System: Congratulations to the player for being the first in the Divine Realm to advance to Advanced Blacksmith. Reward: ten pieces of Mana Gold. Experience gained: twenty million.
...
The system notification chimed three times in succession before Shi Feng finally set down his tools.
Advancing from Intermediate Blacksmith to Advanced Blacksmith required nearly double the proficiency of going from Beginner to Intermediate — a full 24,000 points.
"That wasn't easy," Shi Feng said, collapsing into his chair with a long exhale. "At this level, I should be able to craft the core components of a magic artifact."
Even crafting Intermediate Mana Armor Plates, he couldn't have finished in just four days. But Shi Feng possessed the Blacksmith Talent that every crafter dreamed of — "Forging Prodigy" — which gave him a chance to gain an extra 2 points of proficiency each time he surpassed his forging limit. That was equivalent to crafting one additional high-grade item's worth of proficiency. On top of that, the Heart of Icarus frequently triggered its luck bonus. All of that was what allowed him to reach Advanced Blacksmith.
However, even at Advanced Blacksmith, his success rate for crafting magic artifact core components was only around ten percent. Becoming a Master Blacksmith would bring that up to roughly thirty percent.
But time waited for no one.
Going from Advanced Blacksmith to Master Blacksmith — even with the three great tools Shi Feng had at his disposal, the Forging Book, the Black Iron Emblem, and his Forging Talent — was incredibly difficult. It was no longer a matter of proficiency or success rate.
To become a Master Blacksmith, one had to craft weapons and equipment from scratch rather than using design templates. The time required for that couldn't be measured in days — it took months, even years. That was why, even a decade into the Divine Realm, players at the Master rank were exceedingly rare.
Setting that aside, Shi Feng had to advance to a Tier 2 class within a short timeframe. The Tier 2 class assessment alone was no walk in the park, let alone the assessment for one of the ten great hidden classes. To pass quickly, the stronger he was, the better.
The Treasure of Solomon might be exactly what pushed his strength to the next level, so the sooner he completed it, the better.
Over these four days, many things had happened across the vast Divine Realm. The one that drew the most attention was the opening of the God-Demon Battlefield in the God-Demon Arena.
The God-Demon Battlefield was a war between players. By killing other players inside, you earned points that could be exchanged for rewards. There was a wide selection of prizes, but the most important were weapons and equipment — the best being Dark Gold-grade sets. Earning those massive point totals, however, was extremely difficult. Moreover, all weapons and equipment purchased through the exchange were bound to the player and untradeable. Even if you were killed and they dropped, no one else could use them — though you could sell them to NPCs, albeit at a reduced price...
To exchange for a Dark Gold-grade set, you first had to enter the highest tier of the God-Demon Battlefield, since it was divided into ranks: Soldier Battlefield, General Battlefield, Marshal Battlefield, King Battlefield, and Hero Battlefield. The entry requirements grew stricter with each tier.
In other words, only by reaching Hero rank and entering the Hero Battlefield could you earn enough points to exchange for a Dark Gold-grade set.
For top players, though, this was an excellent avenue to upgrade their gear. After all, even major guilds had a hard time getting their hands on Dark Gold-grade weapons and equipment.
So interest in the God-Demon Arena only grew more intense.
Even when Huo Wu and the others joined the God-Demon Battlefield, they occasionally got slaughtered, because the players matched into the battlefield didn't just come from a single kingdom or empire — they came from the entire Divine Realm. Running into a monster-tier expert or getting cornered by three or four top players, Huo Wu and her team had no choice but to fall.
Still, this taught Huo Wu and the others that there was always a bigger fish out there. Being among the top ranks of the tiny Star Moon Kingdom didn't mean much on the scale of the entire Divine Realm.
Meanwhile, the situation in the Stoneclaw Mountains was heating up as well. Numerous teams had begun roaming between the outer and inner zones, clearing monsters and leveling up their gear at a rapid pace.