Chapter 5 Hours

"Five hours?"

Shi Feng looked at the system notification, his expression turning grave.

Five hours was neither long nor short. If it were just reforging an ordinary weapon, it wouldn't matter. But if the completion rate for reforging a weapon like this wasn't high, it would drastically affect the weapon's attributes. A peerless weapon could very well become an ordinary top-tier weapon.

And the number of reforging attempts that could be completed in five hours was pathetically small, meaning the number of modifications that could be made was severely limited.

While reforging in God's Domain wasn't as complicated as manufacturing, consisting only of reshaping and polishing, the absence of a blueprint meant players had to design everything themselves. Moreover, the unknown materials made reforging to maximize their effects incredibly difficult, requiring numerous attempts to achieve the desired outcome.

"It seems I can only start by reforging it to resemble the Abyssal Blade," Shi Feng muttered, taking a deep breath as he watched the system countdown and activated the Philosopher's Hand, attempting to reshape the weapon to resemble the Abyssal Blade.

For other players, this would be a nightmare and a disaster.

But for Shi Feng, who had spent a decade in God's Domain, even without prior reforging experience, he possessed a wealth of knowledge on the subject. Many forging masters had extensively discussed the best ways to reforge a weapon.

As mainstream players in God's Domain reached level 120, reforging weapons became commonplace for the major powers. Many weapons that were originally Epic-grade fragments had been scattered as Dark-Gold grade weapons. Once collected, they could be reforged into an Epic-grade weapon.

This was also one of the ways many free players obtained Epic-grade weapons.

According to the reforging experience in God's Domain, imitating the original weapon's appearance was the best approach.

This was because the materials were most suitable for the initial shape. Even if the materials of two weapons were fused, a significant portion would still be suitable for the original shape. The task then became one of improvement.

Shi Feng wasn't familiar with the Dark Remnant, but the Abyssal Blade was different. He had wielded it since his early days in God's Domain and was intimately familiar with it.

In a short thirty minutes, Shi Feng had created a blade that resembled the Abyssal Blade, although the blade was considerably larger, resembling a two-handed sword rather than a one-handed sword.

"Inspect!"

Shi Feng looked at the reshaped Abyssal Blade and opened its interface to conduct a quality inspection.

As Shi Feng clicked, the magic arrays on the blade began to flow, and the surrounding magic power involuntarily converged towards the blade, intensifying its aura.

This made Shi Feng pleasantly surprised. He hadn't expected the first reshaping attempt to be so successful. Adjustments would now be much easier.

However, before Shi Feng could fully form this thought, the system's inspection results left him unsure whether to laugh or cry.

System: Weapon completion rate 40%. Do you wish to select this form?

A 40% completion rate already allowed the blade to effortlessly gather such a dense magic power, and the aura was incredibly powerful. If the completion rate reached 70% or higher, he couldn't imagine how strong it would be.

The Abyssal Blade's shape could be said to be the best for the initial effect. Improving upon it would have limited impact.

"Could it be a two-handed weapon based on the Dark Remnant?" Shi Feng frowned at this thought.

Reforging a weapon didn't restrict it to being a one-handed or two-handed weapon, but reforged weapons had a focus. If the original leaned towards a two-handed weapon, converting it into a one-handed weapon would be much more difficult, and vice versa.

Although the Swordsman class could use two-handed swords, switching to a two-handed greatsword would significantly impact his combat power, completely abandoning his strengths.

Forcing a two-handed weapon to lean towards a one-handed weapon required sacrificing a considerable amount of the original material. Mastering this balance was extremely difficult and would greatly affect the weapon's completion rate.

If there were too few materials, the weapon's strength would fall short. If there were too many materials, it would cause a large deviation in the original material ratio, making the overall material composition very unbalanced. The difficulty was several levels higher.

Only experienced forging grandmasters could accomplish such a feat.

Forging grandmasters not only had extensive forging experience, but also possessed advanced skills in material configuration. They could use magic skills to create golden ratios. This was why forging grandmasters could create Legendary items, even if the probability was very low. At least they could create them, unlike forging masters who didn't have even a sliver of a chance.

After pondering for a moment, Shi Feng began forcibly sacrificing materials bit by bit to reshape the weapon, imbuing the entire form with his own heavy and powerful style.

He started by sacrificing 10% of the material for improvement. Because there were still quite a few materials and the ratio was very unbalanced, the completion rate was only 23%, worse than the initial result.

Then he sacrificed 20% of the material. Because the material was too scarce, the blade's strength was insufficient, and the completion rate was only 16%...

Shi Feng attempted seven or eight times in a row. Although each improvement was faster and smoother than the previous one, the completion rate never exceeded 60%. The best attempt was only 58%, far from the basic 70% completion rate.

With each improvement, time flew by quickly.

The original five hours soon dwindled to just over an hour. The number of possible improvements decreased, and the polishing process after reshaping the weapon made the time even more pressing.

"Am I really going to abandon the one-handed sword?" Shi Feng looked at the remaining time, his mind filled with thoughts.

If he continued to use a one-handed sword, the remaining time might not be enough to reach a 70% completion rate. All the materials would be wasted, and he would have to collect the materials for creating a Legendary item himself.

With Zero Wing's current strength, collecting a set of materials for creating a Legendary item was a pipe dream. Even if they could gather them, he would probably have found a suitable weapon by then, and the backlash from the Demonic Weapon would be even stronger.

But if he changed it to a two-handed sword, it would be useless to him personally. It would be almost impossible to change it back to a one-handed sword later. After all, he had only encountered the Abyssal Blade's fragments by chance. Who knew how long he would have to wait to encounter them again?

"Damn it! A ratio of 17% is too little, and a ratio of 18% is too much. With the current number of tests, there's no time for more precise testing." Shi Feng watched the dwindling time, his heart filled with hesitation.

After numerous experiments, the definite ratio was between 17% and 18%. Determining the precise ratio would require five or six more experiments, but there was only one hour left, enough for at most two tests. Then, he would have to polish the weapon, or even if the completion rate was sufficient, the weapon would still be problematic.

"It seems I can only take a gamble."

Shi Feng gritted his teeth and took out the claw he had obtained from the Ice Dragon Haisivette from his bag, and began refining the Ice Dragon's claw.

As one of the only two Legendary materials dropped by the Ice Dragon Haisivette, one had been used to summon the Holy Dragon, leaving only one left. He had originally planned to use it to create a handy Epic weapon for the guild members. After all, even without an Epic weapon design, the Dragon Claw could become a very good Epic weapon with just a little processing. If there was an Epic weapon design, it could even be used to create Legendary item fragments.

Now that the material ratio could not be fully determined, having too much material would be problematic. He could only use the Ice Dragon's claw to make up for the missing part.

After more than ten minutes of refining, the Ice Dragon's claw turned into a deep blue crystal that directly merged into the new Abyssal Blade, giving the sword a faint white glow, exuding a chilling aura. Shi Feng then clicked to inspect.

"It has to work!"

Shi Feng watched the system begin the inspection, silently praying in his heart.