"Whoa."
Before starting the Enchant.
[It's a total uproar, huh?]
After receiving Yuna's report, I quietly opened the Community.
[Are they really a Descendant of Fire??]
[When are you making equipment, seriously]
[(Intuition) I just climbed Floor 88 and actually saw the pattern being engraved in the sky]
It was all talk about the Descendant of Fire.
As for how it happened, of course I had no idea.
When a Descendant of Fire passed the apprenticeship and became a full Blacksmith, it seemed some kind of pattern was engraved on the floor where the Sun Dwarf lived.
It seemed it was engraved exactly when I crafted 2-Star equipment and became a full Blacksmith.
"......Hmm."
Rattle, click.
Rattle, click.
I crossed my arms and enjoyed the countless reactions.
"Good."
This feels different.
Everyone in the world is curious about me and looking for me.
In my 10 years as a regular poster, I had never been this popular...
Anyway.
Right now, the Descendant of Fire is a very busy person.
If I followed my heart, I'd want to enjoy the reactions a bit longer.
But I have things to do.
I picked up the Enchant Hammer and rose from my seat.
Rhythm Game players have diverse tastes.
Among them are those with no particular interest in the songs.
Their motto is that as long as the beatmap is fun, it doesn't matter what song comes out.
Well, I tend to respect people's tastes...
But songs need to be a bit more exciting for the feel to come alive.
"Yuna, do you have a Sun Dwarf song?"
[I do~]
And I happen to be a Descendant of Fire.
Dwarf songs were quite lively.
I was already getting hyped, so today let's crush it with a traditional Dwarf song.
Boom, boom, boom-boom-boom.
A cheerful drumbeat flows out.
Bang, ba-dang, bang-bang.
Matching it, my hammer strikes the gloves.
Without missing a single closing Hit Circle.
This sensation, yes, this is it.
Pow!
The last circle bursts at the exact timing.
-----------------------------
[Total Results]
[Marvelous] [88]
[Excellent] [1]
[Good] [0]
[Poor] [0]
[Terrible] [0]
-----------------------------
Mr. Marvelous.
Along with a result sheet praising me.
-----------------------------
[Final Success Rate 48%]
[Failure Rate 52%]
-----------------------------
[Attempting......]
-----------------------------
[Enhancement Success]
-----------------------------
[Apprentice Blacksmith's Warm Gloves][★☆☆☆☆]
[Enhance 15 → Enhance 16]
-----------------------------
The Enchant succeeded.
[Enchant Log]
[14->15]][Failure]
[14->15]][Failure]
[14->15]][Failure]
[14->15]][Success!]
[15->16]][Success!]
Going from Enhance 14 to Enhance 15, 50 percent failed five times in a row.
I thought my luck was bad, but then it stuck perfectly.
"Uhuhu~"
I hummed and prepared the next Enchant.
Rustle.
Rustle.
"Huh?"
No matter how much I searched my pockets...
Unfortunately, the amount of Enchant Powder had run short.
It was showing the bottom.
"...Tsk."
Is this as far as I go today?
If there's something I felt while working.
Even if I Enchant with the minimum powder and maximum difficulty.
Compared to the starless cotton gloves, now that one star is attached, the minimum powder requirement has risen quite a lot.
Naturally, the consumption speed became faster too.
Also, the beatmaps became considerably more varied.
I wonder if it's because the number of stars changed and it's Unique Equipment.
Another thing I found strange...
"There's no destruction rate...?"
That was quite questionable.
The requirements and beatmaps all got harder, but the destruction rate is nowhere to be seen.
If I just play well, I can still smoothly go up to Enhance 16 with no destruction.
It must be because it's still 1-Star, right?
"Hmm..."
I rested my chin on my hand and fell into thought for a moment.
I suppose there aren't enough samples yet. The powder is all gone too.
The Enhancement Level seems pretty high at this point.
I thought of Dolores in my mind.
Then her equipment window appeared before my eyes.
I put the Apprentice Blacksmith's Warm Gloves into her empty glove slot.
[Would you like to equip this?]
Yes.
-----------------------------
[Apprentice Blacksmith's Warm Gloves][★☆☆☆☆]
[Unique Equipment][Compatibility][33/40]
[Enchant Level: 16]
-----------------------------
[The Sun Engraving's warmth suppresses the wearer's Yin Energy amplification.]
[Severed Meridians symptoms alleviated, opening progress of 7 of 9 Meridians]
-----------------------------
I chewed over the numbers and read them several more times.
"Hmm..."
Nothing seemed particularly different.
It's gloves that got Enhance 16, so the stats must have risen a lot.
"Nothing has really changed."
The part I was actually aiming for.
Whether it alleviated the Severed Meridians, changed to permanent opening, or raised Compatibility.
None of it was different from before the Enchant.
Well, maybe all this does is make it stronger.
As expected, treatment didn't seem to be something Enchant could handle.
That was when I was shaking my head.
Bang!
-----------------------------
[Potential Ability]
[Enhance 5 ─ Branch Selection]
[Warmth] Wraps the wearer in accumulated heat and protects them.
[Residual Heat] Releases accumulated heat to attack enemies.
-----------------------------
"Huh?"
I blinked.
I had just been disappointed that nothing changed.
Then something suddenly appeared.
'......Potential Ability?'
Once the Enchant reached a certain level.
A completely new ability that had never existed before appeared on the gloves.
And now it was demanding a choice from me.
Between Warmth and Residual Heat, if I'm deciding a direction, I'm currently looking for something for treatment, so the former should be right.
Because it wraps in heat and protects.
"Warmth."
I naturally chose Warmth.
-----------------------------
[Potential Ability]
[Enhance 5 ─ Warmth]
[Absorbs emitted Mana (Cold Energy), converts it into heat, and stores it.]
[Enhance 10 ─ Storage]
[Wraps the wearer in stored heat and protects them from attacks.]
[Enhance 15 ─ Heat Haze]
[Spreads accumulated heat in all directions to deploy a domain. Projectiles that touch the domain burn up before they can reach.]
[Enhance 20 ─ ?????]
[???????]]
-----------------------------
When I chose Warmth.
In accordance with the direction I chose.
Potential Abilities were granted at each Enchant level, Enhance 10 and Enhance 15.
Even Enhance 20 was locked like a secret, perhaps because I hadn't reached it yet.
I raised the Enhancement Level and a new ability was attached to the equipment?
But why wasn't it attached to the cotton gloves I did before? That one was even Enhance 20.
A moment when my head grew complicated.
"Yuna!"
[Yeah~ I'm already looking~]
Fwoosh.
Yuna quickly scanned countless documents.
She began investigating whether there were any cases of such effects manifesting on equipment of Enhance 15 or higher.
"Ah, could you also search the Sun Dwarf documents?"
[Okay]
We searched every corner like that...
[...Nothing.]
[There's none at all?]
As expected, there's no precedent anywhere.
Then the answer is rather simple.
What I just did itself has no precedent in the world.
Namely, Enchanting Unique Equipment.
That means this situation is also part of the unprecedented events caused by Enchanting Unique Equipment.
A power that doesn't exist on basic equipment, obtainable only by those who Enchant Unique Equipment.
Taking on the absolute destruction risk of being impossible to restore...
A privilege only those who still have courage and swing the Enchant Hammer can obtain.
"Holy crap."
So this is...
A stat only the kind of men who risk their lives can have...?
I closed my eyes.
It's thrilling.
I became the first member of the Manly Men Club.
Because it's a domain no one in the world has dared to challenge.
"Swing it."
Swing the hammer at Unique Equipment.
At the end of the risk was this tremendous reward.
If you're a manly man, you're supposed to jump into risky fights like this.
"Dolores? Bring the stockings."
Because I'm going to crush it.
Ah, of course, bring some powder too.
Please, I ran out.
My hands are already trembling a little. I only got to Enchant for 4 hours.
I want to check what Potential Ability would open if I reached Enhance 20 right now.
It's a shame...
"...Anyway, today's business is over."
I gained more than I expected.
Of course, the Enchant didn't help improve Dolores's condition at all...
Life doesn't go that easily.
It's hard right now, but I just need to make good equipment in the future and have her wear it.
Who knows, maybe the Potential Ability will let Dolores climb the Tower again.
Since I'm illiterate in this, I don't know exactly how good that ability is, but let's leave the judgment to Dolores.
That was exactly when.
Ding.
"Huh?"
This sound is...
"The Great Chieftain, huh."
Last time, they kept digging for my home address.
I just left it on read, and after that there was no news at all.
It seems their cooldown has finally come back up.
I indifferently opened the DM window.
A message had arrived there from someone different than expected.
[Sun Dwarf]: Hello? ^^
[Sun Dwarf]: New Descendant of Fire and great Blacksmith?
After reading that far, I quietly pressed my forehead.
"Are these guys the Fairy Race?"
A reasonable suspicion.
Since I kept saying no, maybe they disguised their name entirely.
However.
Thinking about it, there was no way the Fairy Race could think I was connected to the Sun Dwarf.
There was no evidence either.
From their perspective, I was just 100 percent Fairy Race.
[...Remember when the Fairy Race planted something in the documents last time?]
"I remember."
[But we just opened the Sun Dwarf literature, right? It seems they detected that and reacted too.]
Hearing that, it does make sense.
Because we just searched through all these documents.
I guess Dwarves have that kind of ability too.
Maybe because I'd been hit by this trick once, I wasn't even surprised.
How sinister.
Still.
Even if it's the same trap, the Sun Dwarf side is a bit more favorable than the Fairy Race.
I've never even seen their faces, but it's like a welling sense of belonging.
After all, I'm a Descendant of Fire in name.
"Now, let's organize the current situation."
Just in case I make a slip of the tongue.
This kind of thing needs cross-verification.
"They know me as a Descendant of Fire who just became a full Blacksmith, and they only know whether I'm outside or inside the Tower. Is that right?"
[Yeah, but the latter part is a bit different. I modified your location info a little]
"......Huh?"
Are you talking about a VPN...
[Agh, not that.]
[Last time, the Fairy Race pinpointed your location as outside the Tower, right?]
Right.
At first, I was a bit scared when I heard it happened because I opened it without knowing anything.
[Yeah, so I completely blurred your location info and changed it to look like you're inside the Tower.]
[They'll probably naturally see it as inside the Tower on their side]
"Clean."
The moment the trap triggers, it confirms whether it's the Outer Tower or Inner Tower, so I erase that info.
"...But in the first place, do the Fairy Race or Dwarves even live outside the Tower?"
I'm suddenly curious.
Can you leave the Tower from inside, to the outside?
[It's not that there's none. Rarely, there are cases of going outside, apparently.]
[But they said it's not common... so the moment your location was caught as outside the Tower, I thought they'd think 'What the heck?' and just erased it]
"As expected of Kim Yuna."
I clapped.
A reliable advisor, a reliable little sister.
Then I've roughly finished preparing for 'Did you think before you spoke?'
Now, what do you want to ask, Dwarf?
I opened the DM window, tense as could be.
"Hello."
Yuna typed my words exactly as they were.
And then.
Ding.
The reply was immediate.
[Sun Dwarf]: Yes! Nice to meet you! You're residing in the Outer Tower? ^^
[Sun Dwarf]: Do you have any plans to enter the Tower? Or can you not enter?
"......Huh?"
[......Huh?]
I take back what I just said.
Worst little sister, Kim Yuna.
I will report you.