Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth quickly sifted through the pile of items. The system money quickly found its way into his inventory. Among the things the golems had collected were also credit cards, however, at this point in time these cards were useless.

They were useless because most of the banks and institutes supporting them were now gone. The destruction of Y-City had also wiped out most of the big conglomerate families still left in the Districts, many of which had been part of the Scene.

With the greatest backer behind the credits gone, the Urthan Credits had weakened a lot. They were still an accepted currency, even in Minas Mar, but the focus had shifted to the convenient and now easier-to-use System Currency, which was supported by a literal god.

Much of the heap was also common items. The golems had no appraisal, so they collected everything that seemed of worth. The only things worth keeping among the common items were gold, silver, or platinum items like jewelry. Even with the existence of magical ores, these materials still had their worth.

It took hours to go through the whole heap and sort the loot into different trucks. Seth only had so many inventory slots and without crates or chests, he wasn't able to store huge amounts of individual items. He also wasn't in the mood to fashion hundreds of quests at the moment. So he just sorted the stuff, with some help from Puffles, and put it on the various vehicles the golems had acquired to transport the stuff.

“You should deliver these things to TS12 before entering the abandoned ruins,” Seth finally ordered Vegga and Vaggi, once everything was in order. “You can everything except this one and the ones with resources to Mark Baker,” he added, slapping the truck that was filled with looted Polyarkanate Armor and some other epic items. The two golem orc generals nodded.

Apart from items reserved for the use by Minas Mar, the loads of “resources” were the common items like jewelry that could still serve as practice items for their enchanters.

“Alright, let's get back, Puffles,”

Getting on the back of the nightmare centipede, Seth returned to TS12 and from there to Minas Mar as quickly as possible. He finally had a soul for his Lucky Trinket and he intended to finish it as quickly as possible.

However, by the time he finally returned, it was already late. Tored and Hoen had already finished for the day, only Sivri and Cerberus were still in the workshop, working. Since everyone else had left, Sivri was back to making things from the <Tempest Copper>.

“Seth, you are back? It's quite late.” She said surprised. At this point, it was already late and he didn't expect him to come to the workshop, instead of going to his room to sleep.

“Yeah, but I have to do something, or it will keep me awake for the night,” Seth explained and took off the Lucky Trinket. It was a ring he made, quite some time ago at this point. It was made with one of the few minerals with a connection to luck, <Fortuneglass>. Al herself had enchanted it for him, to aid him, especially during crafting.

He had been looking for a fitting soul for a long time. Everything else was prepared and only waiting for one. Now he finally had one. What blessing he would put on his ring of fortune? Was that even a question? Of course, it was going to be the Blessing of Hades.

Of course, one could argue that Hades was not the God of fortuitous outcomes or “luck”, but he was literally the God of Fortune, as in riches. Taking into account that he did not have access to the Blessing of Tyche, this blessing had the best chance for a great outcome. Especially since the specifics of the Soul he finally got, fit Hades much better.

But before he could start, he had to prepare the soul. After all, it had an ego. Dig Dimblood was not the kind of personality he wanted to wear on his hand. The blacksmith also had no intention to make a deal with the creature.

Unfortunately, he also couldn't use the method of suppressing the original ego with the automaton core circuit. From experience he knew, that he would need the space for the Blessing of Hades. This only left doing it by and or Soul Refinery goes -brrrrr

What Seth really needed out of the Lepresean's soul was his affinity to luck and the ability to buff luck with precious things. However, considering the creature's vast array of other skills, Seth kept a few more that fit the ring and would be helpful to him in the future. What he definitely filtered out was the geass. Seth already possessed a superior way to become invisible.

The blacksmith was glad he had the Soul Refinery and he thought he finally understood its true worth. Forgebrand would have had a high-level <Spirit Capture> from the beginning and easily reached Seth's current point.

He had faced the drawbacks of well-preserved souls early, especially in the shape of willful egos. For the soul to retain a lot of its knowledge, memory or skill was good if he intended to create a golem, but there was too much if it was about imbuing it into an item.

Manually refining such a full soul would take a long time, so his dwarven predecessor came up with a method to automate it. While Refining Dig Dimblood's Soul, he found another peculiarity of the geass. It was woven into the soul, almost like the power of gods stained the souls of their priests and strong believers.

Refining away the geass completely was next to impossible, this was why Seth decided on something else. Instead of refining out the geass and the Lepresean's ego, he split it off. This cost him some of the size of the soul, turning it into a big soul at the threshold of massive. On the other hand, he had a medium-sized soul with an ego and the geass.

Why did he sacrifice some of the power to do this? Curiosity. Seth wanted to see what would happen if he set this soul into a golem. Would the golem inherit the geass? If he used the automaton core and a soul contract to bind him, would he count as permanently caught?

If he was caught and started to serve an enemy, would the soul contract allow him to simply retrieve the soul? He could send him to spy and if he got caught and “betrayed” him because of the geass, he would die and Seth could retrieve the soul. The thought was funny. It was like a consumable spy. All he would lose was the golem's body.

There was already a lot he could do with just this soul's geass, what about the others? A geass had a big drawback for the being it originally belonged to, but not to Seth. The blacksmith could freely choose what body to insert the soul.

For example, the unlimited stamina when in water. What if Seth used the soul and Forgebrand's original golem formation to create a Water Golem? Would it have unlimited stamina no matter where, since it was made of water? Like this, he could choose items or materials that negated the drawback. This new power had great potential if it worked as he hoped for.

But for now, he had more important work. With Dig's soul refined, he could start forging it into a mirror image of his Lucky Trinket. That was not had, since it was a simple ring with only a small stone set at the top. What he had to mentally prepare for was the enchanting.

It had been a while since he engraved a blessing and he had to get prepared for the presence of a god to look over his shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he stretched himself and then got to it. The sigil of Hades, was the symbol of his helmet, the Helm of Darkness, with a stylized flame to the left and right of it.

The familiar pressure weighed on his shoulders the moment he put down the engraving tool. It was a presence he had already felt twice before. One when he created his Helm of Hades, a copy of the god's armament, and when he visited his temple in Chrona. Like the previous two times, he could not feel any malice in the presence of the ruler of the underworld.

Calm and serious, maybe a little cold, but also unexplainably reliable. Despite having no bad intention, the presence alone made the blacksmith sweat as he slowly and deliberately carved the fine sigil onto the soul ring.

It was not a big pattern, or a complicated one, but each stroke cost him immense concentration. However, compared to before, he also felt a lot calmer. Not because of <Calm Mind>, but because of his increased skill, experience, and support items.

Soon, Seth completed the last stroke of the sigil and finished the carving. Like before, a pattern started spreading, starting from the sigil. It was a pattern of angular swirls, like stylized floods of fire and smoke, at the same seemingly time cold and controlled. He felt something almost like a pat on the shoulder before the presence vanished. The blessing was finished.

He took a moment to calm down before continuing with the next step, infusing the soul ring into the Lucky Trinket and baptizing it in the Waters of Styx.

<Ding! You have finished a unique item. +100p of Power of Existence>

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