Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Please wait, Seth! Calm down! Neither of us want this towel to slip down!", this blatant threat stopped Seth in his tracks. Right, if that towel fell, it would be a whole other kind of personal apocalypse for Seth. He took a deep breath and let go of his anger.

"What are you doing here Simon? Was it not enough to throw me into the desert and almost kill me? Are you here to gloat?"

"Don′t be like that Seth! I came to see if you are ok!", Simon explained cordially.

"Why?", Seth didn′t believe him.

"Can′t I be worried about our newest lay follower?", now with some sweat on his bald forehead.

"Why?"

Simon rolled his eyes and gave up.

"ok, ok. The fair folk are pressuring us to make sure you and your little companion are alive and healthy. Happy? Look, I could not have changed this, even if I wanted to. The effect is built in when a native travels through the Pathwork. It′s the interference of our god."

Even Simon the happy old man, looked down at this moment. Seth didn′t know whether he was acting or it really burdened the priest, but it wasn′t important now. Whatever happened, happened. Seth sank down into the warm water and let his worries wash away. Silence ensued.

"And why didn′t you tell me beforehand?", Seth finally asked after some time.

"It′s church policy not to talk about it, at least not the first time. And when the fairy joined you, I even wanted to tell you, but you just ran off....", he answered in a melancholic voice. It seemed that the old priest had really taken a liking to Seth in the short time they knew each other.

Seth sighed." Alright. I forgive you, but this is your last chance. Was this all you came here for?"

He tried to hide it, but the old man's wet beard shook in joy. Simon stood up abruptly, which brought his towel dangerously close to slipping again. <Calm Reaction> kicked in and Seth averted his eyes in time, before the elder bend over and started rummaging in at the border of the bath.

When Simon finally sat back down, he held a rough dark stone in his hands. A complicated rune was engraved on it.

"Here, this is a teleport rune, I got it from the church here. It′s the physical manifestation of a system right you will gain at lv.60. It is only a one-off item, but if you are in life-threatening danger, this can transport your party back here to the church in Zhiqe. You just have to put some mana into it and it will activate."

Seth took the heavy stone, the size of a palm from Simon. As he was examining it the priest suddenly reminded him. "Oh, and don′t put it in your inventory! It will vanish in your inventory if you don′t have the corresponding level to own it."

Seth nodded to signal that he had understood. The two still sat in the bath for some time and Seth recounted their adventures after coming to this new world, accompanied by Simon′s gasps of shock and laughter.

"Well then, Seth. I have to leave now. I wish you better luck on your future journey."

With this Simon stood up, this time he held tightly onto the towel, and left. Seth soon followed and went to his room to sleep. It was already late.

Seth woke up from small kicks in the face. The fairy lay sprawled on the pillow, twitching in her sleep. For a second he imagined doing to her, what his alarm clock had experienced, but her cute sleeping expression soothed his ire. His stomach gave a motivating speech and Seth left for breakfast after getting dresses in a fresh set of clothes.

Fin soon joined him and they had a delightful breakfast together.

Asso was already waiting outside when Fin and Seth left the inn. Fin split off to go and find information about the guild master leaving Asso and Seth behind.

Yudrid had said to come back in the evening, so they still had a lot of time, he planned to spend visiting the commercial district! Even if he did not buy anything, he could further fill his material catalog. Maybe even gain some blueprints?

Seth still did not know a lot about <Blueprints>. It had leveled up once, but never since. Except for pumping in SP, he had no idea what the conditions of why it leveled up in the first place. This reminded him of his idea to find a library. In civilization that got used to the systems influence, books about these details should exist! Finding a bookshop or library became another point on his checklist.

Seth didn't know what he had expected from this run-down city′s commercial district, but he was definitely disappointed. Most of the shops they passed were closed and boarded up. No bookshops or anything of the kind and the few weapon and armor shops they found were in no way better than what Klod′s, rather they were worse. Many of the weapons were not even new, but second hand, badly maintained or damaged. Even the few good weapon made of high-quality steel were worse that what Seth made with medium iron.

The only benefit he got from the shops was the recipe for high-quality steel. It came to a surprise to Seth, that he needed iron and coal in his smelter to make high-quality steel. Until now he had thought it was an advantage, that the Soul Fire did not need any fuel inside the smelter!

At first glance, the bazaar was not much better than the shops. When you think of bazaar you normally have a big plaza with lots of stalls and a big crowd of people in mind. With vendors screaming around to sell their wares and a huge hustle and bustle of customers.

For better or worse, the big plaza was almost barren. Seth had feared the crowd of people and was happy there were only few, but the lack of stalls also lowered his chances to find anything worthwhile.

Unexpectedly, he struck it rich when he came across the artifact stalls.

Among the wares, that reminded a lot more of a flea market than artifacts, he actually found some pieces made of ancient bronze.

The stall owners did not seem to know that some of their stuff were real artifacts and Seth wa able to get them for cheap.

Some small trinkets and jewelry like the bracer he found among the stuff from Ivicer, most of them were damaged and only useful to be melted down. A minority showed signs of broken enchantments on them! Maybe he could scan those? He put everything in one of the bags he got from the tailor lady and stored it in his inventory.

The bigger surprise came from the ancient weapons the stalls sold. They were in no way in a condition to be used, with most broken or low on durability. But they were exotic enough to give Seth a few new blueprints!

Among them was the khopesh with a distinctive blade that looked like a flattened question mark with the cutting edge on the outside of the curve like a scimitar.

A kind of curved dagger with the blade formed like a halved crescent moon and a square spear-tip with four sharp edges. All of them were made of ancient bronze and showed a pattern like pattern-welded steel.

Compared to the little trinkets who′s worth the owners did not know, these scrap weapons were totally overpriced with the vendors asking for several gold coins for an unusable weapon. Seth ended up spending 3 gold on 2 scrap weapons. He really wanted to melt them down and make at least one weapon from ancient bronze to test its properties and see it′s true potential.

Other than these few surprises there was nothing else to be found on the bazaar. The trip was not completely fruitless, but Seth had expected more. There was also none of those typical game-events like running into a disguised noble girl or finding an epic ego-item hidden among scrap.

He followed Asso thinking of this kind of nonsense. They were leaving the marketplace when Asso was suddenly shoved to the side by a member of a team of guards surrounding a young man.

Seth had spoken too early! Here it was! An encounter with a corrupt and disgusting young mas-

"What did you do that for Nazim!?", the guard was reprimanded by the handsome young master.

"Yo-young master, I'm just making sure the rabble keeps it′s distance from you!", Nazim said, giving Asso the stink eye.

"Stop calling our citizens rabble.", he actually gave the guard a bitch slap, "I′m sorry for my guards lack of discipline." The young master actually bowed his head in apology to Asso.

"Young Master Ikram, please don′t! Asso is just a lowly citizen. Master Ikram should not apologize to me!", Asso reacted flustered.

Seth would have had to be stupid to not understand, that this guy was probably the heir of the city lord or some high-ranking noble, but he seemed polite and approachable. He had not forgotten what Klod had taught him and gave the guards a once over with <Blacksmith′s Eyes>.

Seth proceeded to take out one of the swords he had tested <Soul Infusion> on. They were some of his best works so far and perfect for advertisement! The weapons and armor worn by the guards of a noble should be high quality, right? But even so the weapons were more or less well maintained, they were no better than what could be bought in the shops around here. Seth smelled business.

Was Seth wealthy? He sure felt like he was. Did that mean he would turn away from potential business? Hell no!

The guards interrupted Ikrams conversation with Asso and pulled him back into their midst, when they saw the young man pull out a weapon. Asso looked at Seth, puzzled. Why did he suddenly take out a weapon?

"Young master Ikram, a pleasure to meet you. I am Seth, a humble blacksmith. I recently had the chance to visit your-"

"Keep your distance, blacksmith!", Nazim the distance-inspector interrupted him rudely. Seth scowled.

" beautiful city.", he continued sarcastically and looked at Nazim′s unsheathed blade.

"I couldn't help but notice the terrible state that your guard's equipment is in. Don′t you think someone of your standing deserves a better prepared force?"

"A blacksmith you say...", Ikram mumbled, "There had been no actual blacksmith willing to visit the stick since...", he almost inaudibly whispered to himself.

"Of course, I have reference works.", he said and held out the sword, with the hilt pointed towards Ikram.

"Young Master can test it for yourself if you want, or maybe I should help you discipline your guard?"