Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

A little more than two weeks had passed since Seth returned from Beta. Positive news started arriving one after another. Things were set in motion.

The relief forces of Y-City had reached Beta District and managed to cooperate with the remaining guilds and soldiers of Beta. The evacuation was slowly gaining traction. There was also news of scattered refugees arriving in Y-City.

Simon, the chubby priest, brought another piece of news. Princess Leana and the rescue forces successfully reached Gamma District. It seemed that their journey had been a safe one and everyone was fine. They were now occupied with organizing themself and preparing to escort the refugees from Gamma to Delta.

Azul was happy to hear that the Chimeras had arrived in Gamma without any casualties.

A lot of people would be crossing the mountains this winter. The evacuation would get into full swing soon and the Princess was also preparing to climb the mountain range.

Seth hoped they were properly prepared for the cold. After thinking about it for some time, he had a talk with Hoen. With the help of the magic blacksmith, he designed something like a heating packet.

The blacksmith had come up with a small token enchanted with a <Fire Shield>. Using his experience in enchanting and trying to adjust the spell arrays of the golems, he had reduced the upkeep cost of the shield in exchange for the shield's blocking power.

By injecting a small amount of mana into the token, the user would be able to create a bubble of heat around them. By emphasizing the heat generation instead of the shield properties, he was able to cut down on the cost of the spell.

Although Seth had felt quite smug about his idea, the dwarf burst his bubble. This was not a new idea and there existed many iterations of this across the pathworks. Creating a magic device that could be used as a portable heat source was not that original of an idea.

However, Seth's device was original since they used Puffles' <Ancient Bronze> as material. This gave the item another boost. After making a few prototypes in the shape of engraved coins, Hoen suggested making a minting press instead of making them all by hand.

"Does that really work?"Seth had doubts.

"Yes, it does."

The dwarf explained that he had the fitting skill to make it work. As a blacksmith who specialized in enchanting and magic items, Hoen had the skill to duplicate enchantments for mass production.

Leaving it to Hoen, they made a batch of 300 heat coins to start off and see if there was even a need for them. To deliver them to Gamma, he asked Drosi and the Tijaahk. It was the first task he asked of them and Drosi jumped onto it.

It was a good first quest since the cat people could use the system church's teleport to travel to Gamma's Starta Village and back. There was no danger involved. 100 were meant for the chimeras and another 100 would be gifted to the Princess. They would send the remaining 100 to Y-City.

After discussing it with Hoen and Puffles, they decided to sell the coins at the material price, if there was a demand for the evacuation efforts.

Seth's own experiments also bore fruits. He tested the snow and ice golem with the big souls. The snow golem was hilariously big in size in exchange for having almost no substance. The ice golem on the other hand was about the size of the stone golem.

For a change, he tried making a snow golem with a medium-sized soul it ended up just being a head shorter than himself. With Seth being 1,90, the snow golem was of average height.

Subconsciously, the blacksmith had wanted to try using big souls, because he thought that the outcome would at least be more usable than the minigols popular among the children and female members of Minas Mar.

Even Monique had approached Seth and asked for a minigol. She had tried to be casual about it, but the way she had avoided his eyes and blushed. Seth couldn't help but tease her before making one for her.

After the initial tests, Seth was a little disappointed and saw no worth in wasting any more big souls for experiments. Instead, he returned to using medium-sized souls for further studies. Having seen the effect with a higher power input and different elements, he now had an idea of what to look out for.

Soon he managed to manipulate their size and shape. Using a medium soul, he could now make a humanoid doll the size of a child.

A few days later, he reached level 3 of <Golem Artisan> which unlocked the spell arrays for golems made of ores and allowed him even more freedom in tweaking with the settings.

Now that he could tweak the arrays to change their shape and material, he was able to make them take more efficient shapes. Seth used the remaining big souls to make a human-sized stone and ore golem.

They resembled faceless mannequins. With its smaller, compact shape, the stone golem had become a lot quicker without losing any of its power. It was also able to operate on full power for much longer at a time before it had to stop and recover energy.

But even with these modifications, the Ore Golem was a disappointment. It could barely move the speed of a relaxed person. Seth had used simple iron ore, some of what Puffles had left of the Stone Giants armor.

The Iron ore Golem gave him little hope that there would be any improvements without the use of a more powerful soul. Maybe there would be improvements if he used magical ores for this kind of golem?

Fiddling with this technology, Seth's thoughts wandered to Cerberus. The golem had a chiseled body made of a material Seth could not fathom and showed no sign of tiring even when it worked in the smithy 24/7. Just what kind of soul would his predecessor have used for such a strong golem?

This pondering ended, when Seth finally managed to find the parts of the spell he needed. Finding out how exactly to use it from here on was quickened, when Al visited him with her results on the books from master Mountain.

Seth showed her his own results and her comments and inspirations on the topic helped him find the right direction. He felt confident to give it a go. Of course, he gave it his own twist.

Al had chosen the automaton approach. His predecessor had started off with golems. Seth learned from both of them, but he also had his own experiences.

...

"... "

Seth had asked her to come by. Upon arrival, Al'Salzar faced a 5m tall undead monkey skeleton. No, not an undead. It did not have the aura of one. A bone automaton? A skeleton Golem? She was not sure what to call it.

Inlays of thin <Mihril> covered the bones of the skeleton. All of them, enchantment arrays of her design that made it possible for it to move. But in comparison, there was no central core to it.

"Hmm, so this is your answer? It's true that a soul has the highest affinity with its previous body, or one similar to it."

"That's the idea. But I'm not a necromancer. Although I make them, I don't enjoy looking at them."

The sorceress didn't really listen to him. She stared into the monkey's fiery blue eyes and suddenly moved as if to deliver a punch. The skeleton shrunk back in a defensive posture, awaiting a strike that never came.

"Something's not right. This isn't just a golem... This thing is sentient!" she exclaimed.

"Ah, yes. Stuff happened." Seth explained a little embarrassed.

Of course, before he managed to create this prototype there were a few failures. For this kind of golem, he had to not just assemble the skeleton and inlay it with the different enchantments. He had to forge the soul into a recreation of the whole skeleton before using <Golem Artisan> to convert it into a golem soul.

In this process, his <Spirit Forging> had finally become lv. 7. This came with a useful new perk. Seth was now able to refine souls through forging which gave it a chance to create blank ego souls. Even if it did not gain an ego, depending on the soul it could generate an animalistic sentience that was able to gradually learn and take orders.

This was why the monkey had instinctive reactions to attacks for example. Even inherent combat and movement patterns.

"But I did not intend to brag when I asked you to come. I wanted to talk about a way to integrate an additional power source."

"It seems quite nimble and powerful, why would you need more power?"

"More power is always better. But it's not the only reason. I don't enjoy staring at a naked skeleton all the time. I'm not a necromancer."

"How about letting them grow skin or a shell of earth, like those other golems?"

"A generically generated shell would defeat the purpose of using the skeleton. I wish to add armor to it."

"I see, let me take a closer look."