Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

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By the time Neill arrived at the embassy, it was already noon. He was tired, sweaty, and gasping for air, but he made it in time.

"Is that Neill Repmore?"

"Neill, what are you doing here? Don't tell me, are also trying to join Minas Mar?" a blacksmith standing in the lobby asked.

His name was Liam and he was once his junior, but he had been lucky enough to become an arcane blacksmith. A rare class that allowed him to quickly learn and even develop enchantments. Being able to imbue magic into weapons allowed him to quickly grow past Neill.

With his growing skill, his rank on the leaderboard rose, and together with his fancy style of items he gained a lot of popularity. At some point, he had started looking down on Neill and his simple, more traditional style of items without any enchantments or good materials..

"I have been invited, so I would obviously have to give it a try," the blacksmith answered solemnly.

"Are you going to submit that?" the other asked, pointing at the sword in the hastily made leather sheath.

"Yep," he answered undeterred, and went to the counter to register himself and submit his sword.

"Ha! Do you really think they will accept you with that kind of item? You didn't even bother to make a cool sheathe," another scoffed before Liam could say anything.

Neill looked at the staff member bringing away his sword. He had no answer or counter to his criticism, as he only voiced Neill's own thoughts. The blacksmith had already been close to giving up on his profession, what right did he have to defend himself?

...

"Oh, this one looks great. Look at the craftsmanship," he heard one of the dwarfs.

"The gold inlays are really well done. Is that <Arcane Gold>? " Orry commented

"hm, show me? You are right, it's not easy to work <Dark Steel> that cleanly," Wedan gave his expertise.

Seth had slightly overslept when he came up to the judging room. Mary had prepared it in one of the many great halls within their business building. It was a room filled with tables and stands where the items were put on displays for them to judge, divided by the classes that submitted them.

For safety reasons, and out of respect for the craftsmen, the items they put seven days of work into would not leave the building. However, the craftsmen were not present while the judges were doing their work. They could either leave or wait in a separate hall prepared for them, with snacks and drinks.

Seth walked in on the smiths, standing around a fancy glaive called the Dragon Glaive. The glaive was a polearm resembling a wide saber put, usually with a spike or hook in the back, at the end of a pole,

This specific one had an almost black blade, with a dragon's head moddeled at the connection with the pole. Golden inlays made it look as if the blade was black flames the dragon was spitting. Seth immediately recognized that <Arcane Gold> was used to add a weak permanent enchantment.

Strength, if he was not wrong. The golden inlays had the advantage that the wielder could also inject his own magic to further strengthen his power. It was a well-executed concept and made with good craftsmanship. Skill-wise there was nothing to complain about.

The only thing he didn't like was the design choices. Seth liked functionality, but he also liked to think that he was not against decorating something that was already functional. However, in this case, the maker had used a lot of material to model the dragon head, making the blade of the glaive unnecessarily heavy.

In a world where people were many times stronger than the average human, it was not necessarily a problem. Even if one took the leverage of that weight at the end of the long pole into account. He was sure there would be those who would buy it for the coolness factor, but it was a waste of good materials, in the blacksmith's eyes.

Why use a rare material to make these kinds of decorations? An engraving would have been enough or making it from ordinary steel since it was only supposed to look good. Adding it to the glaive, instead of using it to make another dagger or short sword from it was decadence.

If they really brought this guy in, they would have to cut that back. On the other hand, this kind of person would probably also do well on their own. They even mastered basic enchantments, Seth knew there were customers for these kinds of designs. It wouldn't be too bad to send them to one of the tree stations and fend for themselves.

After a moment of thought, Seth came over and filled out the piece of paper hanging on the weapon. The maker would be given certain benefits. He was free to choose a tree station and get a reduced rent for the place of his choice. He would not join Minas Mar.

The three that had been marveling at the glaive looked at him in shock, when they saw what he wrote, but they didn't argue with him. Seth was the only master among them, after all.

While the craftsmen were appreciating the works of fellow craftsmen, Alison, Neeco, and the others were judging the items within their own expertise and writing down their recommendations. Although Seth's focus was drawn by the weapons, armor, and jewelry, it was hard to argue that they were the most eye-catching.

There were tables full of potions and other alchemy products in fancy flasks. There were mannequins with clothes, garbs, and brilliantly embroidered gowns. There was even a table with several scrolls enchanted with instant spells and some small trinkets, submitted by enchanters.

This last table especially was of great interest for Minas Mar, as they truly lacked someone specialized in arcane enchantments. Despite their efforts, Mary had been unable to recruit someone until now.

There was Al'Zalsar, but he couldn't ask the sorceress to enchant uncommon rings and stuff like that, right? An Enchanter could further refine their lower-end merchandise and make use of materials they usually sold, and once they grew they would become a great asset.

Everyone agreed to save the enchanters for last since the scrolls were consumables. They could only be used once, so they waited on testing them and the trinkets, so everyone to judge their use and effects later on. They also made the sensible decision to have someone inform the enchanters about it since it would become late until they got their results.

Seth bee-lined towards the alchemy tables and started collecting new recipes, however, not all of them were any good. One had to question the sanity of some of these...

There were normal potions to buff oneself like Speed Potions, Strength Potions, and such. Others helped recover resources like health, stamina, or mana. There were also various antidotes and poisons to apply or prevent status ailments.

And then there were the odd ones... Like "Jeremiah's Disclothment" Potion with resulted in the immediate removal of all clothes on the target. It only worked on simple clothes, not armor or magic items.

Or the "Toenibbler's Tonic" which allowed for the detection of any toes ready for consumption within a 50m radius. That was what the description said and it left more questions than it gave answers. Like, Who needed this? What were toes ready for consumption!?

The worst ones were those that resulted in a temporary bodily change such as "Spider Concoction". A potion that would temporarily grow a proboscis from a person's butt and allowed them to generate spider silk.

Another one allowed growing a limp, like a third arm, to wield another weapon... The others were questionable, but these ones were deeply disconcerting.

There were quite a few potions like this, and obviously he now also had their recipes in his recipe catalog. Maybe it was better not to get any more alchemists than needed. It seemed like this class was especially prone to creating lunatics...

Seeing Alison judging these with a serious face and not even a twitch at the outlandish effects, made the blacksmith doubt her sanity, too. After witnessing the depth of potion making, Seth was glad they made a separate method for judging the chefs that had applied.

Link had insisted that he wanted to see them work, and not just the final result. That was why Link had been busy over the past seven days, visiting all the chosen applicants in their restaurants, or inviting them to the Turquoise anvil to cook there together. Although it robbed him of the chance to taste a bunch of tasty foods, Seth had agreed that this was the best method.

On a brighter note, when he came to the colorful garbs and gowns submitted by tailors, he found that there were actually some tailors that had mastered the skill to imbue magic effects into clothes through weaving techniques and embroidery.

They were not overwhelmingly, since there were not as many materials that would lend themselves to be turned into magic fabric, or thread. The most extravagant of them was probably a button-up embroidered with thread made from rare <Arcane Gold>.

This worked in a similar fashion to the inlays made of the same material. The embroidery formed a magic circuit, while the materials could naturally absorb and store mana to power it.

Walking around the hall really opened Seth's eyes in one way or the other.