“You really had to send a message at that kind of time.” Letting out a long sigh as he sat upright, Valyr slowly got out of bed and went through his usual daily routine, the message Julian had sent him last night lingering in his mind.

“Sure, I was eventually able to sleep, but it definitely made it slightly harder.” Allowing the cold water from the shower flow over his body, Valyr thought about the various possibilities as to why the Blacksmith Guild’s guild leader would send such a message.

Ignoring the fact that he had completely thrown away the thought of checking out the skills upgraded by his new subclass after reading the message, the young man first thought that it might have something to do with the ongoing orc outbreak, prompting him to think that Julian wanted him to come to the Blacksmith Guild early in order to inform him more about it.

However, after thinking about it for a bit more, he eventually recalled the response he had gotten from Julian back when he was returning to the tournament, having to take a detour to the Spearman Guild to obtain his Shadow Serpentine Manalancer subclass.

‘Didn’t he say he would prefer me to come tomorrow?’ Opening up the chat function in his mind, Valyr eventually found the exact message he was thinking about, causing his train of thought to move away from the topic of the orc outbreak and onto Julian’s cryptic message instead.

Though, with there not being much information to extract upon such a message, the young man felt like he had returned to square one, just with a few more clues to work off on.

“Well, whatever it may be, I sure hope it’s more than enough to make up for a few more hours of good sleep.” Letting out a yet another sigh, Valyr eventually got out of the shower and dried himself off before changing into a set of clean clothes.

Taking a quick peek at Wells, who was still sound asleep, he then took a look out the room’s window, bitterly smiling as the sun was nowhere close to peeking out of the horizon yet.

Then, wondering if he should send a message to Wells in advance to inform him of where he was going, it was there that Valyr realized he hadn’t added Wells to his friend list yet, prompting him to wonder how he’d forgotten something so simple as he wrote a quick note instead.

Donning the full set of Nascent Wyvern Armor, which was still greatly mangled from the fight against the Ancient Elite tier Juvenile Shadow Serpent, Valyr eventually left the inn where they stayed, walking through the somewhat barren streets of Algerie City as he leisurely made his way to the Blacksmith Guild.

…

“Well, you look worse for wear.” While making his way to the Blacksmith Guild, Valyr took a small detour to grab some breakfast using the money he had borrowed from Wells.

Reminding himself that he would repay his debt to Wells once he obtained his earnings from the equipment he had forged, he then arrived at the guild a few minutes later, only to be led to Julian’s workshop after showing his identification badge.

“You could definitely say that again.” Hearing the words Julian said to him the very moment the two of them met, a wry smile appeared on Valyr’s face as he briefly glanced at the set of armor he was wearing.

The reason why he had brought the set of Nascent Wyvern Armor along with him in the first place was because he planned to repair it using the Blacksmith Guild’s tools. With how he had obtained the leader position for the upcoming expedition in the tournament, he had a feeling that Julian wouldn’t mind if he used a bit of the guild’s resources to repair his armor set, especially if it was the armor set he was going to use in the inheritance.

“If you want to use some of the guild’s resources to repair it, you’re free to do so.” Of course, with Valyr coming to that conclusion in his mind, it was no surprise that Julian had come to the conclusion as well, letting out a faint chuckle after seeing the young man’s expression light up in response.

“I’ll repair it later.” Though his intentions in bringing the armor along with him were exposed, Valyr showed his gratitude to Julian before deciding to change the topic of the conversation to what he thought it was supposed to be.

“In any case, why did you have me come to the guild so early? Does this have something to do with the message you sent me back when I was returning from the tournament?”𝗈𝓥𝐿xt.𝗰𝓞𝓜

“Actually, yes.”

Thud.

As Julian responded to Valyr’s question with a nod, the former headed to a certain portion of the workshop before lifting up what looked to be a large cloth sack that seemed to have a lot of items in it. Carrying the sack as if it were paperweight, the man unceremoniously dropped it on the ground before Valyr, which caused the ground to tremble for a bit.

“What…” Looking at the cloth sack in front of him, Valyr decided to move closer to it after Julian gestured to him that it was his to take. Though curious at first as to what the sack might contain, a thought eventually surfaced within the young man’s mind as he began to attempt lifting it up.

“Is this… what I think it is?” Letting go of the sack after getting a feeling of how heavy it was, Valyr looked at Julian with a hint of expectation as the question left his mouth, only for it to turn into that excitement once the latter had confirmed it.

“Yes. That right there is the profit your equipment has made after it was sold through the guild’s markets.”

“Doesn’t something like this take longer than a couple of days to procure?” Wanting to see how much money he had made, Valyr unhesitatingly opened the cloth sack, revealing a portion of the tons of the gold coins that seemed to be stored within it. After that, he looked at Julian before him with slight curiosity.

“Well, that would normally be the case.” Hearing Valyr’s question, Julian nodded in agreement. “However, with the orc outbreak gradually ramping up, as well as the fact that the name Ylvar has become more prominent thanks to that feat you’ve achieved, something like this is to be expected.”

“How much profit did the equipment make in total?” Nodding after a bit of silence as the reasoning made sense, Valyr then asked Julian the question he wanted the answer to the most…

Only to be left at a complete loss for words once he did.

“Well, excluding the price of having to advertise the equipment, as well as the commission fee the guild gets from selling the equipment in the first place…”

“What you have right there, in gold coins…”

“…is about 300 platinum coins of pure profit.”