Chapter 77: Tusk Dagger

[Obtained Copper Ore x4]

[Obtained Copper Ore Residue x8]

...

As Su You mined more and more ore, the durability of her copper pickaxe dropped to its last point.

She took out a whetstone and used it on the copper pickaxe. Normally, a single use of the whetstone would fully restore the durability of a stone tool, but when repairing the copper tool, it took two uses—and even then, the durability wasn’t fully restored.

If repairing a stone tool gives +100 durability, then repairing a copper pickaxe only gives +70 per use. Even after two repairs, that’s just +140 durability, while the copper pickaxe’s max durability is 150.

After repairing her pickaxe, Su You didn’t continue mining. Instead, she gathered all her loot and left the mine, heading back to her territory.

The first thing she did upon returning was to take out the marble she’d collected and start making marble bricks. The quest hall required five marble bricks, and since it took three pieces of marble to make one brick, the seventeen pieces she’d gathered were just enough.

[Use Marble x15 to craft Marble Brick x5?]

[Crafting: Marble Bricks. Estimated time: 120 seconds.]

[Remaining: Marble Brick x4. Estimated time: 8 minutes.]

...

While waiting for the marble bricks to finish, Su You rummaged through a wooden box and found the wild boar tusks she’d collected earlier.

She planned to use these tusks to craft two daggers.

Although wild boar tusks could be used to make other things besides daggers, the other items either required materials Su You didn’t have, or the crafting process would damage the tusks, wasting their value.

But with tusk daggers, there was no such waste—she just needed to polish the tusks a bit and they’d serve as sharp blades.

Making tusk daggers required two workstations: a furnace and an intermediate workbench.

Su You already had a furnace, so she put in two of the last four copper ingots she had left from yesterday.

[Consume Copper Ingot x2 to craft Copper Dagger Blades?]

[Crafting Copper Dagger Blades. Estimated time: 300 seconds.]

With the dagger blades done, it was time for the edges.

The crafting process for tusk daggers was to first forge the metal dagger blades in the furnace, then place the tusks on a workbench of the appropriate level to process them into tusk edges, and finally combine the blades and tusk edges on the workbench.

Wild boar tusks were of relatively high quality, so a basic workbench wasn’t enough—Su You had to upgrade it to an intermediate workbench to process the tusks.

Upgrading a basic workbench to intermediate required [Plank x5, Stone Brick x5, Copper Ingot x2]... It might seem simple, but later on, the amount of materials needed for crafting increases dramatically, and one workbench just isn’t enough.

And that’s just the materials for upgrading a single workbench.

But for now, Su You didn’t need that many, so upgrading just one would do.

Conveniently, after making the dagger blades, she had exactly two copper ingots left.

Even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter—she’d just mined about ten more copper ores. If she ran out, she could always smelt more.

[Consume Plank x5, Stone Brick x5, Copper Ingot x2 to upgrade Basic Workbench to Intermediate Workbench?]

[Please cancel any tasks and remove all items from the workbench before upgrading. All commands and items on the workbench will be cleared during the upgrade, and the workbench will be unusable during the process.]

Su You had already chosen an unused workbench to upgrade, so she didn’t even bother reading the prompt and just hit “Upgrade.”

[Workbench upgrading. Estimated time: 10 minutes.]

“Milord, what are you making?” Laike asked, pushing a wooden cart loaded with rocks. When he saw the two wild boar tusks in Su You’s hands, his eyes lit up with excitement and a hint of awe.

Before Su You could answer, he parked the cart by the bounty board and hurried over to her, curiously eyeing what she held.

“Are those... boar tusks?” Laike wasn’t sure at first, but when Su You nodded, he instinctively glanced in a certain direction, then turned back, looking at her with admiration. “Did Miss Duoya kill that one too?”

If it had been before, even if Su You told him the boar was killed by Duoya, he’d have been skeptical. But after the black-striped tiger incident, Laike now automatically associated anything impressive with Duoya.

Unfortunately, he was wrong—this boar had nothing to do with Duoya.

Su You didn’t mention the mysterious creature, just said it wasn’t Duoya who killed the boar. Laike didn’t press further.

He didn’t seem disappointed by her answer. Maybe, to him, it didn’t matter who killed the boar—he still thought Duoya was amazing.

After all, anyone who could seriously injure a lively tiger with just a bow and a few arrows was obviously formidable.

As they spoke, the dagger blades finished in the furnace. When Su You took them out, Laike’s eyes lit up again.

He saw the dagger blades and the boar tusks. With his adventurer’s experience—well, actually, anyone could guess what she was making—Laike was no exception.

“Milord, are you making tusk daggers?” Laike realized he was asking the obvious.

Luckily, Su You didn’t mind and simply confirmed it.

“In a few days, some merchants or caravans should pass through. A tusk dagger should fetch a good price,” Su You said casually, but it caught Laike’s attention.

He immediately reached for his pocket and pulled out a coin pouch.

“How much do you want for it, milord? Name your price—I’ll buy it! After all, it’s better to keep the profit in the family!” Of course, Laike wasn’t buying the dagger for himself—he didn’t use such weapons.

As Lyle had said before, Laike preferred using his fists. The gauntlets Su You gave him after the last quest were now his prized possession.

The one who really needed a dagger was Lyle.

In a straight-up fight, Lyle couldn’t beat Laike—Laike was naturally strong, and his fists were his weapons. With a weapon against someone unarmed, it was only natural for Lyle to lose.

(End of chapter)"

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