Preparations

After spending several days mining various resources in a few miles radius, Keith managed to get his hands on some iron ores. His own cave was not that long, in the end, so he has had to explore a several more before finally spotting some of the most important resources he needed.

'Ahh... classes are so tiring.' Keith complained in his mind. Since the start of the week, he has not been able to play Project Overworld as much as he wanted. Since his class schedule covered six to eight hours a day, he had not been able to accomplish much inside his favorite game.

He also had to make some tools for the New Dawn guild, which further decreased the amount of free time he could clear for himself. Fortunately, the end of the week was just around the corner and he had gathered every resources needed to work for a few days straight.

Since he was in such a precarious situation, Keith first planned to craft some means of defense for himself. He did not really have the use for some basic metal weapons and armors, but he might be forced to make some for Amber in the future, so he also had to experiment with it.

However, he could not just give everything away without being a few steps ahead of the New Dawn guild. If they ever dared to turn their weapons against him, he had to be prepared to eliminate several dozen of them within a couple of minutes. Any more than that and his defenses would be severly compromised.

Fortunately, Keith's access to gunpowder did facilitate things a lot. He could already be crafting both explosives and some firearm to kill anyone who dared invade his territory. He was not that concerned about the difficulty of reproducing them since they were invented almost a millenium ago, after all.

The real difficulty would be for him to maintain several steps ahead of the various guilds that scattered throughout the world. If Amber wanted him to craft firearms for them, he would already have to be able to reproduce better quality firearms, such as a semi-automatic rifle which did not require gunpowder resupply after each shot, for example.

'Okay, let's start by heating up the furnace.' Keith decided. It was friday evening, and he had the whole night before him to work with his ores. He had already arranged some rock formation together which vaguely resembled a furnace. The goal of this structure was to keep a lot of the heat it produced so it would slowly be able to reach really high temperatures.

He also installed some of the most sturdy rocks he could find next to his furnace to use as a rudimentary anvil. He has been planning for this the whole week and was glad the week-end finally showed itself.

First things first, Keith had planned to be making some tools out of iron. His copper pickaxe was already quite damaged and he could be using a more sturdy one. Afterwards, he also wanted to make the usual blacksmith attire such as a hammer, some pliers and a few other sharp tool to work the metal.

After having a few tests runs smelting some iron to see how much he should be purifying it, Keith started working on his blacksmith tools at first. He could be using them in turn to help him with making a good-looking pickaxe so he set it as his first priority.

Since the hammer he wanted to make had such a rudimentary shape, he decided to start with making one. Using the same principle as he did when making his first pickaxe, Keith dug up the flat faces of some friable rocks to create a mold for the molten metal to be poured into.

The entire process took over six hours of work. Keith has had some bad results at first and has had to melt the iron again. Albeit rudimentary, Keith was quite satisfied about the hammer he managed to produce.

Though, he was really tired after such a long project and realized it was already three in the morning. Giving in to the fatigue, he disconnected from the game and fell flat on his bed, not even taking the time to shower himself.

The next day, Keith woke up at eleven a.m. He always set an alarm at this exact hours because he did not want to wake up on the afternoon. Though, after yawning for a bit, a sudden realization made him jump off his bed and connect to Project Overworld in haste. He had forgotten that Amber was supposed to visit him today, and she should be coming in only a few hours.

The problem was that he did not prepare any tool for her since he has been so occupied with his iron hammer. She also did specify last time around that she wanted more weapons for her guild. As such, he had only three hours to make about six spears.

To him, his cooperation with the New Dawn guild was not that restrictive. He was getting some important resources in exchange for a few hours of his time every two days. Gathering all these materials by himself would be requiring as much time as making those spears did require him. In fact, Keith did prefer making some tools instead of going around to gather resources.

That was why, he could not really complain about this contract. Not to mention the fact he was allied with them and benefitted from their 'protection' for the time being. If they ever turned out too much of an hassle for him to handle, he could be leaving the area with his most important resources and never come close to any other player again.

It took him over two hours and a half to make two copper-reinforced spears as well as two regular ones and two basic pickaxes. He wanted to surprise her with those copper-reinforced weapons since he has heard on the official forums that a large guild started refining metal.

If he wanted to keep a good opinion from Amber, he had to stay up to the latest improvements, at the very least.

Since he did not want Amber to discover he was already forging some iron tools, he patiently waited outside of his base for her to make her appearance.

It did not take long until she emerged from the top of the hill. She greeted him while depositing the usual resources next to him. She became really surprised after Keith handed to her the six spears he had made.

- "Are these...?"

- "Yep, copper-reinforced spears. I've found a bit of ores in the basement of my base. I figured you would be interested in it."

- "That's very kind of you. Though, I don't think we'll need a lot of spears from now on... Could you be making ranged weapons too?"

'I guess it shouldn't be that hard…' Keith figured. He had already made several ropes in the past so making a sturdy string for a bow would not be impossible for him

- "Yeah, I guess I could start working on some bow and arrows. How about this : next time I will be crafting one copper pickaxe, two of these copper reinforced spears as well as two bows with five arrows each."

- "Sounds good to me!" She excitedly said. "I look forwards to my next coming then!" She gave him farewell before turning back towards the direction of her base.

After she departed, Keith finally disconnected from the game. He was so hungry right now that he had to refrain from talking to Amber more than necessary. He did exceed his normal lunch schedule by two hours, after all.

After preparing himself a rudimentary meal rice and curry sauce, Keith spent the rest of the day making blacksmith tools for himself. He did manage to make everything he planned for, so he would be spending the next day making on his iron pickaxe and start working towards his rifle project.

Having some real tools to help him in working the metal proved a lot more useful than he imagined it to be. Since his furnace was still really warm by the time he finished polishing his iron pick, Keith decided to make the copper pickaxe he had promised to Amber.

Only after he crafted it under an hour did he realize he had progressed a lot during these last few days. Last time he tried making a copper tool, he ended up spending more than three hours on it. However, this was only the beginning. He had already planned to make some pickaxe and spear tip molds out of iron so he would have a easier time mass-producing these tools.

Afterwards, the longest process in making metal tools would be collecting the resources and heating up his furnace.

- "What a fruitful week-end!" Keith breathed out while removing his Simulated Reality headgear. He stretched up for a bit and went outside of his flat to walk for a while. It was his usual routine after his long game sessions. Since he would be lying down on his bed for several hours straight, he worried his body would slowly be dying at some point. Thus, he would always be walking down the main roads of Atlanta for an hour after long gameplay sessions.

'I really need to speed things up if I want to reach my goals, though.' Keith realized while thinking about Project Overworld. The top guilds of this game were keeping up to him and this worried him a lot. He needed to extend his lead by at least several steps if he wanted to be certain about his survival within this inhospitable landscape. 'Alright, I should start making plans for the future.' He concluded while turning back towards his home.