Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Little Gamma---

While more than half the participants were facing hurtful and humiliating traps and riddles, others were fighting their way through the mountain. Not everyone had entered the dungeon, many kept their eyes on the price and trusted their swift mounts and vehicles, rather than taking the dubious shortcut.

Others didn’t even get the chance to see the dungeon entrance. Caleb and those like him who had deigned to take the easy way in the skies had actually landed past the great gate and were left to make their way through the mountains, like the other mounted players.

With so many on their mounts, or artifacts, the few people that scaled the mountains on foot stood out. Interestingly enough, there were two among them, Seth and the others knew. One was Lyca, the Amazon, who had thrown herself into this adventure headfirst.

Footage of her showed clearly with how much fun and ease she overcame mountain cliffs and gorges. The terrain wasn’t her opponent, and neither was the beast that would try to get in her way. Others were running a high-difficulty race with great dangers; she was out on a recreative hike.

The other unlikely fellow Seth had already met once was Mr. Fister. The cultivator with the crazy martial art to curl his feet into another pair of fists. The barefooted man jumped agilely from tree to tree, up mountains and across valleys.

Kicking- No! Punching the ground beneath him, whenever it got close, he never stood still for a moment. Other cultivators were outright flying, but their speed couldn’t compare to the man’s manic charges. His bodycam footage alone was able to make the audience nauseous and the flying golem eye was barely able to follow his journey.

Despite the displayed difficulty of the dungeon, those who had chosen the correct paths managed to cross almost the whole first stage of the race about three hours, arriving at the first day’s checkpoint in less than 4 hours, ahead of anyone else.

Interestingly enough, one of the first people who made it through the dungeon was not a fast demon who passed by the obstacles or any of the two flutists. Arriving first at the finish line of the first stage was Megan, the archaeologist of Caleb’s group.

Using her experience of scavenging ruins of old civilizations, she didn’t have a hard time finding the various clues the architects of the labyrinth had left for the runners to decipher. Only a few had noticed the hidden patterns and ornaments and even fewer had managed to follow the correct instructions all the way to the end.

As mentioned earlier, the dungeon was the correct way, for those able to choose the correct way.

…

Hao Ying also made it out of one of the dungeon’s exits, a little past the four-hour mark and quickly reached the checkpoint. There were already many people present, aggravatingly enough the crazy demon flutist had also arrived before him.

However, the cultivator was not as upset as he could have been. After his battle with the demoness, he came through various chambers and traps and actually managed to score big time, getting his hand on a pair of rare leather gauntlets and more importantly an epic dagger. Although he came a little later, the two earth-grade artifacts more than made up for this slight mishap.

He wasn’t a weapons user, but he would be able to sell, or trade the dagger with his sect for something he needed more. Earth-grade weapons were not common enough for even big sects to look down on them. On top of that, he could feel, that this was at least a high-tier earth-grade weapon.

The gauntlets on the other hand were low or medium earth grade, but he decided to keep them. The leather of the gloves was smooth and didn't get in the way of his craft while protecting what was most important for the craft. They fit him much better than the dagger.

The dungeon fun kept going until deep into the evening, however, the number of people that reached the checkpoint for the day didn't change much in the later half of the day. When the signal of today's finish was finally given, there were just 50 of the initial 2000 people left.

...

On a wild field just outside Little Gamma, the fleet of Epsilon had landed to rest. The field was covered by great domes of dimly shining barriers, that kept beasts and intruders outside, while the people inside were working on their ships.

While the populace that had been crammed into the great number of partially damaged and badly maintained vessels was allowed to enter and spend time in Little Gamma, the crews of these ships were busy with much-needed maintenance.

The blacksmith had come here because he was curious about the status of their work, as Joannia was currently busy studying the core reactor and the molten giant.

“Tower Master, welcome!” the old man with a grumpy face greeted him friendly. This was Joannia's second in command. As an old partner and friend of her father, he was almost like an uncle to her.

“Hello, Tyrone. How are things going?”

At first, the man seemed hard to deal with, but his temper turned very quickly when Minas Mar agreed to supply them with the materials and components needed to fix and upgrade their fleet. From what Seth was told, the fleet had been in the air ever since leaving Epsilon.

They had been constantly traveling and fighting, unable to do any proper repair or maintenance in all this time. Even after reaching New Hope, the ship stayed in the air to patrol the surroundings. The longest they had landed for was when they picked up people in New Hope to travel to Minas Mar.

A fear that they would not start back up was also part of the reason for this. This was just 2/3 of what originally started from Epsilon and it was a wonder that these ships made in haste and built from scrap still survived this long.

Now that they reached a safe haven, the ambitious crew of architects, engineers, and mechanics that originally built and planned the vessels were more than motivated to overhaul the whole fleet. Especially Minas Mar's willingness to sponsor this had raised their reputation in their eyes.

“Of course, the first point is maintenance and indispensable repairs to get the fleet back into working order. Then we will start completing and upgrading them one by one,” Tyrone explained as he showed Seth around what had essentially become a shipyard. There were people everywhere cutting and welding metal with rains of sparks.

Seth was just glad, that most of these vessels relied on magical engineering, instead of high-grade materials to develop their power. if there was something Minas Mar had more than enough of, then it was common and uncommon ores they had mined across the district using the tower's drones and the mining golems Seth had made.

The fleet's people were able to take care of the rest themselves, as long as they got the materials.

“How long do you think the repairs will take?” the bard asked curiously.

“I think we will be done with the flagship and destroyers should be back in working order in a few days. After that we will start working on the frigates and transporter,” he explained motivated to impress the big sponsor.

“A few days? That is good to hear. Does that include refilling ammunition? Do you need more materials for that?” the blacksmith asked thoughtfully.

“Of course, this was already included. The materials for restocking ammunition were already in the things we asked for.

“Hmm, I see, very good. When you are done with the flagship and the destroyers, can you keep a team ready? Just in case something...unfortunate happens?” he asked innocently.

“Joannia already gave orders to do so. Do you expect the games to be disrupted?”

“Chances are high. that's why we want to be prepared.”