Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

A white wheel filled with question marks appeared beside the scroll.

Seth could hear a sneer in the system's voice. There were probably a lot of people who did this and got something like cook or baker. Nothing against those classes, but crafting wasn't really the first choice in a survival situation. He definitely wouldn't take the chance and risk- A Silver Wheel appeared beside the white one.

Seth sighed and rubbed his eyes, " I'm really too tired for this sh*t. We both know where this is going, just spin the silver thing already..."

At this point he just wanted this to end, so he could sort his thoughts.

Seth didn't know the situation outside, he had no idea what class was good. But it wasn't necessarily important, since any skill could be learned, no matter the class. An advanced or above class should be an advantage, no matter what things turned out to be.

He watched the wheel spin slowly losing speed. Yeah, he just thought that it didn't matter as much what class he got, but his face still fell when the wheel stopped and revealed the symbol of an anvil and hammer burning with an eerie blue flame.

Was this system messing with him? Was it really random or did it just give him a class fitting his name!?

The black void started to blur and his room came back into view.

Seth took a deep breath and fell on his bed. He savored the quiet and thought. It slowly started settling in, that the life he knew was over. But it didn't hit him as hard as he thought. Was it because there wasn't really anyone he cared about anymore? Or maybe...

"Errm...Skill Window?"

The window opened in front of his eyes. The formerly empty list was filled with a whole slew of new skills.

Strong mental shocks or surprises are mitigated and the emotional processing is later spread over a span of time to help deal with unexpected situations.>

"That's about what I thought. Ok, it actually seems quite handy."

Then his eyes fell on the list of other skills he got from his class. There were obviously skills associated with a blacksmith like,

Extraction of pure metals from raw materials and creation of alloys in a furnace.>

Appraisal of gear and materials up to uncommon. Creates a catalog of all discovered materials and saves their properties.>

Create and save blueprints and material lists in the system overlay.>

Forge and shape metal in the smithy with the help of your forge, tools, and an anvil. Create Armor and weapons from crafting materials.>

He noticed that his Swordsmanship had vanished, instead had a gotten Weapon Mastery?

You are a natural in handling weapons and can deliver a good fight no matter what weapon you use. A slight increase in damage when using a weapon. >

Except for this one, they seemed quite common for what a blacksmith should have. On the other hand, it was understandable that a blacksmith should know how to handle his products. But a lot more interesting were the class-specific skills.

You can summon the Spirit Smithy. The smithy encompasses advanced crafting stations and increases the crafting speed corresponding to the users Skill >

You are able to see and capture souls of recently deceased beings to use as crafting materials>

The second one would need him to kill something or find a fresh corpse, it seemed a little dangerous to test, but Spirit Smithy...

He jumped off his bed and went to his small living room, everything still seemed normal. He looked out the window and spotted others doing the same from the buildings near his apartment and across the street. He closed the shutters and invoked the skill.

"First time someone called my living room small..." Seth actually lived in a quite big maisonette apartment, that was left behind by his parents. Was his furniture in the way?

He rubbed his hands and started to push the couch, the table, and other things that were probably blocking the skill away. Sometime later he had cleared his living room which left him with almost 15m² of empty space, 2 stories in height.

When his stomach started rumbling he remembered that he hadn't eaten anything yet.

He went to scavenge the kitchen for edibles. Seth hadn't really expected the world to end, so his food storage looked quite meager. But hey! At least water and power were still working, so the grid had not broken down, yet.

Bread, some fruits, meat, really old canned food. A Frozen Pizza. A few bottles of water and soda and packs of noodles. This reminded Seth that preparation can´t hurt. Looking around his apartment, filled with empty plastic bottles he had no chance to bring away yet. He went ahead and filled them all up with water. Who knew when it would stop working?

Seth realized that he had to leave the apartment eventually to get food, but he definitely wouldn't just leave his home without more preparations!

He could definitely stay holed up for a few days with this if he rationed it well.

The meticulous "rationing" started by throwing the pizza in the oven for breakfast and gobbling up the whole thing. A productive day started with a greasy breakfast!

After filling his stomach he first went and made sure that his door was locked and checked the situation in the hallway using the peephole.

No blood smeared across the walls. No mangled corpses covering the floor. Just a clean, normal hallway. He didn't know whether he should feel reassured or disappointed.

Novels with these kinds of scenarios suggested that there were bloodbaths everywhere, but it didn't seem like marauding monsters had started slaughtering innocent people, yet.

So he probably still had some time before he would have to join the mob and be part of the mandatory pillaging for food and resources.

If he was to leave his apartment, he had to familiarize himself with the system and his class first.

This unique class was his only advantage, so he had to use it well!