Over the course of 10 days, the children had been diligently learning the spellbooks that had been handed to them one for each day.
The children had also performed their daily task autonomously as they checked the readied stocks, stacked them accordingly and made purchases for the following next batch.
Once the children had learned each shout, we went out to the Northern Forest and test them out with wild boars. Humans and beasts, when they heard these shouts would either cower in fear, were brought down on their knees, lose their will to fight or simply knocked down and unable to stand up for the next 10-15 seconds.
The children had successfully learned to Fear Me, On Your Knees, Cowards and None Shall Pass. Even if these shouts have a duration of 10-15 seconds, if they used it within one after another, they would simply be able to stack them within a minute and reuse them once again.
The next thing they had mastered was Arching Shot and Go For Their Eyes. Whichever direction they shoot, even 180 degrees from the enemy, their bolt would seek out a single enemy at one time and it would be like a guided missile as it slams through the eyes of the wild boars.
The children were excited since they were able to blindly shoot and it still reaches the target. I told them, "Arching Shot is meant for outdoors like this, it can't be shot from inside a dungeon unless it was aimed directly at them."
"Furthermore, your bolt even though it is unblockable, would be flying at a slower speed. But because it was stacked with Go For Their Eyes, this shot would never lose its target."
The children nodded in agreement as they shot alternatively with their crossbows directly this time and it takes just a single hit to bring the wild boars down. This is due to the addition of the spells that they had learnt.
Next, they tried the Double Shot and Triple Shot where it was an active spell. Each spell has a duration of 15 seconds and each spell would make their bolt split into 2 and 2 respectively. This would prove useful and advantageous against enemies of a higher Constitution.
"WOW... Daddy... This Double Shot is really NASTY... With just a single bolt we could bring down a wild boar and this is sure an OK... Overkill if you readers are wondering what it means." Ingles remarked and marvelled at the effectiveness of the spell. 15 seconds is enough to unleash 5 bolts each from the crossbows and this would be effective against goblins and trolls, not to mention humans too.
"I am happy that you are delighted with your new spells that could be used to enhance your combat capabilities. All right, we will collect the spoils and sell what we don't need to NoOne over there. I wonder when he will get to be a pauper since Daddy had been leeching millions of credits from through the sales of certain things." I said as I picked myself up and walked with the children towards the Northern Gate.
....
"Excuse me, sir, I can't help noticing you were training these young rangers on how to shoot and it seems your techniques of shooting far exceed my expectations." I was approached by a man about 40 years old and was leading a group of other youngsters. "Oh hello there, my name is Audemars and we are from the House of Keating. What can we do for you?"
"My name is Caine and these two are my children. We are from the Coldstream Town and we just had purchased these fine wardrobe that we saw being demonstrated in our town the other week and had bought 2 light bows for them too."
"I can't help but notice the way these children shot their bolts and it seemed that each of them was directed to every single of these wild boars. Is there some kind of unknown Ranger technique that I should know of?"
"Ah, in this case, you may go to the House of Grundy, sir. They take in members to join their guild as Rangers. By the way, may I ask you a little something, don't Coldstream Town has any House that takes in these new members?" I asked since he came all the way from a town unknown to my knowledge and started to ask about techniques and so on.
"Not really sir, the Houses are currently inactive right now. House of Grundy, right sir? Thank you so much for the tips. By the way, you mentioned you are from the House of Keating, don't you take in membership?"
"Not at the moment, kind sir. I am grooming these children to become Captains and soon would be spearheading their own teams, squads, platoons in the future. Right now it's too early for them and they need to groom themselves properly. Furthermore, we are Triple Class which means my children are Ranger-Assassin-Wizard Class."
"Ranger-Assassin-Wizard you might say sir?" the man asked as he scratched his head since he had never heard of such class before. "That's right, and if you want your children to enrol as new members, please wait for some time because I want these Captains to learn my skills as much as possible."
We all bade them farewell and good luck and walked in the Northern Gate and through the Central where we reached our Great Hall. We saw a stream of new adventurers trying their luck at the dungeons and the moment we walked in, those adventurers bowed slightly and let us pass since the news had reached that the first four who entered the dungeons came out unharmed and able to complete the quests.
"Alright, all of you are dismissed and can chat around with these adventurers over here. Give them some tips on how small these rats are and advise them to be careful and..."
"Hit hard, Hit fast... Pchew Pchew Pchew..." chorused the children while Kayla added the sound effects the made everyone laugh.
....
*Ding* Creation Failed.
*Ding* Creation Failed. Why don't you just give up?
"Damn... It was easier back in the 7th series for me to create weapons out from this database and right now it's almost impossible. Aarrgghh... I'm frustrated. Don't tell me I need to spend time at forging before I could surpass a certain level of competency?"
The weapon that I tried to create in the Fusion Chamber was a set of flintlock with an 8-inch barrel. It would be self reloading with unlimited bullets and right now I had used 4 pieces of Level 4 iron ingots and got no results from it.
"Well, Bruce... I'm sorry but I can't help to forge some more weapons from you unless I have a sample. Guess I'm off to the Blacksmithing Zone once more." I said in a resigned note as I swiped the scene before me and went to the said zone and prepares to make some Level 8 or higher Iron Ingots.
Currently, I am at an Advanced Blacksmith 258/1000 and there's a long way to go and there's no jack around it. "Sigh... I guess I'd be forging three pieces of iron ores at one time and I'm going to hammer these for at least 450 times to get to Level 8 and 900 times to get to Level 16? I think that's what Blake had mentioned to me before. Well... Here goes, little Blacksmith... Do your stuff...!!! "
Soon, after the bellows were pumped and the three iron ores were red hot, I picked it up with my bare hands and place it on the anvil and an offscreen crew began his count using a manual counter. Sparks flew when my 60 pounder hammer hits the three pieces of red hot iron ores.
*Tink! Tink! Tink! Tink! Tink! Tink! *
50 strikes...
100 strikes...
200 strikes......
400 strikes......
800 strikes.........
900 strikes............
After I hammered for 900 times, I picked up the iron ingot and threw it into the bucket of water and I picked another 3 pieces of iron ore and started to pump the bellows once more. When I touched the red hot iron ingot, I received an announcement.
*Ding* Congratulations. Level 15 Refined Iron attained. +900% Progress. Advanced Blacksmith 267/1000. Allocation points +90.
"Eh... How come at level 15? Did I reach a bottleneck or something? Haiyaa... What shall I do now?" I said aloud then I received another announcement.
*Ding* Level of Refined Iron will be increased in the first 1000 level as a Professional Blacksmith. Maximum capped at Level 25 for Professional Blacksmith. Once you reach Master Blacksmith, it would be the next 10k level before it would be upgraded to Level 1 Purified Iron.
"DAFUQ... not only did my system talked back to me but it also prompted me the levelling up process. Even if I hammered the piece at 2000 times it would still be Level 15 Refined Iron. HAIYAAAA.... In that case, I better hammer these iron ingot until it becomes a flat piece of metal disc.
I picked another 3 pieces of iron ores and threw them into the furnace and pumped the bellows. After it got red hot, I placed it on the anvil and started to hammer 900 times. The offscreen crew told me it would take me 15 minutes flat to make one piece of Level 15 Refined Iron and I need to make at least 80+ pieces to Level up.
"Haiya... In 3 hours here in the Realm of Mind I could only produce a dozen pieces. I think I need to spend at least 12 hours of constant hammering to produce 48 pieces. 12 hours here is 4 hours in the real world."
"Once I hit the 12-hour mark, it's time for me to rest and continue back later... Haiyaa... " I complained to the system as I picked my hammer and the offscreen crew helped me to time the number of hammering.
Since I was going to stay for 12 hours in the Realm of Mind, 6 offscreen crew took turns to manually use the handheld counter to make sure I made the exact hammering and not overdo per piece.
I had a camelback strapped behind me as I sipped the isotonic energy drink that they had mixed for me to go on hammering for 12 straight hours. I changed hands handling the hammer if not people would think I'm doing something with only my right arm over something that only a wife would do for me. Hah hah hah...