[Taronn Anvilmarr]

I suspect that your supposition is correct in the OP. If a blacksmith hits a kobold then his blunt weapon skills will come into play and if he hits a metal bar in the forge his smith skills come into play. I am hoping at least that is how it will work. I have always beleived from my first reading that the "Sphere" concept is just how they are explaining the separated areas that you can gather experience in - they are separating the stats too (str, dex, agi, wis, etc...) for each sphere. By saying the harvesting is just a skill set not a sphere then they removed the separate lvls and stats associated with harvesting.

This is just how i looked at it.