Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

ngth and agility for example.

To a listener, this might seemed like a huge thing. Even just using these simple enchantments, Seth could layer these and get items with incredible power-ups, right? Unfortunately, not.

Of course, there was a catch. Something professional enchanters deserved to be admired for. Just like with items, the more complex the enchantment became, the more careful the crafter had to be when balancing and choosing the effects in relation to the item he was enchanting.

Without the due diligence and research, there could be all kinds of things going wrong, with the smallest being terrible mana costs. Worse things could entail the magic of the enchantments malfunctioning, canceling each other out, or having unforeseen, sometimes even negative, side effects depending on the item, processing, or material they were used on.

This was why Seth stayed with the tried and true for now. Polish the basics. And how to better polish the basics than by making over 450 rings with complex enchantments by hand?

As he finished the enchantments, some would stay rare, but others would even upgrade to epic when he chose the right enchantments. Starting with the first, every time it happened he would smile brightly.

It was a testament to his skill really improving, he still remembered when he could barely make an epic item using rare materials by layering all enchantments and his on top of each other.

…

“Seth, are you in here?” Mary came in with a clipboard. “What the?!” she exclaimed, seeing him sit surrounded by a pile of rings.

“Oh, hey Mary, whats up?”

“…I came because I need you to sign some documents. Whats with all those rings?” she asked a little tired. She had seen too much to be surprised by Seth sitting in a pile of rings like a dragon n his hoard.

Mentioning weird sights, the giant apparatus that was busily spitting out golems, which were then put aside by other golems, could easily surpass this lord of the rings in weirdness.

“Ah, sure. Let me see.” the blacksmith put down the ring he was working on and lifted the magnifying spectacles to read the documents.

These were various forms that legitimated Minas Mar as the owners and manager of the trade route they were currently developing. Although everything was already dealt with on the side of Chrona, it still had to be officiated by Delta.

Which obviously meant that the district was insisting on their share of this business adventure. Seth already started to miss the time right after they came to Delta when the authorities were still practically powerless.

As times became more peaceful, the government body recovered and pesky stuff like taxes and trade permissions and stuff like that kept cropping up. They were even planning for a new election in the not-so-far future.

The blacksmith was glad he could leave most of these things to Mary and Jane. Every time he saw these kinds of documents, he was glad that he had saved those two back then.

“Oh right, can you ask Jane to come by later?”

“Is it about those rings?” Mary asked with a sigh and glanced and the heap of accessories.

“Yup!”

“…I will tell her.”

With that, she left the blacksmith to his own devices once again.

Past noon, Fin and Mina came strolling in. Mina approached him from behind and asked him with her hands massaging his shoulders.

“Arent you hungry?”

“Lets go and have lunch!” the fairy joined in to get him away from his work.

“Alright, lets go. Lets ask Hoen and Wedan to come along, too.” the blacksmith said and put down the 23rd ring he had managed to finish. They didnt have to ask for long, for Seth to quickly drop his work for food.

…

Jane entered the empty workshop. Well, not completely empty. There were Cerberus working in the smithy and other golems walking around a giant machine.

Mary had told her that Seth has asked her to come by. It seemed like he was making a bunch of accessories. Seth wasnt here, but the accessories were.

The womans knees went weak, seeing the mountain of rings flooding the jewelers table.

What was this madman trying to do this time? Crash the accessory market?