Mr. Hargrove was finally out of Leo’s sight. Leo planned to take a quick nap and log in.

But just as he was about to close the door to get some sleep, a man in a suit walked into the shop.

Leo recognized him. It was the same man who had shown up in front of his door on the day he first entered the game.

"It’s you again?" Leo asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Leo Stone. How are you doing in the game? I see you’ve cleared your debt at the bank, so you must be doing well, right?" The man spoke and made himself comfortable as he found a chair to sit on.

"How do you even know that?" Leo questioned.

"Well, there are a lot of things I know. I also know you sold a Rare-grade sword in the marketplace for 30 gold coins." The man answered with a knowing look.

Of course he does, Leo thought, almost rolling his eyes.

"Leo, I told you, we would be watching you carefully," the man continued, leaning forward.

"You are sitting on a gold mine with that blacksmith class. With our support, you could earn even more, move to a better apartment, and even hire some workers for your smithy."

Leo shook his head and was about to decline.

But he figured this man would not leave him alone.

So, he started acting up.

A hint of mischief flickered through his eyes.

His face abruptly changed into something that displayed an absolute, world ending theatrical horror.

Leo started his drama. His every move exaggerated.

He acted like he had just been hit with a devastating news, staggering backward.

His one hand reached for his chest, clutching the shirt above his heart as if trying to calm his painfully throbbing heart.

While his other hand grabbed the counter for support, gripping it like a man clinging to a last ray of hope.

Leo’s acting was so realistic that even the man panicked. He almost thought Leo was having a heart attack.

"Sir," Leo spoke slowly.

The man blinked at Leo’s pale face and shaking body.

"Hmmm?... what happened?"

"S... Sir."

Leo’s voice cracked as he called out to the man.

He slowly stabilized himself. His face filled with sadness.

He looked at the man with sad eyes and pointed at the smithy around him — the cracked walls, dusty shelves, the forge that hadn’t been lit in years — with the gravity of a man surveying a battlefield where he had lost everything.

"You know a lot about me." His voice cracking every now and then. "So... So surely you know what I have been through."

He didn’t give the man a chance to speak.

"As we all know, one day, the sky suddenly broke and a whole new world appeared before us." He pointed his finger at the sky and then pointed at himself.

"And I ....The poor guy who was drowning in debt, desperate for survival, I logged into this new world with nothing but this..... pair of hands, two eyes and a piece of dream."

...

"And I had a beginner’s hammer which I got when I chose the blacksmith class. But that’s not the point here."

Confused. The man could only stare at him in a daze.

?????

Question marks all over his face.

"I sweated." Leo’s voice rose with exaggerated passion of a soldier recounting his legendary fights.

"I suffered. I did nothing but hit metal with my hammer for hours. I managed to clear my debts. But I had to sell the sword." His voice softened, growing distant, like a man remembering a simpler time.

"I ate a virtual meal in a virtual tavern, and for one moment —"

"— one moment —"

...

"I felt at peace..."

He exaggeratedly moved his head and dramatically turned to face the window, the back of his hand pressed against his forehead.

.....

The silence stretched.

His expression looked like he just had his heart broken and was moments away from tears. His eyes, however, were completely dry.

"And now," he continued, his voice dropping to barely above a murmur, "you come here, into my shop, my home."

He turned back around slowly, like a man who had aged ten years in the last thirty seconds. "And you offer me..."

...

"...Seventy percent."

The man opened his mouth to say something in his defense.

But, Leo raised a hand stopping the man from speaking.

"Seventy," he repeated, with the quiet devastation of someone who had expected at least eighty. He shook his head slowly. "I see."

"That’s — yes," the man said carefully. "Ahmm.. Leo, Let me tell you,..... Seventy percent, which is, to be clear, an extremely generous—"

"I don’t want it."

"...What?"

"I want to relax." Leo placed both hands flat on the counter with great solemnity.

"I don’t have grand ambition or anything like that. I just want to forge some small things to get by. Maybe medium things, occasionally. I want to log in, hit some metal, maybe level up, then log off and eat cereal." He looked the man dead in the eyes.

"That is my five-year plan."

The man’s mouth opened. He didn’t know what to say.

He closed his mouth. But he had to say something.

He opened again ... But, no words came out.

"I have thought about this extensively," Leo added, before any words could come out. "I thought about this for... almost four minutes of my life. My conclusion was very clear."

...

A silence lingered.

Leo’s expression changed again.

Every trace of the performance vanished in an instant — expression flat, posture relaxed, voice completely matter-of-fact.

"So, I appreciate your offer, but my answer is still no." He gestured toward the door. " Thank you for coming. Ohh... and watch your steps on the way out. It’s a little uneven."

The man froze.

Just... processing where Leo was going with this.

Then....

"You are declining.....a..." he said slowly, a vein bulging in his temple, ".... a seventy-thirty revenue split. Because you want to eat cereal?"

"And sleep," Leo added. "Sleep is a core component of the plan."

The man stared at Leo with cold eyes.

Then, for the first time since he had walked through the door, his expression changed.

The smile returned — but it was different now.

Eerie smile. No warmth. only coldness.

Something colder sat behind the smile, something calculated, and Leo felt the shift in the man’s aura and the friendly vibe he had been emitting disappeared.

"You got lucky," the man said, standing slowly adjusting his tie as always before picking up his tablet, "You haven’t run into any of our people in-game yet. So you truly can be considered lucky."

He moved toward the door without hurry, calmly without showing any emotions like a man who had already won the argument. He reached halfway to the door before pausing.

"But you will."

He didn’t look back.

"And the game is not as safe as you imagine it to be."

Not safe?..... Something clicked in his mind and his heartbeat accelerated for a moment upon hearing this.

The man paused and continued.

"Well, once you die in the game you can still come back, but it’s different in real world. Real world is not safe as you think Leo. And luck like yours doesn’t last forever."

Then, the man walked away disappearing into the crowd.

Leo stood there for a whole minute, lost in his thoughts.

The words the man left behind before leaving left him unsettled.

Leo closed the door and walked into the smithy. He lit the forge — for the first time in a while.

Leo stared into the fire. He didn’t forge, just watched the dancing flames.

He thought of the blueprints and recipe books in the game.

He wondered if he could craft some of the things from the game in real life as well, since he remembered all the blueprints of the items he had forged so far.

He shook his head and pushed the thought away.

It’s too much of a stretch to use game recipes and blueprints in real life.

He didn’t have a strong enough fire, nor the right metal.

Leo decided to sleep it off. He cleaned up the small bed in the guest room of the smithy and lay down.

He found himself thinking about the man in suit and found it hard to sleep.

He started counting.

1 sheep. 2 sheep....23 sheep, 24.....

He drifted to sleep

He slept like a dog from afternoon all the way to the next morning.

It was probably the best sleep he had gotten in weeks.

After waking up, he had a nice cool bath.

He walked out of the shower in bathrobe and brewed a cup of coffee, while scrolling through his phone like usual.

Nothing new was going on.

He ate a bowl of cereal along with the coffee he brewed himself while his eyes were practically glued to his phone screen.

He was going through some forums that might be useful in future.

He finished eating. As he looked around the smithy, the whole place was covered in dust. He decided to clean the smithy.

After cleaning for nearly 2 hours, he finally decided to log in.

"CONNECT"

Leo found himself in the same alleyway where he had logged off. The marketplace of Ironhaven was still humming around him.

Leo checked his status panel.

[STATUS]

Name: Leo Stone

Class: [Eternal Forge]

Level: 5

Forging Proficiency: Apprentice (121/300)

Gold: 27

USD: $2,037.37

The hidden quest notification was still pulsing in the corner of his vision.

He opened the quest log.

[Hidden Quest: Memory of the First Fire]

A ruined forge west of Ironhaven.

An old fire, hungry and forgotten.

The first fire.

"You carry its echo. Now find its source."

He had no more excuses to put this quest off now.

Fine. Let’s see what you are.

He decided to check it out.

With that, Leo started to walk toward his new destination.

Leo found himself walking out of town on the same familiar cobblestone road, covered with a few patches of grass here and there.

There were occasional merchant caravans heading from another city and town.

Soon he diverged into the woods, following the quest marker.

The city noises faded away completely.

And just the sounds of chirping insects, birds, and his own footsteps remained.

As he walked deeper, he could not help but feel a mix of foreboding and anticipation.

The deeper he walked, the stronger the feeling became.

But it was not dread, nor was it fear, and definitely not a sense of danger...

Something ancient... calling out to him.

The eternal flame, Leo thought.

Leo reached the end of the road.

What lay before him was a dilapidated town.

What remained now was the foundation stones swallowed by grass, collapsed arches, and walls that had crumbled decades ago.

Leo’s Forge-Sight was still scanning for any threats or dangers.

It swept the area passively.

As he was walking around the area, Forge-Sight detected something.

[PASSIVE SCAN — RANGE 8M]

[Soil composition: standard. Iron content: moderate.

Wild flora: non-hostile.

Faint heat signature detected — approximately 200m ahead, beyond the tree line.

Signature matches: forge-grade residual thermal energy.

Estimated age of residual: unknown. Pattern does not match active forge.]

Leo walked toward the heat signature.

The calling grew stronger and stronger.

It led him through a canopy of thick woodland with grasses taller than him.

It was dark.

The grasses and tree branches covered the area, almost making it seem like there was no path ahead.

His Forge-Sight was still sweeping through.

[FORGE-SIGHT — ACTIVE SCAN]

[Metal residue in soil: trace amounts. Silver, copper, trace iron. Not native deposit — refined ore.

Stone formations ahead: irregular. Unnatural placement. Suggests collapsed structure.]

After looking for a while, he saw an opening and walked right in.

He found himself in an empty space surrounded by canopy.

The ground felt solid, but it was covered with thick moss.

Leo could feel something pulsing — a kind of vibration from the ground beneath.

He knelt down and cleared the moss away.

He discovered dark stone, black and smooth — vitrified.

As a real-world blacksmith, he knew a thing or two about stone and heat.

The stone beneath his feet looked like vitrified stone, which was only possible from sustained exposure to extreme temperatures over a long period of time.

Forge-Sight detected that this was the source of the heat signature.

He pressed his palm against the flat stone.

The Eternal Flame stirred.

Okay, I think I’m in the right place. But now what?

Leo’s Forge-Sight suddenly caught another heat signature.

He saw a small opening in the canopy that led to a structure that was nearly collapsed.

The corner of the wall was tilted at a wrong angle, and the bricks were scattered.

But all the bricks were in the same state as the vitrified rock — black and smooth.

The scattered bricks together with the intact part of the wall seemed to be part of a massive furnace before it collapsed.

Leo found something sparkling amongst the black bricks.

He picked it up.

An iron ring?

The gem in the ring had also turned black. Tiny characters were carved into the surface of the gem.

Leo didn’t recognize them.

Before Leo could think anything further,

[Ding!]

[FORGE-SIGHT — PASSIVE SCAN]

Language: Pre-Imperial Script

(unlocked via Ancestor’s Echo — partial translation available)

Translation: "...the flame that does not die..."

His grip tightened around the ring.

Every time the Ancestor’s Echo activated, he had gained massive benefits from it.

Leo slowly approached the structure.

He circled the dilapidated structure twice to see if there was some kind of entrance.

There was none.

Whatever had stood here was long gone.

Eventually, he walked to the center of the forge — or what remained of it.

A tall black stone mounted at the center.

He reached out and touched it, caressing it, trying to feel the smoothness.

The Eternal Flame surged in his chest.

The stone began to vibrate.

Surprised, he was about to pull back his hand...

[ANCESTOR’S ECHO — TRIGGERED]

The world went dark.

When light returned, the ruin was gone.

The dilapidated forge he was in previously now stood tall and majestic.

The central hearth blazed with fire.

The familiar scent of heated metal and burning charcoal hit him.

A blacksmith worked at the heart of the forge.

His vision was immediately drawn toward the blacksmith hammering a blade, long and narrow. The metal glowed red so intensely that it looked one breath away from melting.

He tried to move closer to see the blade.

But, He couldn’t move.

As he watched the blacksmith work, the smith suddenly paused.

Leo had a sense of déjà vu.

The blacksmith was also using the same Eternal Golden Flame.

Just as he predicted, the blacksmith turned toward him and his eyes met the smith at the center of the forge.

...

And Leo was thrown out of the vision.

He found himself lying on the floor of the dilapidated forge, gasping for breath.

He felt the palm which had touched the stone burning.

But when he checked, it was normal. No marks of burns.

These visions are gonna be the death of me.

When he looked back at the stone pillar, a crack ran down its center that hadn’t been there before.

[Ding!]

[HIDDEN QUEST UPDATED]

The forge remembers. It has been waiting.

But the door requires two keys — the flame that burns within you, and the warmth of another who walks the same path.

Objective added: This forge cannot be opened alone. Find someone who carries the echo of the First Fire.

Quest Hint: Not all who remember are smiths. Some carry the fire in other ways — through faith, through protection, through the willingness to stand between good and the dark.

Leo read the quest update amidst his shock, but as he read through it, things only became more confusing.

"What the heck? I can’t open it?" he stared at the cracked pillar.

"Two keys? What key now? It calls me here, and now it’s asking me to find another key? What does that even mean?"

This damn quest is getting me nowhere.

He let out a slow breath.

He didn’t want to leave without any accomplishment after coming here, so he spent an hour exploring the surrounding ruins, taking note of anything his Forge-Sight detected.

He checked every nook and cranny, lifting and clearing debris.

Thanks to his Forge-Born Body, he didn’t tire easily.

He found another collapsed building at the edge of the ruin that was still accessible.

He ducked inside.

Darkness welcomed him at first, then his eyes adjusted to the dim light.

The walls were covered in inscriptions and drawings.

One of the carvings depicted a smith standing at a forge, surrounded by flames. A warrior knelt before him, offering a sword with both hands.

On another wall, a massive anvil surrounded by a group of people — reverence in every carved figure.

A third drawing depicted a forge with intense fire.

Above the forge, a crown hovered in the air, surrounded by broken chains.

All of this seemed to be related to the previous forge holders.

Leo stood there looking at the carvings for a long time.

Who were you?

What happened to you guys? Were you killed?... or did you just disappear?

He looked at the broken chains that seemed to be the result of an intense battle.

His hair stood on end. Shivers ran down his spine at that thought.

Are they going to come after me too?

No answer came. The ruins stayed silent.

Leo sighed, knowing that nobody was going to answer him.

I better keep a low profile...