Chapter 57: Choice, Decision

"I originally intended to mention that it's unnecessary for everyone in a team to learn all the crafting skills. Learning one skill per person is sufficient, but since we now have abundant materials, learning them all is also fine."

After saying this, Fu Chen looked at Qin Yumoke and smiled, replying, "I told Qinglan earlier that she only needs to learn Apothecary skills in the future, and I'll handle the rest."

Qin Yumoke was about to say something when she was interrupted by a cheerful Zero Point:

"Red Dust, does that mean I don't have to learn any crafting skills either? You guys will be enough anyway."

Fu Chen nodded affirmatively and said, "Of course. With so many people in the Perfect Continent, most will probably choose not to learn them, since crafting skills require a lot of materials and time."

"That's wonderful! Then I won't bother learning crafting skills. They wouldn't be of much use to me anyway."

Zero Point looked immensely relieved, a relaxed expression spreading across her face.

Qin Yumoke turned to ask, "How many crafting skills does Red Dust plan to learn?"

Fu Chen smiled and answered, "Since we have plenty of materials and leveling up the skills is still relatively easy, I'll learn all of them. However, once leveling them up becomes difficult or too costly, I might narrow it down to just one or two."

This response was indeed Fu Chen's original plan, but the situation changed completely after he awakened his innate talent skill, [Heaven Seizure].

Now, he would definitely push the Blacksmith, Tailor, and Craftsman skills to their maximum possible levels.

There were two main reasons why he wanted to learn crafting skills.

First, equipment crafted by oneself had a chance to roll bonus attributes, yielding fine or even supreme-grade gear.

The specific bonus attributes obtained depended entirely on personal luck or massive repetition in crafting.

Those with poor luck would only produce ordinary white equipment, while the lucky ones could forge two-star blue equipment or even three-star purple equipment.

Second, Fu Chen knew that completing Demon World challenge quests offered a chance to drop rare golden molds of various kinds.

Golden molds acted as blueprints or templates for equipment.

With a mold and the corresponding materials, one could forge golden equipment.

To craft golden equipment, one had to possess the corresponding crafting skill for that type of gear.

Otherwise, one would have to rely on someone else for help or purchase finished products made by others.

The more critical problem was that the attributes of equipment sold by others might not suit one's own needs.

For instance, the bonus attribute on equipment sold by someone else might increase health or physique.

However, what he might actually want was an increase in attack power and strength, or other specific attributes.

With different demands, buying satisfactory equipment with ideal attributes came down to pure luck or paying exorbitant prices.

The best approach was to craft one's own equipment, but that introduced a new set of problems.

As mentioned earlier, the bonus attributes of the final crafted equipment depended entirely on luck.

Usually, one needed to craft a large number of the exact same piece of equipment to pick out the desired bonus attribute from the batch.

The cost for this was exceptionally high, and to break even, people typically sold off the pieces with decent attributes.

Even so, crafting a single satisfactory, fine-grade piece of equipment required an enormous price.

The trouble was that often, despite spending a fortune on materials and crafting dozens or even a hundred pieces of equipment, one still wouldn't encounter the required bonus attribute.

In his past life, such occurrences were common and completely ordinary.

If a single piece of equipment was this difficult, the total cost consumed across an entire set of gear would be terrifyingly high.

To summarize, the higher the level of a crafting skill, generally the fewer people learned it.

There was no other reason; the sheer consumption required to forge a satisfactory piece of equipment was simply too massive.

The consumption of material resources, time, and energy was equally immense.

Of course, the absolute best method was to obtain a golden mold and directly forge golden equipment with fixed attributes.

Golden equipment was extremely rare and came with at least three fixed bonus attributes.

Yet, even with golden equipment, although the attributes were fixed, some might still not be what the player actually needed.

In such cases, one had to cleanse the marrow of the golden equipment and reshape its attributes.

The total pool of bonus attribute types for equipment in the Perfect Continent was fixed.

Whether through crafting or marrow cleansing, the assigned attributes would only randomly appear from among these fixed options.

This process was yet another contest of luck and probability.

For an ordinary person, simply bringing one crafting skill to a high or maximum level was already a remarkable achievement.

Right after his rebirth, Fu Chen's initial plan was to learn at most two crafting skills.

That was until he finally confirmed the heaven-defying effect of his [Heaven Seizure] skill.

Anything related to probability could be forcibly overridden and altered by the [Heaven Seizure] skill, turning destined outcomes into absolute certainties.

This skill was utterly overpowered—it was akin to boundless wealth crashing down directly onto one's head.

With this skill, Fu Chen could be almost certain that he would get whatever attribute he wanted.

He wouldn't need to waste massive amounts of materials, time, and energy like everyone else just to secure equipment with satisfactory attributes.

In other words, when someone else tried to craft a piece of equipment with ideal attributes, they might need to produce a hundred or even five hundred finished items before encountering it by chance.

During bouts of bad luck, a thousand finished pieces might fail to yield the desired attribute.

Fu Chen, however, was entirely different. By utilizing the [Heaven Seizure] skill, he could obtain the exact attribute he needed on the very first try.

This gap was simply too vast, so much so that Fu Chen couldn't help his surging emotions and wanted to laugh out loud in excitement.

Bolstered by this innate skill, Fu Chen naturally chose to learn all the crafting skills.

In this lifetime, Fu Chen believed he could undoubtedly forge the absolute top-tier equipment and weapons relying on [Heaven Seizure].

After listening to Fu Chen's explanation, Qin Yumoke lowered her head in silence. Pondering for a moment, she turned and said to the others:

"Red Dust makes sense. If leveling up crafting skills becomes too difficult later on, we can simply have each person choose one or two—one primary and one secondary."

"That's a good approach. A primary and secondary skill for each individual, with everyone complementing one another as a team. I agree," Purely Fortainment said, nodding in approval.

Tongue of Twins smiled and nodded. "To be honest, I prefer fighting monsters and leveling up; crafting equipment is too troublesome. This setup is pretty good, I agree too."

Zero Point didn't even need to be asked; she would prefer doing nothing at all. Beautiful Yu looked at Qin Yumoke and Tongue of Twins, nodding repeatedly to show her agreement.

Belonging to Your Heart, much like Tongue of Twins, clearly didn't care much for crafting skills and silently nodded without voicing any objection.

Seeing this, Qin Yumoke nodded. "Then it's settled. Everyone can go ahead and raise their crafting skills a bit, while also thinking about your preferred primary focus for the future."

Tongue of Twins, Purely Fortainment, and Belonging to Your Heart gathered their materials and walked together toward the south of Sword Immortal City.

Beautiful Yu returned to Myriad Transformations City by herself. Zero Point wasn't learning crafting skills, so after handing her materials to Qin Yumoke, she went back to work on quests.

Yao Siqingmeng headed back to Plumed Feather City with her materials, while Qinglan hadn't come at all; Fu Chen would simply hand the herbs over to her later.

As for Fu Chen himself, he led Qin Yumoke straight to the Lumberyard.

The area wasn't as vast as Sword Immortal City, but it had fully equipped Blacksmiths, Tailors, Craftsmen, and Apothecaries.

More importantly, they were located close to one another, which would save a significant amount of time.