Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Neill was the first, but he was not going to be the last. The craftsmen invited had until 6 pm. To submit their works, so judging went on all day long. It was a full day of looking at items and deliberating the fate of their maker based on the skills shown.

Although it sounded like more work, It was much more fun to Seth than going through stacks of applications. A lot of his work was also taken over by his subordinates, the only ones Seth had to double checked were the ones that were recommended to directly join Minas Mar.

That day, they chose a bunch of new people to join their team of craftsmen. Bess and Daimon got a pair of colleagues each, Neeco Boos chose three talented tailors, and Alison acknowledged the skill of another three Alchemists.

Beside Neill, there were another four smiths joining Hoen, Wedan, and Orry. One goldsmith, an old colleague and rival of Orry, and three talented blacksmiths, including the arcane blacksmith Liam. Aside from Liam, the three blacksmiths were still fledglings, but they had a promising future.

With the help of Jane and her appraising staff from the shops, they also managed to choose several people from the classes they had no experts in. For Evee's purpose of making the permanent teleport hub in the Holy Land, they chose five masons and a sculptor who would be under Evee's direct command.

It was already pretty late when they finally came to the table they had been waiting for. Over the day, it had filled a little more with a stack of scrolls, a handful of trinkets, and some enchanted equipment.

Seth couldn't help but sigh. Although his appraisal skill had an evolution, he still was not able to register these kinds of arcane enchantments with his skill. Was it because enchanter was more the profession of a magician, than a craftsman?

It was one of the hard limits Seth had encountered with the system. Well, maybe not necessarily. The blacksmith was convinced that he would probably be able to unlock it if he genuinely learned arcane enchantments from the basics. It may be harder to gain the skill as a blacksmith, but it probably wasn't impossible. The system usually didn't impose insurmountable restrictions.

The crux of the matter was, that Seth lacked the desire to do so. It was only a small regret of his, but he already had enough to deal with. If he really wanted to learn a magical method of enchanting he would learn <Tonal Imbuement>, the demonic equivalent to <Enchantment>. That kind of skill worked with magic circles and rituals to imbue demonic powers into an item. But that was a whole other mess, Seth didn't really want to touch.

So, even though Seth was a master Enchanter, he had not much clue about magical enchantments, which was why Evee, Jane, and the appraisers from the shops were present. Evee was the only one that had dabbled with enchantments, while Jane and her people had high-level appraisal skills that allowed them to gain some insight into the quality of the spells.

Everyone else was present for the show. Magic Scrolls were expensive, and having many attack scrolls shoot off at once was a spectacle comparable to fireworks. The one using the was Seth, for safety reasons.

Wearing his legendary armor, the blacksmith didn't have to be afraid of flawed scrolls firing back at him. The scrolls were easy to use. One simply had to rip them to release the magic. Of Course, in case of attack magic, one also had to point it in the direction the magic was supposed to shoot.

Seth felt like playing the lottery. Sometimes the magic would work well and a fireball would shoot out, or a weak healing or strengthening aura covered him. Some were also duds and literally exploded in his face with a frost nova, or storm, or a literal explosion.

From the merry laughter and mood in the back, it seemed to be something very fun to watch for those not involved. But when he turned around after the last scroll, he found a familiar face among them that he did not expect.

"Yu?" Seth exclaimed surprised. When had master mountain joined the merry round of appraisers?

"Hello, Seth. I was in the area and heard you had returned," the old master greeted friendly. One of the staff members had brought him over when he appeared at the reception of the embassy and showed the sigil ring Seth had given him.

"It's nice to see you again," Seth said with a genuine smile.

"it seems I visited at the right time. There are a lot of fine artifacts here. Are you holding some kind of competition even?"

"You can call it that, more or less, I guess. We are choosing people to recruit based on their work samples."

"hmm, that is always a good method, though I have to say none of the items here compare to the armor you are wearing. It's truly an armor fit for an immortal." he complimented.

"Well, it would be weird if they did. I went through a lot of trouble to make it"

"Y-You made this?" Master Mountain finally showed a slight expression of shock when he heard it.

"Who else? Did you think something like this is just lying around for anyone to find?"

Yu fell silent as if he had to seriously contemplate whether it was possible to find some tremendously powerful armor in some old dusty tomb.

"I guess you are right," he answered, "I guess, it is unlikely for Urth to have old tombs or inheritance spaces that would hold an artifact of such quality."

"Wait, wait, wait! Are you saying you home HAS places that have legendary armor just lying around?"

"Not many, but there were some in the past," he said, amused over Seth's reaction.

"But this was not the reason I came to visit. I have some news that may interest you, but it can wait until you finished your event."

"Maybe you want to join? We are almost done, btu do you want to have a loot at the enchanted product over her?"

"Enchanted?"

After scoring the scrolls, everyone went to check on the trinkets and items that had permanent enchantments. Seth roughly explained to Master Mountain what Enchanters were and how their skills worked.

Although Yu had come and left Urth for a while, he had not gotten any insights into the skills of the people of Urth. He knew the results of their knowledge and magic, but not the basics. The cultivator listened carefully as the blacksmith explained about magic circles, and spells.

"hmm, it's really interesting how similar it is to artificers in our land. What do you call it? Convergent evolution? Very fascinating."

They had not expected too much since enchanter was a difficult-to-level profession, but out of 50 enchanters that applied, only 5 showed the level of skills they were currently looking for. In the later interviews, two out of these five wanted to settle on the Tree Route instead of joining Minas Mar, which left them with 3 new recruits.

Seth showed Yu around the exhibition hall for a little while, before the two went to Seth's office to talk.

"Now then, what news did you bring?" Seth asked after pouring Yu a tea.

"Well, it may be good or bad news, depending on your perspective," he stated after taking a sip.

"Are you trying to sound mysterious now?"

Yu smiled at his little jab.

"Fine, this old man will get to the point. The border kingdoms of the Voracious Cloud Continent finally decided on a joint venture into Urth."

The day had finally come. The world of cultivators was going to invade Urth.

"What?!" Seth couldn't help but exclaim but quickly calmed down.

"How can this be either good or bad?"

"Because they are still careful and it's merely an alliance of the close border regions. To you them coming at all is understandably bad, but on the other side at least they don't come with conquest in mind. For now, that is."

Yu explained, that the situation could be worse. The vast Voracious Cloud Continent had many forces, but those at the borders were the weakest. The kingdoms bordering the rift between Urth and their world had finally decided to send an expedition that would build a bulkhead on this side and collect information on these lands.

Since the rift was to the far east of Urth, even further than Alpha, it wouldn't affect the people living here, in the central region of Urth. However, it was undeniable, that the world of cultivators had finally started stretching out their finger for Urth, for real.