Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The next day in the morning, Seth went to visit Al'Zalsar. It was not to pester her about legendary materials. She had shot down his hopes right from the start. The former Lich was surprisingly busy with Project Iego, their urban defense system slash refinement formation.

So why did he go to bother her anyways? He had left his Feather of the Beast ring with the Lich two weeks ago and she had promised to enchant it. Although Seth was working on items for the others, he did not forget, that his own wasn't yet perfected, either.

The Feather of the Beast was an epic ring made from that had gained a small blessing from Behemoth the primordial beats of the earth. He had made it all the way back when Al took the Dragon bane ring from him and promised to enchant a ring for him.

That was the only reason she even agreed to do it, despite being so busy. Once the sorceress was done with the ring it would only lack a soul, just like the Lucky trinket and the Eye of Argus.

"Come in."

The door opened and the sorceress asked him in before he even had the chance to ring the doorbell. He followed her to her loft where she leisurely lay down on her sofa and slurped her tea as if he wasn't there.

"So..erm, Al?" he started awkwardly.

"Yeah, yeah, your ring is done, however... I also need something from you."

"Oh? The great sorceress suddenly needs something from this humble blacksmith? Well, say it."

"You are awfully cocky for someone who has only been asking for things from me lately..." she squinted at Seth.

"Just happy to be able to pay you back for all the help," he answered with a grin.

"Sure. Don't worry, this will also come in handy for you. Weren't you all desperate to get your hand on legendary materials some weeks ago?"

"Oh, yeah. I managed to make some-"

"I see. Well, some more won't be bad, right?" she suddenly interrupted him.

"What do you mean? Do you have some? Are you going to give me some?"

"No, I will also MAKE you some. You just have to give me all the items you made out of that angel back then. You do still have them, right?"

Her eyes almost glowed as she spoke seriously. Although he was not sure what the sorceress needed them for, Seth nodded to affirm that he still had them.

"Great, follow."

She jumped off the sofa and energetically took the lead to bring the blacksmith deeper into the building. He had always wondered what Al did with all that space to herself. He had guessed that she probably held a whole harem. What he got to see next was definitely not what he expected.

She led him into a huge room, that was made by breaking away at least 10 to 15 stories above, turning it into a cavern with balconies all around and access to all the stories above. On the floor in the middle of this conical-shaped "room" was a complex magic formation carved into the floor.

"What is all this?" Seth asked perplexed.

"What do you think it is? This is part of what I have been researching all this time."

"How is that going to help you fight dragons?" he blurted out.

"This? It won't. It will help me cleanse this body. Now give me those items."

A little confused, but also intrigued by what Al had planned, Seth handed her the items one by one. A helmet, a pair of daggers, a breastplate, a sword, a poleaxe, and a spear. The only items missing were the mask, the staff, and the shield he had used to make Wolfram.

"What are you going to do with them?"

The former Lich sighed and seemed to deliberate whether to explain it or not. In the end, she spoke up.

"Once you created the frame for me and I was reborn, I found that I had underestimated the divine energy in the metal. It isn't as easy to extract as I thought in the beginning and I have been looking for a way to get rid of it for the past months.

However, I failed to find a fitting vessel. Whatever the energy entered would turn into metal and break, allowing the energy to return to my body. It's quite annoying."

Seth wasn't slow on the uptake.

"So you think using these items as vessels will show better results?... And if you managed to seal this energy within the items-" "There is a possibility that the material will be alleviated to a special rating, making the items legendary. However, we would only know if it worked, once the system finished evaluating them."

What Al'Zalsar meant was that the items would not immediately be recognized as legendary since their info was still mostly scrambled as items that did not quite belong to the system. Seth already knew how this could be fixed.

He already knew the solution to this from his time during the evaluation. One just had to use the items in battle and the system would scan and classify their powers based on their interactions with other elements in the system. At least this was how he explained it to himself, that the stats of the weapons became clearer after being used a bunch in battle.

If this really worked... it didn't change that he still had to make a bunch of items to reach the master rank. It would take time to reveal the power of the items, however, this would solve the problem that he couldn't make an item for everyone before they had to set off.

"What are you waiting for, do it." Seth cheered her on, only to find that she was already finished playing the items in several paces of the formation.

"Already on it. Now shut up, I have to concentrate on this."

She said down cross-legged in the middle of the magic formation. Originating from her, the lines of the formation lit up and a sudden gale filled the whole room. The wind ripped on Al's loose robes, but couldn't disturb her as she kept chanting with closed eyes.

Since Seth had no idea what to do, he simply stood aside and did exactly what she had told him. Shut up and watch. Over a matter of minutes, Al'Zalsar's chanting kept becoming louder and deeper until it was droning through the whole room. Together with the growing winds, it was almost like a thunderstorm raging inside a building.

All of a sudden the sorceress ripped her eyes and mouth wide open, Purple light was radiating from all her orifices in an intensity that burned her flesh. Although her lips stopped moving, the chanting did not stop as the gleaming light took an almost physical form and creep out from her orifices.

Slow and sluggish at first, but becoming quicker and firmer the more extracted itself from her. The light seemed to take an almost corporeal form, like a beast made of jagged lighting. Before Seth could understand what he was seeing, he had to make a quick step back in shock when the creature charged at him.

The purple lightning creature shot at him, leaving footprints of golden metal whatever it touched the ground with its irregular appendages. The blacksmith was about to evade when the thing crashed into an invisible barrier, that was formed by the edge of the magic circle.

With the light released from her body, Al'Zalsar closed her burned eyes and her charred lips transitioned to a different chant. As if it was sentient, the lightning reacted to the change in chant and started wildly rampaging within the barrier, trying to escape or return to Al's body.

While the edge stopped it from escaping, a secondary barrier prevented it from returning. The light kept becoming more jagged and diffused as the chant went on. Its movements seemed almost desperate at this point and whenever it touched the formation or a barrier, it would grow dimmer.

On the other side, the items that were strategically placed in the formation seemed to have gained a new sheen to them. The sorceress seemed to successfully siphon the power from the thing, into the weapons.

Everything seemed to work out until the creature lost more than half of its luminescence. Like a final frenzy, it started releasing waves of power and rampaging through the formation like a storm before it suddenly exploded.

The explosion was stopped by the barriers, but the formation suddenly radiated a terrifying heat as its lines shined in unprecedented intensity. Was this supposed to happen? The blacksmith could only stand where he was and try to spot the sorceress inside the glare of the formation.

Fortunately, the light died down after several minutes and Al stepped out from the radiant glow.

"Did it work? How are you feeling, Al?" Seth asked, still covering his eyes from the formation's light.

"More or less. I am fine, it worked great on my end. Your weapons on the other hand..."

Looking at the floor, after the light had faded, Seth found more than half of the weapons he brought charred black as if turned into a brittle crystal. The sword, the helmet, and one of the daggers had survived. The spear, the poleaxe, a dagger, and the breastplate instantly crumbled to ashes when he tried to touch them.

The sorceress explained that the amount of power that was conducted into them had been too much.

She had not expected the divine power she expelled to self-detonate, which overcharged the formation and burned through the fuses, in this case, his items. It seemed to Seth like the bigger items had taken the brunt of the damage.

If this had worked and turned the remaining four items into legendary items, then this was a great success. If it didn't... it was a great loss. Especially the poleaxe, Polter had really liked the weapon to the point Seth had considered sending it to him. He would only find out if he won, once the others managed to read the full power of these items.

"Since this is done, can I have my ring now and be on my way?"