Jack quickly found a guide that explained everything Marty hadn’t. A generous player laid out a step-by-step walkthrough for assembling the toy mouse. A series of screenshots illustrated exactly what to do.
“Thank you, InspectorGadget. You deserve a medal,” Jack muttered. “Okay, let’s see here. Step one: Secure the gearbox to the baseplate.”
The gearbox was barely larger than a die, with fine grooves etched into its sides and a faint oily sheen coating its surface. Jack lined it up with the baseplate, tilted it until the grooves aligned, and pressed down.
Click. There was a quiet, mechanical snap that felt oddly satisfying.
He glanced back at the guide. “Step two: Anchor the axles and brace them.”
The axles were two thin rods, no thicker than matchsticks. He held one carefully between his thumb and forefinger, trying not to drop it. The brace wasn’t much bigger than a button, and he had to steady his hand to keep it from slipping.
But once he aligned the pieces, they fit together easily. The brace snapped into place with a soft pop.
“Step three,” he murmured. “Insert the crank.”
The crank was half the size of the mouse casing. He fed it through the top opening and twisted until it slotted into the gearbox. A faint whir vibrated through his fingertips as it clicked into place.
He gave it a wind and let go. The axles turned.
“Step four. Add the wheels.”
He didn’t bother checking the pictures this time. He pressed the wheels onto the axles and secured them with a spring to keep them from slipping off. The spring made a slight metallic ting as it settled into place.
Finally, he snapped the casing shut. One half-turn of the crank, and he set the toy mouse down on the workbench. It scurried forward in a straight line.
“That was way easier than I thought,” he said, almost surprised.
It was a strange feeling. Such tiny components. Such meticulous work—and it had almost felt easy. His hands hadn’t wobbled once. It was like they were on autopilot.
“It has to be because of my agility stat,” he murmured.
Crafting bonuses were supposed to improve product quality and crafting grade, but agility also influenced fine motor control: steadier hands, cleaner motions, fewer slips.
Curious, he opened his character sheet.
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: JackofDiamonds
Level: 30
Fame: 37
Class: Handyman
Mount: Snowy, the Ground Sloth
Minors:
[Bushcraft] lvl. 10
[Pottery] lvl. 10
[Journeyman Bard] lvl. 3
[Journeyman Beekeeper] lvl. 2
[Butcher] lvl. 10
[Journeyman Brewer] lvl. 8
Titles:
[Consistent Quality], [Embersgate Civil Servant], [Epic Craftsman], [Pursuer of Perfection], [Innovating Pioneer], [Junior Craftsman], [Museum Donor], [Named Artist], [Novice Explorer], [Overreacher], [S-Grade Adventurer], [Slayer of Monsters], [Uniqueness], [Augmenter], [The Defending Heroes], [Bush Gourmand]
ATTRIBUTES
Hit Points: 273 / 273
Stamina Points: 248 / 248
Movement Speed: 178%
Jump: 16
Attack: 1
Strength: 7
Constitution: 32
Agility: 61
Intellect: 43
Luck: 7
RESISTANCES
Defense: 79
Block: 31
Cutting Resistance: 3
Fire Resistance: 8
Cold Resistance: 2
EQUIPMENT
Right-Hand: [Empty]
Off-Hand: [Empty]
Head: [Tempered Bulrush Rope Hat]
Torso: [Tempered Bulrush Rope Overall]
Pants: [Bulrush Rope Overall]
Gloves: [Shagrat Bone Armguards]
Shoes: [Tempered Bulrush Rope Sandals]
Cape: [Flying Marmoset Pelt]
Earrings: [Clay Disk Earrings]
Necklace: [Cobalt Romie Tooth Pendant]
Right Hand: [Time Ring]
SKILLS
Class Skills:
[Minor Synergy], [Unbound Knowledge]
Fighting:
[Battle Charisma], [Blocking Stance], [Dash], [Gear Grinder], [Heavy Strike], [Retreat], [Primate Agility]
Bard:
[Angry Void], [Attack Call], [Clay Dome], [Cry of the Mastodons], [Dance of the Turtles], [Feast Call], [Into the Breach], [Jolly Good Fellow], [Lily Lullaby], [March of the Embers], [Morning of Spring], [Ocarina Mastery], [Retreat Call], [Self-Taught], [Sitting Wind], [Sonic Valley], [Soulful Performer], [Start of the Hunt Call], [Swing Step], [Tenderizing Repercussions], [Horn Mastery]
Beekeeping:
[Brood Breeding], [Candle Making], [Friendly Scent], [Honey Harvesting], [Hive Ownership], [Nectar Harvesting], [Queen Breeding], [Sturdy Sting], [Wax Factory]
Brewing:
[Brew], [Brewmaster’s Insight], [Cellar Management], [Enduring Flavor], [Field Remedy], [Spirits Aging], [Vinegar Making]
Bushcraft:
[Bush Immunity], [Camping], [Fat Coating], [Field Remedy], [First Aid], [Forage], [Kindle], [Rope Waxing], [Rope Weaving], [Sautéing], [Sticksmithing], [Survival Cooking], [Survival Pickling], [Water Sniffing]
Butcher:
[Bone Carving], [Fat Preservation], [Lipid Extraction], [Luck of the Hunter], [Meat Carving], [Meat Salting], [Meatpacker], [Pelt Mantle], [Skinning]
No wonder things felt so smooth.
There it was: 61 agility. He had to ask Amari how high that was, but he had the feeling some rogues at his level might not even have that much.
He looked over at Marty, still working at breakneck speed. How much agility did this NPC even have?
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Jack cracked his knuckles and got started. There was no point in dragging this out. The faster he finished, the faster he could get back to his plans to earn real coin.
*
Thirty minutes later, there was a crate filled to the rim with toy mice. Plucking a hundred chickens during his butcher trial had taken longer than this.
Marty clapped a heavy hand on Jack’s shoulder. “There we go! A thousand toy mice. I couldn’t have done it without you!”
Jack suppressed a snort. Sure. Like he couldn’t have whipped up a thousand on his own.
When Marty said “a thousand toy mice,” Jack had assumed they’d split the workload fifty-fifty. But despite Jack’s high agility, Marty’s speed was on another level. At one point, Jack looked over and saw that Marty had finished three more toys while he was still lining up a single axle. By the time they were done, Marty had assembled nine hundred of them.
“Oops,” Marty said, lifting a mouse from the top of the pile. “Made one too many. Go on. Take it.”
“Thank you,” Jack said, accepting the toy.
Toy Mice (Common)
It draws some attention but breaks easily. A particularly energetic cat may bother chasing it.
Crafting grade: A
Durability: 4
Effect: Has a chance of drawing aggro from weak creatures.
He raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t a cat toy, but an aggro trinket. He couldn’t imagine himself using it. Any warrior could draw aggro better, and Horace wasn’t just any warrior. Moreover, as a bard, he could also pull aggro with Angry Void.
Still, Jack pocketed it. He’d just sell it later.
Marty spoke as he closed the lid of the crate tightly. “Feel free to swing by my shop any time. Sometimes I need help with orders and errands.”
Jack gave a polite nod. “Appreciate it, sir.”
He didn’t plan on coming back, but keeping doors open never hurt.
As Marty sealed the crate and carried it off, a soft chime echoed in Jack’s ears.
Congratulations!
You’ve become a [Novice Tinker].
You’ve learned: [Tinker’s Touch].
You’ve learned a recipe: [Toy Mice].
His seventh minor. Just like that.
He waited for the flurry of synergy messages to follow.
I wonder how many it’ll be this time. Six? Seven?
But there was nothing. No satisfying ping of interconnected progress. No cascade of new bonuses. Just… silence.
“Uh? It doesn’t synergize with anything?”
It was the first time since becoming a Handyman that a new profession had greeted him with dead silence. How was it possible that Tinkering didn’t connect with any of his six other minors?
If it weren’t for the recipe he’d picked up from the Breach, which required pottery and tinkering, he would have been worried. But there was something special at the end of this tunnel, and he intended to reach it.
He opened the map and looked for a marketplace between Marty’s workshop and his house. Sure enough, one sat right along the main street.
Jack took off, weaving between the slums and the city, the shadow and torchlight. In just a few minutes, he reached the marketplace.
He opened the trade window. Small gearboxes, axles, wheels, cranks, mouse casings, every part he needed was listed for just a few coppers each. Jack bought stacks of each component. The whole bill didn’t even reach twenty silvers.
On the walk back to the house, a question started to nag at him: Who on earth was making these components?
He turned one of the gearboxes over in his palm. Such a little thing with tiny grooves, perfect symmetry, a spring, and gear wheels inside. This wasn’t easy work. Someone, somewhere, was putting serious skill into these for pocket change.
Something didn’t add up.
He opened the browser and began typing: “Who makes the gearboxes in—” The prompt filled in the rest of the sentence automatically.
Who makes tinkering ingredients in New Earth?
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Looks like I’m not the only curious cat out there.”
He clicked on the top result.
Who Makes Tinkering Ingredients?
#crafting #tinkering #recycling #newearth
Poster: ToolTalk88
Post: Hi, everyone! I’m just curious—who actually makes the ingredients for tinkering in New Earth? Stuff like bolts, screws, gearboxes, gearwheels? I haven’t found any specific minor that crafts them.
Comments
WrenchWiz34: Recyclers.
Shadownut23: Recyclers.
PartGnome07: Recyclers buy the cheapest junk they can find, throw it into compactors or recycling forges, and get a bunch of random crafting parts. Bolts, pegs, screws, gears, toy casings… basically anything other minors don’t make, recyclers dig up.
ForgeFlopper: Recycling is such a lazy minor. You dump trash into a glorified loot box and make bank.
EcoCrafter11: There’s an art to it.
ForgeFlopper: Yeah. Right.
Jack chuckled. “Is that how recycling works? I definitely need to pick that up sometime.”
The idea of buying garbage in bulk and tossing it into a machine that spat out value was almost magical. But if his six other minors had taught him anything, it was that there was no easy profit in New Earth. There had to be a catch.
He made it to the house and closed the door behind him. The Time Field shimmered faintly, casting slow, wavy distortions across the air like heat rising off asphalt. He stepped into it.
“Okay. Level 7 in Tinkering. Those are the requirements for the recipe. Let’s see what made it worth a blessed legendary chest.”
He sat down and began laying out the parts: mouse casings, gearboxes, axles, cranks, and wheels. Then he got to work.
Gearboxes clicked into place, axles snapped in, cranks turned. He left the casing open, one step short of finishing. By the time he finished, two hundred nearly-complete mice sat before him. Now it was time to launch the XP rocket.
He stood and arranged vases in a circle around him. He’d done this a million times. He could eyeball the exact radius of the vases, placing each one just right so the bonus effects overlapped perfectly.
He pulled out the ocarina and raised it to his lips. As the melody echoed through the room, every ceramic around Jack began to hum. His terracoated armor, his clay earrings, the vases placed at each corner of the house—they all trembled faintly. As the final note rang out, a red shimmer sealed over each object like a protective skin.
You’ve played [Clay Dome].
All ceramics nearby are immune to damage.
“Here we go.”
Jack got to work. He picked a toy, closed the casing, and threw it to the side, picking up another.
You’ve assembled a [Toy Mouse].
+2 XP in Tinkering
+22 XP in Tinkering
…
He moved through the pile of toys as quickly as he could, snapping each casing shut one after another.
His XP bar surged, huge chunks at a time. With all bonuses stacked, he was earning twelve times the base XP. He only needed to assemble four mice to gain his first level.
Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 2 in Tinkering.
You’ve learned a new skill: [Duct Taper]
Oh man. It took me forever to level up Bushcraft and Pottery to level 2 when I first started. This combo’s broken.
Now, with each assembly, the bar climbed a little slower—but still quickly enough.
Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 3 in Tinkering.
You’ve learned a new recipe: [Chattering Teeth].
Tinkering and Butchering synergize.
You’ve learned a new recipe: [Chattering Jaws].
Jack’s heart skipped a beat. His first synergy!
But he didn’t stop, didn’t even pause. Clay Dome’s buff was still active, and he wanted to make the most of it. It flickered out just before he reached Level 4.
He finally allowed himself to go through the notifications. The effects of the first skill made him chuckle.
Duct Taper (Common)
You’ve mastered the subtle art of slapping things together with duct tape.
Skill level: 1
Skill effects: Enables the use of [Duct Tape] in Tinkering recipes as a binding or sealing component.
“Chattering teeth. Is it that weird toy?”
He’d seen it before at fairs, where vendors sat behind cluttered tables and cranked the thing up to catch the attention of passing kids. But that didn’t explain what it did in-game.
He opened the browser and searched the term. It didn’t take long to find a video: a group of beginner players fighting porkies. One of them cranked the toy and lobbed it into the middle of the mob.
Two of the porkies panicked and took off running.
So, it’s the opposite of the toy mouse. It scares mobs instead of pulling them.
Then he glanced at the second recipe.
Chattering Jaws, huh?
The description of the recipe looked nearly identical, but instead of plastic dentures, this one used large bone jaws. And the gearbox was scaled up accordingly.
Is it just a bigger, badder version? Or does it do something different?
He would try it out later.
Shrugging, he played Clay Dome one more time. As soon as the red shimmer spread over the ceramics, he got back to work.
Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 4 in Tinkering.
You’ve learned a new skill: [Gadgeteer Natural].
You’ve assembled a [Toy Mouse].
+1 XP in Tinkering
+11 XP in Tinkering
…
The returns were already tapering off. The toy mouse recipe was too basic for his current level of tinkering. But with the multiplier still active, 12 XP per toy was nothing to scoff at.
He kept going. Level 4. Level 5.
Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 5 in Tinkering.
You’ve learned a new recipe: [Jack-in-a-Box].
The pile of finished items grew, while the pile of unfinished toys shrank.
