Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Team 3 and the Chimeras stayed at Agra for the time being, while the rest of Minas Mar returned home a few days after people from Tree Station One and the System Church arrived.

Cormac Payle and Cromwel also stayed back in Agra. One had been gripped by a weird enthusiasm and intended to repair all the golems he could salvage from the battlefield, the other asked to stay and prepare for what was to come.

Their rough plan was simple. Expand the tree route all the way to Y-City, use the Tree Stations as cover for safe travel to Y-City, and crack down on The Scene, whether it was by covert means or open violence.

In case Y-City assembled their forces against the, the Tree Stations would also act as fortifications.

Although it was the last option, everyone agreed unanimously that they were ready to start a war, if necessary, to stop the Scene.

There was more to it and all of it needed time and preparation, many of which were not ready yet. What it all boiled down to was that they would need time. What this meant for Seth was that he finally got some downtime to do some stuff he had been planning to do for a while.

Although Seth was not a fan of making armor, the recent events had shown him, that he needed to put more thought into this aspect, at least for the executive members of Minas Mar. So far the blacksmith had focused on giving everyone a personalized legendary item to boost their power and have them gain the interest of a god.

This had worked out for most of them. What Seth wanted to work on now were personalized armors. Currently, only a few members really had armor that was really cut out for their abilities. Most of the wore generic armor designs, not even sets, loaded with physical enhancements.

In some cases, like Jonah's, it was safe to say that the focus of the armor had to change. Although his newt leather armor vastly improved his regeneration, it wasn't very appealing to the eye. Which was not important because of his divine sponsor and the accompanying skills.

In other cases, like Mina's, Seth was convinced it would be enough if he reinforced the armor and strengthened the original souls with the refined ones from the Soul Refinery. The reason was the lack of high-quality materials that could help give a major improvement.

The whole reason for his sudden interest in this was the blueprints for armor sets he had gained when he reached the master level. Forgebrand, his dwarven predecessor, had come up with many dedicated armor sets that could help against enemies of different specializations, mostly elemental ones.

Now, Seth wasn't really interested in giving everyone some hyper-specialized armor set that was good in one specific type of opponent. Instead, he was convinced that he could reverse engineer these blueprints and create armor sets that would strengthen specific aspects of the wearer.

All of that was great, but they were not the first things the blacksmith intended to do. With most of the souls he had gained in the Holy Land having run through the refinery, Seth found it was time to reforge his soul armaments.

By no means were the soul armaments he had created during his imprisonment at the Stronghold weak, they were actually really powerful, but now his skills had grown and the materials he had at hand were improved. He was sure with his current skills and materials, he would be able to bring out the true power of the divine enchantments.

It was not just his skills and the materials, but also his own understanding that had grown since then. Since his time at the stronghold, Seth had gained a better understanding of the different Olympian gods and deities, especially those he was able to connect with. It was mostly thanks to his stay at Chrona and the research he was able to do in the royal library.

Persephone, for example, had granted some of her blessings but had shown not to be happy with the soul armament he had created back then. Although not all the enchantments were blessings, he was sure that it was not just Persephone that was unhappy with the simple, crude design Past-Seth had used.

From his experience with the demons, he knew that the happier the supernatural patron was about the final product, the better the power granted would be. In the case of demons, it had to do with the quality of the lyrics used, even when they had turned into a principle without a distinct ego. In the case of the Olympians, Seth was sure it was about the quality and refinement of the final items themselves.

And that was what Seth started working on after their return from Agra. He had used the refinery to refine the several thousand souls he had harvested at the Holy Land and used it to split the result into ten massive souls that were all of the same size. The only souls he held back were some for the aerial strikers and those that held special traits. Those came mostly from the research subjects of the Maestro.

With his rough estimations, each of them would have held about 12 000 mana. Seth was prepared that not all of the divine enchantments would see improvements, since they were not blessings, to begin with. But that only meant he would gain more additional mana and a consistent magic resistance across the armaments.

Hoping for the best, and prepared for the worst, Seth started with those that he doubted would show any improvements. The first was Oknos' Hands. The first time he did this, Seth had no idea who Okno was.

Now, he knew that Oknos or Ocnus was actually a prisoner of Tartarus, doomed to perpetually to weave a rope of straw which was just as quickly eaten by a donkey. Knowing that it made sense that the enchantment majorly improved Dexterity.

Based on that knowledge, Seth didn't make a simple bangle like before. Using <Soul Forging> he turned one of the massive souls into a bracelet, that resembled a rope made of straw. One side of the clasp showed the small figure of Ocnus weaving the bracelet, while the other show the donkey eating it.

It was a very literal depiction, but Seth found it a kind of endearing idea. He then wiped the original sigil of the hand that wove the robe and the mouth eating it from the old bangle and proceeded to engrave it on the new soul bracelet. He had prepared a small blank space opposite of the clasp to do so.

There was no deity to channel, it was just a "simple enchantment, but when he finished engraving the sigil on the bracelet, the opposite of the clasp, it behaved differently from before. Instead of covering the bracelet in patterns, it started to stretch out and superimposed on the bracelet.

The mouth in the sigil fit to the donkey's mouth on the clasp, the rope matched with the rope he forged and the hands became the hands of the small depiction of Ocnus on the other side of the clasp. A halo of light ran across it and the bracelet had slightly changed.

The small blank space with the sigil, had disappeared together with any signs of the sigil. The only sign that Seth had enchanted the bracelet was the changes in the item's description.

<Oknos' Craft

Mag. Def: 6000

1. +150 Dexterity

2. Passive Skill: Oknos' Patience

3.+5000 Mana

A special armor created by Master Smith the first Master Blacksmith and Master enchanter of Urth. The bracelet depicts the fate of Oknos and taps into the abilities he developed as a result of his divine punishment.>

Seth was bewildered by the result of this first attempt. He had never seen one of the olympian enchantments do something like that. Was it maybe the sign that he had truly chosen the perfect shape for the enchantment to inherit? But it could also be his trait secretly at work, or the effect of his skill having improved? The blacksmith didn't quite know.

What he did know, was that he was quite happy with this improvement. On one hand, there were the additional Mana, Magic Defense and 50 more Dex than before. Aside from them, there was the effect of <Oknos' Patience>.

<Passive Skill: Oknos' Patience

Arduous, monotonous, and even seemingly pointless tasks can not disturb your state of mind.>

This was a great skill for things like braiding rope, twisting wire, or weaving chain mail. They were some of the most irritating tasks to Seth. After seeing this change in the simple bangle. Seth looked forward to how the other armaments would change once he reforged them.