Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“A failure! “the blacksmith thought disappointed. Before he began on another serious project, he thought of doing something relaxing, which was experimenting with the three Geass-holding soul pieces, he had refined out of the four souls from Y-City.

In the beginning, Seth had held especially high hopes for the soul of the Shellcoat, which held the Geass of not losing stamina in the water, in exchange for only being able to feast on sentient beings. However, it turned out to be a failure. After creating a small water golem from the soul piece, using Forgebrand’s original Golem Formation, he remembered an important detail.

Golems had no stamina! Stamina was something for beings of flesh and blood, just like eating. Golems ran on mana and had no need for food. The geass was absolutely useless on the water golem, even if it was technically active.

What else was there? When Seth infused it into a ring, the restriction was applied to the wearer.

His reaction was obvious. Who would want a ring of Unlimited Stamina(in Water), if it made the consumption of sentient beings necessary? Cannibals, of course. Or maybe there was a workaround for what sentient beings were? Then he had a flash of genius.

The solution was as simple as it was brilliant. One could just take off the ring for eating. With the geass attached to the ring and not the soul, one could avoid the cost, by taking it off. With this realization, the soul fragment holding the geass became slightly more precious, but he would have to think a little more about what to do with the soul.

...

When Golems ran on mana then, of course, the geass of not losing mana was pretty enticing, right? Yes, it was. But it lacked the charm of tricking the restriction of the power. The Forestscratt did not lose mana in forests. While he could make a golem of water and argue that it was always in water because it was made of it, he could hardly make a walking forest that would still count as a forest.

Although he couldn’t think of a golem that would count as a forest in a forest, the Tree Stations were undoubtedly forests. Seth thought that if he used the soul of the Forestscratt correctly he could make a golem that was “not losing mana” inside the Tree Stations.

Was what he was hoping for, but after some testing around, Seth found that this had more restrictions than the obvious one. The mana was seemingly unlimited, like a mana bar that would not empty, however, the maximum of the mana bar was also restricted, limiting how much mana could be drawn at once.

Seth was unable to enlarge said mana bar, despite fusing souls into the Forestscratt ’s soul. The test golem he used the soul on, had a fixed mana source of 1500 mana. It was a limit set by the geass. This meant the Forestscratt was unable to use skills or spells that needed more than 1500 mana at once. Otherwise, how could the golems have caught it alive?

Still, the geass had its use. Although the golem's power output would be limited, it would be able to repeatedly use skills and magic that cost below 1500 mana without any worry. That was no small amount of Mana. There was also magic that could stack up power by channeling mana, but those had long casting times. Despite the limit, it would still be a golem that would never stop moving inside a Tree Station. And what if he added a secondary energy source or storage?

After giving it a serious thought, Seth found that the best option was to refine and modify its body in the Golem Forge, once it was free again, and fuse it back in there. Repairing the body also cost a golem mana, the better the material, the more mana it took to repair.

Taking the geass into account, it was better to make the body from a material, that was cheap to repair. With the Forestscratt's body made of rare-rated wood, the golem would be able to heal quickly, no matter how great the damage, or how often it happened.

...

Prompted by the find of the Shellcoat's soul, Seth revisit the portion of Dimblood's soul he had refined out. The geass allowed the Lepresean to become invisible, but he had to serve the person that caught him until he managed to escape. The blacksmith's first thought was turning it into some kind of suicide spy golem, using the effect of the geass, to trigger a kill effect of a Soul Contract and retrieve the soul that way, if the golem was caught.

But what about a ring of invisibility? There were already enchantments that could make the user invisible, but it was still worth a shot since the invisibility in this case had no restrictions like mana cost or special actions. Expectant, he fused the soul into a test ring.

Disappointing!

<Ring of Invisibility

Uncommon

Durability 150

1. The Ring can turn invisible.

A simple ring made by Master Smith, the first Master Goldsmith of Urth. Using mysterious means, it was imbued with special power.

Requirements: The Ring will serve whoever finds it until it is lost again.>

Seth had no idea what the rules were. Why did the stamina geass apply to the user, but the invisibility applied to the ring? How did that translate?! If even there were uses for a ring that could become invisible, what was the point if it would actively try to become lost and eventually find a new owner? Seth decided not to bother with it.

“Suicide spy golem it is,” he thought to himself.

Lastly, there was the soul of the troll. His first thought was that it had the highest promise as a stone golem. The problem was the point of turning into brittle stone in the sunlight. Even if Seth made it from some special mineral, it would turn to brittle stone in direct sunlight. The geass gave a 90% immunity to physical damage, but it would be weak to magic if it was brittle stone.

The same was true for items. When infused into a shield or armor, it would turn to brittle stone in the sun. Like with the damage immunity of his dragon scale armor, the effect only applied to the item itself, not the wearer. So he couldn't just make an item for someone like Mina, who could cloak

it in darkness all day around, or only use it in dark places.

Then what if he completely doubled down on the darkness aspect of it? Something that would only act in the darkness and be shrouded in ... Before he could get to it, he got a call from Master Mountain and his friend.

“You found her?” he asked half surprised. “She what?” he asked fully surprised.

“Yeah, she and the survivors of her group were rescued by a group of dwarfs living in this mountain range,” Yu revealed to him. It seemed that the granddaughter and her companions had faced a mysterious creature they were unable to defeat. On their escape, they were chased into a deep gorge.

They were ready to accept their destiny and got ready for a final battle when the dwarfs found them and offered shelter. The gorge they had run into turned out to be one of the back entrances to their kingdom.

“They call themselves Stoneborn and are a little different from the dwarfs I have seen at Minas mar and Delta, but undoubtedly dwarfs,” he assured him

Dwarfs settling on Urth? This was the first time Seth heard of that. Well, it was not like there was a lot of news about the No Man's Land away from the remaining settlements.

“Did they immigrate here?” Seth asked. Yu had mentioned they were different from the dwarfs he saw in Delta. If that was true there was a possibility that ...

“I also asked that. It's a no. They say they had always been living under these mountains, but they have a huge gap in their memories,” the cultivator shared with him. What Yu indicated with that, was that Seth's suspicions were most likely true.

These Stoneborn were dwarfs that originated from Urth itself and appeared because of the awakening of the slumbering realm, just like the weird creatures and monsters that had appeared in Y-City. The difference was, that they seemed to be the first friendly addition to their nightmarish World.

Well, that was not completely true, there was also Strik Forebone the blacksmith had met in Y-City. Maybe this was a tiny sliver of hope, that not everything that was awakening was out for their lives.

“Actually, they are extremely fascinated by your golems and would like to meet you,” Yu added.

“...Then tell them to send an envoy,” Seth said resolutely. He wasn't going to leave home at this point. Especially not when the destination was that far away.

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