Lian stood in front of the orb, her green eyes filled with excitement about unlocking her system. Starting from today she can truly follow in her adoptive father's footsteps and become an arcane blacksmith.

  When she touched the orb, it began to glow as she synced up with the heart of the cosmos. She stood there as she watched the system download into her soul, updating her very existence.

  [System Uploaded]

  The first thing she noticed was that she had a title and just from reading it she just took it as confirmation of how skilled her father was.

  “Can you stop showing me up?” She asked out loud after reading it with a smile. She didn’t realize she said it out loud but was just impressed she got such a good title from the start.

  Her attention was snapped back to reality when the overseer coughed to get her attention and asked her to step aside for the next person. She obliged but went back to reading her status as she left and nearly yelled out when she read her affinity.

  Her face turned bright red from the embarrassment of it as she reread it and even pulled up the description.

  As embarrassed as she was, she was surprised to find out that she had a hidden attribute and went straight to seeing it and was surprised to see that it was an 18.

  Lian stopped looking at her status screen long enough to look for a place to sit as she looked through the rest of it. It wasn’t hard to find a seat since the GAT guild hall is usually empty on this backwater planet. She chose to come to the guildhall to connect to the system for that very reason.

  Once she sat down the next thing, she looked at was her health and mana. While she had no plans on joining the military or becoming a hunter, she still thought it was worth seeing what her starting point was in case she did need to go hunting herself.

  Stolen story; please report.

  She was happy with her health since she was expecting it to be around 90 but her mana was blowing her mind. She expected it to be around 70 or 80, but it was instead double that. She won’t complain since her father told her that having high mana made it easier to place better enchantments on equipment and to manipulate the flames in the forge.

  The last thing she looked at was her passive skill metalsmithing. She expected something like this but to think she already got the higher form of blacksmithing. She thinks it had to do with the occasional bronze equipment she had to make or the triplets forcing her to make jewelry for them.

  ‘Whatever.’ She thought she couldn’t hide the smile as she got up.

  As she was heading to the door someone called out to her. When she turned around, she saw one of the suits run up to her.

  “You’re Lilliana Hughes, correct?” He inquired, trying to hide the fact that he was out of breath.

  “I go by Lian but yes.”

  “My name is Dante Fowl. Mind if we have a chat in my office?” He asked while gesturing for her to follow.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Lian tried to figure out if she had done anything wrong but couldn’t think of anything. She just came in, got connected to the system and then relaxed. Normally she window shops the various crafting materials.

  “Not at all but an error came up when your status screen was copied into the UGC database and just want to confirm something.”

  He was a little shifty, but Lian wanted to stay on GAT’s good side since she would need to at least be an outside member if she wanted to get by as a blacksmith. Though when they arrived at his office she was confused as to why he was treating her like some kind of VIP.

  “Now can you show me the title you got when you connected to the system?” Mr. Fowl was quite insistent on this so Lian showed it to him and he could barely contain his excitement. “Ms. Hughes, do you have plans on joining the Guild of Artisans and Tradesman?”

  “I was actually, planning on taking the apprentice test in a month or two now that I’m connected to the system.”

  Mr. Fowl smiled and breathed a small sigh of relief when he heard this as he pulled out some paper to give Lian.

  “Due to your title the Guild of Artisans and Tradesman are willing to acknowledge you as an apprentice. Just sign these papers and you will be an official outer member.” He informed as he slid the paper and a pen to her.

  She read through it all and there was no catch. She was surprised by this and planned to ask her father about this, but for now signed it since she was going to join anyway.

  “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on joining the guild, Ms. Hughes” He congratulated as he shook Lian's hand and some pop-ups came at the same time.

  [Acquired Title “Apprentice Smith”]

  The fact that she got the cultural title, Apprentice Smith, she knew this was the real deal. Lian then thanked Mr. Fowl and quickly left. The second she was out of the guild hall she couldn’t contain her excitement and ran home screaming her head off in joy. While she was embarrassed by her affinity everything else was better than she could have hoped for.

  *

  *

  When she got home, she ran into the house with enough force that those who were prepared to throw her a surprise birthday party were caught off guard and everyone could see that she was just a bundle of energy. None of them had ever seen her this excited except when it came to forging things.

  “Happy Birthday!” They yelled, lacking unison as they tried not to laugh at the situation. While none of the people here were her family by blood, they all came to acknowledge each other as a family just from watching Lian grow.

  “How did it go?!” Roark asked with enthusiasm. Like the others Roark Thunderfist was originally just a customer for Lian’s adoptive father but as he kept returning, he eventually started seeing her as his niece. For Lian, Roark was the loud, crazy uncle. Between his tall, rugged look and the chaotic smile that screamed ‘life is tough but I’m tougher’ energy.

  During all this, he had Lian in a massive bear hug causing his five o’clock shadow to scratch her face.

  “Air.. Can’t breathe.” Lian gasped. Roark immediately let go while laughing it off. He gave a very energetic apology as his hand nervously found its way through his short black hair.

  “Can’t you control yourself for five minutes?” Sol asked. If Roark was the crazy uncle, then Sol O’her was the serious and reliable uncle. Like all others present Sol was a hunter and became a regular at this smithy for the quality equipment. He could also be seen as Roark’s complete opposite, not just in personality but fighting style and beliefs.

  Where Roark fights with his bare hands and using minimum equipment, Sol dual wields katanas and always prepares for as many possibilities as he can. If Roark prefers to engage the enemy head-on, loud and proud, then Sol prefers to outmaneuver his adversary. The only part of their philosophy they can agree on is to not rely on the skills they have acquired and hone the fundamentals of their chosen fighting style.

  “Oh, come on! You were just as excited as I was!” Roark roared in response as Lian managed to slip away.

  “Keep this up and not only will you break one of her bones with your strength, but Pops will definitely beat the snot out of you again.” Sol lectured and Lian went over to her sisters before she could be dragged in.

  “Where’s Pops?” Lian inquired.

  “He’s been getting phone calls non-stop for the last thirty minutes.” Alexa answered and since her body couldn’t sit still when she spoke her short spiky hair bobbed around with every other word. Alexa was the middle child of the triplets. Her blue eyes sparked with electricity and mischievous energy as she began to think of what her next little prank would be, and her playful smile did her no favors in hiding her intentions.

  Like Lian’s uncles, these three are hunters as well but they achieved their levels at a young age so compared to the others it felt right for Lian to call them sisters instead of her aunts. While the three were actual triplets the classes they chose caused subtle changes to their physical appearances, so they were easy to tell apart.

  Sera took this moment to pull Lian into a hug as she dragged her to the couch so they could all sit. Seraphina was the oldest of the three, but only by half a minute according to Alexa. Sera always took it upon herself to protect others, and this protective nature of hers was only amplified by her bold, confident, and (worse) passionate personality. Her amber eyes glared at Alexa to silently tell her to behave while she tried not to sit on her long red hair while holding onto Lian.

  “Alright, that’s enough everyone,” Winter yelled out as she came out with the birthday cake. Her long white hair flowed as she walked gracefully towards the coffee table. Her icy blue eye congratulated Lian while her calm composed aura helped everyone stop whatever shenanigans that were or would soon be.

  Pops was evidently done yelling into the phone as he followed behind her. He was the real source of everyone stopping. Roark learned the hard way years ago why everyone called him Pops. Break a rule and all you will hear is your eardrums popping. Despite being the same size as Lian at 5’8” he was a force no one wanted to go against. Because of his dadbod, everyone assumed he wasn’t in great shape, but most forget that the constant workout that blacksmiths get. While this usually meant they had terrifying grips, Pops used those same muscles to beat troublesome customers.

  “Looks like we’re all here now.” He smiled while stroking his messy beard.

  They sang the birthday song and cut the cake while asking about her attributes and plans from now on, so she told them about her attributes, including charm, and her title. The only thing she left out was her lust affinity.

  While the others were happy to hear that she got accepted by GAT as an outer member already a worried look appeared on Pop's face, while he tried to hide it Alexa was making Lian's vibrant orange statically charged, making her shoulder-length hair go in all directions.

  When the commotion died down everyone got their presents for her out. The triplets got her an ingot of oglunite, a type of living metal that makes for great crafting tools. Pops was immediately advising Lian to make a new forging hammer from it. When this was revealed, Roark cursed as if he lost some competition while Pops was advising Lian to make a new forging hammer from it.

  Pops said that his present is learning his manaurgy techniques later, as well as how to forge equipment out of beast parts.

  Roark got Lian a ring to help her forge longer which the triplets complained about, since they not-so-secretly want Lian to have a life outside the smithy. They only got her the oglunite because they knew she would never give it up.

  Lastly, Sol gave a 5000-credit gift card for the GAT market. He was labeled unoriginal and cheap, but he defended himself vigorously saying that Lian had too many personal projects to get some random material for.

  When the night winded down everyone left to go rest and leave the planet as they all had something going on. For Lian it was a good day, and she could only see things getting better from there.