Volume 5 - Ch 2.17
Compared to Misanga that required only two pieces of string to make, this seems like a sudden difficulty spike, do you not think so?
It might look like that to those who are not Master Smiths, but I assure you that Item Fusions using multiple materials are not as difficult as they might seem. In fact, Dagger is the easiest item that requires multiple materials in order to be fused, and the better and more powerful the weapon, armor or an accessory that you want to make, the more materials they are going to require. I heard that in order to create the items of the highest possible quality, you are going to need over a dozen materials, and not all of them are the things that can be easily obtained.
Well, that is certainly good to hear. So what Sherry is trying to say is essentially: be glad that a Dagger needs only three different materials that can all be obtained from the monsters that can be found in the lower levels of the Labyrinths.
I see. Two Kobold Knives, a branch and a piece of hide, right?
I repeated the list of required materials out loid in order to be sure that I am not going to forget it in an instant.
To me, Kobold Knife always seemed to be used a finished, perfectly functional weapon that could be used on its own, but it can actually be used as a base material for the fusion of Daggers, huh? In that case, maybe fusion in this world actually works kinda like evolving the base weapon one step further? And if so, then would I be able to tell which weapons can be evolved in such a way? No, ordinary people would probably be unable to do something like that, since this is something related to the process of Item Fusion, which is reserved strictly for Master Smiths. Also, Kobold Knives are made of metal that is being used in the production of copper coins in this world when they get melted down, so that is probably why the branches are also needed in the fusion process: to simulate the act of setting the fire that is going to melt the Kobold Knives into metal with branches. If you asked me, that is a kind of roundabout way of going about it, but hey, I am not a Master Smith, so I do not understand all of the nuances that come along with fusing items.
Anyway, that is probably why branches are needed, but what about that one piece of hide that is also necessary?
I think I understand why we need Kobold Knives and branches, but what is hide going to be used for?
Hide is going to be a material that is going to be used in order to make a sheathe for the finished Dagger.
Oh, really? Well, talk about being convenient!
When an equipment is made, its sheath is made together with it, which is actually a pretty good detail that the developers of this game paid attention to, because it would definitely be bothersome if you were forced to first make the weapon that you wanted only to then have to make its sheathe separately, so the decision to include the materials for a scabbard in the list of materials needed to make the weapon itself is like killing two birds with one stone.
It was a decision that might have been easily overlooked due to how minor of an influence it has on the game as a whole, but I am definitely glad that someone actually went through all the trouble of implementing into the Item Fusion system after all.
For the afternoon bit of our exploration, we went to the third floor of Vales Labyrinth in order to fight against some Kobolds so that we could get our hands on some Kobold Knives, which are going to be needed for fusing Daggers out of them.
However, while we were easily stomping and cutting and burning through the Kobolds that were now so far beneath our level of ability that we could probably fight against them with our eyes closed, we have encountered a very particular problem: so far, none of the monsters that we have defeated dropped a single Kobold Knife, which was annoying the first few times, but after a while of situation not improving at all, it was beginning to get straight up frustrating. I mean come on, Kobolds are supposed to be the weakest of the monsters that can be encountered in the Labyrinths that also drop their items left and right when they are killed, so how come that we have not seen even a single Kobold Knife drop out of them?!
Forget Kobold Knives, none of them even dropped a single piece of Kobold Salt, which is supposed to be the most common of common Drop Items from the Labyrinth-inhabiting monsters. What is wrong with this drop rate RNG bullshit today?!(TL Note: That is essentially how a typical Genshin Impact Player feels while grinding for the artefacts with ideal substats, hahahaha.. hahaha. Ha ha.. Come on game, gimme a headgear with CRT Rate, I beg of you!)
Right now, I have hunted about ten Kobolds, and eight of them did not drop anything, which was beginning to make me feel severely annoyed, but then the last two of them finally dropped something! A whole two Kobold Knives! Finally! It was about time for me to get some of them, or else I would have been royally pissed off! But since the drop rate of these Kobold Knives has been so pathetic this time around, then maybe I should consider finding myself an alternative source of b=obtaining these items, like like maybe buying them from the Adventurers Guild?
No, an ordinary Dagger is not such an essential item that I would want to have it on me no matter what. I only want Sherry to make it because this is the next item on the list of the Master Smiths training regimen, so maybe a better thing to do would be to have Sherry make the Dagger once just to see what the result is going to be, and then move on to another item on the list assuming that there even is some kind of list and this is not just a figurative one that has been passed down orally from generation to generation based on somebodys fancy.
I have no idea what level you need to have as a Master Smith in order to create a Dagger, but I am quite sure that Sherry should be more than capable of doing that right now, considering that she increased her Master Smith Level considerably ever since she started fusing all those items every morning and every evening. Also, while we are on the subject of shit-talking Dwarves and the rules for Master Smiths that they have created,
I have no idea why senior Master Smiths have set such a strange and seemingly random order of items that the Master Smiths in training have to create, and figuring it out just by guessing seems to be a fools errand, so all that I have left are pure speculations. Maybe it has something to do with the amount of MP that the freshly-made Master Smiths possess, or perhaps it is a training program optimized to allow them to gain as much EXP as Master Smiths as possible?
If I were to choose, then I would definitely choose the former option because it sound more rational and logical. After all, making a Misanga costs less MP than the creation of a Dagger, which I bet cannot be created with the amount of MP that Master Smiths possess at Lv.1, and it definitely costs less than the creation of a sword with a Skill fused into it, which we have witnessed firsthand when Sherry created a Copper Sword of Obstruction for me. Of course, there is a possibility that gaining EXP points amassing fusion experience also have some part to play here.