AQUA

Arya's pov 

Sometimes elders are bullies. Based on the fact that I asked if I could reject this marriage with this extremely popular person, they decided it would be fun to give me a bit of a long-ass love-at-first-sight story, in which I fell in love instantly?!!

"Not very realistic Mr Lin. There are three wrong things wrong with your little love tale."

I spoke out when Dad finished narrating what he thinks can happen between me and Miss Aqua. The elders all looked at me with amusement as Mrs Anastasia spoke

"Then tell us, Arya. What's wrong with such a beautiful scene happening no? Why can't it happen?"

Taking a deep breath and finishing my glass of wine, the words just flowed out of me 

"First off, I find love stupid. My father knows that. Secondly, I would never fall for someone at face level. That is the stupidest shit to ever exist. Lastly, it's a god-damned story, of course, it's not happening!"

"Ah. What if it does, what if you fall in love with her the moment you lay your eye on her."

Dad opened his mouth and spoke out a bunch of beautiful words. Stupid but beautiful nonetheless.

"Then I've been fucking possessed!"

It was silent. They stared at me and simply decided to leave the topic of me falling in love at first sight. Grandpa was the one to change the topic 

"Baby. Do you know why the Charming's want to get her married?"

"Is it important Grandpa? I'm marrying her either way, the reason doesn't seem to matter."

"You're usually thorough...."

"I just want to go home Mr Lin."

With that they finally let me off, I didn't know when the wedding was happening, it wasn't my concern, an arranged marriage can't annoy me, it doesn't annoy me. I'm more annoyed at the fact that Dad thinks I'd somehow fall in love at first sight! That he even entertained such stupidity!

I didn't think about it long though, I hurriedly drove home. While on the road I searched for my fiancee online, I stared at her picture for three seconds before rolling my eyes and focusing on driving 

"Gorgeous? Definitely. Love at first sight. Still very stupid."

I reached home soon and went straight to my room and almost instantly I logged back into THE REALM OF AZRATH.

The room was empty when I entered the game, no roommate like my Dad said. I didn't dwell on it for long as I quickly took my bag to check the inventory of all the rewards I received from the tower.

Ignoring the body parts that had to be processed I quickly took an inventory and I was surprised by the amount of rewards I got from the two floors and the first-time reward. There were five hoodies, three cargo pants, five boots, two gloves and two rifles.

Checking the stats all of the equipment was surprisingly black with stats that were alike, the only one with a difference was the second rifle.

Silent V rifle - grey

Damage - 5000

Reduces recoil by 15%

Stardust regeneration - 3%

(Requirement - 

STR - 500

VIT - 400)

I was intrigued. This was not only the first grey equipment I had seen but it also showed me the difference between black, grey and trashy after all the grey is the only one that I've seen that has requirements and the extra stats.

Looking back in the bag, I took note of five runes lying there. I vividly remember two runes coming from my upgrade quest so the three left have to be from the other rewards. Checking the information I simply returned it to the bag as they were all tier three runes which unfortunately means I couldn't use them yet and with that out of the way, I freshened up and dressed up, or equipped myself. Whatever works.

Looking marvel as the hoodie tore open to make space for my wings, I wore the cap and headed out. The player apartment was a bit far from the career areas so I set off on foot, I didn't have a car either way and I didn't feel like flying. I reached there in fifty minutes and entered the material processing shop. It had seven floors and thankfully it was still open for business so I got in.

There were different kinds of metals bro displayed, I had asked before and it wasn't on sale so I went straight to the only male I saw in the shop. I looked at his horns and spiky tail in curiosity and he chuckled like he had seen that look a lot today.

"Kid. You are also interested in why I have two additional body parts?"

I looked him in the eye and simply nodded after all everyone I've seen looks humanoid with only one different body part.

"Ha... You otherworlders are curious. Whatever my race is in tier 2."

I was shocked and I'm very sure it displayed on my face!

"Races can be upgraded?! How do you even do that?!"

"Alright. Calm down. Yes, you can upgrade your race but nobody knows how. I'm not even sure how my race got upgraded, I just woke up one day to see that I could upgrade it. So can't help you, kid."

Oh. That was disappointing, a bit anyway but there was not much I could do about such abstract things so I simply stated why I was here.

"I want to um process my materials."

"This is your first time doing this yes?"

"Yeah."

"Then I have to give you an introduction, I hate this part of my job but it fucking pays you know! Anyway, the processing is simply taking a monster part and turning it into its other form which can be metal, wool or whatever. A material only has one other form so you don't have a choice in what you get but a lot of materials have the same other form. This is general knowledge but the body parts of monsters that can be processed are always listed, if it can't be processed don't bring it here, it can be used by other careers like pill making. Every material is always graded from trashy to blue. We don't process trashy materials so, what do you want to process? Every first process is always free!"

I already knew about some of the information the man said but it was a surprise to know that the materials that can't be processed could be used to make pills, I would have to change what I take if that was the case, at least, take a bit of the other parts and with excitement that I wouldn't have to pay for this batch I dropped half of the materials into the cart that was quickly filled, the man looked at it with surprise and looked back at me with helplessness, his face fell even more though when I said

"Can I get another cart? I still have left."

He brought out another cart, unhappily anyway but it was quickly taken to be processed. I simply sat there waiting for an hour before he returned with two carts as he said to me 

"I don't know where you got these materials but aeroniun and clasks!"

I was confused by his words as I looked at the glowing black metals.

"What's... What's that?"

"Simply the rarest metals in the black grade! They're even better than some grey metals! And I processed this for free! I'm bleeding at the loss!"

I simply laughed at that, seems like the Tower materials are really good, i was brought out of my thoughts as he cautioned me

"You should not use this to practice, that's like a fucking waste. You should buy trashy metals if you want to practice and like don't sell this beauty! Just sell a few cause this metal is as rare as it is expensive! Got it?!"

"Thank you for that but, I never said I was going to get a career yes?"

"Trust me, you will. Making your equipment will always be better, the design, the stats and the materials. Everyone wants to fucking start a career, too bad it's like fucking impossible to get good at it. You need some crazy talent!"

"It's that hard?"

"Of course! From processing, melting, pounding, crafting, icing. It's fucking hard, not to mention the higher the grade the harder to use and don't think that just cause I said it like that it's easy, it's not. You'll know when you try it. Chef is the easiest career, the others on the other hand... Annoying to the bone."

I looked at the big carts filled with metals and started to throw them into the bag as I asked him

"Then... What's the hardest career to start?"

"Ah. That would be blacksmithing."

"Oh. I don't think the careers are impossible to learn though... Maybe hard but not impossible after all, there are lots of shops open?"

"Shoo! It's really hard for some people and easy for some people to take it like that."

I simply gave him a look

"Ah. You couldn't grasp it?"

He kicked me out, grumbling something about children not being respectful to elders as I laughed and went to a shop to sell some metals. Thankfully he wasn't lying about them being expensive so I simply sold 5kg of each metal and received my money, paper money was what was currently being used here so my next location was the bank and soon I had created an account and deposited all the money I had on me which was a total ten million ss, as I said, it was a lot and I went to my final destination.

I looked at the words that were glowing - Blacksmith - with curiosity as I entered the skyscraper. Ignoring the players that were leaving the building with deject I signed up for the class and paid the fee, I changed the class into a private one on one class so I wouldn't have to wait till the next class started and I was directed to a room.

The room was equipped with the necessary materials needed for forging, except... I didn't fucking know what they were, it looked alien!

The first thing I saw was a metal pond with a fire burning fiercely inside, the color was currently red which seemed normal enough.. metals of different colors were placed all over the room except for the graded color ones and containers that had the shapes of guns. We're also on a cabinet.

"Where's the hammer?"

I was sure that there was no hammer available as I checked around the room again and apart from the fire, containers and metal which took up the whole room, there was no hammer 

"How do you do blacksmithing without any hammer?"

"Primitive methods boy. We're more advanced than that."

I looked at the orc that just came in, his muscles were bulging as his long ears twitched but he looked at me with a smile, a teasing one

"Wrong gender and if there's no hammer or an anvil or in your words such primitive methods. How the fuck do you blacksmith."

"With the flame pond. Ten times harder girl, try not to quit on me ok?"

I sighed as I remembered the normal methods being used in the other faction and sighed as I looked at the damn pond that was just fire! I was questioning everything when the man simply took a big piece of metal and threw it into the pond

"First step. Melting the metal, remember it has to look exactly like the metal you threw in. The red liquid is what we're going for here."

I went and stood beside him as he placed his hands directly into the pond! I frowned as I saw that he was not only not burned but the metal he placed in was melting at a fast rate! And soon it was pure red liquid and he went to take a container I watched as the container sucked the liquid in and he threw the container that was now closed and threw it into the fire!

"Done. Understand."

I simply stared at him before I finally snapped!

"Of course not! What the fuck was that!"