"Well, I’ll be damned."

He read through the final skill and paused. "How many skills are these? What was the first one again...? Too many to keep track."

He counted from the top, his lips moving without sound.

Nine. Nine skills in total.

Five active skills.

Four passive skills.

One of them felt more like a special physique than a skill.

Nearly all of them were fire-attributed skills.

However, two skills grabbed his attention: Hyperfocus and Forge-Sight.

"If I use them at the same time, what would I be able to see?".....

He had expected a Mythic class to be strong. But this... this was something else entirely.

A wide grin broke across his face as he scrolled through the skill descriptions.

Then he read the section on MP and Stamina costs.

His grin froze.

He read the numbers again.

His grin died completely.

".....##*** Fuck!! I can’t use most of these skills at my current level."

He stood there quietly, about to complain more...

The system, however, was not finished.

[Ding!]

[SSS-Rank Talent Mutation Detected — Soul & Steel]

"Holy shit... more powerups?"

[SSS-Rank Talent Soul & Steel resonates with the Eternal Forge class.]

[Hidden potential has been unearthed.]

[Ding!]

[New Perk Unlocked]

[Perk 3: Ancestor’s Echo]

[Every generation of smiths before you adds their weight to your hammer. You are never alone at the anvil.]

Leo read the perk twice.

"Huh...? What does that even mean?"

The perk description was vague. But he had a feeling he would understand it when the time came.

[Ding!]

[Additional Talent Slots Gained: 4]

[Scanning for new talents...]

[Found 1 talent: Hidden (Locked).]

[Unlocking requirements not yet met.]

[Additional Talent Slots Available: 3]

Leo studied the new panel.

".....hehe"

The grin he had lost previously slowly returned to his face.

Slowly it turned into a mad laugh.

"Hehe... Hah... hahahahahahaha..."

Evil laughter echoed through the quiet smithy.

He already had an SSS-rank talent. And now there was another hidden talent waiting for him to unlock, and on top of that, three additional empty talent slots waiting to be filled.

There were endless possibilities.

Across the forge, Hugh, who was working, couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder when he heard the laughter.

"This guy’s got a loose screw," he muttered.

He sighed and went back to his work, ignoring Leo.

"I should probably start checking properly who enters the smithy from next time," Hugh muttered to himself as he hammered down on the piece he was working on.

Leo waited for a while, but no new notifications appeared. It seemed that was the final one, so he opened his status panel to check.

[CHARACTER STATUS]

Name: Leo Stone

Class: Eternal Forge

Tier: ???

Level: 1, Exp: 0

HP: 480/480

MP: 300/300

STM: 150/150

Core Stats:

STR: 26, VIT: 24, DEX: 22

INT: 15, WIS: 15, TM: 15

Bonus (Mythical+):

CHA: 10, MFT: 10, LCK: [H]

Skills: [Eternal Flame] (P), [Weapon Memory] (P), [Forge-Born Body] (P), [Soulforge Attunement] (P), [Forgefire Strike] (A), [Anvil Drop] (A), [Rising Forge] (A), [Hyperfocus] (A), [Forge-Sight] (U)

Talents:

Slot 1: Soul & Steel (SSS) — Perks (3)

Slot 2: [Locked]

Available Talent slots: 3

Equipment: Iron Hammer, Leather Apron.

His stats had nearly doubled at level 1.

"This doesn’t look... normal."

Powerful... but not normal.

He closed his panel and looked down.

The metal he was hammering had turned brittle.

He had to reheat it again, so he tossed it back into the forge and resumed his work.

Seeing Leo get back to work, Hugh, who was keeping tabs on him from the corner of his eye, nodded to himself.

Leo kept hammering steadily.

But, without any warning, the Eternal Flame stirred.

"Oh..."

Leo didn’t panic and did his best to guide it carefully, tempering the steel. The flame responded to his will.

Slowly it sank into the metal, refining its purity, exactly as the skill description stated.

"It really works... the impurities in the metal have been burned away."

He finished the blade and quenched it in the trough.

Hissssssssssssss

A sharp stream of steam emitted from the heated metal meeting the cold water.

After it cooled down, he placed it back on the anvil.

A few precise strikes straightened the loose ends.

He attached a handle with a fresh leather grip and began sharpening the edge of the sword.

The blueprint was a one-time use quest item, so it burned out and turned into ash.

He set down the completed sword and activated Forge-Sight to inspect.

[Unidentified Iron Longsword]

Quality: Flawless

Damage: 18-24 (base: 8-12)

Durability: 60/60

Special: +3 Fire Damage on hit.

Cannot be traded, cannot be dropped, cannot be destroyed.

Status: Soulbound (Leo Stone)

"Soulbound...?"

The new blade had already bonded with him during forging, probably thanks to his SSS-rank talent effect.

However, this could be troublesome. He had forged the sword specifically to hand over to the Adventurer’s Guild for the quest.

With a slightly troubled expression, Leo grabbed the sword and headed to the guild to turn it in.

The guild was quiet at this hour.

Leo stepped inside and saw the same Registrar at the counter.

Leo nodded to him and placed the sword on the counter , "I have completed the quest."

The chubby man recognized him and nodded back.

The Registrar reached for the sword, but the instant his hand made contact, his fingers were jerked back.

[Soulbound item detected...]

[Cannot be traded, transferred, or picked up by another player or NPC.]

The man blinked. "This blade has already chosen you," he said slowly. "Well, that was not supposed to happen. This is also my first time witnessing such a situation in all my time working here as a registrar."

He scratched the back of his head, visibly lost at what to do. "Technically, you are required to hand over the sword, but...."

The man let out an embarrassed smile and shifted his gaze to Leo. He studied him, a hint of curiosity appearing in his face. "But you just awakened your class yesterday and you are already able to forge a Flawless bonded item. This is great news. Moreover, you have shown proper respect to the Adventurer Guild, and you look like a good lad who takes his work seriously."

He waved a hand. "So I’ll let you keep the sword and consider the quest complete. How about it?"

[Ding!]

[Quest Complete: The First Ingot]

Objective: Forge an Iron Longsword — Completed

Bonus Objective: Achieved Flawless quality.

Reward doubled. Reward: 100 XP, 20 Silver,

Beginner Smithing Recipe Book,

Reputation +50 with Ironhaven

[Level Up!]

Level: 1 → 3

Class Package (×2 levels):

+20 STR, +16 VIT, +12 DEX

+6 INT, +6 WIS, +10 CHA

+10 MFT, +10 STM

Free Stat Points: 24

Leo felt some information flood his mind, and his body hummed with newfound power.

He opened his panel and looked at the 24 Free Stat Points. He poured points into what mattered most.

[Free Points Allocated:]

STR +8, VIT +6, DEX +4, STM +3, INT +2, WIS +1

The Registrar slowly pushed some beginner smithing recipes to him, telling him it was part of the reward.

Leo took it.

Unlike the one-time quest blueprint, this book held permanent recipes. He tucked it into his inventory. Twenty silver coins clinked into his palm. The first step.

He turned to leave.

"Traveler," the Registrar called after him. "Be careful out there. Some people have already linked yesterday’s event to you through the fate lines. You have massive fate."

Leo thanked the Registrar for his concern and walked out into the evening street.

The sun had started to set in Ironhaven, painting the stone walls in orange shades.

Leo spotted an NPC responsible for exchanging gold coins with real-world money.

Leo read the rate board.

[Current Exchange Rate]

1 Gold: $10.00 USD

1 Silver: $0.10 USD

1 Copper: $0.001 USD

Monthly Withdrawal Cap: Unlimited (Status: ??? class — no cap restrictions applied)

Withdrawal Fee: 0% (Status: ??? class — fee calculation error. System defaulting to zero.)

Leo stared at it speechlessly.

The system couldn’t classify his class, so it went haywire and he got no cap and no fees.

He just realized how broken his class truly was.

"Wait a second....."

Something clicked in his mind. "Can’t I start a business with this? People are trying to buy gold and there should be a limit to how much they can buy, but I don’t have a limit. I can just charge them a little more and exchange large amounts of gold at a high rate."

But that would be for the future after he solved his current crisis.

"I don’t know if this no-cap limit for Gold exchange is permanent or just a temporary glitch. I can’t bet everything on it."

Twenty silver was two dollars. Not much. But gold was different. 10 gold was $100. 100 gold was $1,000. 1,200 gold was $12,000 — exactly what he needed.

Leo did the math and found that his silver was sorely lacking right now, so he decided to log out for now.

"LOGOUT."

The transition was smooth. He was back in the dusty smithy again.

He gazed at the stone smithy. The anvil sat untouched. His father’s hammer hung on the wall where it had hung for forty years. No golden fire. No pulsing blade. Just a dusty workshop.

He pulled out his phone. All the news was being dominated by Myth Online. After a light dinner, he set his alarm and slowly drifted to sleep.

Next morning.

Leo awoke to the clattering sounds of birds. The sun was already shining bright, light entering through the dusty window of his room.

He got dressed, left his apartment, and jogged all the way to the smithy.

He had no thought of opening the smithy today. He would likely stop opening his shop and be gaming most of the time. But he was used to being in the smithy.

He made a cup of coffee and ate a bowl of cereal while scrolling through his phone.

The news had been the same since the day the world changed. Myth Online was trending in every channel as usual.

However, Leo’s eyes caught a somewhat interesting article today.

MYTH ONLINE BREAKS 2 BILLION PLAYERS — SERVERS STABLE

ECONOMISTS WARN OF UNREGULATED IN-GAME CURRENCY

PLAYER REPORTS: "I PLAYED FOR 16 HOURS AND FELT NO FATIGUE"

Leo scrolled through the news. Myth Online was still a mystery. Nobody knew who created it; people only knew it just appeared one day.

"MYTH ONLINE LOGIN MYSTERY: WHERE DO PLAYERS’ BODIES GO WHEN THEY LOGIN?"

Leo found the article interesting, so he opened it and read through it. It was just another guess, another conspiracy theory.

As the disappearance of the body after logging in had been officially confirmed, people were starting to wonder where the body actually goes.

Some believed they were teleported to the game with their real body; some believed only consciousness was transferred.

The body disappearance actually seemed to be a protection mechanism. Because, if you log in and only your consciousness transfers, the body would be left in a vulnerable state.

The game didn’t have any developers, no servers known, no studio or support line. The game just appeared out of nowhere.

Governments tried to track down the servers but failed to find anything.

There were many theories of body disappearance.

Theories ranged from quantum storage to full-body displacement to consciousness transfer.

No one had actual proof. They could only make guesses. The only certainty was the empty rooms, the missing bodies, and the 8-hour cooldown upon death before entering the game again.

He put down the phone and stared at the empty smithy, reminiscing for a while.

Then, he sat down on the couch and decided to log in.

"CONNECT."

Gold light flashed in his vision and his body disappeared from the real world, and he reappeared in the same inn from where he had logged out.

He checked his status panel, which was still glowing with absurd numbers. Anyone seeing these stats on a newbie player would definitely freak out.

He browsed through all the skill descriptions once more, as yesterday was truly overwhelming. He had just skimmed through the skills yesterday and there were too many of them.

After a brief scroll, he made his way towards Hugh’s smithy.

His new passive Forge-Sight was continuously scanning everything around him as he walked.

[Building 1: Iron forge, well-maintained state. Copper traces found in the alloy.]

[Building 2: Abandoned building. Found structural weakness: rear wall needs maintenance.]

[Building 3: Steel forge... High-level equipment.]

[Building 4: ...]

[...]

...

Leo saw that the third building had a number of high-level equipment, and it turned out to be Hugh’s smithy where he had completed his first forging. He stopped before the wooden sign that said Hugh’s Smithy. The paint of the text was aged, and the door looked old. He opened the door and went inside.

A gruff voice came from inside. "The shop’s closed for the day."

Leo was surprised by Hugh’s voice as he had never spoken a single word to him the previous time.

"But sir, your door was open," replied Leo with respect.

"It was not. You pushed it open." Hugh’s hammer struck the metal as he talked, and a sharp clang rang in the smithy. He looked up and saw that it was the same brain-dead fool who was laughing like a madman yesterday and could not help but get annoyed.

But he still held it in and asked, "Since you’re already here, state your business, before I run out of patience and use you for quenching this steel."

Leo hurriedly pulled out the beginner smithing recipe book and showed it to Hugh. "I want to craft items, and this recipe seems a bit too brief, so I was wondering if you have some blueprints?"

Leo put the recipe book and his sword down for Hugh to inspect. Hugh ignored the trashy book and picked up the sword first.

He had only seen Leo making a fool out of himself yesterday and didn’t pay attention to the blade, but today he saw it up close. He ran his thumb along the edge and checked it properly.