Free The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3) by Vasily Mahanenko

increased the Hardiness and Scroll Scribe specializations to 10%. The next 5% would come at level 150 of the profession, so it was still some way off. I didn't even bother visiting the Cooking and Repair trainers – with my level in these professions there wasn't much for me to do there. Now only Jewelcraft remained.
    "Welcome, how can I help you at such a late hour?" A colorful gnome greeted me elaborately. Sporting a red velvet dressing gown, tied with a patterned belt, the Jeweler constantly fiddled with his beard as if he had no other purpose for his hands.
    "I've come to be trained," was my simple reply. I had a brief chance to look through the scrolls sent by Evolett and not one of them was for someone with a profession level lower than a 100. I was still too much of a beginner for them with my 42 levels.
    "Please touch the book," said the trainer, clearly losing interest. It was a strange that only Jewelers required you to touch the skill book; other trainers that I had known managed without it. Not wishing to disappoint the gnome I put my hands on the book, where some incomprehensible symbols immediately appeared and came together to form a text.
    The gnome quickly glanced at the emerging lines, turned around, took a step away and then froze. Extremely slowly he turned his head again toward the book, took another slow step back and stared intently at the text. An eternity seemed to go by (no more than a minute in actual fact) before the trainer recovered from the shock. What a strange Intellect Imitator this NPC has – it seems altogether too involved in playing out the role.
    "The Cursed Artificer that has turned into the Blessed Artificer; the author of the Cursed Chess Pieces and the Orc Warriors from the Karmadont Chess Set; the creator of exact copies of the Dwarf Warriors from the Karmadont Chess set," the trainer breathed out loudly, tore his gaze away from the book and looked at me. "It's been a while since I've had such an interesting student," he paused and then said, chuckling, "with just 42 levels in the profession. Did you level up in your skill only by creating Rare and Unique items?"
    "No, I ..."
    "It doesn't matter," the Jeweler interrupted me "you've come to learn and I will teach you. What would you like to know?"
    "I need all the recipes for my level and want to offer you this one." I opened my Jewelcraft recipe book, created a scroll with the Stone Rose recipe and handed it to the gnome. "I would also like to learn how to sift Ore so I can get precious stones from it. I think that's it."
    The gnome gave me a businesslike glance, chuckled, took out a piece of granite from under the counter, as if it was just waiting for him there, closed his eyes and in just a few seconds was holding my Rose in his hands.
    "Mahan's Stone Rose ...' I can offer 50000 gold for the recipe right now or you can get 60–70 for it if you put it up for auction. What would you prefer?"
    "Send it to the Auction House. I'm in no rush to get the money, so no point losing out on the extra 10000."
    "All right." The scroll and the Rose created by the trainer disappeared and I acquired yet another agreement, this time about the sale of the recipe scroll at the Auction House. "I have no scrolls for someone of your skill level – you should gain at least 10 more levels and come back then. As for the sifting, this isn't that hard to teach. It would be more difficult to actually get any stones out of Ore. You may have a decent drop chance for beginner level precious stones and rare minerals, but getting a Sapphire would be near impossible. The percentage chance is just too low. But if you still want it, it'll cost you 10000 gold."
     
    Your character has acquired a new ability: Ore sifting (requirement: knowledge of the Jewelcraft profession). There is some chance of getting a Precious Stone from the sifted Ore. During the sifting the Ore disappears. The chance of getting a precious stone depends on the Ore level and the level of