"What?! Drake forged magic swords?! And two of them?!"
Hearing the report Tsubaki brought back, Hephaestus looked up in shock, as though she had just heard the most astonishing news of the year.
"That's right. And they have three properties: Poison, Projectile, and Indestructible."
"The raw power is a little lacking, but each one should still sell for at least 10 million valis."
As Tsubaki spoke, she carefully observed the goddess's reaction and couldn't help laughing inwardly.
This was exactly the expression she had wanted to see from her goddess.
Hephaestus, renowned for her mature composure, rarely let such surprise show on her face.
"Are you sure it was his own work, and not so treasure he happened to find in the Dungeon?"
"Probably not."
Tsubaki shook her head, her tone certain.
"He understood his weapon too well. More importantly…"
"If he had just stumbled across it by luck, there wouldn't be a second identical sword."
Hephaestus let out a small sigh of relief, and a look of quiet pride soon appeared on her face.
"It seems our Familia is about to gain another greatly sought-after master craftsman."
Quite a few mbers of other Familias had attended the Molten Festival today.
The news that Drake could forge magic swords would likely spread through all of Orario very quickly.
"You really think highly of him."
Tsubaki crossed her arms and leaned lazily against the wall.
"In that case, I'll go arrange a Babel Tower storefront for him right away—"
"Wait."
After calling Tsubaki back, Hephaestus fell silent for a mont, then suddenly said,
"Before that, do a favor and make one more trip… bring Drake to see ."
A short while later, a knock sounded at the door of the colosseum's manager room.
"Lady Goddess, you wanted to see ?"
"Yes, because Tsubaki brought back so truly explosive news."
Hephaestus looked over the boy she hadn't seen for several days and felt a faint sense of unfamiliarity.
Though he had only been away for two or three days, Drake seed to have gained a certain seasoned sharpness that belonged only to experienced adventurers.
And yet, the way he looked at her was still just as fervent and pure as before.
That reassured Hephaestus, and she said softly,
"May I take a look at the 'magic sword' you made?"
"Of course."
Naturally, Drake wouldn't refuse the goddess's request.
He reached into his inventory and took out the Blade of Grass.
"A spatial item?"
Hephaestus looked a little surprised, though not especially shocked.
Items with spatial effects were rely rare to mortals.
"That's right. I'd like to ask Lady Goddess to keep it secret for ."
Drake smiled and admitted it without any attempt to hide it.
In front of Hephaestus, he did not need to conceal too much.
"You really are a child who makes people curious."
Hephaestus sighed softly, then picked up the Blade of Grass and examined it carefully.
Her smooth, slender fingers—hardened by years of work, yet still elegant—gently traced the erald blade.
The forging goddess seed to sense so sort of mory within it.
"Mm… it's about what I expected."
After a brief silence, Hephaestus looked at Drake.
"There's no doubt. This is a work you personally forged."
"To create this sword, you must have gone through a very dangerous adventure… one that even put your life at risk."
She can tell that too?
Drake nodded almost reflexively, waves stirring in his heart.
He really had gone into the Underground Jungle prepared for the possibility that he might "just die once."
Because death in Terraria only ant revival, it hadn't felt too dangerous.
Still, calling it "life-threatening" wasn't exactly wrong.
"Why would you push yourself that hard?" The goddess asked, half reproachful and half pained.
"If you die, I'll be very sad."
"Don't worry. I won't die." Drake looked firmly into Hephaestus's eyes.
"I still have to forge equipnt that surpasses yours and earn your acknowledgnt. How could I possibly bear to die before that?"
"Heh…"
The boy's tone and those words drew an affectionate smile from Hephaestus.
"Take off your clothes."
"…Huh?"
Drake froze, then started acting bashful.
"Um… Lady Goddess, I don't mind, but isn't this a little too fast for us?"
"Shouldn't we start with a date first?"
And then Hephaestus gave him a helpless chop to the head.
"I ant bare your back so I can update your status!"
"It seems you've gotten a lot bolder lately, if you're even daring to tease now."
"Ahaha… nothing like that."
Drake obediently lay down, though his mouth still didn't stop moving.
"Hasn't it only been three days since I received the God's Blessing?"
"Do I really need to update it this often?"
Originally, he had planned to ask the goddess for an update only once a week, or maybe once a month.
"The accumulation of great deeds has nothing to do with the amount of ti that passes."
"Sotis, a single mont of great accomplishnt can produce more great deeds than decades of training."
"When you forged that sword, you should already have accumulated quite a bit of it."
"Let see… hm?"
Just as Drake was curiously waiting for the result, Hephaestus suddenly fell silent halfway through her sentence, making him feel like a thousand ants were crawling in his chest.
"Lady Goddess, how did my status turn out?"
A few seconds later, Hephaestus finally answered, sounding slightly puzzled.
"Your basic abilities have all risen a little, but not by much."
"But you also gained a new skill… and even I can't quite make sense of it."
What people called status values were the nurical manifestation of the God's Blessing.
They included categories such as basic abilities, developnt abilities, magic, and skills.
As for an adventurer's Level, that represented their overall strength.
Basic abilities ant things like Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, and Magic, each of which could rise as high as 999.
Developnt abilities were enhancent-type abilities gained upon leveling up, such as Smithing or Mage, allowing one to specialize in certain areas.
Whether soone gained magic depended much more on the adventurer's personal talent. So people could spend their entire lives without ever mastering any magic at all.
As for skills… gaining a skill itself was nothing unusual. Many skills had very similar effects.
Among the confird types, most skills were fairly average and often overlapped.
So even had different nas while essentially being slight variations of existing skills.
Among them, however, there were a few exceptionally powerful and unique ones, known as rare skills.
The mont Hephaestus saw the new skill Drake had obtained, she knew at once that it was definitely a rare skill!
And yet its effect was a bit… baffling.
[Skill: Terraria Craftsman]
[ Raises basic abilities the first ti armor and weapons are crafted]
[ Upon leveling up, guarantees the acquisition of a developnt ability related to "Craftsman"]
[ Can improve and optimize known crafting recipes]
[ Can explore and infer unknown crafting recipes]
[ Gains great deeds when discovering new crafting recipes]
[…]
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