Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

With a gag-inducing pop, the silver bone found its new place in Jonah's leg. Once the bones were set, Seth spent half an hour washing his hand, before returning to the others in the booth.

The only thing missing now was infusing the part of Jonah's soul that was supposed to be the lower leg into the bones. This was usually not as important because souls are quite adaptable, but Seth tried to do his best, to make the recovery as quick and easy as possible.

Thoroughly inspecting Jonah's soul at the place of the cut, Seth was able to identify step by step the piece that had formed back after the leg was cut off but still held some of the information and traits of the cut leg. On that note, Seth was convinced that apart from cut nerves, it was these kinds of remnants of a partially formed back soul, that would sometimes cause phantom pains for many people.

Now he just had to carefully unfold those pieces and reshape them to the leg they once were. it was a weird sight for the people in Minas Mar's booth, to watch the Spirit Blacksmith hammer an intangible material none of them could see. Only Jonah could have felt the hammering on his soul.

Once he was satisfied with the progress, he began attaching the soul to the bones they belonged to. Starting from the knee, boned by bone, the part of the soul was infused into the foreign item. This was the easier part for the craftsman and soon, Jonah was ready for a foot bath in the Water of Styx.

“Agh! Gha!” Jonah's stoic expression finally broke, as he started whining and twitching. “It's cold and it feels like ants are biting my bone marrow! This had to be the worst pain of a sleeping foot waking up I ever had!” the swordsman cried at the question of what was wrong.

When the silver leg bones finally left the Waters of Styx, Jonah's eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness, as his flesh started quickly growing from his knee down, along the new bones. Seth couldn't imagine what this must feel like, but he kinda thought Jonah was exaggerating. It wasn't the first time the man lost a limb and regrew it. Even when this was a little different, it couldn't be that bad. Right?

“W-What happened?” the man in question asked, waking up shortly after a new, pristine leg had shaped around the new bones. “What do you mean? I didn't lose consciousness, I heard a system notification just before everything went dark and one when I woke up,” he denied losing to the pain.

“Oh, what did it say?” Leana asked him curiously.

“System Restart initiated and System Restart successful,” Jonah answered seriously.

“Now you are just joking with us,” Lynri asserted.

“I-I'm serious! It's what I heard,” he insisted.

“Well, whatever it was that made you faint, your leg is fixed now. How about you try walking around a little?” Seth interrupted them. Jonah nodded and pushed himself off the chair he was sitting in. The fresh, pale feet touch the cold tile floor and- Nothing.

Apart from the leg being still a little rosy, it seemed to work perfectly fine. Jonah walked around, testing and jumping, but he didn't stumble, or fall, or miss a step. It totally didn't seem like he was just given a fresh set of metal bones.

“It still feels a little numb in some places, but it's getting better as I speak. I think after some training, I won't be able to feel any difference,” Jonah judged the leg with a tint of joy in his voice. Soon he started jumping around when suddenly-!

“Ameno! Ameno dore! Ameno dori me~Ameno dori me~” a song started bursting out from below his knee.

<Ding! Your Health Regeneration has risen by 20% for 3 minutes thanks to listening to Ameno!>

Everyone listening got the same notification. Incidentally, this was the song of one of the finalists. It had not been that long since they heard this song.

“What have you done to me?!” Jonah exclaimed in terror.

“I told you there would be consequences, didn't I?” the blacksmith countered with an amused grin.

“B-but! But this!” Jonah stuttered, having a hard time coming up with what to say.

“It's a positive effect, whenever you burst out in dance, the leg will sponsor some music to accompany you,” Seth explained with a shrug.

“Could you pipe down, I want to see the award ceremony in peace,” Elly, the Slime Rancher called out from the front row. While Seth had been working on the leg, the two finales below had come to a conclusion and it was time to give them their prizes.

Although the artist and sports competitions could not compare to the tournament with the final prize being a legendary item, the Top 3 got a trophy, and prize money, while the number one place was also able to choose an epic or relic-rated instrument from the few successes of Seth's <Instrument Maker> grinding.

Even when the contestants were already illustrious and powerful enough, that an epic item was no news to them, all the instruments were made with wood from the guardian tree, which came with the rare double attribute of protection and life steal. Especially life drain on music was something comparatively rare. Even if they didn't need it, like the Solo Singers, selling it would bring in another heap of cash.

The winner of the solo musician's category was actually the young man with the overly long flute who was the opening act of the contest. As for the winner of the solo singers, it was a young female musician from the Pathworks.

“And I can really choose an earth-grade instrument as my prize?” he asked overwhelmed, looking at the collection of instruments in front of him. Although they were not instruments he was very familiar with the quality couldn't be questioned.

“I will take this strange pipa,” he announced and took a lute from the items on display. The female singer girl chose a harp and like this, the first day of the Pythian Games came to an end.

As the people slowly left and the stadium emptied for the night, the booth of Minas Mar turned quiet and more serious, as they turned to more serious business. Using various holographic consoles, the members went through the report about the situation in Little Gamma and the other Tree Stations.

The atmosphere calmed once they went over most of it, finding out that-

“It seems everything was calm today. There were the usual disturbances but no signs of any organized movements,” Mary concluded after everyone gave their summary.

“Hmm, Dim also has not yet found anything suspicious. Maybe they are waiting for the tournament?” Seth guessed. He had created a golem eye from the fragment of Dig Dimblood's soul. Of course, the Lepresean's horrible personality was thoroughly bound by the golem ego and a soul contract. Currently, the golem eye with the power to turn invisible was scouting the city, looking for suspicious activities in the dark nooks and crannies.

“Right. The martial tournament will have the most high-profile guests and estimated viewership. If they plan something big, it will probably happen during the finale,” Monique gave her judgment.

“Even if that is true and things will stay calm until then, that is no reason to lower our vigilance,” Luf commented.

“Right, there is no guarantee they won't pull anything before that.” Leana agreed gravely. Seth clicked his tongue. Why did these have to do so much foreshadowing?