Chapter 1042. Soul Refinery goes -brrrrr

Seth quickly sifted through the pile of items. The system money quickly found its way into his inventory. Among the things the golems had collected were also credit cards, however, at this point in time these cards were useless.

They were useless because most of the banks and institutes supporting them were now gone. The destruction of Y-City had also wiped out most of the big conglomerate families still left in the Districts, many of which had been part of the Scene.

With the greatest backer behind the credits gone, the Urthan Credits had weakened a lot. They were still an accepted currency, even in Minas Mar, but the focus had shifted to the convenient and now easier-to-use System Currency, which was supported by a literal god.

Much of the heap was also common items. The golems had no appraisal, so they collected everything that seemed of worth. The only things worth keeping among the common items were gold, silver, or platinum items like jewelry. Even with the existence of magical ores, these materials still had their worth.

It took hours to go through the whole heap and sort the loot into different trucks. Seth only had so many inventory slots and without crates or chests, he wasn't able to store huge amounts of individual items. He also wasn't in the mood to fashion hundreds of quests at the moment. So he just sorted the stuff, with some help from Puffles, and put it on the various vehicles the golems had acquired to transport the stuff.

“You should deliver these things to TS12 before entering the abandoned ruins,” Seth finally ordered Vegga and Vaggi, once everything was in order. “You can everything except this one and the ones with resources to Mark Baker,” he added, slapping the truck that was filled with looted Polyarkanate Armor and some other epic items. The two golem orc generals nodded.

Apart from items reserved for the use by Minas Mar, the loads of “resources” were the common items like jewelry that could still serve as practice items for their enchanters.

“Alright, let's get back, Puffles,”

Getting on the back of the nightmare centipede, Seth returned to TS12 and from there to Minas Mar as quickly as possible. He finally had a soul for his Lucky Trinket and he intended to finish it as quickly as possible.

However, by the time he finally returned, it was already late. Tored and Hoen had already finished for the day, only Sivri and Cerberus were still in the workshop, working. Since everyone else had left, Sivri was back to making things from the <Tempest Copper>.

“Seth, you are back? It's quite late.” She said surprised. At this point, it was already late and he didn't expect him to come to the workshop, instead of going to his room to sleep.

If he was caught and started to serve an enemy, would the soul contract allow him to simply retrieve the soul? He could send him to spy and if he got caught and “betrayed” him because of the geass, he would die and Seth could retrieve the soul. The thought was funny. It was like a consumable spy. All he would lose was the golem's body.

There was already a lot he could do with just this soul's geass, what about the others? A geass had a big drawback for the being it originally belonged to, but not to Seth. The blacksmith could freely choose what body to insert the soul.

For example, the unlimited stamina when in water. What if Seth used the soul and Forgebrand's original golem formation to create a Water Golem? Would it have unlimited stamina no matter where, since it was made of water? Like this, he could choose items or materials that negated the drawback. This new power had great potential if it worked as he hoped for.

But for now, he had more important work. With Dig's soul refined, he could start forging it into a mirror image of his Lucky Trinket. That was not had, since it was a simple ring with only a small stone set at the top. What he had to mentally prepare for was the enchanting.

It had been a while since he engraved a blessing and he had to get prepared for the presence of a god to look over his shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he stretched himself and then got to it. The sigil of Hades, was the symbol of his helmet, the Helm of Darkness, with a stylized flame to the left and right of it.

The familiar pressure weighed on his shoulders the moment he put down the engraving tool. It was a presence he had already felt twice before. One when he created his Helm of Hades, a copy of the god's armament, and when he visited his temple in Chrona. Like the previous two times, he could not feel any malice in the presence of the ruler of the underworld.

Calm and serious, maybe a little cold, but also unexplainably reliable. Despite having no bad intention, the presence alone made the blacksmith sweat as he slowly and deliberately carved the fine sigil onto the soul ring.

It was not a big pattern, or a complicated one, but each stroke cost him immense concentration. However, compared to before, he also felt a lot calmer. Not because of <Calm Mind>, but because of his increased skill, experience, and support items.

Soon, Seth completed the last stroke of the sigil and finished the carving. Like before, a pattern started spreading, starting from the sigil. It was a pattern of angular swirls, like stylized floods of fire and smoke, at the same seemingly time cold and controlled. He felt something almost like a pat on the shoulder before the presence vanished. The blessing was finished.

He took a moment to calm down before continuing with the next step, infusing the soul ring into the Lucky Trinket and baptizing it in the Waters of Styx.

<Ding! You have finished a unique item. +100p of Power of Existence>