Return Of Aegis

Arriving at the guild hall, ZeLin changed WeiChiang's authority to be the official butler for the guild, handing him authorities over many functions. One would think that handing over such important authorities and clearances to a new person was a very bad idea, but ZeLin wasn't worried, the T&C that WeiChiang had signed was not only binding in game, it was also binding in reality.

ZeLin assigned ShenYeat to work with WeiChiang on the defenses of the base and to also plan out the defense of Sum City. Their mid-goal was to upgrade Sum City into a nation status on Ind Continent. It was no longer a fantasy because they now had WeiChiang onboard. Although Ind continent did not have a diamond mine, it still had gold mines.

As for Sim, she was to start brewing minor HP and MP potions for the adventurers. ZeLin got her settled into the lifestyle area where she set up her tools to start her work. She had brought along her own stash of ingredients.

ZeLin promised that more ingredients were on the way so in future, she could just set up guild quests in the guild and offer rewards. All core lifestyle members would have that privilege in the future. Not only could they give out guild points, the could even provide rewards for the guild quests they create.

For WeiMing, ZeLin showed him the kitchen and the food storage filled with wolf meat. ZeLin said no more as WeiMing set up his knives and tools preparing to cook.

Once all tasks were allocated, ZeLin retreated to his blacksmith corner to begin crafting the evolution bow and returning arrows. At this point, he already had the frost fire so he used it to heat up the forge and furnace, while waiting for the temperature to rise, ZeLin once again reviewed the recipes for the bow and arrows.

Recipe for Evolving Bow & set of returning arrows

Bow

10 wind attribute ore

50 silver cored steel ore

1 emerald gem

Arrow x10

10 wind attribute ore

10 steel ore

1 green sapphire

He had in total 30 emerald gems and 10 green sapphire gems, this would be enough for him to attempt making 30 bows and 10 arrows. While 10 arrows did not seem like much, one had to remember that these were self returning arrows, once shot and hitting the target, the arrows would automatically return to the user's quiver or hand.

To bind ownership to the arrows were simple, one just had to dip the arrow heads in a bowl of the user's blood.

With the frost fire, ZeLin would easily melt all metals, and the passive increase of 90% for the chance of forging items below Epic, he was more or less guaranteed to not be wasting any materials. What's more, Eitri's Hammer also gave a huge buff, give him a 50% increase rate of forging superior quality items.

Without further ado, ZeLin placed 50 silver cored steel ore into the furnace, the metal only lasted 5 minutes before turning into molten form, that was how overpowering the frost fire was. The room however, remained like a slight chill, it felt nothing like a normal smith.

ZeLin had already prepared a simple bow mold, it did not matter what the bow size was, it was an evolving bow which the user could change the shape as per needed. A properly crafted Evolving bow could switch between its three forms, long, short and normal. Therefore it did not matter what size he cast the bow in.

Setting the mold aside, ZeLin got on to working the 10 wind attribute ore. For the bow, the wind attribute ore was not to add to the silver steel, it was to be made into the bowstring instead. This was one of the hardest process of the evolving bow. The strings had to be just right, not too tight, nor too loose.

Either due to the room temperature or some other factor, the bow was soon cooled and out of the mold. Before tying on the bowstring, ZeLin polished it till it was shiny. Only upon tying the bowstring to the bow, did the system notification ring.

[Ding! Congratulations for forging Evolution Bow. EXP +500. Guild EXP +100]

Evolution Bow (Lv. 20)

Rarity: Rare

Requirement: 15 STR and 40 DEX, Level 20

ATT:

Short bow: Normal Attack + 30

Normal bow: Normal Attack + 50

Longbow: Normal Attack + 180

Range:

Short bow: up to 100 meters

Normal bow: up to 300 meters

Longbow: up to 500 meters

Crafted by: ZeLin

Although it wasn't a failure, it was rubbish quality by ZeLin standards. How could such a powerful bow end up being just a rare grade. He was expecting his first attempt to be of at least Unique grade.

Unfazed, ZeLin continued on with the next bow. This time he paid more attention to the bow after it come out from the mold. Carefully inspecting the entire bow inch by inch before even beginning to polish it. Confident there were no flaws, ZeLin proceeded to polish the bow, before tying on the string.

[Ding! Congratulations for forging Evolution Bow. EXP +500. Guild EXP +100]

"@#$%" swore ZeLin, his second attempt resulted in the same bow as the first. Although he had another 28 emerald gems to try, getting two at rare grade was frustrating for him. If players of the previous editions of Aegis could hear his thoughts, they would want to murder him. The level of the evolving bow, although was just a mere level 20, the difficulty in making it would kill almost all smiths.

To succeed on both attempts to make a completed bow, but still lament it as a failure, many smiths would murder him.

After a short rest, ZeLin tried again, this time being more thorough, he even tested the flexibility of the bow. To his horror, the bow snapped in two, when he bent it all the way to simulate a fully drawn bow. "No wonder the previous two did not reach its maximum potential, it was flawed!" exclaimed ZeLin.

Taking out the previous two bows, with his minimal abilities, he made the bows change into short bows before drawing them. Sure enough, before he could draw a full arc, the bows snapped and luckily the bowstring missed slicing ZeLin in half.

Casting aside the three failures, he didn't throw away the broken bows, they could be recycled into something else later.

The recipe didn't come with instructions, it was more like a guessing game for smiths.

To solve the issue of malleability, ZeLin took 7 wind attribute ores and added to the 50 silver steel ores, making sure that they blended well. After making three sets of bowstring, he more or less already estimated that it was a waste of resources. "Three ores should suffice for the bowstring," thought ZeLin as he slowly stirred in the 7 wind ores into the molten silver steel.

Wind ores were very flexible, that's why it was used as bowstring in many types of bows. Instead of using a common bow mold, ZeLin once again made a custom mold. He gathered some planks from the kitchen, then made the mold as he did for the Silver Gale Blades.

In the mold, he made notches for the arrow to sit on as well as places for the archer to rest his fingers. He made sure to craft in a grip for the user as well, noticing that those details were not on the common bows. On common bows, the smith would wrapped coarse rope around a section of the bow to act as a grip for the user.

Satisfied with the mold, ZeLin poured the molten metals into the mold. THis time, it took almost triple the time to cool, as compared to the previous 3 bows.

Not being complacent, once the bow cooled, ZeLin inspected every centimeter before testing it's curvature.

This time the bow withstood being fully bent, simulating a full draw. Happy with this outcome, ZeLin tied on the bowstring.

[Ding! Congratulations for forging Evolution Bow. EXP +2,000. Guild EXP +400]

"FINALLY!" Screamed ZeLin.

His shout had caused some minor setbacks for the other players in the vicinity. Sim dropped a beaker, WeiMing almost lost a finger. They both complained in the guild chat, but only after seeing the item ZeLin made did they pipe down.

Evolution Bow (Lv. 20)

Rarity: Unique

Requirement: 20 STR and 45 DEX, Level 20

ATT:

Short bow: Normal Attack + 50

Normal bow: Normal Attack + 100

Longbow: Normal Attack + 300

Range:

Short bow: up to 300 meters

Normal bow: up to 900 meters

Longbow: up to 1,200 meters

Crafted by: ZeLin