MMORPG: Crowd Control

It had been some time since Smither Gary returned to the backroom, and Lei Zhen was completely stunned by the sight of the three monster cores placed in front of him.

Although the monster cores don't have any sign of life, they were like a monster preying on him, almost as if it was screaming that he was going to fail.

'That hateful Smither Gary! He even locked the backroom to prevent me from arguing back about how unreasonable this is.' Lei Zhen cursed silently, feeling helpless by the situation.

Alas, other than feeling this moment of helplessness, there was nothing else he could do. The others were still outside, waiting for him to deliver the Bolten Artifact.

"Sigh, I might be skin alive if I can't deliver the Bolten Artifact to them." Lei Zhen smiled bitterly, feeling regretful about informing them of Smither Gary.

He should have kept this information to himself and investigated this first before divulging the topics to them.

Why did he break his own rules?

'I reaped what I sowed. Never reveal information anymore unless it's for a price.' Lei Zhen vowed to himself, getting the preparation work ready.

When Smither Gary literally pushed all the work to him to craft, it was literally everything- meaning even the furnace was extinguished and needed to be reheated again.

Thus, Lei Zhen had to start from scratch, with the reheating furnace at the very beginning. And to his dismay, the furnace used an old-school method despite the advanced technology available in the Magnolia world.

It took around 20 minutes or so for the furnace to heat properly at the correct temperature.

Despite it being time-consuming, Lei Zhen was heavily focused on the materials required, and mustering every ounce of his strength, he lifted the heavy hammer up.

The hammer weighed around 50lb at the very minimum, designed for the strength of Smither Gary. Thus, when it came to Lei Zhen's turn to lift the hammer up, it caused him to use 80 percent of his strength.

'Damn, this is like weightlifting training.' Lei Zhen exclaimed inwardly, feeling like he was carrying a dumbbell used in gyms. The hammer might not be the heaviest weight, but when attempting to use it to hammer some of the materials, then it would become quite an arduous task.

After attempting to wield it for a good few short seconds, Lei Zhen could tell this was going to be a long process. Compared to the expert Smither Gary, who made the hammering process look like a cakewalk, he was different. Time slowly passed by, and Lei Zhen barely managed to grasp the correct usage of strength to start hammering the monster cores and getting the process done.

Although slower than Smither Gary by a large margin, Lei Zhen was starting to pick up the pace.

Alas, given that he was still an apprentice, the first attempt resulted in a complete failure.

"Heh, even the description is hilarious." Lei Zhen smiled bitterly. Even without the description, just the appearance alone of his "creation" was a far cry from Smither Gary's Bolten Artifact.

And when Lei Zhen was concentrating on figuring out what he had done wrong, the door opened and Candice's voice echoed throughout the room.

"The wind wasn't lying and was correct again, Master. The wind said you'll be struggling down here, so I had to come here to assist you."

"Assist me? Weren't you also in cahoot with the others that caused me to be in this position?"

"Hehe, I couldn't possibly go against the girl's decision and support you alone, right?" Candice gave a cheeky smile and acted innocently.

Meanwhile, Lei Zhen sighed softly and didn't pursue the matter further.

"Just go back outside and wait. The room's going to be extremely hot later on, so there's no point in staying here." Lei Zhen then said, telling her to leave as her kind gesture had been received. The room temperature would soon increase to a number that might cause some discomfort for Candice.

And as a gentleman, he wasn't going to tell her to stay and endure the struggle with him.

However, Candice flashed a gentle smile and entered the room anyway, closing the door behind her.

"Master, I may be a woman, but please don't look at me like some fragile woman." She said calmly, flexing some of her muscles. Though because she didn't really have many muscles, her action seemed cute instead of tough.

Lei Zhen chuckled softly at her action and shook his head.

"No need to assist me if you are just feeling bad. I can at least handle this much." He then said calmly.

"The wind told me that you're lying though," Candice tilted her head slightly to the right and said cheekily.

Lei Zhen twitched his brows when he forgot about her ability to completely discern whether a person was lying or not. And of course, her ability could be faulty and deciphered wrong, but that hadn't happened so far with her current track record.

'Why is the wind such a nosy bitch?' Lei Zhen cursed inwardly, feeling like he was being exposed uncomfortably. This was despite the fact that he was still bare-chested because of the intense heat in the room previously.

Suddenly, a bright idea came to his mind and he started smiling wickedly.

"Fine by me if you want to stay, Candice. But don't say I didn't warn you that the room temperature is going to be extremely hot- meaning you would be sweating hard. And when you can't withstand the heat any longer, you might be forced to strip your clothes." Lei Zhen said, curling his lips upward to frighten her up.

However, the response he was expecting was completely different when Candice smiled briefly.

"I don't mind stripping most of my clothes since it's just you seeing it," Candice said calmly.

She then pointed at the backroom, "But Smither Gary who is hiding in the backroom and spying on us has to leave the vicinity. I don't mind you seeing, but for others, they can only dream about it."

Before Lei Zhen could even respond to her, Smither Gary came out of the backroom with an aggrieved look.

"What the hell do you mean by that? I'm not a pervert that would spy on you." Smither Gary said angrily, almost as if he was offended by being accused by Candice.

Meanwhile, Candice held a deadpan expression and stared at Smither Gary.

"You might not be a pervert, but you were definitely spying on us with that special glass window. So even though you aren't a pervert, your actions say otherwise, prompting others to mistake you for one. Hence, it's still your fault in the end." Candice flat-out said, not giving him any bit of leeway.

"Tsk, I was just trying to spy to see what the brat would do wrong. Since you are that eager to be alone with the brat, then so be it. I'm leaving and going out to get some fresh air." Smither Gary snorted coldly and left in quite a hurry. It was clear that he didn't want to be blasted by Candice any further.

"Did you taunt him on purpose to make him leave?" Lei Zhen laughed awkwardly once Smither Gary left the room.

Candice shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what you're talking about, Master. If he didn't have a guilty conscience, then he wouldn't have left. Either way, shouldn't we start working?"

Now that things have come to this, there was no point in trying to persuade her further.

"If you want to stay, then I won't force you. But do you even know anything related to blacksmithing?" Lei Zhen asked.

"Of course, I know about blacksmithing. Before my clan was invaded, there was an elder that was proficient in blacksmithing and I was taught by the elder for quite some time. Hence, I know some of the basics."

"Is that so?"

"Mhmm, never underestimate me, Master. I was captured because I allowed the invaders to do so, otherwise, I would have been able to escape." She then said, with a tinge of bitterness though.

After all, she might be capable of escaping alone, but she wasn't powerful enough to save her clan alone.

And Lei Zhen wasn't insensitive enough to pry further from her.

"Alright then, you can help me heat up the materials while I do the hammering process." Lei Zhen suggested.

Candice smiled brightly and hurriedly got to work, taking off a few pieces of her clothing in the meantime.

"Leave it to me, Master. Also if you want to take a closer look at my figure, you are free to do so. No need to be sneaky about it." She then teased him.

"..."

Lei Zhen was utterly speechless by her shameless behavior and decided the best response was to not respond at all.

Instead, he focused on grabbing the monster cores and began hammering them at a specific altitude and angle, remembering the lecture of Smither Gary.