Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

After the tournament, there was a lot of stuff for Minas Mar to do. The Pythian Village had suffered a lot of damage. Although it was not as great of a concern to Minas Mar, as the place was not meant to be permanent in the first place, they had to prepare emergency shelters.

There were still many guests without the permission to enter Little Gamma, who wished to stay and watch the award ceremony. The most important part of said ceremony was Seth's sole responsibility, apart from appearing at one or two press conferences.

As such, while everyone else was busy with the aftermath, the blacksmith sat in his workshop in Minas Mar and pondered over the window of . Seth had never really heard of a rope dart and he also didn't inherit any blueprints he could base it off of.

After Dowloon had described the weapon and its use to him, he realized that he had some dim memories of seeing a similar weapon in a video game or two he used to play for a short while. Based on her description and vague memories of the game, he tried to come up with a design using to simulate various materials.

For this, Seth had and pile of unexpected spoils from the fights in the Pythian Village beside him. He wasn't out there himself, so he didn't get any souls, but Fin, Bulko, and Lyxiss brought back a bunch of pre-processed parts from the monster puppets they destroyed.

Of course, it wasn't the dart part he was struggling with. According to the poison fairy, the dart of a rope dart could be blunt like the weight of a chain sickle, or essentially be a heavy dagger tied to the end of the rope.

Seth had already secured the material for the dart, a piece of legendary . For Ortega's armor, a Slaughterer's Set made of he had made a whole batch from the Xiong Peng, the Sect Master of the Soaring Eagle Sect gave him.

As the basic effects of the metal were random the blacksmith had processed a bunch of the material, making several bars to get the right raw material for the armor. Despite his heightened luck, he was also left with a small stack of pieces that ended up unusable, as their powers didn't fit the set, or the chosen of Montu.

With Seth's blessing as the god of Desert, Chaos, and Destruction, it was not too weird to have some pieces that aligned with Dowloon's needs. One of the bracers, for example, had an effect called , however, it was applied to the wearer and caused constant corrosion damage when wearing.

He couldn't just reforge it to get this effect again, but it proved there was a chance to get something that went along with her skills. Worst case, he would make one with and stack it with enchantments.

The material of the dart was not his worry, what he was pondering over was the rope. Dowloon mentioned that it did not have to be a rope, but that there were also versions with chains. As a blacksmith, making a chain was not hard, but Seth wasn't ready to take the easy way out.

Seth had quite a few options. The material scavenged from the puppets had a bunch of relic-rated refined sinews, which would make for great bowstrings, but he would have to reprocess them to make them into rope...

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Another option was asking Neeco to create magic threats into a rope. The same could be done with Puffle's threads. A completely different idea was the vines of the Guardian Tree, who were inherently flexible but...

All the options meant straying away from his expertise. This was the public award for the Great Tournament. He needed something that screamed blacksmith. Even further, something unique to him and his skill set...

As he sat there, pondering, he finally had an enlightenment. When Dowloon mentioned that the rope dart could also use a chain, the picture he had in his head was a chain of bis, heavy links. The traditional picture of a chain. A chain and blacksmith would forge. But he wasn't “just” a blacksmith.

Seth was a master goldsmith, and a goldsmith had many ways to create a chain and suddenly the “easy” way out became the first choice, as he found a way to give it his own spin. After perusing his jewelry blueprints, Seth quickly found the chain design he wanted to use.

The Byzential Chain, also called the “Idiot's Delight”, was an intricate 4 in 1 chain design, meaning that each link passed through four others. The overall look not just resembled a rope, but also allowed the chain to have some flex and drape like a real rope.

However, the intricate 3-dimensional design, also meant an increase in weight, limiting his choice of materials to something more on the light. Thinking of light and durable materials, Seth suddenly smirked.

The best trade-off between weight and durability was , the refined form of . The obvious choice was the dwarven originating from Polter's home world. However, the blacksmith could not help but entertain this small intrusive thought. What if... yeah, what if he used urthan on the chain? Wouldn't that be...fun?

He really started liking the idea of a rope dart, after being hit with a stroke of inspiration and got right to work. The pale blue flames blazed as Seth started off with the chain. The first step was turning a few bars of into billets, which he could later use to make wire for the chain.

As the hammer fell, his voice rose, expelling dissonant words. Fueled by his ability, the flames rose on the anvil, while a sickly fog gathered on the floor. When choosing the forging ballad, Seth had perused many demons of poison, but ultimately returned to Botis, because he was already familiar with the snake demon.

Last time, he had called upon the demon when making the Venom Khopesh, because he was not just a demon associated with poison, but also a powerful swordsman. This time's ballad, however, leaned more into calling upon his power as a demonic viper.

The description mentioned the weapon in question being imbued with a strong poison effect, but also an increase in reflexes, like those of a snake. As this was a weapon for a poison user, it seemed right to strike the balance here.

After preparing the billets, Seth changed gears and began working on the dart part without stopping the ballad. Channeling the viper demon, he could feel its interest rising, when it saw the , as the god's powers aligned with the mainstream nature of demons.

The blacksmith had all the failed parts of Ortega's slaughterer's set ready to recycle, in an attempt to get a dart blade that would fit Dowloon. Relying on his upgraded Lucky Trinket, he began forging blades.

Ready to make up to ten versions of the blade, Seth's heart jumped in relief, when the third attempt finished with an effect called “Putrid Edge”, which had a 20% to cause Blood Poisoning on target and increased the damage of poisons by 10%.

The important part of the description was the effects of the Blood Poisoning. On the surface, the Putrid Edge didn't sound like much, however, Blood Poisoning didn't just deal damage based on magic damage, it also lowered all stats by 20% and the resistance to Poison and Disease by 50% in addition to status ailments that came along with sepsis. The chance was only 1/5, but if it triggered, it would mean an almost certain demise. Especially against someone like Dowloon.

With the blade finished, he turned to make the chain at the Jeweler's Table. Although Seth had no interest in asking the tailor for help, he gladly had Sivri help him make the wire and rings for the chain. He wanted a tight weave, so the wire couldn't be too thin and the rings not too big.

“Weaving” the chain was tedious work, but had a meditative effect on Seth, leaving him alone with his thoughts. The incident during the Pythian Games made him question, whether they still underestimated their enemies...

The length of the rope was based on the user's wingspan and height of the user. Dowloon was not overly wide or tall, the blacksmith needed to make “just” about three meters of chain. Of course, he had entertained the thought of somehow making the whole rope able to shoot forth and retract, but he decided that was the job of Dowloon's Arts, not his.

After he finished the chain and attached it to the blade, there were only two steps left to finish the blade. Engraving enchantments and despite knowing it would leave Minas Mar with Dowloon eventually, he intended to add a soul to it.

The blacksmith didn't intend to pull his punches on the prize.

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