Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1371. Returned to the Guardian Tree

The group returned to the Guardian Tree, leaving the world of twilight behind. Passing through the hell gate, they immediately ported back down to Minas Mar, where they were greeted by the second rescue team Leana had set up in the meantime.

“You idiot!” “How could you just run off on your own?” the girls pelted him with words, while pressing the air out of him with their tight hugs. He didnʼt comment that he was, in fact, not alone, having the group of Golem Knights, Tatzel, Heads, and Hellion with him. The blacksmith simply accepted their hugs and criticism with a smile.

After a happy reunion and the revelation that everyone was alive, they all gave a rough report on what happened on the other side, before they all returned to their rooms to calm down and recover. Once the danger was over, the whole matter quickly wrapped up.

The next day, Karina was given the fruits Luf was able to bring with her, while the dryad sealed the hell gate with the power of the Guardian Tree. It was not properly closed, but was now completely swallowed by the tree on the other side, hiding it from privy eyes.

Now, the only world past the hell gate they still kept contact with was the cave world, where Monique and Jane were still traveling on a diplomatic mission. Going further than just procuring food, they were even in the talks to have some people like Joannia Taggart go and study their tech.

Fortunately, nothing else dramatic was currently happening that needed Sethʼs attention, giving the blacksmith the chance to return to his original work. A project that had waited for him since before Spatia openly attacked.

The Sky Dragon Armor.

They had finished the design during the meeting of masters, encompassing not just the set of 12 plate pieces. It came together with a set of adamantine mail and a gambeson for padding and protection made by Neeco Boos. It was the full set of protection.

All that was left was adapting the various enchantments to the individual recipient. As for who they were, there were two confirmed recipients of the complete Sky Dragon Armor: Monique and Faenys. The Chosen of Athena and Phobos, respectively, were chosen because of their specific mix of magical and physical combat skills.

For the start there were only these two. There were two reasons for that. The first was that they only had 20 Heart Scales, actually 19.5, because he had already used half of a scale. When he proceeded like with Bartʼs gauntlets, Seth estimated that he would need roughly 7 full scales for one armor set.

Even with the blacksmith started pinching on the material, there was not enough material for a full third one. The second was that it would have been unfair to use everything on a select few. Nobody would argue against either of the two deserving the armor, but there were quite a few members eligible for dragon armor.

However, many who may have been eligible already had legendary armor pieces. It was more practical to make individual items with the remaining 5.5 scales that would be left after making the armor sets.

Maybe a third armor would have been possible if he had had enough points to upgrade one of the Armor Scales, but he didnʼt. At this point, he was gaining between 3000-5000 points of Power of Existence a day and was nearing the 150,000, yet that was not enough to upgrade a scale. He had tried.

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Since he didnʼt have enough, he only got the message that it wasnʼt enough, not how much it would take in the end. With that question out of the way, they had decided to make sets for the two that could put them to the best use.

Monique was currently off-world, but Faenys was still on vacation in Delta, so he had invited the Chosen of Phobos to come by and talk a little more about her preferences in her armor. Although Seth and Mina had gotten intimate with Faenys at one point, the blacksmith didnʼt know her power in-depth. Especially not since she had become a chosen.

It was already a little later when he got to the workshop, but he still had a couple of hours before Faenys was supposed to come by. So he inspected Cerberusʼ work in the meantime. While Seth had been spending the past weeks with adventures and legendary items, the massive golem had been tirelessly churning out epic-rated swords.

Thanks to the perfectly balanced shape and Cerberusʼ impeccable craftsmanship, he was able to create an epic weapon from the rare-rated they mined at several locations in Minas Mar. Even though they were at the very lowest end of what an epic-rated weapon could do, that was all that mattered.

After all, these were not meant for their own people. This became apparent with the next treatment Seth was going to give them. Sitting down at his etching table, the bard placed demonic runes on the blank swords without prior enchantment.

Seth etched “The Berserker of Orias” onto the blades of the black weapons. This was the same ballad he had used for the Mind Render blade, although it was a little weaker in this form. But that wasnʼt a problem, as the last step was what would make the sword a finished product.

When placing souls in the Soul Refinery, the crafting station allowed him to extract the preferred powers and skills he wanted out of one or a mass of souls. In that case, what happened to the parts he didnʼt want or need?

Just like when doing it by hand, he had two options with the refinery. Either the unneeded parts of the soul, like memories, skills, and wills not connected to his target, would either be discarded, OR he had the option to concentrate them into a very small part of the soul and extract that.

Seth had done so for a while, collecting a sizable amount of chaotic souls that slowly collected dust in his soul space. Why had he done so? Because he had experienced phenomenal success with such a soul in the past.

The Whimsical Curse, maybe Sethʼs favorite necklace he had ever made, was created from humble materials and the imbued with the souls of several giant monkeys, amateurishly fused together. If this coincidental success of making a cursed accessory taught him one thing, then it was that nothing was without use.

Now the extracted, chaotic mind form thousands of souls, condensed into small and medium souls, finally had their time to shine, in the blacksmithʼs mass production of cursed weapons. The attentive reader may ask why he was doing so.

Seth had thought of this some time ago, when he was coming up with ways to raise his Power of Existence. His ultimate goal was selling legendary items through the auction house and raising his reputation across the system worlds. But he couldnʼt do that for now.

Instead, he thought of farming some on the Voracious Cloud Continent. As expected, with the soul armament imbued into the epic blade, they ranked up to relics. Relics with a very low chance of becoming a legend, but a chance.

With these, he could farm power and strike their enemies at the same time. Seth intended to send these to Marco on the Cloud Continent, before they started their offensive. The wielder of the ice rapier would then make sure that these sword would find their way into the hands of the remaining Sect Alliance.

Even a simple standard sword forged by Cerberus was above most he had seen come from the Cloud Continent, so they would jump at the chance to get a good sword. Especially with the power up the Demon Berserker Power promised.

Once they started using it, the chaotic soul and the Mind Corruption would erode their minds, disrupting and weakening the sects from inside, as their best fighters slowly went insane. What gained a reputation even quicker than a good weapon? A cursed one.

The more people greedily and stupidly would strive to use the powerful sword, confident that they could overcome its drawbacks, the easier ti would be for him to farm Power of Existence and the higher would be the chance for the swords to become legends in the end.

It was a great plan to recycle materials and maybe get some medium to great gains out of it.