Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"The connection between our worlds can not be hidden. My guess would be, that someone interfered in the border conflicts to make this happen. They are just the people sent to test the waters," You continued.

"Once these people come, you will need strength. I can see that you have already grown and you already refined your body, but that is far from enough. Now you still have time. If you really want to stand tall in what is about to come, you and your friends have to use this time to grow even further."

Seth could only laugh weakly.

"You aren't telling me anything new, Yu. It seems we will never get to have a real break."

Seth had tried to be a little complacent, with all the blessed and chosen people behind him. But even during this time, the Soul Refinery had been in constant use since he planned to rework his soul armament in the near future. But even if he tried to take a breather, or just pretended to do so, a new danger already appeared on the horizon.

"Don't look at it so negatively. I'm just warning you. If I have to be honest, you and your friend are by no means weak, even in my home. It's actually quite shocking how quickly you grow. The problem is, I have not seen anyone, except Al'Zalsar, in this world had has a power comparable to a Nascent Soul cultivator or a Dao Severing Elder. If one of those old monsters comes over you might get in trouble without the fairy."

Seth pondered for a moment before Wolfram suddenly appeared beside him. He wanted to see how Master Mountain would assess the golem's strength. Of his golems, Python, Ceres, and Wolfram had grown to the point that he couldn't see their status, not even with the help of Theia's Sight.

"How about this guy? He beat the leader of those evil cultivators."

"Oh? Did you make that ring with the core I gave you? Incredible;" Yu was distracted by Legion for a moment before looking at Wolfram. The menacing Knight looked back at him from the depths of his helmet.

"Hoh?" Master mountain exclaimed and suddenly moved. He directly stabbed forward with his knife-like hand. He aimed for Wolfram's chest, but his hand was easily stopped by the dull gray shield that appeared in its way.

In the same moment, Wolfram's staff was coming down, but Yu had already vanished and appeared back on the chair where he sat before.

"Fascinating. He could definitely take on an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator. Don't tell me, he is also one of your creations like that Bullboy?"

"Yeah, he is. You can go back now, Wolfram."

The golem nodded and disappeared back into legion. This had confirmed one of his suspicions. Wolfram was the youngest, but he had already managed to outgrow Ceres since he had a better talent for learning skills. But most importantly, he couldn't see the status of these three golems, just like he couldn't see the status of Puffles correctly.

On one hand, he was convinced all of them would probably be able to take on a cultivator on the Nascent Soul stage, but he also made another conjecture based on this. From what Al'Zalsar had told him, there was a qualitative change for the cultivators between the Golden Core and the Nascent Soul stage.

It was too weird of a coincidence that all the people with a seemingly locked status coincided with the strength level of Nascent Soul. Together with the fact, that Seth never saw anyone above lv.100. The only indication he had that existences above lv.100 existed was the system notification when he "killed" Al.

Then there was also Bement acting weird about his level and talking about little time remaining. At this point, he would have had to be stupid not to have a guess. All this led to Seth's belief that there was qualitative change around lv.100 and appraisal skills were blocked from gaining knowledge about it, the same way that others could not easily spoil later system changes.

Now the only question was what this change would be...

"I will have to correct my statement. As long as no old monster of Dao Severing or above appears, you will probably be fine," Yu interrupted his thought with a jolly smile.

"Right, Yu... You wouldn't be knowledgeable in spatial travel like teleport?" Seth suddenly asked.

You stared at him for some time, squinting his eyes as if he was trying to understand what he meant.

"Are you talking about spatial transposition?" he asked slowly after giving it some thought.

"Probably? Do you have some knowledge of this art?"

Master Mountain nodded slowly. "I'm not a formation master, but I do have some fundamental knowledge of the subject. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's about us growing stronger. You see we are currently preparing to create a teleportation hub, or a spatial transposition formation in your terms, to allow us to travel to a place where we can grow quickly. Would you like to help us?"

"Hmm, you meant you are building a connection to the secret cultivation realm? Interesting. At the same time I could learn about a little more about your skills and this "magic" people keep mentioning. As it would happen, I do have some time on my hand so I'm glad to help you."

Seth smiled. He had managed to hook a big helper this time. Even when it wasn't clear whether Master Mountain would be of much help in setting up the teleport hub, he was a terribly strong existence and the perfect bodyguard to send along with Evee and the expedition.

"Great, then I will introduce you to your expert tomorrow. It's already late, would you like to stay in one of our rooms here?"

"I'm much obliged."

With that, Seth could finally end his work day. He handed Yu to one of the staff members that would show him to a room before returning to Minas Mar and his quarters. The day had been long, and he quickly fell asleep in between Fin and Mina.

…

Although Yu told him he needed to prepare and become stronger, but Seth didn't really change his plans from here on out. It wasn't like he could do anything else, while he waited for Evee, their new helper to prepare their expedition to the holy land.

What Seth did was manage the new staff, and set up their workplaces. Hoen and Wedan took care of the three fledgling blacksmiths. He set up Neill to work together with the Enchanters. He also showed the Enchanter the long-neglected enchantment laboratories inside the Tower.

Orry was left to show his rival around, and Liam was free to do what he wanted. The latter had already reached the level of journeyman, which was the reason he was granted creative freedom. In the meanwhile, Seth returned to training his <Carpentry> after setting everyone up in a way that they could take care of themselves.

Having finally "taken care of" his duties as the head of the crafting team, he started experimenting around with making bows. After learning the basics from Bess, he started experimenting to find out how to mash it with his own skills effectively.

For example, there was his <Energy Manipulation 3>, <Reinforcement>, and the special ability of Charon's Obol. With these, he could weld materials for layer or composite bows together instead of gluing them. The question was what had the greater effects.

Seth also tested around with different ways to add enchantments to the bows, but it was rather hard to implement most of the techniques used by blacksmiths. Engraving would weaken the wood, same with inlays. These kinds of enchantments often led to the bow having a low durability and even an increased chance to break.

If he was to preserve the initial power of the wood, he could not forge it, as he did for the Mind Reaper bow. This meant forging ballads were also out since he could not meld them into the materials.

These were just a few of the signs he tested. Over the course of his testing his <Carpentry> skill also slowly rose towards the journeyman tier since he kept producing epic-rated bows, even if they were often lacking.

<Your skill Carpentry(Adept) lv.9 had become Carpentry(Journeyman) lv.1!>

He finally heard the notification after a week of being a bowyer. This was the point he had wanted to reach. Now he not only felt confident enough to start on Lydia's bow but had also come up with his own plan of how to implement her bow.

It just so happened, that Yu and Evee had also finished their preparations for the expedition. Seth had been surprised about how well the young woman and the old man got along with each other. The moment they started talking about the teleport hub, they sounded like a pair of enthusiastic researchers that had known each other for ages.

In a good mood about his level up, Seth quickly went to give them his farewell. The two, the masons, the sculptor they recruited, and the rest of the team were all ready to set off.