Upon entering the Royal Emporium's workshop, Finn was extremely satisfied with its equipment.
Compared to the blacksmith's workshop back in the Dragon's Maw Village, it was a lot cleaner, and the tools looked brand new.
It was to be expected since the blacksmith Druhan would use his tools a lot more than the employees in this store that didn't specialize in making equipment but selling it from blacksmiths, with whom they were in a partnership.
The workshop was mainly used to sharpen or repair equipment so they would be able to sell it at a higher price.
Finn started a fire inside a furnace by touching a small bronze button on the wall.
The firestones inside the furnace lit up and began producing heat.
He put a blacksmithing apron and gloves on to protect himself while he was smithing. Then he pulled out the Diabolium metal and, after grabbing it with tongs, he put it inside the furnace's fire.
Because of its quality, the metal would take a long time to heat up, so Finn left it in the furnace and began working on his armor.
First, he wanted to create armor for his chest, so he strengthened a white shirt that he had bought by using the Moonlight wolf's hide.
This shirt was just a simple piece of clothing, but with the wolf's hide sewn on the inside of the shirt, it became tougher and warmer than before.
Finn then checked the Diabolium, but it was still not hot enough, so he continued on with his armor by making a black vest from the Midnight stalker's hide.
Because he wanted it to look stylish, he created this vest to make it look like something an 1800s gentleman would wear.
He also wanted to make a black coat with a hoodie like the ones he saw in the assassin games he used to play as a kid, but after he was done with the vest, the Diabolium was finished heating up, so he went to create the daggers first.
Finn used the fact that the Diabolium was now melted enough to split it in half since he planned to create two daggers.
"It will be just enough, so I can't afford to make any mistakes."
He said while wiping off his sweaty forehead with the back of his gloved hand.
Now that the metal was split into two exact pieces, he began hammering one of them to create the blade of his dagger.
BANG BANG BANG
The rhythmic sound of a hammer being used to shape the metal filled the empty workshop.
Finn specifically asked Nora to make sure that nobody would bother him there, but it was unnecessary since the workshop itself wasn't really being used.
He then put the metal back into the fire. Since it was already hot before, it didn't take a long time to heat up, and once it was scorching hot, he pulled it back out to continue hammering it.
After pounding it into a shape that he was satisfied with, he sharpened the blade.
Once the dagger was done, he did the exact same thing for the other dagger, and after hours of hard work, he was finally finished.
"Phew… Now I just need to make the grips."
Finn eyed the daggers with a satisfied look. They were black in color, with red sparks flashing through them. They started wide but slowly thinned into a sharp point.
They were missing a grip, so Finn used a little part of the Midnight stalker's hide to make them, and with it, the daggers were finished.
[Please choose a name for your creation.]
"Diabolus and Sicarius!"
Finn already knew what he planned to name his daggers. He chose the names Diabolus, which means devil in latin, and Sicarius, which means assassin in latin.
[The names Diabolus and Sicarius have been chosen. Displaying stats…]
Name: Diabolus
Rank: B
Ability: Pain multiplier – Upon creating a wound, the pain felt from it multiplies by four times.
Description: A dagger made from Diabolium that is also known as the devil's steel. It was made by an experienced blacksmith who put his all into making it. This dagger can be classified as the blacksmith's masterpiece, as it was born with skill and luck.
Name: Sicarius
Rank: C+
Ability: Pain multiplier – Upon creating a wound, the pain felt from it multiplies by three times.
Description: A dagger made from Diabolium that is also known as the devil's steel. It was made by an experienced blacksmith who put his all into making it.
"…I know I'm good at blacksmithing since it was one of the only things I had been doing in Second Life in my previous life, but this is…"
'It was partly your skills, but the main determinant of its rank was the material. Even the god of blacksmithing, Hephaestus, uses Diabolium in his creations, and that can tell you how powerful it can be in the right hands.'
Loki explained when he noticed how bewildered Finn was.
"Wait… So, I used such a precious metal without even knowing about how valuable it actually was?"
'Knowing you, I thought you would choose to keep the chunk of Diabolium in your inventory and use it only after you were sure your blacksmithing skills were top notch, but we don't have the time to wait because winning this tournament is more important than you might think.'
"I mean, you are right about me keeping the metal… But wait, you know something about the tournament? Aren't you supposed to be clueless about everything that is going on in this game?"
Finn was confused because Loki had told him before that he didn't know anything and could only find out stuff from his memories, but he was sure that there was nothing about the tournament being important in his memories.
'Well, yes, but what you don't know is that I left a speck of my consciousness with Themis when we met at the beginning of the game, and through it, she told me to contact her to talk about the upcoming tournament.'
Loki also explained the reason Themis hadn't told him the information yet.
'She told me that she wants to meet and talk face-to-face. Also, the consciousness I left with her could only be used for one-way communication, so we need to meet her to find out more.'
"Why just a one-way communication? I am talking to you through a part of your consciousness, so why can't she?"
'To put it simply, the part of my consciousness that resides inside your head is not that large itself, and so to put another part from this already small part somewhere else, I am forced to make it as weak as possible to not damage my main consciousness inside you.'
He paused, trying to simplify it as much as possible.
'I need to make it weak, but that makes it only a one-way communication channel, meaning she can talk to me but I can't talk to her.'
Loki explained to Finn, and they agreed to go meet Themis after Finn was done making his armor.
Once he was done naming the daggers and putting them away, he also made a black coat with a hood and black pants.
Finn used the Moonlight wolves' hide to insulate the clothes by sewing it on the inside.
He wanted to make shoes too, but he didn't have the leather for it, and his shoemaking skills were pretty lacking, so he decided against it.
[Please choose a name for your creation.]
"Uhhh… Shirt, vest, coat, and pants."
Finn knew he would have to make himself new clothes once he hunted stronger monsters, so he didn't care about the name and just named the items as they were.
The clothes were all ranked E to D- and they had a lot of durability. As for abilities, the materials were too low-leveled to provide any, so there were none.
The good thing, though, was that Finn had received a Midnight stalker set bonus that activated with three or more clothing items made from Midnight stalker's hide.
Finn opened the item description and clicked on his set bonuses, of which he only had one.
[Midnight stalker set bonus – When ambushing an enemy from an extremely dark space, the next hit does 300% more damage.]
In Second Life, there were no health points, and you weren't able to kill an enemy by stabbing its toes a hundred times.
Instead, the way to kill someone would be more realistic, in that if you stabbed someone and they would have died from that stab in real life, then their character would also die in Second Life.
The 300% may have been confusing to other players since if there were no health points, how could a stab do three times more damage? But Finn knew exactly how it worked.
If he stabbed someone, the damage he would deal was 100% of the damage, but if he had a 300% boost, then that stab would be counted as if he was stabbing someone three times into the same place with the same strength.
Finn already had his Vital hit skill that could boost his next hit by at most 200%, so if he lucked out, he would get a 500% bonus, and that would mean a stab to the throat would be 5 stabs to the throat.
This all sounded nice, but he knew that he had to have a lot of luck to pull this off.
Get the 200% bonus, ambush someone successfully, and ambush someone from a dark enough place for the set bonus to activate.
"Then I could also use my Limit break skill and…"
'Stop daydreaming and let's go meet Themis already.'
Finn got zapped by Loki, which quickly woke him up from his daze.
Equipping his new equipment, he then walked out of the Royal Emporium.
He wanted to meet Nora to tell her that he was done, but her assistant told him that she was in an important meeting and that he would inform her of Finn's departure.
Finn then took a carriage to the main cathedral of the city of Iliados, where he was supposed to be meeting Themis.
Upon arriving at his stop, he saw the cathedral, and the first word that came to mind when he saw it was "majestic."
Huge stone building with five tall towers, decorated by stone statues in the shapes of various gods and angels. The windows had beautiful stained glass depicting holy stories from this world's history.
The building was surrounded by players that had just reached level 5 and were choosing their classes.
Finn didn't even have to wait in a line and just entered the cathedral straight away.
Since it was the main cathedral of this city, it was also the biggest one and didn't have a problem with the huge number of players.
He looked around the interior of the cathedral and saw multiple wooden benches that had people already sitting on them.
Players sat down on the bench, and then they would be presented with their class choice.
Finn wasn't there to choose a class since he already had one, but he still needed to sit down since that was the method Themis told Loki to contact her with.
He sat down and, while closing his eyes, he put his hands in front of his forehead as if he were praying to a god.
After noticing the noisy atmosphere of the cathedral disappear, he opened his eyes and saw the same scenery he had seen when he first logged in.
Cloudless sky, with the floor looking like the calm surface of the ocean.
Themis was waiting while sitting on a wooden chair next to a coffee table.
There were two more empty chairs around the coffee table, so Finn sat down, and after leaving his head, Loki also sat down.
"Long time, no see Themis!"
Loki winked at Themis while looking at her, but she ignored him while calmly sitting with her legs crossed and sipping on her tea.
Finn also wanted to greet Themis, but he didn't know if he should call her "Your holiness" or something else, so he just chose to remain silent.
"I said I wouldn't meddle with the game, but since I know you can't join God's council, I will just tell you what we had discussed in the last meeting."
She slowly spoke as she placed her cup on the table and looked at Loki.
Loki and Finn looked at her, wondering why she wanted to talk about the upcoming tournament.
"The real purpose of The Gods Tournament isn't just for it to be a fun event for the participants and the people watching it. The real purpose of the tournament is…"