Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1304: Miraculously vanished

Seth delivered the materials to Nädel, who jumped at the chance to begin his work. The tailor had already forgotten that he had just spent a whole night awake, working. Leaving the excited old tailor to his own devices, Seth finally returned to his own workshop.

Since Nam and Dowloon were dealt with, Seth could turn his full attention to the materials waiting for processing. From the beasts Natina had thrown at Delta, Seth had gotten the shadow hide and the horn of destruction.

Although all three had been comparable to Heads in size during the battle in Delta, the corpse of the Arachne had shrunk to a more humanoid size, suggesting she had been using a gigantification skill during the fight.

Had her corpse stayed the size, Link and the other hunters may have been able to harvest her crapace, but in its humanoid size, it was more of a resource for Alison than Seth. The useful parts of the Arachneʼs body were mostly alchemy ingredients. Apart from those former legends, there were also the remnants of the skeleton dragon and the Koor Worm.

A big part of the dragon bones had miraculously vanished since Tatzel began his hibernation in that valley. As for the rest, Seth still needed to find a way to prevent the curse from going over to the items made from the bones. Seth had items to resist the curse, but others didnʼt.

As for the koor worm, the blacksmith was still undecided on what to do with it. The body of the koor worm was that of a legend, there were a few legendary materials he could harvest, but the corpse was also already greatly modified and even able to fly.

They had not dismantled the koor worm, because Seth was deliberating turning it into a golem. He didnʼt have the original soul, but he could substitute it with a sufficiently powerful soul, or by adding additional power cores, like they did for Hellion.

And once he was done with those, there was still the big elephant in the room. The materials of Tydis , the Dark-blue Sky Dragon AlʼZalsar had brought back after her revenge. AlʼZalsar had brought back a metric fuck ton of scales and bones of the lower dragon she took her revenge on.

She probably had more, after all the body of a dragon, even a lower one, was a treasure trove, but this was Al had given him. The blacksmith had not yet the time to deliberate on how exactly to process them and what items to make of them.

Driving away those thoughts, Seth focused on the task at hand. The best way to approach big projects was to finish them in small steps, and his first step was the . Seth had learned from the surprise with the Harbinger of Winter and the shadow hide. Before he put any thought into what item to forge, he had to know with what material he was even working and how much he would have in the end.
The had the typical shape of a naturally grown rhino horn. It was very wide at the base, curved, and grew increasingly thinner into an aggressive point at the end. it barely differed from a normal rhino horn, apart from being black like coal and almost 8 meters long.

Seth could barely move it alone and needed the help of Cerberus to place it in the workshop. To start his work, they had brought it into the hangar where they used to build massive golems like Heads.

Unable to place the massive horn on his anvil, he was forced to work on it like this. Accepting his fate, Seth started circulating his energy and began striking the horn with Charonʼs Obol. As he did with the hide of the shadow panther, Seth tried to evenly work the horn.

Walking back and forth, rhythmically striking the giant item, he was trying to distribute his magic power throughout the material. The blacksmith had considered cutting the horn into pieces, but he was afraid of ending up with a bag full of tiny pieces if he cut it into handy pieces.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Unlike metal, he couldnʼt just chuck the pieces of horn into a furnace to melt down. He rather did this than have to fuse the refined pieces later on. As such, he put his lv.5 to good use, and it took only two passes for the first flakes of impurities to crumble away, like forge scale.

Heaps of dull, forge scale grew around the horn as Seth kept striking it. The horn was massive, and compared to its size, the refining happened only in thin layers at a time, meaning it took Seth ages before the horn started visibly shrinking.

A few hours in, when the horn was roughly half its original size, it began changing colors. While the undead rhino of destruction was a dull black beast, the horn had always been closer to coal. Now, as Seth refined it, it grew closer to the color it probably had when the creature was still a living legend. With every layer that fell off, it grew closer to a deep pitch black.

It had taken six hours for the horn to shrink to just below 2 meters in length, and its color had become shiny like molten pitch. At this point, Seth had to place it on the anvil to continue. As he continued to refine the increasingly smaller horn on the anvil, another surprise awaited him.

lv.5 had become lv.6!>

Around hour seven of striking his energy into the horn nonstop, his actually leveled up. But this was not the surprise that awaited him.

A pitch black was not the end, no, the horn kept changing as he continued to refine it. When it closed in to just 1 meter in length, 1/8 of its original size, , the previously pitch black horn started to grow clear, like a crystal.

At first Seth could only see the transparency at the edges, were flakes of impurities chipped away. But soon, when the horn had become close to the size of an ordinary rhino horn, it started resembling cairngorm, or smoky quartz. It was like a deep black to dark brown smoke trapped in a clear stone.

This was also its final form. No matter how much energy Seth channeled into the material, it did not grow any smaller than 80cm, which was roughly the size of a large horn for a normal rhino. Now, after working with the for almost 8 hours, Seth not only knew how much material he had, but he also got a good idea about its overall characteristics.

With this information, the blacksmith could start considering what to make of it. At first, he approached it with the question of who he would make it for. Depending on the person, it would change what weapon to make.

The , the legendary effect of the horn, was an effect that resembled cursed attacks. Apart from increasing physical damage, it could negate healing and repair of the damage created from an attack.

Except that curses could be dispelled or overcome. To offset the , one would need a stronger opposing legendary effect or skill. When clashing with a legend, only a stronger legend could oppose or ignore the effects.

Slashing wounds that would not heal and dealing damage that could not be repaired as a base option would be something almost anyone in Minas Mar would profit from, as long as they were proficient in melee weapons. ɽÂℕổᛒÈŝ

Although Sethʼs first wave of legendary items were mostly weapons for his friends, there were still a few that lacked a legendary melee weapon. First and foremost, there was Mina, who was still wielding two relic-rated daggers, the Shard of Biting Ice and Asclepius’ Needle.

There was James, who was currently using one of Sethʼs Sanguine Silver Swords. James had developed more in the direction of a tank, thanks to the Cerberus Shield and becoming the chosen of Klinker. As such, his damage was not the greatest. Making sure it was permanent could help him.

But there were also Bement and Viggu, his two vassals he had resurrected using the . So far, he had not shown them much love, as their potential was bound to his own. While Angelique was almost level 120 after regaining her former power, the two had barely crossed lv.100.

What Seth realized was that there was no point in accounting for who would receive the weapon. Although it was a practical approach, it was not necessarily the best, as it restricted his way of thinking.

What he was supposed to do, was make the best possible weapon based on the materials, taking their properties and powers into account. As for who would wield it? It was like with the Storm of Death, he would find a fitting wielder for the weapon and would simply keep it himself until they showed up.

Having come to this realization, the blacksmith considered what weapon would best take advantage of the .