Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

1005  1004.  Fine alchemy Table

Upon his return, Seth was immediately briefed on the announcement. Mary and the others really spared no expenses. Not only were ads running on local and across Chrona Empire's channels, but they had even hired some of Y-City's engineers to broadcast on several older technologies such as radio and TV.

Although the range was limited, even people who were cut off from the districts, like Mount Agra, would be able to receive the message with older systems. Now Seth's task was simply to read out the things that had been long since decided and the date for the Pythian Games, set to be two months later, system time.

They set up a long period to allow the news to spread and give people time to arrive on Urth and in Little Gamma. Among their preparation were not only the venues for the various contests, but Karina and the others had specially set up a whole region with temporary lodging for participants and tourists.

Although it was a secondary goal, Minas Mar was looking for a hefty profit, despite the expenses on construction and advertisement. Jane had even asked Seth for more merchandise to set up another Turquoise Anvil in Little Gamma so that participants and tourists would have a chance to buy their merchandise.

Seth gladly agreed, seeing it as another outlet for his, Nädel's, and Alison's practice products. The blacksmith himself was free to get back to what he planned to do after the speech was recorded in several takes. What he did after a while of rest was return to his Workshop.

His first action was to load up the Golem Forge with the new blueprint and the corpses he had looted from their raid on the orc dungeons. The blacksmith managed to free 76 slots of his 100 inventory slots before the trip. With over 18,000 kills, his inventory had been bursting. Even using the Legion's Space, he couldn't take all the corpses with him.

Meaning he had already sorted them and only taken the best ones he could get. However, the first ones to enter the Golem Forge were not the ones profiting from his new blueprint, which would give them a skin of metal scales. Seth didn't have the materials for them, yet.

For the material of the scales Seth had decided on <Stainless Steel>. The stainless steel Seth knew from his everyday life, were usually judged as common steel or iron with impurities. This <Stainless Steel> however, was and uncommon material acknowledged by the system and had a specific recipe, just like uncommon <Carbon Steel>.

There were two reasons for this. The first was that stainless steel would not corrode, even if the new product would spend long times outside. The other was the price. Minas Mar was sitting on tons of common ores that were a byproduct of their excessive mining operations across the Tree Route.

The only hurdle now was Neloth's cooperation. The souls still refused to even communicate with him, which made an additional step necessary. As a spirit blacksmith, Seth could have tried to manipulate the soul personally, which was more accurate than the Soul Refinery. However, Seth recently theorized a much simpler method.

Since Neloth wasn't cooperating, Seth could just install a superior ego and force him to work. This meant he prepared to engrave the generic automaton core circuit onto the soul. In theory, the automaton circuit might get influenced by the original ego, or even meld together with it, however, Seth was quite sure it would stay obedient, since the core enchantment would not change at any point.

As far as Seth understood it, the enchantment could be seen as a second, dominant personality, that had access to all the memories and skills and had a higher decision making power. He already had this idea with Bazalith, but the soul of the Blaze Cat was cooperative, unlike Neloth.

~Wait, what are you doing to me?!~ Neloth finally decided to speak, when his soul found itself on the surface of his anvil. Before Seth placed the automaton circuit, he had to finish the shape of the crafting station after all.

~Oh, now you want to speak to me? Well, it won't hurt if you know your fate. I will turn you into an alchemy crafting station. Your primary job will be making acids for etching items. I might also use you to make potions.~ Seth explained to him, as he turned part of the soul into the shape of a workbench.

~What crazy-? Urgh, how can someone force a soul into a physical shape like this?~ the soul exclaimed. It was the first time a soul kept trying to communicate with him during the forging process. It didn't seem to hurt, but Neloth sounded quite confused.

~Oh, it's just part of my class. Don't worry about it. You will become a fine alchemy table.~ Seth assured him. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novelenglish.net . Firᴇ(.)nᴇt

~I don't want to! I will never help you, no matter what you do to me!~ the demon screeched, vehemently trying to resist. However, he couldn't so much as twitch under the control of <Soul Capture>, <Soul Forging>, and the Wraithguard.

~Too bad, I don't really need your consent. You had your chance to make a deal before.~