They say the early bird gets the worm, but it seems that the bird that stays up all night grows even faster! Just thinking about the expressions on Sophie Carter and the others when they heard he only wanted those ores, William Smith couldn’t help but laugh. In the minds of these beauties, he was either a fool or had some designs on one of their sisters, so he wanted to use this opportunity to do them a favor.

But if Sophie Carter knew the price of a single Moonlight Stone was actually the activation of a unique, rare quest in the system, she probably wouldn’t have been so willing to make the trade. But since William Smith didn’t say anything, who else would know? With his unparalleled understanding of “Sky Vault” from his previous life, such heaven-defying memories destined William Smith for an extraordinary gaming journey in “Sky Vault.”

Braving the chilly dawn wind, William Smith hurried to the blacksmith’s shop, but hesitated at the door. He realized a problem he had previously overlooked—a very crucial problem: the quest activation rate!

A major feature that sets the “Sky Vault” system apart from other traditional online game quest systems is the concept of quest activation and completion rates. This setting generally doesn’t exist for leveling quests, elite quests, or dungeon quests, but is very apparent in guild quests, large-scale war quests, epic storyline quests, and unique quests. Especially for unique quests, the activation and completion rates are shown to the fullest extent.

William Smith didn’t know how high Ethan Carter had gotten the activation and completion rates for this quest in his previous life. After all, such unique quests were extremely rare, and those involved would never reveal the quest content or trigger conditions. 50%? 70%? Or maybe not even 50%—in any case, it was definitely not 100%. Back in the days when that unique quest was barely known, just triggering it by some random action, persistence, or conversation was already the greatest fortune for a player. How could anyone, like William Smith, have the luxury to deliberately consider the activation rate of a unique quest?

For William Smith, since he already knew about this rare unique quest in advance, if he couldn’t reach 100% activation and completion, it would be his own failure. So, standing at the door of blacksmith Uncle Porter, William Smith had to calm down and think about how to handle the upcoming situation to achieve the perfect activation of the unique quest.

After pondering for a while, William Smith came up with a plan in his mind, and without further hesitation, walked into the blacksmith’s shop…

Chapter 9: The Sealed Thorn Shield

Lifting the heavy curtain, a wave of heat rushed over, instantly dispelling the last trace of winter chill that William Smith had brought in.

“Ding ding ding ding…” Uncle Porter, bare-chested, swung his hammer with both hands, striking the iron billet on the forge again and again, his expression solemn and focused.

William Smith walked in, glanced at the busy Uncle Porter, quietly gave a junior’s respectful greeting, then went to the furnace to take out the ores and began smelting them one by one. For a while, the only sounds in the heat-filled blacksmith shop were the clanging of hammering and the rustling of ores being smelted.

No one knew how much time had passed. The winter sunlight shone through the gap in the heavy curtain, stretching William Smith’s shadow long—it was already noon. “Ding dong, player Lucas Smith has successfully smelted refined steel ore. Forging skill increased to 50 points…”

William Smith let out a long sigh, stretching his sore shoulders and back, thinking to himself that smelting so many ores was truly exhausting. Especially since smelting refined steel ingots had a certain failure rate—if he lost focus, he might not even get one ingot out of ten materials. Still, after a whole morning, the results were quite good: synthesizing 120 refined steel ingots and gaining 50 forging skill points left William Smith quite satisfied.

Looking up, William Smith realized that Uncle Porter had stopped working at some point and was standing quietly to the side, watching him with an unreadable expression. William Smith placed all the refined steel ingots in front of Uncle Porter, rubbed his nose, and smiled, “Uncle Porter, a total of 120 refined steel ingots. That should be enough to make a bronze-quality shield, right?”

Porter didn’t even glance at the pile of refined steel ingots in front of him, just stared at William Smith, his expression shifting. After a long while, he slowly said, “Kid, you really are a persistent one.”

“Heh heh…” William Smith didn’t reply, just chuckled. He sensed that Uncle Porter was about to say something important, which was exactly what he cared about most.

What would the quest activation rate be? William Smith was anxious—would a whole morning’s hard work yield the result he wanted?

“When I was young, I had a very close friend.” Porter picked up his pipe and took a puff, his expression tinged with sorrow and nostalgia. The reminiscing even affected William Smith, who stood quietly to the side, listening to Uncle Porter’s memories.