For the next few hours, Liam became busy with the new quests he had received. Though these quests were also a hard grind, at least now he was gaining experience points, and he was also increasing his skill in forging. So overall, this wasn't a complete waste of his time.
On the side, Lyana still hung around, along with the two guards, as she started assisting Liam in various things. The guards frowned on seeing a noble lady do the dirty work and gave Liam a stink eye.
And Liam also wasn't one to forget or forgive.
So... after a few minutes... the roles were quickly reversed, with Lyana standing to the side and admiring Liam while the two haughty elven guards assisted him and did all the dirty work.
With everything as it should be and a calm, tranquil atmosphere to work in, Liam was quickly progressing as he forged one weapon after another without any breaks in between.
After some time, even the guards couldn't help but change their attitudes towards the strange human being in the elven lands. They now looked at him with respect and awe as they gazed longingly at the several semi-epic grade weapons he had lined up.
Since Liam only had the ingredients for this particular recipe, and the total recipes he knew weren't particularly impressive, all the weapons were carbon copies of each other.
However, that didn't matter, as the experience points and the reputation points were still coming in one after the other.
Finally, after he finished the fourth quest and the fourth sem-epic grade Dawn's sword, the notification that he was looking forward to arrived.
<Ding. You are now friendly with the elves>
Huff! Liam exhaled a puff of air and sat back on the floor in fatigue. Lyana immediately offered to take him out to lunch, but he politely refused. "I need to get back to work immediately."
He was also tired of eating the same vegetarian food for every meal so he dipped into his supply of Shen Yue's special items. Liam's eyes softened a little on seeing the familiar meatballs. This used to be a certain little thing's favorite.
"Oh?" Liam had an idea as he took out the fox from the cloak he had folded and kept on the side and handed her over to Lyana. "Can you help me feed some fruits to my fox?" He asked with a disarming gentlemanly smile.
Elves were great natural healers, and moreover, he now had a good relationship with this elven woman, so it was worth giving this a try. Perhaps he could even stumble upon a cure for Luna while he was still in the elven territory.
Liam was not too sure about this, but at this point, he did not want to leave any stone unturned.
Thankfully for him, the elf took an immediate liking to Luna. She petted the small, unconscious furry creature, enjoying the lustrous fur and her adorable sleeping face. "It is too bad that she is hurting deeply." The elf commented.
"Yea, it is too bad. She got hurt to protect me," Liam answered with a sigh. He was also missing the little thing a lot. However, there was nothing he could do for her at the moment. All he could do was continue working hard.
Taking another breath, he went right back to forging as he started on the next weapon. A couple more hours passed when another problem surfaced. Liam was finally out of raw materials!
"Is there anywhere I can buy more ores here?" He scratched his head and asked Lyana and the two elven guards.
"Sire, you can buy them on the first floor." One of the guards immediately replied. Lyana also nodded.
"Ok then, let's take a trip to the first floor." Liam and the group walked over to the place where they were selling various raw materials used in forging.
He saw all types of ores on display, but they were heavily priced. It looked like ores were a rare commodity in the elven territory. Also, the type of ores Liam was searching for wasn't available at all.
"Now this is a problem…" Liam frowned as he looked around the place. His eyes glossed over the numerous ores on display and landed on the last section. Shockingly, this section had recipes for sale instead of ores!
He immediately became curious and walked over to that area. There were indeed recipes for sale, and the highest grade available was unexpectedly Epic!
"Jackpot!" Liam grinned. This meant that he was finally going to be able to forge an actual Epic-grade weapon after his numerous attempts at the semi-epic grade. His hard work had paid off.
"I would like to purchase this and five sets of the ingredients required."
The elf standing in front of him was visibly amazed at the order. Huh? As Liam wondered the reason for this strange response, his eyes fell on the cost of the recipe that was inconspicuously scribbled in a corner.
10,000 gold coins
"10,000? Ha ha ha. Ok, take it." Even Lyana looked worried as she watched the guy pay the exorbitant price without a thought.
"Liam… this recipe… I have heard that it's very difficult. You will simply be wasting your gold coins." She tried to dissuade him.
However, Liam firmly shook his head. An Epic grade weapon's recipe was definitely worth this much.
It would undoubtedly be challenging, but he preferred to work hard and complete this task than to spend a great deal of time crafting inferior weapons and earning reputation points piecemeal. After all, time was still the most valuable thing for him at the moment!
He casually took out the required number of gold coins and paid the elf. It came out to be a total of 12,000 with all the ingredients combined, and this effectively emptied half the gold coins he had at the moment.
His reserves, which were flush because of the PVP tournament winnings and the tribute from the garrison, became half in an instant.
Lyana and the two elven guards gaped in astonishment as they witnessed this scene. They gulped and followed Liam as he walked back to the forging room.
