Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

~This is not my fault! It’s your stupid skill!~

Neloth, the alchemy table, failed to make a true Journeyman potion despite having craftsman lv.8 <Alchemy>. Why? Something Seth had not foreseen, was the fact that all his crafting stations started off with restriction. Most prominently: they could not exert abilities that were above his own skill level!

Since he was just an adept alchemist, there was no way for Neloth to succeed in a journeyman recipe! He had just put an almost master-level soul into his skill, only for it to be restricted to adept lv.3. It wasn’t as bad, but the regret was hard to swallow since he could have also made a piece of equipment, which might have raised his <Alchemy> skill artificially.

At least he would be able to earn proficiency passively. He acknowledged that he might have overdone it directly trying a journeyman potion. Instead, he tried on from Alison’s grinding plan next, putting the ingredients on the table where Neloth could take and use them.

The result of this experiment was very satisfactory. Even if his skill was restricted, he still had the knowledge and experience. Although the recipe was hard for Seth, Neloth completed it with ease! On this level, there was almost 0% of failing. Much better than Seth’s 40% of failure on complicated recipes.

Despite only earning ¼ to 1/3 the proficiency when leaving it to Neloth, it was almost the same because his failure rate was technically non-existence. This way he had no qualms about leaving some of the ingredients and recipes in the future to Neloth.

He still wanted to gain proficiency himself, but he was happy that the crafting station could lower his burden and quicken his progress. After all, he didn’t intend to become an omnipotent alchemist, it was enough when he was able to make high-ranking acids and poisons for crafting.

With the worst itch scratched, Seth felt great relief and calmed considerably. Satisfied, he left several sets of ingredients on the alchemy station for Neloth to refine overnight while he went to sleep.

Having felt the inadequacy of their current firepower, Seth didn't have the mindset to keep grinding over the next days. Especially when thinking of the Pythian Games, he wanted to improve security with more and better golem presence.

Instead of grinding other skills, Seth spent his time infusing the harvested medium-sized souls into the prepared corpse puppets. These used to be the bodies of Orc Warriors ranging between lv. 60 and 75. After going through storage in the inventory, they all looked the same and had roughly the same stats. They were the ones who deserved to get full armors made.

It was going quicker than the production of Faer since the blacksmith deliberately didn't sing them to life. Time wasn't the only reason. Although artificial lives had a better potential in growth, they were impractical for logistical reasons. Golems with souls didn't count as living things so they could be stored and stacked in the inventory.

Despite the saved time, there were over 2600 of them. Even when he only injected the souls into their cores, he was still stuck in the workshop for several days, just working on these guys. He was just halfway done when the first batch of <Stainless Steel> arrived and the Golem Forge started processing the orc and hobgoblin bodies below lv.60.

The Soul Refinery was also done refining the 16 000 small souls into 3200 medium-sized ones. At this point, Seth withdrew Cerberus from making items, to help work on the lesser ones and quicken the process. Of course, there was another situation Seth had to deal with.

Although the armor for the lesser golems was taken care of with stainless scales, the armor for the better ones wasn't. There were 2600 of them and he intended to equip them with uncommon or rare sets of armor.

Minas Mar simply didn't have the capacity to make that many quickly. They were a small group of high-level experts and these mass-produced golems were not really worth the high-end stuff. But that wasn't the only problem.

What they had accumulated over the past had already been stretched out across their Oathguard, members of subsidiary guilds, the shops, and deals like the one with Gamma Resistance. Even if Seth wanted to put epic armor on these, there was not enough for a whole army.

Of course, Seth had not come back with just their bodies, he had also a considerable pile of uncommon armor the Orcs and hobgoblins wore originally. However, the warriors of Kozdam were not fans of full armor.

Goblins didn’t wear armor to begin with, while Orcs and Hobgoblins preferred what Seth would call barbarian-style armor. Singular pieces that covered several equipment slots while revealing a lot of bare skin.

He scrunched up his nose at the thought that he might have to resort to using these. Even if he wanted to, they were still far from enough to equip all of them, and their quality was unsatisfying.

Despite the upgrade, Seth still had no way to fool the Golem Forge into making straight-up armor for him. Cerberus was also bound to process the lesser corpse puppets. Even if he recruited the other blacksmiths, they were a small group of elites, there was simply not enough time to finish that many on their own.

This left Seth with only one option...

“Seth, It’s been a while since you asked me for a meeting,” Simon greeted him with his jolly, good smile. If the bard’s eyes weren’t wrong, the man’s circumference had increased again.

“Simon, I’m glad you were able to make time at such short notice,” the bard greeted him jovially. Only after they met, did Seth realize that he had kind of missed the man. He had been a great help ever since and he had come to trust him.

“So, what brings you here? I doubt you just wanted to see me for a good talk,” the priest cut to the chase, once they were both sorted with tea and cake. One never left hungry from visiting the red-robed priest.

“True. I need armor.” “You?”

“Yeah. The demand is a little too high for us to make it in time ourselves,” he admitted with a wry smile.

“What numbers are we talking about, that even the first blacksmith master of Urth is unable to reach it?” he asked surprised.

“2634 sets of armor.” This was the amount of besouled corpse puppets with medium-sized, unrefined souls.

As they were originally medium size, they were bigger than the refined ones, which only reached the minimum to be called medium-sized. As they also retained their original structure and were infused into compatible bodies, they had the best growth potential and deserved a minimum level of gear.

Simon swallowed hard, shocked at the number. He was glad that he was not taking a sip of his tea when Seth said that or he would have embarrassed himself.

“A-Are you preparing for war or something? Aren’t you already selling golem to Arget Nore? How much more are you intending to do?” he asked jitterily.

“This is different. The standard golems I’m selling to the undead have already proven that they won’t be enough to weather the coming storm. Didn’t you hear about the cultivators in Little Gamma? It actually took golem wave tactics to suppress the weaker ones.”

“Are they that strong?” Simon asked concerned.

“I fear it is as Yu warned us. This new wave, this invasion, will have many more and many stronger cultivators than the stragglers we met before. There was one that could almost fight Lydia on even ground in Emerald City.”

The priest's face turned grave, hearing that a chosen like Lydia with a bunch of legendary armaments and high-grade gear was pressured. After a moment he started nodding.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

“How quickly do you need it?”

“The quicker, the better. I want to give the golems enough time to grow." As their growth speed was very slow, he didn't delude himself that they would grow much stronger, but a little was better than not at all.

“Any requirements?”

“Not really, it's okay if they are cheap uncommon, or rare armors fit for warriors.” Seth didn't intend to put precious armor onto what was technically cannon fodder. Otherwise, people might have gotten the idea to attack his golems to loot the armor. Over time, he might start replacing their gear with dungeon drops or leftovers from their own production.

“hmm, I think I can help you, actually, I have an idea where to get them relatively cheaply. Though it comes with a catch.”

“Oh? Tell me.”