[NR] Chapter 123 - Courtney Explains (Patreon)

Courtney slow blinks, “You both do realize NeoRealm is more important than irl at this point right? This isn’t someplace you can go into blind! And you” she points at Jason, “are doing some strange weapon nonsense so of all the people you should have looked into it at least a little. NeoRealm gold is the backbone of all other money at this point.”

Rosha opens her mouth but freezes for a moment before closing it again. She glances at Jason and he shrugs back. More silences while Courtney’s anger simmers. Through clenched teeth with a gesture at Jason she mumbled something about Rosha’s ignorance being partly her fault. He takes the hint and explains that he, “focused on training my martial arts. While I checked around some after I hit the info block because of level ten, I sorta just stopped. The tutorial stuff was in depth enough or so I assumed.”

Courtney throws her hands up, “fine! Here I was thinking you both wanted to stop me and my info dumps.” Rosha blushes while Jason looks away. “That’s right, don’t think I didn’t notice. But on with the info! First off, you both probably noticed quest difficulty is nonsense. They are made up on the spot and depend on what the system thinks of your capabilities. Got that? Good, now skill ranks are as follows; Novice, Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, and the wildcard. Close your mouth Jason. I don’t care if you already knew this, it doesn’t change the other stuff. Anyway, each has ten levels except that last rank. That will be named after the source used to breakthrough. Did a god of blacksmiths decide to bless you? You're now a godly blacksmith. Maybe instead you made a deal with a devil? Demonic blacksmith it is. Rarest though is those who breakthrough on their own. They get to be a supernatural blacksmith.”

Courtney boops Rosha on the nose, “I see it in your eyes. Yep, that is what's up. Anyway, besides rank skills also have rarity. Besides the base five though it falls more in line with quest difficulty. You should know the base five but in case you're both that dense they are Beginner, Common, Normal, Uncommon, and Rare. This says nothing about how good the skill is. Just how many people have or can learn it. There are probably a few others things I forgot but I don’t feel like racking my brain over it so onto the item grades! Jason, share the weapons info with us.”

After Courtney takes a look at it she nods, “okay, not the most impressive things but a good example. All of our current equipment except those daggers is trash. Literally, that is the grade name for any item that doesn’t have a grade. The defining feature of the trash grade is they are the only items you can sell to people who are below the second bottleneck. Yep, you only have trash items because there wasn’t any choice about it. Even Jason’s fancy skeleton and any other similar quest rewards are trash. The biggest difference with those is that the System has nerfed them so they can still use all kinds of materials and techniques. Trash isn’t even a good term for it and most people just call them unranked items. Trash was what the developers termed it because they thought people would switch to better stuff.”

“Though speaking of materials and techniques that brings us to the dual nature of item grades. Both the material and the technique used can change the rank. With these daggers the material was trash grade iron. Another example of why trash is a bad term compared to unranked. Anyway, unranked iron is simply iron processed by anyone with a skill of apprentice or less and no special techniques for it. If the daggers had been crafted normally, they would have ended up unranked as well. However the person who created the blades used a special method to forge them. It wasn’t an especially rare or challenging technique as there are no requirements to wield it but enough to upgrade the daggers to normal rank.”

“However, the low quality materials both for the daggers and the leather grip made for a Low normal item. Yes the grip counts, likely unranked leather but since they change nothing, the system omits it from the description. Not to be distracted by that the low part is important. It describes how well the materials matchup. Low means no match at all. There are four compatibility terms; Low, Mid, High, and Top. Low is no compatibility as I mentioned. Mid is when you have some things that match but some things that don’t. For instance, if they refined the iron with a fire-based technique but they crafted the dagger for cold damage. High is when most things match up. The materials used mix well, the techniques match the material’s properties, and any requirements are similar.”

“To get a top-ranked item basically requires a recipe to be researched for years, potentially centuries if there are enough components. Even then it has to be manually crafted without system assistance so there is still a high chance for it to be high ranked instead. You don’t sell top ranked items, you auction them. Though that is just all about compatibility. It says nothing about the quality except that all its features will be extreme. For instance, a top-ranked plate armor will not only have the most extreme defense but the highest strength requirement to use.”

“For quality you need to look at that normal mentioned on the daggers. There are three actual ranks of which unranked doesn’t get the compatibility modifier. If you're not idiots, you will have figured out that ‘normal’ is one of them. The other is Exquisite. The System ranks items by what it feels another item with those requirements would look like. Unranked is an item below average for what they require to use or an item that doesn’t need a requirement. A good example of that second bit is a chair. Anyone can sit on a chair so 99 percent of chairs are unranked. The only example of a ranked chair I know of off the top of my head is a true throne. While anyone can make a chair that looks like a throne. Only one crafted with special techniques will have the requirement that the user be the ruler of the surrounding area. They provide extra management based System tools so a ruler can more easily well, rule.”

“Anyway, the highest rank is Exquisite. The devs included it as a sort of joke at first. Items originally only would be ranked by material compatibility which is why these daggers have the awkward sounding low normal rank. Exquisite is still nearly impossible so people call them low ranked daggers. The reason it is so rare is the System generates requirements based on the items abilities, both positive and negative. Iron Plate armor will require a high strength to use and any similar piece of armor would require about the same strength to use. If they enchanted it to be lighter, it might seem to be just better. That is until you notice the system added a requirement because of the enchantment, either to power it or just a generic level requirement. Exquisite items break these rules. If there wasn’t already rumors of real artifacts existing people would have labeled exquisite items as being the games artifacts. The extreme cases even had the System make changes so it would no longer be possible to repeat it.”

“The spear Sun’s Ray is the most famous example. Some rich tycoon got a high level local crafter to make a spearhead with a special metal which naturally stays at a super high temperature. Originally the requirements needed someone with near fire immunity and a level north of 300. Then the clever tycoon got a special enchantment placed on it. All it did was keep the heat inside. However, instead of being powered by the wielders magic it used the heat from the metal. Because it is using the heat to keep that very heat in, the barrier was super weak. Even a child could poke a hole in it. Just like the Tycoon wanted. See, while the barrier was weak it could reform instantly when whatever disrupted it was removed. So for instance, you stab someone. Their flesh would of course break the barrier. Then whatever was close to the spear head would be reduced to ash if not a high enough level or resistant to fire. Nothing would be disrupting it then so before the heat could escape and fry the user as well that weak barrier would reform. Think saber made of light but on the end of a stick. The moment they finished it the System wacked down changes that made any future enchantments reform slower without more magic to power it. Anyway, that about explains it so how about we leave town and start our adventure?”