Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth already thought that his unbridled charge with his high agility and almost immunity to damage was terrifying... But if someone like Mike who put more than half his stats into Strength, started charging with this helmet, dealing 15 times his base physical damage...

Even when not taking the charge into account, the helmet had 800 physical damage, which meant it could add 2400 damage to any headbutts.

The only drawback was that it was a straight rush and that nothing mentioned the wearer staying unharmed from the impact. After all, mike was a cat boy, not a ram boy. Who knew if his neck could take it?

Maybe he would have to make an additional gorget and pauldrons for Mike that could somehow dampen the blow, like the set-up a racing helmet had. Seth mused about possible ways but made no concrete plans.

His was now at roughly 20%. he still had some way to go and no time to spare. It was now early evening, and with the effects of his crafting stations, he had managed to finish Mike's helmet within several hours.

Seth's efforts bore fruits in a much-appreciated way. Despite the increase in speed, he had crafted the helmet just as skillfully and properly as he did, when he took his time. It was a sign that his fundamental skills had majorly improved over the past months.

The blacksmith's heart warmed, to see that his hard work was not without results. That the quickened process did not mean a drop in quality gave him hope to finish all the items in time. With this speed …

Two fresh bars of legendary found their way into the furnace. Next on the line was Tekar. His Armor and Shield were both relic-rated and he liked them very dearly. In the meantime, the giant man had also played the game that Seth had taken inspiration from for the armor and wouldn't accept being separated from them.

The only thing Tekar agreed to switch out was the giant club. Although it was powerful and fit the aesthetic, Tekar never got used to using it and instead rather wielded the Cursed Fang Shield because of the crowd-control effects it could deliver.

"I don't know, Instead of the club or the shield, I would prefer something I could wield easier to stack status effects. However, I'm also not really good with sophisticated weapons... No offense to your skills, but could you maybe make me a pipe?"

Tekar explained at the question of what kind of item he would like. At that time, Seth was incredulous and could not really react, so the big guy kept talking to explain himself.

"Y-You see... this is a little embarrassing, but I was quite rowdy when I was a kid. I calmed down a lot when I met Ruby's mother, but back then a pipe was always my weapon of choice. Do you think I could have one?"

This explained, why Tekar was so tough, even when he had a class that excelled in defense alone, he had managed to make a living in the tumultuous times right after the apocalypse. Before Seth had only been confused by the choice of weapon, he was not really offended.

" My man, you may not believe me, but I have quite the experience in making magic pipes and mighty rods. I will make you the meanest piece of street cutlery you have ever seen:"

Hearing the man's reasons, Seth could help but smile excitedly, at the thought of Tekar in his thick armor, with his massive shield, swinging around a pipe like a street thug. This mental image was the best reason to go through with it.

Everyone knew them, the 3 Kings of makeshift weapons. The Pipe, the Brick, and the Crowbar, and now he was in the process of reviving one of these legends. He had just recently honed his skills in forging a pipe when he made the legendary rings.

However, this couldn't be just any pipe. It obviously also needed the elbow fitting as the head of the weapon. It would be light, it would be fast, it would be hefty, and loaded with curses.

Seth would have liked to use the ballad of mind-related curses on the pipe, as he had done on the Cursed Fang Shield, but souls that could offset the side effects of the curses were rare. He had been very lucky to get souls like that in the fog dimension, although their adventure itself was an unlucky one.

He also had nobody to bargain with using and . Something he found out during his study at the college, was that the songs Al'Zalsar had taught him were ancient and common classics among demons.

They were songs that called upon the power of entities that had become some kind of principle themselves. These songs could be used by anyone and would always be answered to a degree. The professor had explained it to him, but the concept was hard to grasp for Seth.

What he took from it was:

First, these demons lost their name and Ego when they ascended to a principle.

Second, since there was no name or ego he could do nothing to manipulate the fundamental principle behind these enchantments.

Even when Seth wanted to give it a slew of curses, he didn't have a way to counteract the side effect and other demons usually had their specializations. Even if he used several demonic enchantments, it would not be what he wanted. For just a moment, he even thought of writing an original song or joke to call upon Schalk, who seemed well-versed in original curses.

He quickly came back to his senses and quickly cast away that idea. There were other ways to make a broken weapon, aside from risking his life. Seth decided to use the forging ballad to add random curses on hit, which would in itself become quite powerful, with headed 75% attack speed from Blessing of Wind.

For the pipe, he used legendary and even went a step further and used a piece of the special for the elbow fitting for the extra kick of giving it a chaotic note. The blacksmith tried for a while to actually cut a thread to combine the parts, before he lost his patience and just welded them together.

When it came to the enchantment, originally Seth thought of using engravings to add negative status effects, instead of demonic etchings since he felt more confident to cram more of them onto a pipe. However, he now had a new option. Formation Combination.

Ever since Seth had gotten the new option, he played with it whenever he had mana. He tried to fuse the complex formation for paralyze, noise, blind, and fear. His high luck and the skill really increased his chance for usable formation, but it took about 300 tries and several bottles of mana potion before he got something he was happy with.

Sleep Paralysis Formation. With a chance of 15% on hit, it could activate any of the four effects, and with a 5% chance on hit, it could activate Sleep Paralysis, which meant a combination of all of them at once. The target would stiffen in place, with white noise filling their ear, darkness blocking their sight, and an inexplicable feeling of fear filling their mind.

Since this counted as only one complex formation, Seth also engraved Silence and Endurance, aside from the Sleep Paralysis formation.

When it came to the soul, Seth had splurged a little. There were quite a few souls that help a possibility for negative effects, but the one that really intrigued Seth was the soul of a malignant spirit called the Aufhocker.

A creature would shapeshift to trick a person and find a way to either be carried or jump on their back. Once the creature managed to get on a wanderer's back its weight would keep increasing with every step the man took, until they would either die under the weight or reached home, which was the only way to survive for an ordinary person.

The soul of an evil spirit that will burden its victims to death. Trait: Curse of Burden, Talent: Shapeshift>

The soul had no high rating, nor was it very big, but it was the first time Seth saw a soul with a Trait. Tano'Mol had suggested this soul when Seth asked him for souls with special negative abilities.

Although the souls rating seemed like nothing special, it price rivaled a massive soul because of the scarcity of this kind of creature. They were hard to find and even harder to catch.

The divine enchantment he chose to combine with this kind of Soul was the bind of the Aloads. The Aloads were two giant brothers, Otus and Ephialtes that once tried to storm Mt. Olympus to steal Hera and Artemis as their wives. They even managed to catch Ares and lock him in a jar for a lunar year.

Since the enchantment mentioned their mind, it was clear that their punishment in Tartarus was meant. Which was to be bound by serpents to a column with a blood-sucking bird on the column. The blacksmith believed the effect to either be a strong bind, or a strong bind with a damage-over-time effect.

The sigil he engraved on the soul pipe looked just like that, a stylized pair of men bound to a column with a bird sitting atop. The moment he finished it, rows of snakes slithered all over the soul pipe, covering it in their patterns.