Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Once the old man was out the door, Seth turned toward the sorceress.

"Aaaal~ Can you help me make a spatial equipment to store my golems in?" he asked since he was already here.

It was a pain to walk all the way, every time he wanted to speak with her. The sorceress vehemently refused to use a mobile phone and her building was shielded from the magic signals of communication crystals.

"I don't have time for that now. Did you forget about the whole business of setting up a defense system for Delta and your method of making ? Yeah, I'm only supervising one of those crazy projects for you on the side."

"That means you will help me do it once that is finished? Great. I have stuff to do, too. I can wait," he immediately forced the promise on the sorceress.

He knew for a fact that the slippery lich would immediately try to back out of this deal if he didn't fix it right away. It was almost tragic, how hard it was to get something for free from Al'Zalsar, now that she had an independent body.

Nothing is so hard, as a lich's ingratitude, Seth lamented to himself. A thought Al'Zalsar would smite him for if she could read his thoughts.

"You know, maybe if you stay the night, I might think about doing it now." the sorceress said provocatively, licking her lips. She knew exactly how to get rid of him when she was annoyed.

"No! It's okay. I can wait. Bye!" he was suddenly in a hurry to leave.

Although he was sure Mina would understand, his hips might give out is he had to spend a night with an incensed Al'Zalsar. He hurried back to Minas Mar. Before he returned to his workshop, Seth thought of visiting Karina.

He had been a little busy with his own stuff and had not looked after her for a while. After their excursion along the To-be-Trade-Route, the situation of the Hangingtree in the cellar of Minas Mar had calmed down.

With over ten auxiliary trees it had an energy sink for all the overflowing mana it absorbed from the surrounding mountains. Since the branch trees outside could grow as much as they wanted, there were no more problems and the root egg had receded.

When he entered the cavern past the herb gardens, they look almost normal again, like the day when he revived the tree. They had decorated the branches of the massive tree with dozens of magic lanterns that illuminated the place.

Besides the thick trunk was now a small square with benched made of giant roots, peaking out from the ground. Here, the blacksmith found the dryad teaching a group of children. They were not just Pip and her friends, but there were also Ruby, Tekar's daughter, and some of the Tijaahk children present.

It felt a little like a daycare. She was teaching them nature magic using the games she called the Seven Serras, as she used to in the past. Seth had no intention to disturb their lesson and sneaked back out. He was glad Karina and the children had actually managed to find back to some semblance of normality.

Neither Pip and her friends, nor the Tijaahk children had it easy in the past months. Seeing them able to laugh and play together again warmed his heart.

Feeling really good for some reason, he returned to the workshop and got back to refining more composite plates from dragon scales and Scorpio's exoskeleton.

He had already prepared the plates for the pauldrons, however, he wanted to make the cuirass first. The cuirass could be called the heart of the armor, as it would protect his torso and all the squishy, important stuff he needed to live.

In anticipation of that, he planned on using two scales, one for the chest plate and one for the back plate, for his cuirass. Since he would die of exhaustion after just processing one, he would have to wait for tomorrow. To start with the cuirass in his best condition he decided to start working on it the day after tomorrow.

Seth already had an idea of what he would do in the meantime. He worked on solving something that had kept bothering him lately. While his and skills had already reached Craftsman lv.7, his skill had fallen far behind, only being lv. 4.

Since he had a massive chunk of from Polter in storage, the tower master decided to show the mages of Minas Mar some love and create accessory sets using the . The magical silver metal had not only an incredible magic conductivity, that could quicken the casting process, but it also showed properties similar to and could inherently help gather mana.

The blacksmith had no problem quickly coming up with a simple, but modern design. In a way, it was similar to the sanguine silver weapons he had made previously. By choosing the most practical design for the jewelry pieces, he was able to streamline the crafting process and become quicker and quicker in making them.

Seth came up with two kinds of jewelry sets, that only differed in their enchantments. On one hand, there were those the members of Minas Mar would be able to earn with contribution points, on the other hand, there would be a set with the Oath-effect, just like the Oatharmor.

Up to now, there were no standardized Oathguard jewelry sets for the simple reason that he was lacking. Before, he was lacking in skills and materials.

Now he had not just the in abundance, but also souls. Thanks to his supply of souls had stabilized. There was no reason to be stingy in the use of small and medium souls anymore

And his skills had vastly improved, compared to when he made the Oatharmors. Infusing a soul allowed him to emulate the way magic enchantments worked to some extent, by not needing to engrave a formation directly onto the item.

Depending on the soul they would still need to use their own mana to power the items' effects, but this was not much different from most enchantments made by an enchanter.

With his skills having reached craftsman level, he could now use up to four different effects by simplifying their circuits. He could now use the soul to carry some more effects, than just the oath to Minas Mar, as it had been with the armors.

With confidence in his skills and an abundance of resources, he saw no reason why not to create another reason for people to join and stay with Minas Mar.

As he started, he also found that the souls Tano'Mol had given him were bigger in general than the ones Seth would collect when they dropped. From his experience of fusing souls, he knew that the size of the soul had to do with its inherent mana.

The minimum sizes he found out were 100 mana to be a medium soul, 1000 to be a big soul, and 10000 for massive souls. When he picked up dropped souls they were usually just above this threshold.

The souls Tano'Mol gave him, however, were similar in size to the ones he would personally harvest. A medium soul could be any size between 100 and 1000 and a small soul could be anything between 1 and 100 hundred.

Which meant the demon's collection method was definitely better than the system's random drops and slightly worse than Seth's harvesting, which had a good chance to preserve memories and even an ego.

Why this was important now, was because this was the only reason the jewelry he was making now would differ in performance. Since he could only roughly guess the size of the soul, without using his appraisal skill, he would sometime end up with relic-rated oath accessories or epic-rated general jewelry.

The souls could be big enough to turn his enchantment into permanent effects, or not. Some were even big enough to offer additional mana for the wearer. This was not necessarily what Seth had planned, but it made the work slightly more exciting.

Right? Where was the fun, if everyone would and could get the exact same gear? If they priced the items based on their performance, he was sure it would spark some healthy competition among the Oathguard and the other people of Minas Mar.

Aside from the Oathguard, there were still the field teams, the Tijaahk, and the chimeras who were on their way back. Especially the latter were something Seth was looking forward to. The chimeras had taken some time to counsel among themselves to decide whether they wanted to stay at Mount Agra or return.

In the end, half of the chimeras had only recently decided to return to Minas Mar, while the others wanted to found a branch office of Minas Mar in the mountain city. If they were willing, they would play a big part in the future of the trade route.

This was one of the reasons why he enjoyed even this rather monotonous work. His thoughts could wander and his mind could relax.

The average oath accessory looked something like this.

Epic

Durability: 1700

1.+35% Mana Regeneration

2.+25% Mana Cost Reduction

3. +15% Chant Reduction

4. +50 INT

5. +50 WIL

6. +150 Mana

An epic necklace created by Craftsman Smith from precious materials and enchanted through unknown means. A great item for any caster.

Requirement: Affiliated and Loyal to Minas Mar.>