Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“Why aren't we using these instead of the Alpeka?” Evan asked at the sight of the crowd of golem knights, seated on golem horses. The underground vault Seth and the Chosen of Hermes entered was filled with a full-blown Golem Cavalry.

While Seth was on tenterhooks waiting for the fabric to be finished, he decided to inspect how things were going in other places. His first destination was to have a look at the new batch of golems. He had left the operation of the Golem Forge and material supply to Cerberus for this, however, the Golem cavalry was a direct request from Arget Nore.

The sight was even surprising to Seth. The common steel they were made of, could not diminish the overwhelming presence of these massive mounts. The blacksmith didn't doubt that the horses alone could steamroll anything around their size and below lv.60.

“They are terrible mounts if you don't have an ass made of steel,” the blacksmith answered Evan's question, remembering the pain from riding the golem griffins for too long. Coming down, he met Evan on the way and he had kinda come along as they spoke about the next generation of Dungeon Worms and Titanoboas.

The juveniles he had caught back then had become adults and already laid their second clutch of eggs. The promise of a snake cavalry was not as far off as it once seemed.

“The golems don't mind, but if you were to ride one of these, it would shatter your hips,” Seth warned the man. The only ones able to ride these, apart from the Golem Knights, were probably the undead with their bony butts since a high-ranking undead's body was comparable to steel.

His gaze returned to the horses appreciatively. They were the best deal so far. Arget Nore paid the same price for them, as they did for a Golem Knight, but their production cost was much lower. Simple steel was easy and cheap to get in Delta. While held the standard of using at least <Magic Steel> for the knights, he totally cheaped out on the horses. The next step was to sell them Horse Armor if they thought the horses were too squishy.

Evan followed him, as Seth walked through the rows of golems, appraising and checking on them for any kinds of defects. The tamer could not help but feel drawn to these creatures made of steel. The metal muscles shining in the light of the hall, their martial chromium heads that looked much more sinister than any horse, with their eyes and nostrils glowing with red fire.

“Why are their eyes and nostrils glowing red?” Evan suddenly felt confused about this.

“Hmm? Oh, it's a fire enchantment I came up with together with Tored and Sivri. Although they are only made from common steel, I thought we should give them something for their money. It doesn't just look cool, but it allows these things to breathe fire,” the blacksmith explained happily.

“Anyway, I have something else to do now. You can stay, but remember, don't ride these horses.” Seth cautioned him again before he ported away. The next place he appeared in was the enchantment laboratory. He wanted to see how far Grant May had gotten.

Over the past weeks, Seth had sent all the things he made to the enchanter's lab. Since the undead were finally paying, he had also diverted some of Arget Nore's money from Alison's Alchemy Preparation to the enchantment costs.

The minor goal was to use these items to get a foot into the market and slowly spread his name in foreign planes, using the Auction House. His dream was to put up legendary items for auction to raise his Power of Existence at some point. But for now, epic and relic-rated items would have to do.

“Tower Master! I mean, Seth, what brings you here?” Grant asked him as he looked up from the magic circle in surprise. At the center of the circle was one of the shirts tailored from <Celectial bronze>. The pieces he made of <Ancient Bronze> were given to the other enchanters since they were slightly below May's level.

“Does that mean you finished the bows already?” Seth concluded at the sight. Since the enchanter already started on his first tries of tailoring, this had to mean, he was finished with the results of his <Carpentry> practice.

“Yes, they are over there in the storage room,” the enchanter answered readily and pointed at the door to his left, which led to an adjacent storage room. The room in question was full of elongated weapon crates. Looking inside Seth found that each crate held 25 neatly stacked bows.

There were three crates of relic-rated bows and ten with epic ones, adding up to a total of 325 high-rated bows, enchanted with simple elemental enchantments. The careful observer might have thought that the enchantments did not quite fit the quality of the base weapon.

His was not a miscalculation, but a side effect of what these weapons were, practice. Seth practiced his <Carpentry> and gave grant the chance to practice his elemental enchantments. Also, even when the enchantments were the cost-effective kind on the lower price spectrum, looking down on them was simply underestimating the cost of a comparable enchantment.

The blacksmith had spent quite a lot of time on the auction house interface since he got his portable VIP access. With his experience, he was sure these bows would sell like hotcakes. Something like an overabundance of epic items didn't exist. Relics especially, if a fixed price was set, no matter how high, they would be gone in minutes.

“Good work, Grant. I will make sure you get the funds for the next steps of enchantments,” Seth assured him after putting the crates in his inventory. The enchanter was also growing, as he was able to enchant high-rated items non-stop.

One would think the blacksmith had already gotten used to walking around with a whole arsenal of epic and above rated items, but Seth still became giddy with anticipation, thinking of the over 300 bows in his inventor. In the recent past, most of his items flowed directly into the Oathguard. He purchased a lot but didn't have the chance to sell a lot in the auction house.

Back in his workshop, he first brought out all the crates. Sitting on his throne of weapon crated, rubbing his hands, he opened his private access interface. One by one, he started putting the bows up for auction. 10 for the start. He discretely changed the auction names to things like Fire Bow, or Ice Bow, and generously set their starting auction price to a low 10 Gold for the 9 epics and a benign 25 Gold on the single relic. He set the time for the auction to a single day.

Although it would have been fun to just throw all of them at once, it would have hurt the market value if people knew there was a great supply. The blacksmith deliberately set the auction time to be short, to seem desperate. Afterward he would slowly increase the number and length of the auction. He guessed that this was the best way to get the most money out of them.

“Seth, you were here,” Tored greeted him, as he entered the workshop.

“Yeah, I just got the finished bows from Grant and was thinking of the best strategy to sell them. How about you?” Seth answered the dwarf. To his surprise, the dwarf seemed to actually enjoy teaching. He had gotten quite busy guiding Minas Mar's blacksmiths and goldsmiths. Even the elven blacksmith was eagerly following him. With Seth being busy raising his other skulls, they had not much time to work on projects together.

“I just finished helping Neill, He's at the cusp of becoming a journeyman. I'm really looking forward to actually meeting an indomitable blacksmith,” the dwarf said with a smile. It had been a while now since Neill joined them. Seth was happy for him, that he would finally be able to reap the benefits of choosing the slow path.

Since the first time, he had heard quite a lot about this epic-rated blacksmith class. As long as they worked long enough with a material, they would be able to raise the base performance by up to 25%. This was not taking into account, that they had a special passive that gave them an instinct for alloys. Legend had it, that it was an indomitable Blacksmith who invented <Adamantium>. Alloys were something every blacksmith in Minas Mar could benefit from.

Even further, once Neill caught up to Grant and the both of the reached the craftsman tier, they would be a tremendous combination. Maybe they would even be able to create legendary items, as long as they cooperated with each other? It was another small thing to look forward to.

“But what brings you here? I usually wouldn't be here around this time...?”

“Ehe, actually, I kind of acquired the habit of talking to your Sivri after work...” he admitted a little embarrassed.

“Oh my! Does that mean I'm interrupting you? I'm so sorry;” Seth said with a grind. Before Tored could belatedly explain, the Tower Master had already vanished with a cheeky smile. Of course, he knew that there was no deeper meaning behind Tored's actions, but the blacksmith was glad that there were no other people who could keep the golden golem company.

Since he couldn't think of anything else to do today, and he was not in the mood for more practice now, he decided to end his day early and go look for Mina and Fin to hang out.