Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Samuel the new saint had left. Luf now had a body that didn't kill everything in her vicinity. All of the important things were done. Since Seth had randomly decided to meet the envoys of Gamma in a week, this was his only fixed appointment at the moment.

Meaning he could leisurely start on the other things left on his imaginary list. Some of the things had already been taken care of or delegated to other people. For example, Mike was not the only one who had lost his equipment. Bulko and Lyxiss had also suffered some losses.

While Seth had left it to Cerberus to repair the mirror priest's wind resistance armor, the blacksmith asked Neeco Booz to make a robe for her once he was finished with the suit for Seth. He had also pondered about making a set of lunacy for Lyxiss, but after thinking about her usual state of mind, he decided against it.

Although the blacksmith tried to make wearing the Armor of Lunacy as safe as possible, in the end, the Encroachment of Lunacy was a dangerous effect, that not everyone could withstand easily. Without a big change-up in her equipment, it was better if Lyxiss was not exposed to this power. She would do better with a robe from their new master tailor, he was sure of it.

Maybe in the not-so-far future, the three Enchanters they had hired would be fit to even put an enchantment on these robes made by Neeco. Not only Neeco had been working hard, while Seth was on vacation.

Neil had reached the journeyman tier and successfully changed his class to Indomitable Blacksmith. With his items, that relied purely on bringing out the material's innate powers and properties, the enchanters they had hired also quickly managed to follow him and break through to the journeyman tier. As long as they kept working hard, they would be able to become craftsman tier enchanters in the future. At that point, they would be fit to enchant even relic-rated products.

So with Mike still on his journey to recover the <Storm Ore>, this was not a topic Seth had to worry about. Instead, he wanted to concentrate on researching <Mad Ithildin> and recycling the few broken legendary items they managed to recover.

Namely, he had the legendary shards of a sword, a broken shield, a broken hammer, and the orb that Lyxiss brought back. These and the working ones they looted were actually not the only legendary items the enemy had, but some of those that broke only produced epic or relic-rated pieces. They were most likely legendary because of an enchantment or their story, not by merit of their materials.

However, 4 different legendary materials were exactly what the Legendary Forger wanted, as each individual material he used would improve his options later on when he got enough power of existence to use these saved patterns like enchantments.

Seth started with the sword shards because they gave him a nostalgic feeling. Not because of the shape it once had, but because it was the kind of ugly giant hunk of material that played into the fantasy of swinging around a giant sword even at the cost of efficiency. The kind of sword Seth had come to dislike the most. What caused nostalgia was the material it was made of.

<Shard of a Fang of a Lower Venom Dragon, Crafting material

Legendary

The shard of a fang of a low-ranking Poison Dragon that was turned into a crude sword by Master Marrowmuncher and broken during a fight with an overwhelming opponent....>

As the name suggested, these were shards of a fang with a high affinity to poison and inherent deadly poison damage. It seemed like the sword by Master Marrowmuncher was not much more than the fang itself somehow carved into the shape of a massive, curved sword.

Seth had already wondered, why these weapons made from legendary bone, teeth, or claws were often only made for crude weapons, even someone who attained the master tier had only turned it into a “crude sword”.

However, the answer Leana had given him was simpler than expected. Quite often, he took his crafting stations and skills for granted, but it was thanks to them that he was able to work with legendary organic materials with relative ease. Others did not have these.

Most blacksmiths, even masters, never necessarily learned the skills needed to forge monster materials One either needed to learn them through effort, or choose a special blacksmith class to master them.

Even then, the amount of mana needed to shape legendary materials, as well as the time it took to refine them could not be underestimated. Someone without the crafting stations that tremendously increased the crafting speed, Charon's Obol, or a skill like <Energy Manipulation 3> and the mana to use it, could only try to shape something like this fang by carving away at it.

Seth's ability to make refined weapons from this kind of crude material was another point that would make the blacksmith incredibly valuable in the eyes of foreign forces. One of the biggest reasons was another one why Seth wanted to start with this.

This kind of fang was easily big enough to make two or three proper swords if one had someone with Seth's skill. Wolfram had brought back enough shards to make two weapons, one Seth wanted to put up as the prize for the Pythian games, with the other he wanted to re-make one of his earlier swords, whose shape he really liked.

A low and dangerous humming filled the forge as Seth started working in a similar fashion to when he created Luf's vessel not long ago. Taking half of the shards, the blacksmith started fusing them together using <Energy Manipulation 3> and Charon's Obol.

The tune he was humming was deceptively calm. Sivri who was working at a different station in the workshop couldn't help but feel the music worm its way into her mind and slowly lull her in. The forging ballad Seth had chosen was one that would grant the Poison of Botis, like the effect on The marvelous, magnificent, mad Yatagan Mim.

The blacksmith intended to recreate the toxic Khopesh he had once made from the bones of the Titanoboa juvenile. He had to immediately think of it, when he saw the shards back then, when Wolfram gave them to him and he wanted to completely focus on strengthening the poison aspect of the material. But it also was not just because of nostalgia.

Of the chosen and blessed currently part of Minas Mar, a big percentage belonged to gods of the Heliopolian Mythology. This meant that they had an eye on Minas Mar, even when they were mostly smaller players, apart from Seth.

Seth found out during his stay in Chrona, that the Khopesh was one of the weapons that often gained popularity in places where the Heliopolian Gods dominated. So making a legendary Khopesh was also pandering to them. He guessed that someone wielding it, would have a higher chance of being chosen or blessed by of of Seth's colleagues.

The demonic runes of the song fused into the pale fang shard, turning them to a dark gray with a green hue. Piece by piece the shards were forged together to a slim Khopesh, that almost resembled a lightning bolt. He has chosen a less intense ballad because it took quite a while to fuse and shape the legendary material, even for the spirit blacksmith.

With a sigh, Seth put down the forged blade about 3 hours later. Looking at it for a while, the smith had a new idea. How cool would it look for an assassin to dual-wield this kind of sword? He only hesitated for a moment, he could just use the shield or the hammer to make the price.

Right now, this was what he wanted to do. Before he continued working on the first Khopesh, Seth spent another three hours creating a second, identical sword from the other half of the shards. For the handles, he used a full-tang design, using the wood of the Guardian tree for handle scales.

Instead of adding a poison enchantment to the two inherently poisonous weapons, Seth decided to add strength, agility, and an advanced enchantment that could lower poison resistance to the two swords.

As for the souls he was going to use, it was only one and he would use it to turn the two swords into a set. The soul he chose was the Scythe Assassin's Soul. This was the soul that the mantis general of the hive had dropped during their first great battle in the Holy Land of the Adventurer Guild.

Remembering this soul had pushed him to go through with his idea. It granted camouflage, improved assassination skills, and increased power when dual-wielding scythes. It also had a Trait called Twin Blade, which improved the attack power when dual-wielding. The reason this had given him a push was that Khopesh were famously known as sickle-shaped swords, which probably made this pair of twin blades the best possible receptacle for this soul.

The only thing left was the question of what enchantment to put on the soul. There were a few that came into question, but Seth was actually afraid to trigger his trait Olympian myth if he used an Olympian enchantment, or the enchantments recently unlocked thanks to Luf accepting the title of Pandora.

Like the Olympian Enchantments, these were exotic, unique enchantments called Pandora's Trouble, namely sorrow, disease, vice, violence, greed, madness, old age, and death. If he wasn't afraid to make an item with too deep of a connection to Olympian myth, he would have tried using death or disease.

Instead, Seth opted to engrave a demonic prose onto the soul, before forging it into the shape of the two Khopesh and inserting them.