Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

They rode Puffles back to Delta where they had to land some distance away from the city entrance. Although the scene was gone, Delta had already been irreversibly changed. After all, the people the Scene put into their positions were still in place.

Delta’s population had visibly shrunk with many people leaving for Minas Mar and whatever lay beyond. With the excuse of the zombie pandemic still raging outside of Delta, people were discouraged from leaving the city boundaries, otherwise, Delta would have been rendered inoperable.

Still, even then they could only strike fear into the most timid. Many rather face the chance to die outside than to keep on suffering. The district could not stop them, or it would have given Minas Mar an excuse to intervene. The news of Delta was still fresh two weeks later, and people hesitated to pick a fight with the new district, which was quickly developing into the biggest, most populated district.

“Tower Master! What brings you here?” an Oathguard greeted him, as they walked up to the city gates. The man and his team were currently busy managing the regular caravan that would escort citizens to Tree Station One and further if they wished to settle somewhere else.

“Just coming by, giving this guy here a ride;” Seth explained and pointed at Samuel with his thumb. To enter Delta, they had to enter through the city gates that deployed the soul whisking formation as a prevention for the zombie plague.

The tower Master didn’t really care for Delta’s propaganda or their regulations, but these rules were made by the guards from Chrona who took over protecting the city borders. He was not going to give that petty representative from Chrona an excuse to pick a fight with over whether he walked through the gate or not.

After they entered, they faced the almost empty streets of Delta. It was eerily similar to what Y-City had looked like, where most people could not even leave their house past a certain time because their class was not good enough.

Of course, the reason Delta looked like this was because many people had already decided to leave. Even a big part of the demons had already moved to TS9. Yvette, the Saintess of Samhach had also brought a great number of people with her to TS7.

Apart from those who were unwilling to leave, only those who had joined the various foreign religions and those in power still stayed in Delta. Walking over the empty streets they quickly reached Delta’s System Church.

“S-Samuel?” Simon asked shocked, when Seth and the weird saint appeared in front of him. His eyes were glued at the horns and piercings of the man, he recognized as Samuel. They had known each other since their youth, so his anti-aging care could not fool the old priest.

“Simon! It's great to see you again. Did you get more gray hair since the last time we saw each other?” he asked gloating, while playing with his long fresh mane of silver hair. However, his words couldn’t provoke Simon.

“I’m aging with dignity, but what happened to you? Did you try to do the reverse and youth in disgrace?” he bickered with the old man, in the body of a young man.

“For your information, the System God approves of these looks, so I have nothing to complain about,” Simon referred to the fact that Simon’s appearance had not changed when the System god intervened in his rebirth.

“Hmm, I could see our god having fun to see different people react to this kind of weird saint,” Simon agreed with a nod. Despite his looks, the holy aura Samuel carried was undeniably that of a saint of a System God. There was something about his aura that made it clear to people, even if they didn’t use an appraisal skill on Samuel.

“Well then, I’m leaving you two to your own devices, I want to go home.”

Seth said his farewell and quickly left the two old timers behind, he entered the teleport formation and returned to Minas Mar. Now that his quest was finished, and the threat of The Scene was gone, he could finally start to concentrate on his new path.

The Legendary Forger, Seth had used the two weeks to absorb the knowledge that had been forced into his brain upon stepping onto this path. Over these two weeks, he had also been slowly accumulating Power of Existence.

Progressing toward becoming a legend was fundamentally different from leveling up through experience. As a legendary forger, his direct actions had no immediate impact on his Power of Existence.

The basic way to collect it for him was to build up a reputation as a master blacksmith well-versed in handling all kinds of legendary items. This way he would farm power of existence passively.

Over the past two weeks, he had already accumulated 500 points of existential power, which was mostly owed to his reputation on Urth and in Minas Mar alone. Even now when the official support of the system was over, he had no reason to complain because of how handy the Path Window was, he could even see the concentration and strength of “faith” in him.

However, for now, he couldn’t really do anything with these points, as they were too few. On the Path to Legend, one didn’t automatically level up when one had the necessary PoE. As in the descriptions of the paths mentioned, one could either use it to either permanently raise one’s level of existence or use a weakened version of the power available at the end of the path.

For Seth that meant he could use the power of existence to enchant an item with the weakened version of a legendary effect he had already worked with before. For example, he could have used all of the 500 points to enchant an item to negate 1% damage or give an additional inventory slot. Not the most useful stuff, which was why Seth decided to save it for now.

Even if it was more useful, Seth intended to raise his level of existence first. A higher level would mean a greater retention of people's memories, meaning a greater permanent yield over time. It was like a perk that has more experience, the higher one’s level was.

Now, the crux of the matter Seth was struggling with was that he needed to become more well-known across the worlds of the system, to raise his power of existence quicker and raise in level. Although he had been stirring up things on Urth, he had stayed relatively lowkey on the scale of the multiverse. Even during the evaluation, he had made sure not to show off too much.

The reason was the simple proverb “The tallest tree catches the most wind”. Becoming well-known wouldn’t only mean a rise in power of existence, but also a rise in potential trouble. A blacksmith known to create legendary items? That kind of reputation would be a blessing and a curse.

He could look forward to people approaching him with legendary materials and offers to create items for them, but this also meant he would have to face the other kinds of people. People he rejected, people who were envious, people who didn’t want him to work for someone else, or people who would want to monopolize him.

Especially when the time came for legendary existences to appear on Urth. Not the random monsters from the pathworks, but the old monsters from the big power in the Pathworks, that would come to kidnap or kill him.

That was why the business of spreading his name had to be done very carefully and needed to be thought through beforehand. As such he brought it up during the first meeting with the lord of Minas Mar, after he returned from creating the saint.

“You should sell them through the auction house.”

Leana said succinctly when they all met to discuss the matter. This had also been Seth’s idea, but he had been interested in everyone’s opinion. The big surprise was that Leana agreed with him and didn’t try to offer the help of Chrona.

In the end, Chrona would have also just tried to monopolize his work and may have gotten in his way if he wished to accept the work of someone they didn’t like for political reasons.

The auction houses on the other hand were people driven by profit, not politics. Seth was sure he could make a deal with –Guys from the auction house- for them to become an intermediary of his business.

The auction house came with secrecy, credibility, and a safe shipping option for both parties of a deal. To put the cherry on the cake, he would be able to work from home. As long as he advertised his name cleverly on Urth, he could stall until the big players really caught up on him creating legendary and special items.

Minas Mar was already known for their great weapons, he would leave it to Jane and her marketing geniuses to make sure any chosen and adventurers who got their hand on relic and above rated materials would come to Minas Mar first.

This way it would take a little longer for people across the multiverse that the great blacksmith Smith who kept putting legendary items up for auction, was just some independent entrepreneur running a small business on Urth.

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