Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“On another note, how are the preparations for the tournament going?“ Seth asked since Karina, one of the keys to achieving it, was present, too.

This was the way they had come up with for advertising Seth's skills as a master blacksmith and spreading his name on Urth to gather Power of Existence. It had been about two years since the rather disastrous failure of a tournament in Delta, that was blown up by the Theocracy of Chains.

But this time, they didn't plan to do any recruitment. They were holding it with two objectives in mind. The first was the revival of the Pythian games. In mythology, Seth knew, these were games held in honor of Python, before Apollo slew the deity and took over the event.

Seth's Python was the reincarnation of Python and blessed by Gaia, however, despite having the aura of one, Tatzel's mother was not a true deity, yet. Like Angelique, Python was also on the path to becoming a deity which, according to Leana, was the stage before becoming a god. Senior White was a bonafide Deity, but not a goddess, for example.

To become a deity Python needed faith, this was why Seth had instated her as the permanent guardian of Tree Station 3, or Little Gamma, since many of the refugees Leana brought from Gamma moved there. To boost their faith in her, they were going to call the tournament the Pythian games and they would be held in Little Gamma.

Of course, they needed a stadium for the games. And who would be building that? Karina of course. While the tournament would be called the Pythian games and held in Little Gamma, the advertisements' main focus would be on the grand prize.

A legendary item. THE “first” legendary item crafted on Urth. Of course, they knew that the forces of the Pathworks had their eyes on Urth. It was Leana who had warned him previously, not to advertise his skill before he had the strength to defend himself.

This was why this would be officially the first legendary item Seth would have managed to create with much pain and suffering, using a legendary material they had gotten during the battle in Y-City. Like Seth, the members of Minas Mar never forgot to loot their enemies.

Many of the immortals that had managed to fight one-on-one with the members of Yulecat's Fur had been equipped with relic-rated and a few legendary items. These were, by the way, not crafted in Y-City. The only person present who would have been able to craft relic items was the court seamstress and the chosen of Hephaestus, who had already fled from Y-City long before.

Some of these items had been given to them by the Tuatha De or the Cultivators, as shown by the fact that most of them were only able to be partially appraised by system skills. But 3 of them were clearly the work of system people.

Along with the few corpses and items of the people the vampires managed to kill during the attack on TS 9, they were the only proof left of Spatia's involvement. However, they decided to only send the relic-rated ones and corpses to Chrona as proof of Leana's suspicions.

For the same reasons they would claim that the grand prize was Seth's first legendary item. If they acknowledged that their enemy was equipped with legendary items, people would start questioning how they managed to defeat them without having them themselves.

Also, Seth wanted to keep the legendary items for Minas Mar. A few of them had been broken during the fight, but there were 5 legendary items, as well as broken pieces that were still usable.

Mina had brought back the Wallhack Goggles she had looted from her opponent, while Fin brought a pair of legendary boots. Cade had gotten a spear from the man she managed to overcome, while Genevieve managed to take the sword from the leader of the attackers from Spatia. The last legendary item was the orb of the broken staff from the storm mage Lyxiss defeated. Genevieve and Cade kept their loot, while they gave the goggles to Link and the boots to James

Apart from these working items, Seth also kept a few broken ones he could use as materials and reforge. Wolfram had brought him a bunch of legendary shards from a broken sword, and the vampires had given him the pieces of a broken shield and hammer. The orb was also a crafting material, that could be turned into a staff. Now that he had chosen the path of the legendary forger, he would process any legendary materials he could get his hands and.

Seth intended to reforge the shards of the sword as the grand prize for their tournament. One could say about swords whatever they wanted, but they were the most popular weapon currently used by adventurers and a legendary sword would pull in the most people.

In addition, they also intended to offer creating a custom legendary item for the winner and the Top 5 for free, if they brought the materials. After all, people bringing their materials to Seth was the main goal of the whole operation. They had barely entered the Age of Gods and the chosen one kept appearing all the time. If their gods gave them materials for divine weapons, the first name they wanted to pop in their heads was Minas Mar.

“The stadium is still in planning and we are waiting for Mike's report on Thres since we promised to grow a tree if they prove to be capable. Then there is also your idea with the subway,” Mary counted down all the tasks that mostly relied on Karina. Maybe he was asking a little much of the dryad?

“Couldn't we announce the tournament as a festival to officially open the subway, too?” Karina suggested.

“While we are waiting, I and the animal hoarder could start on the subway, which will take a while anyway. When the stadium is planned or Thres is ready, I can just go there for a while, I'm sure the worms can build the basic tunnels without me,” she explained.

Yup, he was definitely asking her for too much. At this point, she talked like she was going to readily sacrifice all her free time to work on projects across Minas Mar. When he thought back to how she was at the start when she spent most of her time with Pip and the children... wasn't he taking away her precious time with them?

Suddenly, Karina looked at him. Had she noticed his concerned look?

“Don't worry, Seth. I'm not saying this because I'm a workaholic,” she said with a smile. “Did you forget that I can travel through the trees? I can return and stay home whenever and however much I want,” she said with a bright smile.

“If that is how you see it, fine,” the blacksmith acquiesced. If the dryad insisted, he would force a vacation on her.

“i think that is a good idea, it will also give us enough time to properly announce it beforehand and plan out the procedures and safety measures,” Mary added.

Although they intended to ask the adventurer guild for cooperation, this time they would be the ones in charge of the venue, as well as the city. They couldn't allow something like last time to happen.

“it's good to see you all working hard, but if this was all I would like to excuse myself. I have a lot to do tomorrow and I would like to save up some energy for it.”

With that, Seth excused himself, to spend the rest of his day with Fin and Mina,