Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

501. Rag-Tag Golem

The boss of the dungeon was called the Lizardman Chief and he was surrounded by his elite guard. Despite the imposing name, it was not a big hurdle, especially since Tatzel was acting together with them.

Seth didn't want to waste any more time and only harvested the soul of the chief.

<Chief's Soul (big, uncommon) Crafting Material,

The soul of an indignant leader who suffered an unfair end. Holds a talent for leadership.>

Seth had made the golem hold down the chief as he had extracted the soul. Reading the description, he was glad that it did not end up with an ego. He was sure it would have resented him.

The rewards were nothing special, even when Seth threatened the dungeon. They quickly finished their business in the dungeon and returned to the outside and Seth used the teleportation circle to leave the dungeon.

"How did it go?" Lydia greeted him when he reappeared outside the gaping maw that was the entrance to the lizardmen dungeon.

"Great, I managed to reach lv. 71 and really unlocked the golem forge." the blacksmith explained while stretching himself. He was really tired now.

"Is it how that elemental explained? Do you think we can continue as planned?" the expedition leader asked, while they sat down at the fire.

The tree was still growing above their heads. Karina was still occupied cultivating the giant tree.

"It should work, but I think we will have to send another expedition since I don't have the needed materials with me."

Although the Golem Forge worked well, the involuntary inventory of his inventory had shown him, that he didn't have any huge amounts of materials with him.

"Will you still accompany us to the mountain city, or are you returning now?" she asked.

"No, I will still come along, but I will leave the dungeons on the way to you."

Seth wanted to find Nas'Korn because of the two horned ones that had joined the expedition. Although they didn't show any hostility, he didn't want to leave his people alone with them. They traveled for another two days, to reach the last high-level dungeon.

This time it was team 3's turn to enter the dungeon, while Seth and the golems took over to guard the camp, watching everyone setting up the tents. As usual, Una and Tearlach were sitting close to Karina and observed something only their eyes were able to see.

He wasn't going to spend his time watching the two and came to a big tent, he had ordered to be built. Inside he summoned his workshop and especially the golem forge. While he waited for the other to finish he wanted to further explore the automatic customization.

Seth wanted to see what materials it could use to what extent. He chose a single lizardman body and gave it a simply ruby. Ordinary gems could also be used as mana storage or focus of items, although they were the worst possible option.

In the same vein, they could be used for low-quality golem cores. The blacksmith wanted to see if the machine would be able to deal with it. He also added an artificial mana crystal. After he confirmed his selection, the machine went to work.

The lizardman was going through the same embalming process as his first experiment. As a result, there stood a corpse golem with a very simple set of movements and commands before him. What really surprised the blacksmith was the compartment for inserting magic crystal, similar to a battery.

It was a surprise to what extent this option was thought through, it could even add a compartment for a consumable energy source. To recognize an energy source and consider the needed option for it was a surprising complexity. This gave him a new idea.

What would it do, if he gave it almost nothing? If he gave it only a piece of steel and a core material, what would happen? And he did just that.

"Please choose a specification for the golem." the forge suddenly asked him, instead of just doing something.

The option it gave him to choose from were:

Aerial Scouting

Ground Scouting

Water Scouting

Combat

"Was this the standard procedure for the golem forge, if it didn't have any indication for the golems shape?" he thought to himself. Of course, he went ahead and chose each one once. In the end, each one only cost half an ingot or less and a gem.

The outcomes were a mechanical bug, rat, and fish for the scouting. For combat, it gave out a smooth ball. They were each roughly the size of a fist. Using wings like a dragonfly the bug golem could fly, the skeletal-looking rat was quite nimble, and the "fish" reminded him more of a small submarine.

The problem was that they could not record any pictures, they could only record sounds because of the lack of materials. He didn't know whether that was better than the recorder golems. They were also not very stealthy.

The last one of the golem for combat, looking like a fist-sized ball.

"Errm, Ball, I choose you!" he said and threw it at the recently made lizard golem, to see how it would fight. Blinking, he watched the little ball roll around and take a run-up, before shooting towards the golem and crashing into it.

It was quite funny watching the ball try to do damage to the lizardman golem, as it did almost nothing with its tackles. At least, it was very agile and motivated.

The outcome was not exactly useful for any of them, but it showed that the forge could even do something from pretty much anything. Combing through his beard he decided to throw in a set of epic Oatharmor, <High-Quality Steel> and <Dwarven Copper>.

Would the golem forge be able to make an armored golem from this? He added a medium-sized soul and two magic crystals before confirming his selection.

"Error: Selected Materials have reached the maximum for enchantment. Please choose other material."

Finally, he had found a limitation to this function. This was a piece of important information, as this meant, that the automatic customization would try to use all selected materials to a certain extent. This didn't work when some of them were already filled with a vast amount of magic effects.

Most likely this was Forgebrand's safety measure because too many magic effects could get in each other's way, like when Seth made the chain mail from <Bones of Seth>. But this gave the blacksmith another idea.

Of course, he could have also added a blank armor, but why would he waste his work like this? Instead, he knew another option. Rummaging around his inventory, Seth produced differing pieces of armor he had gotten from the various dungeons.

Adding them to his selection instead of the Oatharmor and confirming, the golem forge quickly went to work. His hunch had been correct. Although these items had magic properties, they were not at the limit from a craftsman's point of view.

Seth couldn't rework them with his skills, but because the effects were imbued with magic through the dungeon's process, they were more like magic materials, than finished items when it came to the golem forge.

In this particular situation, the golem forge was able to do something Seth wasn't. It probably could work with finished items, because of the restrictions of his own sill, but this didn't count for the dungeon items in its case.

The forge used the steel and copper for limbs and joints that connected the mismatched armor parts into an ugly armor golems, in the style of the undead called Living Armor.

It had a small soul fire burning in its empty helmet and a compartment for magic crystals, Again, it was not pretty, but it was a great way to dispose of dungeon armors.

As the field teams and Oathguard kept running dungeons, these items kept collecting in their storage rooms. Some of the better ones were sold to different merchants in Delta, some others were sold in bulk to other traders. As for those that nobody wanted, they were stored away for recycling, if they ever came to it.

If this was not a great way to recycle them, then what? It also came with a surprising advantage. All the effects of the armor pieces were added to the golem as stats and skills as if it was a player wearing them.

<Armor Golem lv.35

Trait: Unlimited Stamina

Race: Patchwork Golem

Age:0

Affiliation: Minas Mar

Durability: 1000/1000

Mana: 1500

Strength:160

Dexterity:130

Agility: 70

Intelligence: 24

Willpower: 13