Lord of the Rings Online has been around for 14 years, during which time players have defeated countless orcs, goblins, and sometimes balrogs. Naturally, the MMO gravitates toward the more adventurous and violent aspects of Tolkien's world, but one player has reached level 130 in the most hobbit-like way possible.

His name is Cookingwithsim and he is a hobbit on the Evernight server. For the past eight months, Cookingwithsim has been either in the kitchen every day or out gathering ingredients to make pies, slowly working his way up to the maximum level using the few experience points he has gained. It's a mission that will likely require baking at least a million pies.

This feat happened about nine days ago, when players gathered in-game to celebrate as Cookingwithsim earned the last of the 205,829,281 experience points needed to bake a pie at the finish line. The mini celebration was shared on LotRO's subreddit, where other players marveled at Cookingwithsim's tenacity.

"I think the only way Tolkien would approve more is if storytelling could raise the bar," one player wrote.

"To the oven and back again: A Hobbit's Tale," wrote another player.

Cookingwithsim stopped by to answer a few questions, explaining that he doesn't know exactly how many pies he baked before reaching 130, but that he often baked 10,000-15,000 in batches, "testing the limits of bag and safe space." While the exp per pie depends on several factors, players typically only get about 50 exp per crafted item. This would require approximately 4 million pies. Cookingwithsim also explained that they sourced most of the ingredients themselves. And the pie they chose was the Nine Star Pie, which required two types of dough, jam, venison, and goat cheese. Fortunately, according to Cookingwithsim, they sold these pies in the game's marketplace for a total profit of about G2,000." It was always a challenge," they write." It was a lot of hard work, but with the encouragement of their friends, they were able to accomplish it in a reasonable amount of time. It certainly helped to fill in the time during my incarceration.

Cookingwithsim's journey overlaps with other MMO players who have had great success in finding alternative routes to level maximum that do not involve killing. In "World of Warcraft," for example, one player spent years leveling a Pandaren monk to maximum level simply by picking flowers found in the starting zone. Each time a new expansion is released, they go back and pick millions more flowers to reach the new level cap.

Thanks, MMORPG.com.