Before forging the Arc Shield, Shi Feng decided to use the basic magic armor plates to get a feel for the process.
The forging procedures in Divine Realm had become increasingly complex after the system's evolution, making crafting far more difficult. Simple things like advanced whetstones and magic armor plates were still manageable, but weapons and equipment were a whole other matter—no longer something you could whip up in a few tries.
"Feels about right. I should be ready to give it a shot now." After crafting dozens of basic magic armor plates, Shi Feng finally pulled mythril ore, gold ore, and the magic spirit crystals he'd advanced from Bai Qingxue out of his inventory.
Bai Qingxue, desperate to get her hands on the Arc Shield first, had agreed to Shi Feng's demand for upfront payment.
Two hundred magic spirit crystals—enough to craft twenty Arc Shields.
Shi Feng's success rate was only about twenty percent, the lowest of any equipment he'd ever attempted. If any other blacksmith tried it, they'd probably blow through hundreds of sets of materials without producing a single one.
Those guilds who thought they could simply copy the blueprint and crank out Arc Shields without effort were deluding themselves. If Shi Feng hadn't bought it up, by the time players actually managed to craft one, the fifty-person dungeon would already have been cleared long ago.
When he started forging the first Arc Shield, Shi Feng deliberately slowed the entire process down to a crawl, trying to perfect every single step in order to gain crafting experience.
Before he knew it, a full twenty-plus minutes had passed on just the first shield.
Unlike ordinary round shields, the Arc Shield was crescent-shaped, entirely silver in color, with countless magic runes etched across its surface. It radiated an aura of immense power—but whether the attempt had succeeded or failed remained to be seen.
Shi Feng clicked to generate the data.
Ten seconds later, the Arc Shield's data finished loading.
"Failed, as expected." Shi Feng checked the stats. It was indeed an Arc Shield, but its quality had dropped a rank—it was only Mythril tier.
Arc Shield. Shield. Mythril tier. Required level: 15. Defense: 330. Block rate: 31%. Strength +10, Stamina +20, Evasion +3. Passive Skill 1—Voice of Life: Each time you take damage, gain a stack of Life Force, increasing max HP by 2% and healing received by 1% for one minute, stacking up to 10 times. Passive Skill 2—Refraction: Triggers once every 50 seconds, negating the next instance of damage taken.
"All in all, not bad. It's a Mythril-tier shield at least—should fetch a decent price." Shi Feng was actually quite satisfied with this failed attempt. Mythril-tier shields were extremely rare at this stage of the game.
As far as he knew, the main tanks of second- and third-rate guilds were mostly still using Iron-tier shields. If he put this on the market, it would easily go for six or seven gold coins.
Though the craft had "failed," it wasn't a total failure. The fact that it turned out as a subpar product meant certain aspects hadn't been done right, preventing it from reaching the next tier.
"The forging itself wasn't the problem. It must have been something in the rune engraving that went wrong, keeping it from becoming Gold-grade." Shi Feng thought for a moment. Based on his past experience, if something had gone wrong during the forging and shaping phase, the result wouldn't be Mythril-tier—it would have been Bronze at best.
After that, Shi Feng didn't rush back into crafting more Arc Shields. Instead, he carefully studied the magic runes on the failed shield.
The rune engraving relied primarily on magic spirit crystals to complete, but pulling it off was far from easy. Shi Feng could only mimic what he saw without truly understanding the underlying principles.
Still, even without understanding, repetition would have its effect.
So he began practicing the rune drawings.
Once… twice… ten times…
Each attempt took four or five minutes, but as the repetitions mounted, Shi Feng grew increasingly proficient, and his runes looked more and more authentic.
This kind of free practice saved far more money than jumping straight into crafting, so Shi Feng had no complaints about putting in the extra reps.