Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Over the following days, Hoen worked on the ring foundries. Contrary to Seth's experience, the dwarf claimed this was a dwarven specialty.

According to Seth's time with Tored, this kind of practice would be frowned upon in a place like Ora. When the blacksmith asked about it, Hoen blushed a little.

"There are many old people that think like this in my former clan, but that is a custom of he past." he explained it as a cultural difference. After all, they were speaking about people from completely different worlds.

"That makes sense:" Seth nodded pondering.

Of course, nobody could expect dwarven society to be the exactly same everywhere, when they were isolated by dimensions.

While Hoen was busy building production facilities, Seth was working on finishing the rings for the Turquoise Anvil, until three days later a member of the Oathguard knocked at the door of his workshop.

"Errm, Tower Master?" he asked a little nervous.

"Yes?" he looked up from the ring he was working on, with his eyes comically enlarged by the magnifying spectacles.

"There is a message from the system church. Your shipment has arrived," he informed the blacksmith.

"Oh, which one?"

"I'm sorry, it doesn't say." the man answered nervously.

"Calm down, I'm not gonna eat or something. I will go a take a look. Could you go and inform Mary, in case someone looks for me?"

"Ah, yes, Sir." he said and hurriedly ran away.

Seth stood up stretched, putting the spectacles aside. With a simple command, he instantly ported from his workshop to the hub of the system church. He was still wearing his leather apron, covered is small metal shaving from carving enchantments.

"Could you call Simon for me? I got a message that my shipment arrived," he spoke to one of the priests at the counters.

He nodded and left, only to quickly come back with Simon in tow.

"Seth, you were quick! I sent the message just 10 minutes ago."

"I would have been even quicker if you learned to use a phone and just contacted me directly." the blacksmith joked.

"Well, you could also just get used to communications crystals." the priest countered.

"Who would want to always carry around those bulky things!"

The staff silently vanished, leaving Seth and Simon to bicker on their own.

"So, What shipment did arrive for me?"

"It will be quicker if I show you. Follow me." the priest said mysteriously and led him deeper into the church and into a big "storage room".

"This is your shipment."

"All of this?"

"The whole shelf."

Simon had stopped and the two stood at the far end of the expansive warehouse. The shelf Simon was referring to covered the whole wall and was jam-packed with wooden crates. The blacksmith gasped when he opened the lid of one of the crates.

"This is crazy..." he couldn't help to exclaim.

There was a wall of crates and each crate was filled to the brim with <Ithildin> bars. That had to be material equal to the part of the <Mithril> door he had left to them. When Seth talked with the dwarves about this, he thought he would be getting the <Ithildin> in installment, but those crazy metal nerds had sent everything all at once.

What was this? This was epic material worth more than gold and there was probably enough to dwarf the gold reserves of Delta. And it was all his. As he bagged the crates, the number displayed in his inventory quickly passed 200. In the end, there were 230 crates of <Ithildin>.

It was so much, that he probably wouldn't be able to spend all of it in his lifetime unless he started building iron giants...

Although the armors for the guard golem had not arrived yet, with the <Ithildin> there was another project he could finally proceed with. Fulfilling a promise he had given a while ago...

He bid farewell to Simon and returned to Minas Mar with his pocket full of something even better than gold. With all the <Ithildin> he could wish for, it was time to work on fulfilling a promise he made some time ago.

"Hey Link, did you already finish dismantling the birds?" he asked, sticking his head in the kitchen.

It had already been a few days after all.

The row of stoves was filled with pots and pans containing whole birds and parts in all states of cooking. Link turned around in surprise, still a drumstick in hand and a piece of stringy meat hanging from his mouth.

"Oh! Seth. Great timing. Do you want to join me in taste testing?" he offered.

This was more of a rhetoric question. There was no way Seth would not join, even against the gourmet hunter's will, after seeing the myriad of finished dishes assembled on the counter.

After feasting until he was about to fall into a coma, Link finally asked him to follow. Both waddled over to the dismantling area where boxes of golden feathers and beaks waited for Seth.

"Burp, thanks for the food and the good work." he thanked Link and returned to the workshop.

After acquiring some additional materials, it was time to make a blueprint. It was important because it saved Seth a lot of trial and error on the real thing, as the higher level <Blueprint> allowed the user to add and test things in a virtual environment.

Seth had a plan in mind, but as this was a special occasion he had to consult with his client,

~Now then, Ceres. Let's talk about the details.~ he used telepathy to talk to the soul of the elemental.

The blacksmith had given his promise to release it from the spear and create a body fitting for the being if its information was correct. Now, the Golem Forge it had talked about had been happily spitting out golems for the past week just like Ceres had said. Maybe even better than it had said.

On the other hand, Ceres had a few chances to see what Seth was able to do, from using the Golem forge, to creating a Golem Knight, to the full process of technically reviving the Minotaur. The latter being what he intended to offer it.

~Can you really give me a body, as you did with that bull?~ it asked insecure with a hint of hope.

~But is this okay with you?~ he asked beforehand.

His reason for doubt was that he had the chance to see the elemental's body when it was summoned by the spear of bitter mercy. Like most elemental Seth had heard about, it had no actual corporeal body, but one made up of their element.

~ If you prefer this kind of body, I could also accomplish that.~ he assured the storm elemental.

He couldn't just do it, it would even be easier to do it, as he could rely on the basic function of <Golem Artist> instead of his self-invented technology to bind it to a preexistence frame.

~Are you kidding me? No, I want a body made of flesh and blood!~ it insisted.

Ceres went on to explain that many elementals actually yearned for a corporeal body. Most of them were ethereal being without a fixed form, the body he saw when it was summoned took a huge amount of their mana to be sustained. The moment they were exhausted or lost focus, they would lose their body until they recovered,

~That sounds stressful.~

~It is!~

With Ceres's insistence, Seth followed the original plan and started designing a bird-shaped automaton. He did not skimp on materials and allocated some of his scarce <Adamantium> for the base frame. With the now abundant <Ithildin> he would do the core and all the enchantment inlays, covering the golems skeleton in a fine net of silver patterns.

They were a mix of formations needed for movement and formations that passively collected mana. It would seem similar to how the automatic customization had done it on the Minotaur, but this time he would do it all by hand.

Seth also intended to use the feathers of the bronze birds, the eagle chief's wing feathers, and the beak of the terror bird which were all rated rare. They may not have been able to compare with the materials of the basic frame, but they were important.

Something he had learned was that souls had an easier time binding with organic materials, even if they were not from their own mortal body. Except as an experiment for the Minotaur, that was possible because of the golem forge's alien technology, he had not done so before.

The reason is simple, the soul of the Faer, Karina, or even the hanging tree had a memory of their own corporeal body. This was the blueprint he was able to reveal from them with magic. But in Ceres's case, this was different.

On its own account, the elemental never had a corporeal body. The basic existence of an elemental was that of a bodyless spirit. He was worried whether his method would work in that case. And because of that, he decided to give a little by adding materials as a kind of guideline.

So even if it failed, it would still end up as an ego golem, similar to Python. The feathers would at least give it the appearance of a living body. Seth explained all of this to Ceres as he designed the blueprint.

~What do you think?~ he asked once the plan was finished.

~Let's go for it! Anything is better than being a spirit or soul.~ it stated motivated. Even the prospect of becoming an ego golem seemed preferable to it.

With the finished blueprint and the recipients okay, Seth started his work.