Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth had already gotten used to the incessant sound of rain, what woke him up were his bodily needs. The call of nature needed his attention. When he wanted to jump off the bed, he instantly froze, winced and fell back on the bed groaning.

Tremendous muscle pain was surging through his sore body, and he did not want to move at all. Despite his bladders demand, he first belatedly checked his status

Name: Seth Smith

Title: "Faster than the Thought"

Level: 8

Exp: 32%

Race: Ori Huma

Sex: Male

Age:23

Class: Spirit Blacksmith (Unique)

Affiliation: None

Health: 937/1000

Mana:180(+3.6)

Strength:18

Dexterity:20

Agility: 20

Intelligence:13+5

Willpower:15

Endurance:19

Personality:9

Luck:15

Free AP (Attribute points): 50

Free SP (Skill points): 9

Defense:

Physical: 104 (57+50) (ENDx3)

Magical :55 (30+25) (WILx2)

Fire Resistance :100% (50%+60%)

Skill Window:

Calm Reaction (Passive) lv.5

Blacksmith (Beginner) lv.9 (45%)

Blacksmith's Eyes lv.2

Fire Manipulation lv.2

Blueprint (Beginner) lv.2

Weapon Mastery (Beginner) lv.8 (60%)

Spirit Smithy lv.2

Spirit Capture lv.2

Map lv.1

Fear Resistance lv.5

Fire Affinity lv.6

Soul Infusion lv.1 nove(l)bi(n.)com

Observation lv.2

Concealment lv.2

His HP had actually decreased this much from muscle pain!?

Seth didn't know, that he had not eaten or drank for almost 2 days and his HP had already considerably recovered.

What he noticed was that some of his attributes had increased, especially strength! At least the pain was worth it! Dexterity even hit 20. This helped Seth a lot in enduring the pain.

The call of nature on the other hand knew no mercy. Seth had to force himself to stand up and drag his aching body to the bathroom.

He had breakfast on the small balcony of the suite, enjoying the blurry scenery and overwhelming noise of the rain. It was quite surreal to be honest, but also refreshing after spending so much time in front of the forge.

As he looked down, he could barely make out the surface of the water. Wasn't this a little high? He doubted his yes and decided to take a look, once he could move normally again.

Seth once again had to acknowledge how amazing the system was, as he felt his body slowly recover. After a good meal his muscle pain had vanished within an hour! If it had been before, he would have had to wait at LEAST several days for the pain to go away naturally.

Before he got back to the forge, he decided to take a look at the water situation.

The lights in the elevator shaft would not turn on. Did they short-circuited because of the water?

He climbed down the ladder of the private elevator with a flashlight between his teeth, but didn't reach the ground floor. Seth could already hear the sloshing of water and waves from up here. In the shine of the flashlight, he saw the surface of the murky mix of dirt, blood, debris, zombie parts and trash. This was no exaggeration! He could see rotten pieces of meat and something like an elbow swimming in the water below him. The ground floor was completely flooded and the water reached the height of the first floor.

Climbing closer he could also smell the fluid that was no better than sewer water. But was it worse than skull-penetrating vines in a world of twilight? Arguably not.

Seth hoped that it was really just ordinary flood water. In this world, he would doubt it, when someone told him there were skull-penetrating tentacles in this water. He was ready to change his evaluation in that case!

Anyways, nothing else happened, so Seth shrugged his shoulders and climbed back up. He had enough food for weeks right now and could sit it out. He would start worrying when the water actually started reaching the upper floors.

Seth would not be able to reach the rest of the house without passing the water, but it was a slight inconvenience at most. He had already collected the useful stuff, anyways.

Seth got back to the forge and started a new blueprint. It was a parry dagger about the length of his forearm made of medium iron. He wanted to slowly get closer to swords and sabers for now. He lacked the wood to finish polearms and similar weapons, so he had to concentrate on those mainly made from metal.

Going about it the same way, he did with the axe, Seth started by following the guidance of the system. He slowly started incorporating the <Fire Manipulation> into his forging. He failed a few times, when he consciously tried using it and overheated the metal.

Seth kept trying anyways and was soon rewarded!

<Ding! Ability: Fire Manipulation lv.2 has become Fire Manipulation lv.3>

And not just that, soon after his <Blacksmith> finally ranked up!

<Ding! Skill: Blacksmith (Beginner) lv.9 has become Blacksmith (Beginner) lv.10>

<Ding! Skill: Blacksmith (Beginner) lv.10 has become Blacksmith (Apprentice) lv.1>

<Ding! Skill: Blueprint (Beginner) lv.2 has become Blueprint (Apprentice) lv.2>

But wait!? Why was it "Apprentice"? Was it not supposed to be "Adept" after "Beginner" ? Hold up! Did this mean, that when the blacksmith in Starta evaluated his billhook... It was not just one rank his work had skipped, but TWO!?

Seth was stunned. Although it took hard work to develop his class, the work was actually gratifying and the class seemed even better than he had estimated at first. When he reached adept or master, or whatever came at the top, wouldn't he be able to create legendary weapons and armor!?

He also had the weapon mastery. Overwhelming gear and skill, so what if he had no flashy combat skill? When monsters would be cut like paper in front of his weapon?

Seth became quite smug as he imagined plowing through his enemies with the ultimate gear. It was until his eyes fell on the pile of scrap and failed products What kind of resources would he have to burn through to get to such a level!? How much sweat and blood would he have to pour into the metal and flames...

"Yeah, let′s stop thinking about the future, it′s just depressing. Let′s just do it one step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race", he motivated himself. He observed the successful and good weapons he had made. The pile was a lot smaller, but it showed that he just needed to work hard. Seth did not realize, that calling his progress slow and steady was a slap to the face for any regular blacksmith.

Seth would not disassemble his best works, but keep them and try to sell them in Starta.

With his renewed mindset Seth got back to grinding the given blueprints. It was his turn to be stunned again. His <Blueprints> had also ranked up with his <Blacksmith> and there were a bunch of new blueprints he could choose from. There were mostly upgraded and more elaborate versions of existing blueprints, but also some new weapons with more exotic forms like chakrams.

But not just weapons, but there were also blueprints of chainmail and more plate armor now. After testing to make a gauntlet, he decided to keep making weapons, since making armor was a lot more time intensive. Weapons were more time effective.

The "Apprentice"-rank was another step up from "Beginner", at this point he barely got experience for the simpler things he had done until now.

From here on his days became quite monotone as he first mastered all those blueprints he could do with medium iron, until it ran out. He kept re-smelting the scraps until all the iron was turned into acceptable weapons. He also found out, that the change of <Smelting> to <Fire Manipulation> had almost no impact on the usage of the furnace.

One of these days his Fire Manipulation and Affinity also leveled up! Seth lost count of the day as it became a fixed routine of sleep, eat and forge, always accompanied by the constant sound of rain.

With Blacksmith (Apprentice) lv.2(12%) he finally graduated from making weapons out of medium iron, as he had even run out of scrap. On his side lay a heap of sparkling finished weapons. Hunting knifes, parry daggers, axes, several forms of maces and war hammers, short swords, arming swords, sabers, langmesser ... and many reaching the optimal parameters of the blueprint.

It was in this period, that Seth felt the increase in his practical skills for real. He made less and less errors while forging and started to become a lot faster, even on blueprints he was unfamiliar with. In the end, many weapons were very similar.

Drops of sweat ran down his , now, well-defined body and collected all kinds of soot and grimes he was covered him.

He sat in front of the forge almost naked, looking like a barbarian. He didn't remember when, but at some point, Seth stopped wearing clothes while working in the smithy. Ever since he started using <Fire Manipulation> the flames kept jumping over when he lost concentration and burned whatever he was wearing.

Having lost all sense of time he used this chance to take a break. The power grid had broken down some time ago and water also stopped running in the suite, so he climbed to the roof and used the curtain of rain to flood the grime off his body. Washing his lean body, he felt his muscles bulge below his skin. Even the first beginnings of a beard were growing on his face.

The cold shower woke him from his mechanical thinking and refreshed his tired mind.. His only indication of time were his rations that showed a visible shrinkage.