After letting the dummy beat the ever-living shit out of me for a full hour to earn my three constitution bonus points, I queued up a quick meal from the cookpot, raised my cooking skill to four, then settled down in front of the forge.

   Ezzie said.

  <…No.>

   she said,

  I swallowed a mouthful of fish stew and grinned.
  

   Ezzie said.

  

  

  I deflated a little.

   Ezzie said.

   I said.

  

   I brought up the first recipe:

  Recipe: {Bronze Breastplate}

  Requirements: 13 Bronze Bars, 3 Medium Flux, 8 Leather Strap.

  {Bronze Breastplate of the ??}

  Grade:F

  Item level: 10

  Slot: Chest

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: Random combination of Str/Dex/Con (primaries will be generated upon item creation).

  Armor: 18

  Durability: 40/40

  Modifier available: {Mysterious Scale}

  Result: ??

  Chance of Success: 50%

  Chance of Failure: 40%

  Chance of Catastrophic Failure: 10%

   I said, confirming my choices. The forge lit up, the many belts feeding the components into a central mold. I held my breath as a progress bar appeared and started to fill.

  25%

  50%

  75%

  Success! You crafted {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution}!

  Your skill in Armorsmithing increased by 3!

  Progress to Intermediate Armorsmithing: 78/100

  Ding!

  You procced a random upgrade!

  {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution} has increased in quality to rare!

   Ezzie said.

   I said. I brought up the item.

  {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 14

  Slot: Chest

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Rare

  Durability 75/75

  Primaries: +5 Constitution

  Secondaries: +15 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 22

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

  {Iceshard Set}

  2/8 piece bonus: ??

  5/8 piece bonus: ??

  8/8 piece bonus: ??

   I said.

   Ezzie said.

   I said.

  

  

  

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Recipe: {Bronze Greaves}

  Requirements: 12 Bronze Bars, 3 Medium Flux, 7 Leather Scrap.

  {Bronze Greaves of the ??}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 10

  Slot: Legs

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Armor: 12

  Primaries: Random combination of Str/Dex/Con (Primaries will be generated upon item creation).

  Durability 50/50

  Modifier available: Mysterious Scale

  Result: ??

  Chance of Success: 50%

  Chance of Failure: 40%

  Chance of Catastrophic Failure: 10%

   Ezzie said. Ezzie said.

   I confirmed my choices.

  25%

  50%

  75%

  The bar halted at a little under ninety percent, then disappeared.

  Catastrophic failure. All materials have been destroyed.

   I said.

   Ezzie said.

  I sighed and cued up another pair of greaves. Which failed ten percent into the creation process.

  Thankfully, it’d just been a regular failure, so I hadn’t lost the scale I’d used, and I had so much bronze on hand between the bars I’d forged before the invasion and the raw materials I’d farmed up via the golems that losing raw materials wasn’t worrisome.

  I kept at it, eventually getting my Armorsmithing up to eighty-four and forging the greaves as well as a helmet:

  {Iceshard Greaves of the Wildfire}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Slot: Legs

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +3 Strength, +2 Dexterity

  Secondaries: +10 Frost Resistance

  Durability 65/65

  Armor: 16

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

  {Iceshard Helm of the Mountain}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Slot: Head

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution,

  Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

  Durability: 45/45

  Armor: 12

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

   I said.

   Ezzie said.

   I said.

   Ezzie said.

  Damn. I’d forgotten about that, too. The idea of being able to specialize made want to hold onto my scales even more.

  Wait…I didn’t need to use a scale to level up, right? I’d learned the bronze pieces pretty recently, so it seemed like they’d still give points with or without the use of modifiers. I queued up another helm, since that was the cheapest of the three pieces I had.

   Ezzie said.

  

  The helm finished successfully—the bronze items themselves didn’t seem to have a chance of failure—and I earned two more points in Armorsmithing, bringing me up to eighty-six.

  So the scales hadn’t been accounting for all that much of my growth, then. Interesting. I made two more helms and bumped my skill up to ninety, unlocking the recipes for five more pieces of gear:

  Recipe: {Bronze Epaulets}

  Requirements: 12 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 1 Leather Strap

  Recipe: {Bronze Gauntlets}

  Requirements: 9 Bronze Bars, 1 Medium Flux, 3 Leather Strap

  Recipe: {Bronze Boots}

  Requirements: 8 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 3 Leather Strap

  Recipe: {Bronze Belt}

  Requirements: 5 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 2 Leather Strap

  Recipe: {Bronze Bracers}

  Requirements: 5 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 2 Leather Strap

   Ezzie said.

   I looked down at my gauntlet, where my throwing knives were still lodged.

   Ezzie said.

   I shrugged.

  

  I went to work…in that I watched the forge go to work. Two more failures occurred before I completed the set—both failures being of the normal variety—and I also hit ninety-nine in Armorsmithing.

  Unfortunately, I’d also received a series of profession prompts:

  Congratulations, you’ve hit the Grade F Armorsmithing cap!

  Progress to Grade E to unlock Intermediate Armorsmithing.

  All further Armorsmithing gains are now disabled.

   I said.

   Ezzie said.

   I did my best to tamp down my irritation. It wasn’t all bad, really: I’d managed to unlock the recipe for the bronze shield—so I went ahead and made one of those—plus I’d procced another rare upgrade for my bracers.

  The upgrade was a little bittersweet: the stats were just about perfect, but it seemed like it would have been a lot better to proc an upgrade on a piece of armor with a higher stat budget, like the greaves or the shoulders. I threw the bracers as well as the shield on with everything else I’d just crafted.

   Ezzie said,

  

  

  {Iceshard Set}

  2/8 piece bonus (active): +20 Frost Resistance

  5/8 piece bonus (active): 20% chance to absorb frost-based spells/abilities (100% of spell damage is converted into health, but this effect has a fifteen second internal cooldown).

  8/8 piece bonus (active): Absorbing a frost-based spell/ability grants you 5 seconds of immunity to subsequent frost-based attacks.

  {Iceshard Bracers of the Mountain}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 14

  Slot: Wrist

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Rare

  Primaries: +1 Strength, +2 Constitution

  Secondaries: +6 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 8

  Durability 35/35

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

  {Iceshard Shield of Constitution}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +5 Constitution

  Secondaries: +15 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 40

  Durability: 80/80

  {Iceshard Belt of the Mountain}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Slot: Waist

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +2 Strength, +1 Constitution

  Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 9

  Durability 35/35

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

  {Iceshard Boots of the Wildfire}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Slot: Feet

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +2 Strength, +1 Dexterity

  Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 11

  Durability 35/35

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

  {Iceshard Gauntlets of the Volcano}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Slot: Hands

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +2 Dexterity, +1 Constitution

  Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 12

  Durability 35/35

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

  {Iceshard Epaulets of Strength}

  Grade: F

  Item level: 12

  Slot: Shoulders

  Type: Plate

  Quality: Uncommon

  Primaries: +5 Strength

  Secondaries: +10 Frost Resistance

  Armor: 15

  Durability 50/50

  This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

   Ezzie said.

  I couldn’t agree more. The set was midnight blue, so dark that it was verging on purple, and the smooth surfaces were etched with tiny white snowflakes.

   Ezzie said.

   I said. I had no doubt that the snowflakes would resemble stars from a little way out.

   Ezzie said.

  

  

  I winced.

  Ezzie laughed through the link.

  {Silas}

  Level: 9

  Base Class: Brawler

  Gear level: 80 > 163

  Grade: F

  Strength: 31 > 46

  Dexterity: 15 > 20

  Constitution: 23 > 39

  Intelligence: 8

  Wisdom: 7

  Charisma: 8

  Physical Attack: 22

  Magical Attack: 13

  Health: 330 > 490

  Stamina: 230 > 390

  Mana: 80

  Armor: 75 > 145 (57% physical mitigation)

  Magical Resistance: 37 (24% magical mitigation)

  Frost Resistance: 20 > 104 (52% frost mitigation)