re in the middle of work!” I told Master Merget.

“No worries! Do come to the workshop on your spare time though, my idiotic disciples miss you!” Master Merget exclaimed.

I laughed at that, “Roger that! I’ll visit again later!”

Of course, the person who most likely knew about the Earth Crystal was Master Merget.

As usual though, he was quite loud. Even if surrounding noises don’t get in the way of communication in calls… I guess that’s just a part of his personality.

In any case, he taught me how to process the Earth Crystal, similarly to how he taught me how to process the Lich Bone.

As expected of Master Merget! He really knows a lot!

However, I didn’t get any recipe to use the crystal with, so I guess I’ll have to Add the crystal to an existing recipe.

But it was quite tough to use Add when making the Dark Short Sword, so I’m sure it will also be pretty hard with the Earth Crystal.

And this time I really don’t have the leeway to mess up, so it’s even harder than before.

However, I feel like I can do it, so I will try it!

… But what should I Add it to? Mika already has two good weapons, so I’d like to make something for Hime this time.

Though I don’t think I can do it with my current level of Improved Doll Making. The difficulty is too high for that, so… Should I Add it to Magical Gloves instead?

But the main means of attack for Hime these days are the dolls, so I’d like to improve the doll, if possible.

In that case, I guess I’ll need to increase the level of Improved Doll Making before trying it.

Well, I don’t need to make it right away. I’m sure Armilate won’t mind it if I wait a bit to try it out.

Also, if the number of Earth Crystals available increases, then I’ll be able to make prototypes more easily, so I’ll have a higher chance of success then.

Yeah, let’s put the Earth Crystal on the warehouse for now. It’s for the best.