Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Looking at the progress of the past week made him feel rather satisfied. Even though his treasure hunt for Schalk had ended in a dud, he had not slacked when it came to his skills. Not only had he managed to finally reach lv. 72, but his skills were also growing.

The difference in proficiency gain between levels was quite harsh between the levels. While his had reached lv.7, his had reached 70% of lv.8. His was only at 40% of lv8 since he concentrated on accessories to have catch up.

Even with the bonus, leveling craftsman-tier skills was hard if one didn't make legendary items. Becoming a master was no joke, it was no wonder there were few human blacksmith masters. If Seth didn't have the buff from being an ori huma, his class, and the many chances he managed to grasp, it would take years or decades to accumulate this much proficiency. It was quite possible people simply died of old age before reaching the master-tier if they lived their lives as ordinary blacksmiths.

However, with Seth's current access to high-grade materials, his growing production speed, and having no worries about finding customers, meant that he looked forward to reaching the master tier in the next couple of weeks.

His own growth was going smoothly, but it didn't mean the past week was without hiccups. It had been two weeks since his speech and there had been some peace after that incident. Yet, it seemed that the attacks started again recently.

This time, however, the invisible attackers faced stronger opposition, since Minas Mar started selling simple detection devices for an affordable price. This was thanks to Hoen, who managed to mass produce a charm with the life-detection enchantment.

They were by far not as powerful or accurate as Seth's facial hair detection devices, or mustache detectors for short, but they did the job and looked less silly.

In addition, there were still people fanning the flames and spreading rumors, despite their big demonstration during the public event. Fortunately, few people still bought into it, thanks to their current actions.

Still, there were vocal elements that tried to put the blame on Minas Mar, mostly their competitors on the market. Mary suspected the foreign merchants to use the chance as a petty revenge for Seth's crackdown on the accessory market.

When it came to Minas Mar, they could do whatever they wanted. At this point, they had fixed dealings with many of the bigger players in Delta, not to mention the Adventurer Guild, the System Church, and Chrona itself still buying their magic crystals. Even if people believed the rumors, they couldn't harm their business.

The by far biggest hiccup concerned the trade route. While the first teams of people from Sigma were soon going to set off for the tree stations, news from the independent expedition teams of their partners slowly started trickling back to Delta.

While some of the teams were able to find promising places for settlement and mining, many teams ran into trouble. The ones that were able to use home calls in time were lucky. Other completely vanished on their journey west, or only a small part of the survivors managed to return to report what had happened to them.

Seth was not directly involved, but he got Mary's reports that pieced the different information together to form a somewhat coherent picture. One worrying fact was that the further people traveled from Delta, the more powerful beasts became.

They reported beasts and beast hordes above lv.80, reaching lv.90. Taking into account that this was not the situation the Chimera's faced on their way to Mount Agra, the answer that immediately suggested itself was the Age of Gods.

There were no changes in Delta since random portals were blocked and the dungeons were technically overfished. Evidently, this did not mean, that the rest of Urth stayed the same. With the synchronization of their world to the Pathworks, it was very possible, that stronger beasts entered from the randomly appearing portals and wild dungeons.

They also got reports from teams that traveled west, toward Lambda District and the desert. They never reached any of it. In the far west of the mountain range raged an undying ice storm that blocked their path.

According to the scouts, it had never weakened for the whole five days since they were observing it. The storm enveloped the Desert Ridge, the last high mountain ridge before the central mountain range transitioned into the western desert.

Experts suspected the ridge to naturally collect mana, leading to a fall in temperature, that created a storm when mixing with the warm winds from the desert. If they were right, the storm may weaken and strengthen over time, but never stop, hence he was dubbed an undying storm.

While the path further west was blocked by the storm, the adventurer Guild seemed to have found their Holy Land, although this was still a secret from the public. After allegedly heavy sacrifices, the Guild had managed to secure a route that branched off from that of Minas Mar and led further southwest where the concentration of powerful monsters increased exponentially.

This coincided with the location the guild had been looking for. Whereas their other business partners had looked through old records to find the foundations of ancient cities and mines that would allow for safe and profitable settlement, the guild had technically done the opposite.

Using geographical maps, they looked for environments that would have facilitated the growth of powerful dungeons. This led to their re-discovery of one of Urth's biggest cave systems. Similar to the subways and tunnels that once connected the districts, this cave system was now also most likely infested with dungeons.

The "holy land" southwest of Delta was a whole karst landscape that was now infested with dungeons. Seth couldn't help but suspect, that this had been the guild's aim from the start when Minas Mar offered them cooperation and they readily agreed.

Following their doctrine, to cultivate all dungeons, the guild intended to found one of their infamous dungeon cities in that place, to manage the hundreds of densely packed dungeons properly.

Many of those dungeons were high-level, with many being above level 80 and monsters all the way to level 90 even.

This was also the most likely reason why the southwest was so densely packed with high-level beasts that even the guild's teams suffered heavy losses. Even when it was hard to cultivate that place, it was quite clear what would happen once the dungeon city stood.

The blacksmith predicted a kind of gold rush. All the high-level players currently stagnating in Delta would flood toward this place. It would take a lot to keep the order, but most importantly, there was a lot of money and materials involved in that place.

And the adventurer Guild would be managing all of it. He could only lament that they had not found that kind of place first. The dungeons would have been a great help for him and the others to increase their levels. On the other hand, he also couldn't be jealous of the Adventurer Guild, as it would take a lot of work, resources, and lives to get that city to the point that it would yield a profit.

The tower master had no intention to interfere, though. It was already promised that nobody, not even Minas Mar, would not interfere in the businesses of any of their partners. There was even a magic contract. It was a necessity to assure everyone's sincerity, like an enforced peace treaty.

This didn't mean that they could not profit from those dungeons, it just meant they had to talk it out with the guild. F it was true that they had a lot of losses just trying to reach that place, maybe they were open to negotiating a joint venture.

It wouldn't just help them level up, but the Lords of Minas Mar would be able to showcase their power and skills to the gods. If the guild played along and Seth finished the legendary items in time for an expedition, he was sure some of them would attract the interest of a deity or two.

When the blacksmith spoke about it with Mary, it was as if she had read his mind. She was already in negotiations with the Adventurer Guild. But was really surprised him, was that it was the guild that had approached them first.

The negotiations were as quick and as smooth as Seth's skill growth and the plans for a joint expedition to the holy land of the Adventurer Guild came together in the following days.

One and a half Months. In six weeks' time, they would set off for the land of dungeons.