Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth stood on the roof of his current base and looked down on the water surface that had almost each his floor. It had rained for a long time and now the morning sun′s rays were sparkling on the waves of the big lake that had swallowed the city.

The weather had calmed down a lot. After raining for so long, the murky water had turned clear and looked almost clean. Seth could almost see the streets below on the bottom of the lake. The streets he had walked just a few weeks ago had turned into an underwater world. It was quite fascinating in a sense.

And it was quite troubling in every other sense. At this time Seth's rations started dwindling and he finally ran out of raw materials to grind his skill. Of course, he had long prepared for this time when he had to leave.

The food he had left where mostly preserved stuff and could easily fit into a few of his item slots. After the water supply unexpectedly stopped working, he had stocked up on it using the rain. It was also called clean water and stacked with the regular tap water, so he did not worry. Now 6 of his 16 item slots were filled with food and water and the rest held stacks of finished weapons, he planned to sell, miscellaneous stuff and his gear.

Seth also had another reason to leave now. It was when he got ready to make himself a bow for long range attacks, when he finally realized, that he actually lacked something important.

After mastering the blueprint to make a steel bow he remembered the vine he had picked up all this time ago. It was an uncommon material he could not identify at the time and subsequently forgot about. Seth remembered it, because bows are usually made of wood, right?

So, he had dug it up from the pile he had deposited the very first day he arrived in the suite.

<Hanging Tree's Vine, Crafting Material: Uncommon

A hunter vine of the Field Boss "Hanging tree" which is used to hunt food and absorb nutrients.

Depending in the treatment, it can be more flexible and sturdier than most metals. >

It was the moment the Hanging Tree's Vine entered his material catalog,that several new blueprints and variations of the basic ones using the Hanging Tree's Vine as material were unlocked.

All of them had the possible rating of "Uncommon", only depending on the one uncommon ingredient!

Seth chose the blueprint of a composite bow as he could split the vine and gain several tries like this. Even so he was not too familiar with the treatment of the wood, he managed to successfully make two complete bows. While the ordinary Medium Steel products barely got him any proficiency past lv.5, these bows gave him almost 10% proficiency with their uncommon rating, despite being far from perfect!

This was something he had already experienced with the longsword and it obviously made sense! The rating and performance of the product he made had a big influence on the proficiency he gained. But it was a lot easier to get an uncommon rating, when using uncommon materials! Even when they didn't come out perfectly.

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This made Seth realize, that sitting around and grinding the blue prints over and over with the same material was not the best way to improve anymore! He had to enlarge his material catalog! He needed to collect experience with many and most importantly better materials to keep improving.

Seth had been eager to keep going at that time, but he left one set of materials behind. He did the same for a few sets of material of the longsword. The reason was simple. He wanted to increase his capabilities for the last attempt, so he could leave with the best weapons possible and make them on the day before he left.

Now was the time. Seth had reached <Blacksmith (Apprentice) lv.7> and was sure that these two weapons would probably accompany him for quite some time now.

This made it also the time to test the one skill he had held back on until now: <Soul Infusion>. He just had too little materials to mess around with this skill! At the moment he had 7 Souls in total. Two of them were the uncommon ones from his quest, the others had dropped from goblins and kobolds he had killed.

Before he made the final products with the two uncommon souls, he wanted to test <Soul Infusion> and made two longswords. Seth suddenly understood that <Fire manipulation> was not his first ability. <Soul Infusion> worked in the same way.

During the forging he could touch and coax the immaterial form of the souls to follow his instructions. The soul behaved similar to metal. Seth had to fold the steel and knead the soul into the material, to evenly spread it throughout the whole blade.

When he quenched the blade, he could feel the barrel′s water having a huge effect on the soul. He had no specific skill for it, but he had confirmed that the temperature of the water changed depending on the piece that was quenched. Now it was almost soul-chilling cold.

With the cooling of the metal, the soul was contained and bound. The weapon became its new body.

There might be a huge chance of the soul breaking away from the workpiece, if he used something other than this water to quench!

After he finished fitting the crossguard, handle and pommel the sword brought him 2% proficiency!

It was his first time and he was unfamiliar with this process, so Seth understandably made some mistakes. Still, the weapon came out as uncommon!

<Superior Longsword

Uncommon

Damage: 190

Durability:1100

A good weapon made by an aspiring blacksmith. Despite minor deficiencies of the workmanship, this weapon shows a slightly improved performance owing to special treatment. >

It lacked some attack power, but the durability outperformed the original blueprint! The skill also mentioned magic conductivity. Seth had tried pushing mana into the weapons before, but he felt a high resistance from normal steel weapons and their durability started dropping at a visible speed!

The magic power was like electricity in a tungsten wire. The resistance and the energy loss were very high, to see any kind of effect.

When he tried it on his test longsword it felt a lot smoother than normal steel! And it easily formed a thin pale layer of light on the weapon. Conducting magic into a sword increased its damage, that was all Seth could conclude at the moment.

After another two attempts with the small souls Seth felt ready to go for the final product using the medium sized soul of the orc! He had gotten accustomed to the feeling of a souls in his hand. The only difference to the small souls was the size of this one. He had to fold and work the steel more often to steadily infuse it into the material.

<Ding! Skill: Soul Infusion lv.1 has become Soul Infusion lv.2!>

When he finally quenched the blade, his <Soul Infusion> actually leveled up!

Seth was very satisfied with the result, after finishing the sword!

<Superior Longsword

Uncommon

Damage: 254

Durability:1500

1. Grants 1.5x damage against enemies with less STR

An excellent weapon made by an aspiring blacksmith. The experienced workmanship tells of great talent. This weapon shows greatly improved performance owing to special treatment. >

This time the longsword even had a supernatural ability similar to the ring! No wonder it was described as primitive enchantment. Dealing more damage against weaker opponents really sounded like something that fit an orc′s souls.

After seeing what the uncommon soul did for the sword, Seth was excited about what it could do for the bow. What effect would a vengeful soul bring forth? Maybe a curse?

He soon stopped dreaming and became serious again. Working on the bow cost him utmost concentration. Seth had no way of practicing this, it was his only chance!

His worries were unfounded. It came to light, that infusing a soul into and organic material like wood, was a lot easier than spreading it in metal.

The only difficulty was the composite part of the bow. It was not possible to split the soul, he had to pull and stretch it to infuse it into the metal part while assimilating into the wood at the same time.

This cost him a lot of concentration, but he was able to manage thanks to all the training he had with <Fire Manipulation>!

The composite bow he made as a result was truly breathtaking.

The bows he made before looked similar to a modern recurve bow, but reversed. The limbs were made of the almost black vine wood while the grip was a dark steel-gray giving it an elegant monochrome color scheme. But this one had a crimson red glint to it giving it an underlying impression of malice.

<Vengeful Hunter Bow

Unique

Damage: 150

Durability:1000

1. Arrows shot with this bow show malice and will correct their trajectory slightly to hit vital points.

2. Inflicted wounds will hurt more, heal worse and have a high chance to get infected.

A frightening weapon made by an aspiring blacksmith. A bow possessed by a malicious will to hurt it′s benefactors' enemies.

Usage Condition: Seth Smith>

His jaw almost touched the ground, when Seth read the description! Then he broke out into a victory dance. With such an awesome bow he felt almost happy to leave soon!

One was assured, he was ready!