Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth arrived at the gate after about 10 hours after he set off. he had kept an eye on his <Map> and to his happy surprise, he had gotten closer to Delta in a straight line. When he arrived, he was almost directly below Delta.

Evee waited for him at the top of the stairs. She had not moved from the junction room and instead opted to get some sleep there. Her wards had notified her of his arrival.

~ oh ho! This is quite the construction! A true artist built this thing. ~ the Lich admired the construction. She could already see more than the two noobs, even though they had only entered the "basement".

"I looked at the rooms ahead with <Astral Projection> but it does not seem like there are any active traps."

~ Maybe the tower system was deactivated when the power ran out and did not boot correctly when the formations supplied energy again. I'm sure there should be measures, especially at the tower's power source. ~

"That makes sense." Seth nodded. "Then we should be able to move freely?"

Seth had hoped, but Al'Zalsa popped his bubble immediately.

~ Keep your guard up and be careful. There is a chance that the most important systems are still functioning even after an incorrect reboot. ~

Evee and Seth carefully continued to explore the place. Which meant that the immortal witch scouted for traps while Seth followed behind her.

The interior design of the hallways and rooms was regal with a lavish design. It was impossible to say how old everything here was. Thick layers of dust covered the furnishing and polished floors, but they could not diminish the elegance of the place.

Seth was slightly disappointed as the golden accents and ornaments were at most regular gold. His taste had evolved and looting normal gold was not worth his time, for now. The tower had all kinds of rooms and facilities. Even the great sorceress was impressed by some of them.

~ Look for the control room. It doesn't seem like there is a tower master right now. We could take control of this place. ~

Seth wanted to settle in Delta, to begin with. Simply taking over a ready-made nest sounded like a good idea. The magic tower seemed quite really useful.

"Do you really think we could take this thing over?"

~ Find the control room and I'm sure I can do something. ~

Seth shrugged his shoulders and they kept exploring. They needed to find an exit anyway if they wanted to use this route to get the whole caravan to Delta. If he could get a free high-grade property in Delta, he would not say no. Free real estate was the best after all.

He could hear the quiet whisper in his ear and grew more and more fond of the idea. He caught himself thinking of the dust-covered building as if it was his already. Seth was even glad he had not ripped off the decorations. It would have been annoying to reinstall those.

The tower even had a vintage elevator in the center with intricately decorated doors and a caged shaft... The marble staircase wound up around the elevator shaft. It was a very classy design. They ascended the stairs several times before the witch suddenly called out from the front.

"Is this the control room?" Evee suddenly asked from the front. The room seemed close to the top and occupied the whole floor. It looked empty except for a big crystal ball on a stand in the center. In the dim light that lit the tower, they could see the contours of the giant cavern. The whole tower was hidden below the earth.

~ Yes. This should be it. Seth, go and touch the orb! ~

He felt a little suspicious but did what the sorceress asked him to do. The moment he touched the orb a powerful shock shot through his body.

<Ding! Sigil of the Tower Master has been added to your status.>

~ Great, the tower was ownerless. Put some drops of your blood on the orb to complete the connection! ~

Seth didn't really understand what exactly was going on, but if he had to guess he would have likened it to a crashed computer. The tower system had broken down and needed a complete reboot to the factory setting. This gave him the chance to become the new owner. He slightly cut his arm and let the blood flow on the orb.

"New Tower Master has been registered. Tower System will now reboot." a pleasant female voice said. The next moment all the indirect light in the tower went out and left them in absolute darkness.

Some moments later the lights came back on a lot brighter. Even the cavern outside was now discernable. The voice spoke up again.

"This is the Tower System. Please enter the Name of the new master"

"Seth Smith"

"Seth Smith has been registered as the new Tower Master. Would you like to rename the Tower System?"

"Minas Mar," Seth said after wrecking his knowledge. It meant something like Tower of Earth or Tower of Home. He liked both translations. The tower was below the earth and might become his home in Delta.

"Minas Mar has been registered as the Tower's name. Setup complete. Booting system."

Like a projector, the orb started shining light in all directions and holographic control panels and stations appeared in the room. System management, Energy Management, Security System, Maintenance System. Everything appeared for him and Evee to see and get familiar with.

Al helped a lot in understanding the functions. Although the design itself was different from the one usually used in her world, an expert would be able to understand a similar system much faster than total noobs.

With her instructions, Seth powered down the formations to stop those from going berserk. With the current mana saturation in the world, the formation only needed to run at 15% performance to fully power all the systems of the tower.

Next was configuring the Security System. The only partially functioning security system was now fully reactivated with the maintenance system working on repairing any damages. He cleared Evee, so traps and other measures would not activate to her. The security measures along with their caravan's tunnel also stayed dormant.

The maintenance system also got to work and cleaned the interior, aside from repairing damages. To Seth, this felt less and less like magic and more like science fiction at this point. It was a lot like a computer system and might have been a lot harder to operate without his <Universal Translation> that allowed him to understand the ancient language.

"Attention. A visitor with an outdated identification token has entered the premises. Please confirm the visitor's status."

A video screen popped up in front of him and showed a pale blue demon sneaking towards a giant bridge. It was the caravan leader that had vanished during the attack. Seth was not the most intelligent, but he also wasn't dumb.

It was probably this demon who had tried to sacrifice them and now he tried to sneak into his new home.

"Ermm, visitor rights are revoked? Get rid of him." Seth tried to give a command. He didn't know whether he needed to use specific commands, but the tower seemed to understand. Still, what happened surprised Seth a lot.

The floor below the man vanished and he was catapulted into the abyss between the tower and the entrance. Seth knew the entrance was in that direction because of the mini-map of the tower floating beside him.

With that, he could even micromanage the whole building's functions.

"Good, since we have full control of the system now, we should notify the rest of the guys to follow. This way is by far easier than traveling through the mountains above."

"I will notify Felix." Evee said motivated to help.

If everything went smoothly and the guard at the formation notified the rest of the party, it would take about a day for them all to arrive at the tower. This gave Seth enough time to have some sleep and explore the functions of the tower in depth.

He yawned. No matter how many potions one drank, they could not substitute real sleep.

"The master seems tired. Would you like to teleport to your private quarters?"