Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

With a calm conscience Seth spent almost the entire first day in bed. The tension and the emergency had kept him awake for an entire night and the nap in the bath and the food had helped, but had not been enough. So, his body took the chance and demanded its due sleep. He had only left the bed for food and the call of nature.

And so, he started his second day of his stay in Starta refreshed and with a good mood. One of the priests had informed him that his passage would be ready the next day. Seth planned to settle his preparations by then.

He had talked with Simon about stuff like the currency of the empire. Maybe because everything as governed by an RPG-like system, the currency followed the typical trend.

Factions following the system church had gold, silver, and bronze coins. 100 bronze coins were 1 Silver and 100 Silver were 1 Gold. These coins were made with a unique skill of a class called Minter. The coins would not take up inventory space, but turn into a money display, just like in games!

The first thing he wanted to do, was to get rid of all the weapons that were clogging up his inventory. Which meant selling them! Seth arrived hat Klod′s, the blacksmith′s, Shop early in the morning. The streets were almost empty, otherwise people would have seen a tall muscular youth standing around and looking up every few steps.

Looking up at the water above amazed Seth every time. Watching all kinds of fish and ...stuff swim past like in a reverse-aquarium was fascinating. He could not really appreciate the view during his arrival, for obvious reasons.

Entering the small Blacksmith′s Shop; his eyes wandered over the display. This time, it was Seth′s turn to see small flaws and mistakes in the weapons of his fellow blacksmith. Not.

He could only interpret the information he got from <Blacksmith′s Eyes>. Seth was far from having enough experience to see flaws in Klod′s works. The practical forging skill and execution was still better than Seth′s. If anything, he could only guess that their ratings were lower, because of the material and equipment used. Everything was at most medium iron and Seth guessed that this was the reason he had gotten <Medium Iron> as a recipe once <Smelting> had reached the required level. It had been in his material catalog ever since then.

Seth felt the gaze of the old blacksmith on him. "hoh? Young man, you have changed quite a bit, since we last me!", he admired as his eyes roamed across Seth′s body and armor.

"ha ha, yeah!", Seth said discomforted by the old man\'s wandering eyes. "I stayed in seclusion to train my skill. Until I almost drowned, that is", he joked.

"Oh my god! The young people these days! Not only talent, but even diligence. I heard about your spectacular arrival with a boatload of fairies. but we can talk about you adventures later, if you want.", the shop owner cackled.

"Come here, let this old man see how much your skills have grown!"

Klod waved his hand for Seth to come closer to the counter. He smiled amiably at Seth. Klod had always been a forging enthusiast and chose to be a blacksmith, despite not really having the talents. Still, he was not bitter about his choice and appreciated every new young talent of his trade he met. Since laying eyes on that billhook, he looked forward to Seth overtaking him in the future!

Unhesitatingly Seth stepped forth and took out one of the swords he made for practice, from his inventory. He had done these a lot, since he had chosen the sword as oneof his weapon. It was a fantasy staple after all. Of course, it was one without a soul or properties. It was still an uncommon rated weapon, though!

The young man put an unadorned longsword on the table in front of Klod. With a rough look, the experienced blacksmith could see that it was a very traditional and functional form, unlike the more modern trends the youths nowadays chose.

What started as a look of appreciation upon seeing the traditional design, soon became a look of shock. Future? What future? This young man had almost overtaken him in the present!

The weapon he had shown him during their first meeting had already been very promising, but it still had many hammer marks and gouges back then.

This simple sword was almost flawless. One really had to nitpick to complain about this weapon. The practical skills were already remarkably close to his own, Seth′s skills had tremendously increased in the brief time since their first meeting. To top it off, the material really boosted the performance. Klod was almost jealous! All he was given as the smith of a Starta village was medium iron. He had no chance to get his hand on steel! This weapon was better than most of the things in his shop.

"My young friend, your growth is truly monstrous! I would not dare to find fault with your works!", Klod laughed happily. He really looked forward to Seth′s future. If they became friends, maybe he could see truly legendary pieces then?

"Anyways, you are probably not here just to bask in this old man\'s praise. What can I do for you?"

" I have been talking with Simon and I joined the church as a lay follower. I will leave this world soon to grow my skills. So~ I was going to get some funds and wanted to sell the weapons I made! Would you be willing to buy them?"

Klod was a little surprised, but asked the young man to show him his wares. Seth continued to pour out weapons from his inventory onto the counter. To save space he had chosen to make less different weapons and more of one kind, so he could stack them. He had maces, war-hammers and other blunt weapons made of medium iron. Swords, axes, daggers, and other bladed weapons made of medium steel. Tens of weapons per kind.

The old man stumbled upon seeing half an armory pouring onto his counter. He looked at Seth perplexed and blushed with an awkward expression. Watching such an old man go through a plethora of different expressions was... interesting.

"Hehe, Seth. You see, look errm....", his eyes shifted around, thinking about what to say.

"Take a look around my shop. ", he sighed, "Most your weapons are easily better than mine. And you have more than me! I can′t buy your items. I do not have the money, to pay you a fair price! I′m sorry Seth, but I can′t help you with this."

Seth was flabbergasted. Then he facepalmed hard. Why did he not think of this! No matter how much the system made the world look like a game, people would not have infinite money to just buy his stuff!

Klod noticed the young man\'s reaction and calmed down. Seth seemed to be more embarrassed than himself. "Didn\'t you say that you talked to Simon? Did you not mention...this?", he gestured at the heap of weapons.

Seth was a little abashed by this question. "I ma~y have told him I had so~me weapons to sell?"

The old smith immediately caught on. The priest could not have guessed the magnitude of this business and Seth avoided spilling the beans. He sighed with a smile.

"Seth, the operation of this village is too small to buy this many weapons of this quality. You really have to talk to Simon about this."

He explained that even in the empire no shop would buy that number of weapons. Only a noble, or the military would buy weapons in bulk. It would be hard for Seth to get such a connection, but Klod told him, that the System Church could act as a mediator in this case, as they were majorly involved in inter-dimensional trade. It explained why a church had so many clerks and counters! "So, this was how they made their money", Seth mumbled.

All Klod could do was appraise his weapons for him, so he could ask for the right price.

"oh yeah, could you tell me what this is worth?", Seth mentioned and took out an ingot of electrum the size of a credit card. Seth just called it electrum because it sounded cool. He had mixed the silver and gold bars he had made to save inventory space. It was not a recipe in the smelting menu.

Seth had found, that he could use <Fire Manipulation> to take control of the flame of the furnace. It took a lot of energy, but if the alloy was not worth as much as the pure metals, he could split them again. It was very similar to Free Creation; it just did not give extra experience.

It was the first time he found the system was a little inadequate. He could not split an alloy with the furnace menu. He could choose either gold or silver, but if you had a metal alloy and chose one of the components as the final product, <Smelting> would register all other components as impurities and burn them away.

"A gold bar?", Klod grabbed the golden ingot and bit into a corner. "Where did you get this?", he asked baffled. "oh, you know...here and there", Seth gave a noncommittal answer.

"Hmm, all right. Let me check the purity.", he continued and rummaged around behind his counter. What appeared in his hands was a device, that looked like a digital letter-scale without a display. It was about the size of a palm and had a runic magic circle inscribed on it. Curiously, Seth leaned in closer to see what Klod was doing. He put the gold bar in the middle of the scale and then touched the corners of the device. The circle lit up, the metal started glowing and the next thing was a window popping up above the device. It was similar to the system windows.

It indicated the elements and their ratio in the bar in permille. The bar was 789 parts gold and 211 parts silver!

Klod sighed when he saw the window. "That′s shame. I\'m sorry Seth, but this gold does not seem very pure." Seth gave the old blacksmith a puzzled look. "What do you mean, it′s almost 80% gold. Isn′t that quite good?"

Klod shook his head, "Of course, I didn\'t say it′s worthless. But no matter who will buy it, he will not pay for the silver parts. You need to find someone with at least professional level <Smelting> to split alloys like this. And the work of someone like that would cost more, than the silver is worth, you see? It′s a shame for the silver."

Seth′s jaw dropped to the floor. So, it was not just the blacksmith-skill! <Smelting> became <Fire Manipulation> after the rank-up to adept! Since he could split alloys with it, although barely, he had once again jumped almost an entire rank! And since the ability grew without needing an exorbitant amount of material to smelt, he got it to this level a lot cheaper!