Starting from Zero

Book 3, Chapter 19

A New Problem

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Rose looked at me with doubt in her eyes.

"Do you gamble?"

I shook my head.

"E-drugs?" (It's a newly developed program which injects a certain signal into your brain to give pleasure. Too much dose may cause brain death.)

"Come on who do you think I am? Some random losers?" I tried to explain. "I owe him money for repairing my equipment I mentioned earlier."

"What?" Rose jumped. "How many of them are you repairing?"

"A whole set!"

"Just a whole set!?" She raised her voice higher. "150 thousand crystals, just to repair one set? That's enough to buy a whole lot of them! You're kidding right?"

Clark helped: "He's not kidding, miss. I already asked for a friendly price, and that doesn't include the pay for my work, it's only for the materials. Plus he's going to prepare most valuable ones by himself. For anyone else I'd ask for a 100k repair fee first. As for the mats, I guess 200k won't even cover it, maybe 300k?"

"How rich are you?" She won't believe our prices. I understand though, normally that doesn't sound like the price for just one set. "Is that the equipment without any requirement you mentioned?"

"That's right. I've been farming for mats in these day just to repair it."

"Lemme see it!" Rose is wiggling with curiosity. "I want to know what kind of monster will need thousands just to repair."

"You sure? Then gimme a moment."

Clark ran to his furnace and started picking out the pieces one by one.

"...Dear me. I didn't notice it before, but since you're here I'll have to ask something else. There's another problem now."

Clark placed the pieces onto a mannequin using his plier and positioned them into a human shape.

"Oh wow, this looks awesome!"

Rose approached the armors and is about to touch them. I quickly pulled her back. "It burns! "

"Oh... I was too shocked to notice that. It looks tattered but I can feel the immense power. And I never seen such perfect design! That Zhong Hua Company deserves their reputation!"

"Zhong Hua doesn't have such kind of talent. This is the work of Dragon Fate."

Both of them raised their eyebrows.

"An Artifact is created by the gods. Who is this Zhong...Hua and Dragon Fate?"

Well that's a typical comment from an NPC.

I realized I shouldn't have said that. The world only knows that [Zero] is a group released product by the EU Countertrade Association, Dragon Fate Specialized Industry Corporation and Zhong Hua Cultural Information Company. But its development process has nothing to do with Zhong Hua. They are just the publishing agent.

Rose must have noticed something but she kept silent.

"What problem was it again?" I tried to change the topic.

"Look at the armor. It's been in the furnace for a week, and nothing's happening, still all black."

Then he took out three spoon-like objects. He pointed at the red, bubbling liquid in the first spoon. "This [Magma Steel] is the best heat-resistant material for armors I can find. Just look at it. Only two days, all liquefied!"

I can see the liquid moving like water when he moved the spoon. A bit gluey though.

He pointed at the second spoon, with a silver-grey object which carries a tint of brown color on it, like overcooked sesame paste.

"This is Magma Steel which stayed in there for a day. Soft like mud!"

Then he pointed at a burning red metal block in the third spoon. "It's in the furnace for 30 minutes. Completely red now. And check those black ones near the wall. Those are Magma Steel in its normal state. Do you see the problem now?"

"I get it. Can you just raise the heat?"

"Look at the cracks on the furnace! And this broken spoon. My tools cannot manage that kind of heat. And your armor, it's nowhere even near melting. It's totally unaffected! I'd say it's immune to fire!"

"Have you tried bending and hammering without heating it up?" I checked the cracks on the armor.

Clark passed me a bent iron handle and a half wooden stick. "That's what's left after I tried to do that. The thing is harder than any of my tools. I'm out of options!"

"You mean there's no way to fix it?" Rose seems even more worried than me.

"I sure want to. I almost broke my furnace which still didn't work. Oh and, there's another problem!" Clark took the helmet using his plier, then knocked at its interior to prove that he actually touched it with his hand, which of course surprised us a lot.

Then he splashed some water onto the helmet. Fizzzz! The water drops instantly disappeared.

"See that? The whole set is like this. No matter how long I heat it the inside wouldn't get any hotter. The outer part is easily heated but it won't melt!"

"I never thought this would be so complicated."

Rose seems to have just recalled something. "Have you heard about stories about dragons?"

"Lucky, or Loong'er? I've heard both."

"I meant Lucky, lizards with wings."

"Let's see. They're usually strong and evil, like to sleep on a pile of treasure. They breath fire, sometimes snatch some princess and finally get killed by a hero? Wait a second. I have an idea!"

"We're on the same track. Go on."

"You are thinking about Lucky's fire right?"

"Aren't you a worthy young man!" Rose tried to show the fake image of a wise old man.

"Will it work?" I asked Clark.

"The dark dragon lord?"

"Yep. I don't know what kind of heat Lucky can produce. He's above level 200 now. But I never actually used him as a burner!" I considered my options.

"Don't worry. We can try it out."

"It's settled then!"

I prepared to summon Lucky but Clark stopped me. "Not here! I don't know about the armor, but I'm sure he can burn my house down!"

"Let's leave the city then." I dragged Clark towards outside.

He stopped me again. "Hold your horses! I need to bring something to experiment on."

He collected some random objects and threw them into my bracelet. Then we finally started heading out.

Rose was deeply attracted by the constructions she saw along the way, especially that giant bridge outside the city gate. She didn't get to see it before because she was teleported inside.

"What's under the bridge?" Rose poked her head out of the safety bars and looked down.

Clark jumped, and yanked her back to the center of the bridge with a lunge.

Then we saw a big, terrible head rushed out of the water towards where Rose was standing. It was barred by a invisible wall which gave out a huge electricity wave, scaring the monster back into to water.

Man, the bridge sure isn't peaceful as it looks.

Rose on the other hand was shocked speechless. She just sat there like stone, until I gave her a shake, by which I successfully reminded her how to cry.

Clark explained: "That lake under us is an extremely dangerous existence as you can see. Be careful from now on. The bridge got barriers, so you're safe as long as you don't get any part of your body outside the bounds. In other words you're probably doomed if you don't follow that rule."

"*Sob* I-I won't do it again!" Rose is crying like a baby girl. I can understand, no one needs to hide anything in a game. Even a girl can be free to cry or laugh to her heart's content. Nobody will mind that.

I also begin to understand what she meant by "freedom" earlier.

"That's was scary..." Rose glanced at the monster, which is still swimming near the surface while giving us a stare now and then.

"Don't worry too much. Just stay inside the bars alright?" I hugged her shoulders and tried to calm her down. Well, I admit that's not the only purpose.

"Ok. Let's do it here!"

We crossed the bridge and reached the mass graveyard outside. Clark took out a bar of Magma Steel and placed it on the ground.

"Let's see if Lucky's breath is hot enough. Some magical flame may be deadly but they actually don't burn."

I ordered Lucky to breath fire at the steel bar. Lucky stepped back a bit, took a deep breath and began to shoot a focused fire beam at the target.

"Good! Stop!"

I gave my signal with a shout. That fire burned a small hole out of the ground.

Being the professional, Clark only needed several seconds of poking inside the hole to get a result. "That heat was impressive I'd say!"

"So do we try it on the Artifact?" I asked.

"Let's do it!" He place a "spoon" on the ground. "If he can melt this thing down then there's nothing to worry about."

"Alright. Lucky! Burn that spoon!"

"Right away." (He can speak after reaching lvl 200)

Lucky tried his fire at the spoon but it didn't went so well this time. Instead of melting, the spoon broke into pieces.

"Um, let me try another type of fire."

"Your call."

Lucky asked us to keep some more distance. Then he breathed a special fire at the spoon. It's the strongest fire dragons can use only when they're fighting for their lives, as he said.

The fire this time is not red but blue, and it's even more concentrated. It lasted for only two seconds. As for the spoon, it already vaporized to nothingness, leaving a big crater behind.

Before we can make any comment though, Lucky fainted on the ground. I hurriedly summoned Phantom to check what's wrong.

"Don't worry master. That purple flame skill is the last defense of dragons, it causes a brief side-effect when used. You just need to wait for a while. This is why you don't see dragons use this move unless absolutely necessary." Phantom sent that explanation via telepathy to all of us.

With that cleared up, I un-summoned Lucky to let him rest.

"What do we do now, Clark? Do we just forge the armor here?"

"No. When you got all the materials I'll go find some Space Wizards and ask them to fix the pieces in mid-air. We won't find any furnace or other supports that can stand such kind of temperature."

"Please do. I'll just go collect materials first."

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I saw comments who said this novel looks really boring. I gotta admit. As I said it's too long for me to reach the interesting parts very soon.

And, I really wonder how many people are reading this, about which I got completely no idea. Too few readers would...be a problem.