Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1405. Massive Underbite

Seth started the next day much more motivated, as he looked forward to Mina and Fin returning for good and not just temporarily. Despite not sleeping for long, he returned to work with a refreshed mind.

Now the size of a big kite shield, it was much easier to handle, although it was still quite weighty. Seth had cut away some pieces, but the shield didnʼt weigh much less than the original skull. Fortunately, Tydis was a dragon optimized for flying, so their bones were lightweight, making the shield “just” 120 kg after condensing them.

This would have been way too much for an ordinary person, but it was usable for people with strength builds in the early to late lv.90s. Seth also didnʼt really have a problem wielding it or carrying it around.

From the front, the shield now looked like a miniaturized dragon skull from above, because it was exactly that; however, the dragon had a massive underbite, as Seth had used the lower jaw to create the rim of the shield, framing the sides and lower tip of the kite shield. It looked a little funny, but the blacksmith pursued a specific effect in an attempt to get an Olympian synergy.

“Itʼs up to you now,” he told Rún and handed the enchanter golem the shield. Thatʼs right, Seth was not going to enchant the shield himself, but left it to Rún. The reason was pretty simple, he didnʼt have an engraving or ballad that could do exactly what he wanted.

The golem, on the other hand, did not just learn various enchantments, but could also come up with his own, given he had the needed knowledge. Leaving the shield to someone else, Seth turned to the dragon teeth.

While Rún would enchant the shield, Seth was going to enchant the 25 dragon teeth that would be set into the law jaw rim of the shield. Onto the set of teeth, he engraved one of the enchantments he may have known best, the improved invention of Forgebrand.

Seth turned each of the teeth into what he liked to call golem seeds, but he didnʼt end there. This was the perfect chance to finally use the soul of the Martial Artists of the Voracious Cloud Continent, which he had collected on several occasions in the past.

Equipped with the generic Automaton Ego he had learned from the Chosen of Hephaestus, the Golem Seed would be able to generate smart, obedient golems from surrounding materials, with the dragon tooth as their core. Doing so 25 times took a long time, considering neither of the circuits was simple.

“Maybe I can help?” Sivri offered friendly, having finished a piece of jewelry for one of the Oathguards. The blacksmithʼs trance disrupted, he looked in her face in confusion for a moment.

He had been completely focused on the teeth and needed a moment to reboot.

“Oh, right, you could help me. Could you engrave the teeth while I forge and enchant the souls?” he asked thankfully. He had finished a fifth of the teeth so far. At this rate, it would have needed until late evening to finish, so Sivriʼs help came in handy.

“Alright, count on me,” the golden dwarf said confidently. Sivri and Cerberus both have the same level in as him. That one was a blacksmith, and the other a goldsmith, had no greater meaning when it came to engraving.

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“The shield is finished so far,” Rún said as he joined them in the workshop. He was carrying the dragon skull shield in his hands. It was around noon now, and the two were also about to finish the teeth. Seth just had to finish enchanting the last soul.

“Already?” the blacksmith asked, surprised. Usually, arcane enchantments took a while because the preparations and rituals were often needed. He was sure he and Sivri would finish before him.

“Yes, Force Propulsion is not that complicated to enchant. I also added Feather Weight to make it a little more handy, “ the genius enchanter said humbly. “However, I will need the teeth for the last part of the project,” he added, looking at the pile of finished teeth beside the blacksmith.

“Give me some more time, I will be done soon,” the blacksmith said, prompting the golem to wait beside them, while Seth engraved the automaton circuit into the soul of a cultivator, which he had previously forged into the shape of a dragon tooth.

Slightly less than half an hour later, Rún was able to take the teeth and the shield to assemble the item and finish enchanting the shield. While Rún was away, Seth didnʼt just wait either. He continued forging the next soul needed for the item.

The shield was not just to see how hard it was to trigger the synergy, but also to see whether arcane enchantment and soul infusion could get in the way of each other. As for the soul Seth had gotten from TanoʼMol this time, it was actually nothing special.

This time, its rating and size were not as important as the nature of the souls and its powers. It was all part of the plan. While Rún was busy finishing the enchantment on the shield, Seth turned the soul into a perfect soul copy of the shield, or at least as good as he could from memory.

“Here, I finished casting Retrieval on it,” Rún returned after roughly half an hour, returning the shield to Seth. Before infusing the soul, he reworked the soul armament again, now that he had the original beside it.

The last step was enchanting the soul. The enchantment he had chosen for this was the Minor Olympian Fire enchantment, belonging to the minor enchantments he had unlocked with master level 2.

At this point, it should have been quite obvious to any observer that Seth was aiming for a synergy concerning the Colchian dragon, the beast that used to protect the golden fleece. It was slain by Jason, and its teeth were later planted in a field plowed by the fire-breathing bulls made by Hephaestus. Later, mighty warriors grew from the teeth of the dragon.

Many things used on the shield tried to emulate parts of the myth. The dragon skull. Dragon teeth that could be shot from the shield and grow into golems. The fire-breath skill of the Flame Serpent and the Minor Olympian Fire are reminiscent of the fire-breathing bulls that plowed the field, and with a certain semblance to a fire-breathing dragon.

With his connection to Hephaestus, Hades, and Persephone, he thought it possible.

“Good, letʼs see how this goes,” Seth said, curious, and began infusing the soul into the shield. It went smoothly like always, at least during the process of infusion; there was no problem with the interaction of the soul and the shapeless enchantment bound to the shield.

Once the soul found its home, it was time for the shield to be reborn in the Waters of Styx. The skull-shaped shield rose into the sphere of water, slowly turning around its own axis, and then Seth heard the announcements.

“Yes!” It was exactly what Seth had been looking forward to. A shield connecting to the Colchian Sparti sounded so cool. He couldnʼt wait to see what was up...gra... ded?

“What in the world?”