Seth finished the engraving with practiced motions and quickly turned to forging the soul armament, to get some change. The soul of the Flintcoat quickly took the shape of the breastplate, backplate, and tassets, allowing him to begin the enchantment of the soul.
As for the enchantment Seth was going to give the soul... more durability was better. But in this case, Seth intended to add Olympian Durability to the soul armament, further enhancing the durability of the cuirass.
Depending on the rate of defense the scales would offer, Faenys may end up gaining more defense from the cuirass alone than from all other pieces together. Probably not, but maybe.
Like all Olympian-series enchantments, the engraving on the soul was quite tricky but doable.
Seth spent the rest of the day engraving the soul cuirass before he could finally insert it into its physical form and witness the birth of the next piece of the Sky Dragon Armor-Fear Edition.
The second announcement surprised Seth a lot. It had been a while since he specifically tried to trigger the power of the trait. He had been more focused on the inherent effects of the materials and fitting enchantments and had neglected his personal trait.
Now, it came out at an unexpected moment. However, he would have never expected what it would cause. Seth gasped in shock when he appraised the finished cuirass in his hands. It was far from what he had planned or expected.
Legendary
Sky Dragon Armor Set 1/X
Phys. Def.: 2800
Mag: Def: 3000
Durability:9750
1. Sky Dragon Magic
2. Trait: Hide of the Brazen Bull
3. +125 Strength
4. +125 Endurance
Sky Dragon Armor Set: To be updated.
A cuirass worthy of the divine. Forged by Master Smith, the first Master Blacksmith and Master Enchanter of Urth, it bears witness to his skill and fortunes in his craft. Using mysterious skills, materials, and the legendary scales of a Dragon, the final item still far surpassed the sum of its parts. >
"Hide of the false God?" Seth mumbled with a shudder. When did the system start being so generous with epic names? But his thought quickly vanished when he found the short list of effects that was left.
It wasn't just the effects of the soul or an enchantment that had changed or was combined into a new effect; no, even the Damage Negation of the Dragon Scale was gone! So were the Damage Reflection, the Trait, and the skills of the soul. The only obvious effects of his enchantments were the durability of almost 10,000 and the additional strength and endurance.
However, Seth was not dismayed. Not at all. His heart was beating in excitement to see what the obvious culprit of this change would bring. Things didn't just vanish. The newly created trait must have absorbed them as a consequence of the synergy.
When he checked the Trait "Hide of the Brazen Bull", Seth's eyes started rolling. All the effects were here, but they were all upgraded! The trait gave 70% universal Damage negation, coming close to the damage negation of his own armor.
But that was only the first effect. After the upgraded negation, came the upgraded "Echo Skin". The new trait granted 50% of "Hide of the False God"'s Durability as physical defense, and another 25% would be added to magical defense.
Seth couldn't help but grin as he kept reading the trait effects. Those were just the static effects of the trait, but it granted two skills on top of that. There were 40% of incoming Damage is directly reflected. In addition, 10% of incoming damage is reflected as cursed flames. >
This was where the demonic forging ballad of Damage Negation had ended up. Now, as a passive skill, it technically reflected 50% of all incoming damage, 10% more than before. How well the cursed fire worked depended on the opponent, but the blacksmith was still excited. Lastly, there was..
"Bow before your Idol and weep in awe."
Those of weaker Strength suffer 20% vulnerability to mental status effects.
Those of weaker Willpower suffer 15% vulnerability to mental status effects.
Those of weaker Defense suffer 10% vulnerability to mental status effects
All conditions stack.>
"All Conditions stack..." Seth mumbled after reading the skill. Didn't that mean that, if Faenys had a better strength, willpower, and defense than her opponent, her victim would become almost 50% more vulnerable to her specialty, mental status effects?
Not only was the defense power it granted immense, coupled with the helmet Faenys would become a fear machine. Wherever she would go, terror and panic would follow her... At this point, shouldn't she just become the Chosen of Ares?
The sudden appearance of his trait in the synergy came as a real surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Still, the blacksmith wondered what exactly had triggered it all, for the effect to culminate in such a trait and justify a name as grand as Hide of the False God.
He knew Hephaestus had some connection to bronze bulls, but the brazen bull? And why was it the false god? Was it because the dragon scales were of a lower dragon species? Or was it Echo Skin that made it fail to upgrade to something like Divine Hide?
At this moment, his curiosity grew to a point that he was tempted to test around with the rare legendary Sky Dragon Heart Scales, just to see if he could trigger it again... Alas, he probably wouldn't get his hand on another Flintskin soul any time soon.
He had already urged the demon when he realized how handy this kind of soul was, but Tano'Mol was unable to make any promises. The same reason why he knew about their traits was also the reason why Flintskins were sparse and over-hunted.
Like Seth, there were many who wanted to breed and experiment with them, and all the others were faster than him. Unless they could maybe find the portal the first one came through, and the other side was a world where Flintskins naturally lived and were not yet hunted by demons, only then, maybe he could get a source for such souls. But even the first step was practically impossible, so he dropped his hopes on that front.
For now, he just sat there and admired his work, glad that things turned out so well.
The Hide of the False God was a stark reminder to Seth that he shouldn't forget about his own traits, no matter how interesting the material was. His trait, Olympian Myth, had always lent itself to powerful and interesting mutations, and it didn't disappoint this time either.
Seth finished on a high note and got ready to leave when his communication orb rang. He questioned why the call came so early, but it actually wasn't the call he expected.
"Mary? Why are you calling this late?" the blacksmith asked, surprised. Did something happen? Did Monique have another vision?
"I'm just calling to give you an update on the situation in the south. I thought you would like to know that Team Trees finished scouting and we are getting the materials ready to set up a barrier," the administrative head explained the reason for her call.
"Oh! That. Thank you for the update," he said, thankful, although he already knew about it. He was having a call with Mina and Fin almost every evening, where they talked about their day and wished each other goodnight.
They had already told him about Puffles' and Ceres' return and the news of the expansion of the corruption. Apparently, the one directly southeast of Y-City was an isolated pocket, originating further east.
"Once we plug this one, we will have to search for the real source. The mission may take a little longer than expected." Mary added. The parrot and the centipede had turned around after identifying the extent of the pocket, including the Hangingtree.
"I know," Seth said with a sigh. He couldn't help but worry about the girls.