Chapter 299

“Another batch is complete, apprentice. Prepare for the next set,” I ordered as I grabbed my hammer tighter, ready to forge another batch of weapons...

A routine that had been going on for almost a month at this point. Since the meeting with the fourth prince, followed by the spies of another prince — the second prince, but disguised as the spies of the crown prince — I had been busy.

Mostly with my forging. My weapons spread around the Empire, delivered to every border. Both the fourth prince and the crown prince — hence the disguised spies — each ordered almost fifty thousand sets of weapons. Up to this date, I barely completed about ten thousand of them.

Well, officially.

I had another surprise. I created another workshop under the first, one that was hidden below the capital, filled with enough wards to keep it hidden ... to the point that I used some of our valuable darkness mana sources to ensure its safety, isolating it from the System.

Of course, ordinarily, there was a reason that people didn’t use completely independent magical wards to create weapons. Every monster part was unique, requiring the judgment of the blacksmith to perfectly meld into the structure of the weapon. It was impossible to attain uniformity, therefore impossible to rely on the wards to automatize anything...

Except for replacing monster parts with pure mana.

Naturally, I wasn’t the only one who came up with such an idea, but considering even the most ordinary enhanced weapon required hundreds of mana to properly forge that way, no mage was really crazy enough to do so when their mana took almost a day to replenish.

For me, converting hundreds of thousands of mana points was a trivial achievement, allowing me to produce more than ten times the weapon I had forged. Then, using various disguises, I made sure that they were distributed across the Empire. Some, I added to the royal deliveries but manipulated the delivery orders to keep that knowledge from reaching the upper echelons. Some were sold into the black market by ‘enterprising thieves’.

Some, I even allowed them to be discovered by various villages and towns in hard-to-reach areas, in the form of a ruined caravan after a monster attack that I personally arranged after destroying it repeatedly.

All of those measures ensured that the weapons were distributed at each corner of the world...

At the same time, the transformation of Silver Spires was going on with excellent speed. With both princes competing to steal the credit for that incredible achievement, tens of thousands of mages without noble blood were transferred to the place, most already at their level limit.

Of course, the process was not smooth, and many noble students left the school in protest, but that was hardly a problem. Helga confirmed that the ordinary students with their level limit were far more enthusiastic about learning, determined to squeeze even the smallest advantage from the situation.

Increasing Helga’s Knowledge Spark collection significantly. And, even for me, the rewards were not exactly negligible. I collected quite a bit of Purified Spark, enough to have a healthy reserve.

Of course, the most important advantage was her domain. As her domain got stronger and stronger, so did her power ... and so did the multiplier effect on my Intelligence stat.

[Intelligence: 51]

It wasn’t at the point of matching my Endurance, but every progress counted.

However, while I was thinking about those things, another apprentice just joined. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“A-a messenger from the fourth prince arrived. He says it’s urgent.”

“Very well,” I said with a sigh, put my hammer into my tool belt, and walked out. A messenger without a warning only signaled one thing. The prince was getting impatient.

Pity. I wanted to make contact with Oeyne before I had to face such an important confrontation, but it didn’t matter. “Tell every apprentice to stay inside the base. I’m not responsible for the safety of anyone who leaves the workshop while I am away,” I said.

I had already reinforced the wards enough to handle anything but an explicit military siege just in case, with some interesting self-destruction mechanisms to handle extreme emergencies. But those measures would only protect the people who trusted my warning and stayed inside.

Hopefully, they would listen.

When the door opened, I turned toward it with a blaring gaze ... only to actually feel surprised. “Oh, I feel honored. The guild sent its strongest dogs to attack me,” I said as I looked at the two warriors, and ignored the old man behind them. “It’s a pity you’re cowardly enough to need a ward to do your work.”

The old man, was one of the two legendary blacksmiths in the capital, and the only one that worked for the guild. Naturally, the guild had other legendary blacksmiths, but others were not in the capital.

“Oh, Legendary Blacksmith Hetra,” the old man intervened with a chuckle, using my name, but my title was rather surprising. Clearly, he was convinced that I was hiding my capabilities. After some consideration, I decided to play along.

“H-how do you know that?” I gasped.

“Please, do you really think a mere grandmaster could provide the exquisite weapons you seemed to create in seconds? Not to mention, the courage to challenge the guild in one of our home fields. Only Legendary Blacksmith could have the courage.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, his smile smug. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

—

{Strength: 45 Charisma: 45

Precision: 45 Perception: 45

Agility: 45 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 45 Intelligence: 54

Endurance: 72 Wisdom: 45}

{Purified Divine Spark: 56280}

{Pseudo-HP: 15000 Mana: 20000}

{ADDITIONAL SPARKS

Light - Chosen 7.4

Nature - Chosen 10

Knowledge - Chosen 10}

{MINIONS

GODDESSES

Elven Goddess

Goddess of Knowledge}