The melodic ringing of hammer against steel echoed throughout the Spider's Lair, also known as Seth's hobbit hole of a workshop. However despite it being Seth's workshop, it was not him that was hard at work and creating this wonderful melody of hard work.

The owner of this workshop was acting like many managers often did, simply sitting at the side and enjoying a cup of tea while he watched someone else do all the hard work. Supervising, many liked to call it.

Seth had his own excuses for his particular laziness, another managerial trait that seemed to come naturally to those who assumed the position. He was currently still recovering from the effects of mana exhaustion, which he had developed as a result of his amazing miracle of birth.

Hence, why he was sipping at the tea. The tea wasn't some magical potion or wondrous remedy created with the mystical herbs they had discovered during their time in this new world. It wasn't even magical tea in the slightest, just something that they had found in a store that they had looted when looking for other foodstuffs for the civilians.

Just because it wasn't magical, however, didn't mean it wasn't helping him. It was doing a magical job of quenching his thirst and making him feel quite relaxed, and isn't that all that it needed to do?

It should also be noted that, while he was 'suffering' from symptoms of mana exhaustion, these symptoms weren't serious in the slightest. True mana exhaustion, which meant bleeding dry every drop of your internal reserves and then pushing yourself even further, was a truly dreadful experience.

Seth on the other hand, since he had only been reduced down to a mere ten percent of his total, was simply feeling a little lethargic and sleepy. But it was still deserving of a nice cup of tea.

Besides, it's not as if he was being lazy just for the sake of it. That was what he told himself, at least. While he was enjoying his magical hot leaf water, Seth was watching Titus work at the forge with incredibly diligence and focus.

He was currently inspecting a slab of metal that was glowing a bright orange, before placing it down on the anvil and beginning to hammer it into shape. He was not alone in this process, however, he was currently being assisted by the puppet that had brought Seth the dwarf's body.

Curiously enough, despite it being Seth's puppet acting as Titus' assistant, and the fact that he was in the room with him at the time, it was not Seth that was controlling the puppet, nor was it one of his Spirit Animals.

It wasn't even one of his autonomous proto-puppets. This puppet, despite being still fully connected to Seth, was being completely controlled by Titus. It was something Seth could take over, if he so wished, but he allowed it for the moment as there was no harm in it.

It was something that had taken Seth utterly by surprise, especially since Bob had shown no hint of being able to do the same. Perhaps he could, and simply didn't as to not be rude. That would be very Bob, or Seth had to fix their connection in some way to make him more like his brother. Whether this was a one time thing, or if this would occur with other living puppets that he made in the future, it was yet to be seen. But it had wonderful implications towards the structure of Seth's puppet army. It was all coming together.

Either way, Titus had simply taken over Seth's puppet as easily as breathing and put it to work as his assistant, helping him hammer out the glowing metal to the appropriate shape.

Yes, as soon as Titus was born he immediately, with barely a hint of hesitation, was drawn to the forge and quickly got to work. Seth had a vague idea of what he was currently crafting, considering before he started working he was constantly muttering to himself about how terrible Seth's forging tools were, but as for the processes of it or what he was inspecting that metal for... He had absolutely no idea. Not in the slightest. Titus could lick that metal right now and Seth would simply nod his head at the experts opinion.

He had thought that his forging skills had been pretty decent. He had forged his prosthetic arm, even if it was just by using a mannequins arm as a mold and pouring the metal in, and could have production lines create swords, which did actually do their jobs and cut things. So what if he couldn't do it consistently or couldn't make them pretty, they worked. That was all that matters, right?

According to Titus he had apparently been using the wrong type of hammer to complete his creations. Wrong type of hammer, pfft... Load of nonsense in his opinion. They were heavy and they hit things, what was the difference really?

But, as much as he wanted to, Seth didn't argue with Titus and simply let him work away. Performing his fancy processes and begrudgingly using his 'ridiculous' tools to forge new ones. There were many times were he simply foregoed Seth's 'incorrect' hammer and simply shaped the steel with his bare hands.

At the very least, even if he had gotten the details of blacksmithing tools wrong, supposedly, he had at least been correct about his theories on Titus' body.

Just like Seth had expected, Titus was able to wield the strange obsidian fragments ability to alter his density on a whim. However, while the original stone-like fragments were brittle when they were unenhanced, the same could not be said for Titus.

No matter what, his body was stout and robust, letting him handle the heated metal with his bare hands without even a drop of sweat running down his forehead. In fact, Seth wasn't exactly sure if he could sweat. That had yet to be seen, but he suspected if it was possible then there was a high chance he would sweat molten gold. So if that was the case, he would have to tell Titus to gather that up, no wasting any gold just because it came out of you.

Regardless, despite Titus' ability to change his density, according to his guardian interface, this was not actually his mutation.

Bob had been born with no such access, and no ability to go along with it. He could not evolved or take a step into the path of ascension no matter how hard he tried. It was only after his death and subsequent rebirth that he gained these features, as the system finally deemed him a true person.

However Titus was not like this. Unlike his elder brother, he had been born not only with full access to his guardian but with an ability to coincide. It wasn't entirely unexpected. Over the months they had been surviving, there was a few new births occurring within the city.

Obviously they were not children conceived after the fall, but they were certainly born after it and only knew the new world. Correspondingly, they seemed perfectly suited to their new home, as every baby born into this new world did so with an ability.

The tier 0 that so many civilians were fighting to achieve and had to acquire so many gene points to touch the edge of, was simply gifted to infants who had the fortune of being born into this world. They would never know what it was like to live a mundane, mortal life.

A fact that caused slight upset and much distress with their parents, as was expected when your new born could spew fire when it was upset, which was the primary emotion of new-borns.

The ability that Titus was born with naturally seemed to lean towards the flames currently burning within the forge, which were black as onyx much like the young blacksmiths own skin. The details of this ability had yet to be shared with Seth, he had only gathered it from the fact Titus was currently using them.

His new son wasn't being secretive, just inexplicably distracted by the disaster of a forge he had inherited and overwhelmed by the urge to fix it.

At the very least, he was not the only one cursed with distracting thoughts of how he could better fix things. But while he was distracted by fixing Seth's mistakes in the forge, unfortunately Seth was also distracted by his mistakes, but not one's in the forge. Not exactly.

It seemed that, in all of his excitement to create a living puppet, something he desperately needed to find a better term for, that Seth forgot one very important detail.

Mainly, he forgot why he was doing this in the first place. He was so focused on the forging of new items, that he completely glossed over the fact that he also needed an enchanter as well. Yes, he had completely and utterly forgot that he was supposed to be creating someone to carve runes into the finished creations.

The ceramic handle of Seth's cracked as he ever so slightly clenched his fist, his hand trembling as it held the delicate cup of tea in his hand. It was supposed to be relaxing him, but all he could do was dread all the work he had to do in the future. Not just with the rune carver he was going to have to create.

Seth's head tilted to the side, his gaze lazily landing on the slowly decaying corpse of the once fearsome, giant Dwarf. More specifically, his eyes focused on the radiant flame flickering above the flesh, the remnants of his soul still tethered to the mortal coil.

'What am I going to do with you?'