Chapter 230: Ten Days of Iron and Bronze
For ten days, the Great Snowfall buried the Overlord village beneath a blanket of ice and darkness. The storm showed no mercy: the winds piled meters of snow against the wooden walls, reducing visibility outside to zero. For the villager, the world had shrunk down to the warm confines of their homes and the steady crackle of the new stone fireplaces.
Yet inside the workshop complex, time never stood still.
Garik and Lennis, obsessed with the development of the artillery, had made a decision before the blizzard reached its peak. Knowing that commuting from their homes in the middle of such a tempest would halt their progress, they moved their families and a group of apprentices into the forge facilities. The complex was spacious enough to accommodate everyone, and the heat radiating from the active forges kept the interior warm.
While the women and children prepared stews from the stockpiled rations and steam from melting snow filled the air, the craftsmen worked in a creative frenzy.
The ringing of hammers against anvils became the heartbeat of the workshop. Under Garik’s supervision, the reinforced clay molds for the first bronze cannon were perfected. They poured the molten alloy, taking care to ensure the metal flowed without leaving air pockets in the breech. Following days of controlled cooling and hand-polishing, the first cannon barrel rested upon a heavy oak carriage: a bronze cylinder two meters long, reinforced at its rear with forged iron bands.
Meanwhile, Lennis focused on the ordnance. Following Kellar’s designs, he crafted the spherical warheads the size of a human head. Each bronze shell featured a divided internal cavity, keeping the Fire-Earth stone powder and Windstone dust separated in isolated compartments. At the nose, Lennis fitted the front impact fuze: a reinforced iron firing pin held by a quick-release safety pin, calibrated so that only an impact after launch could drive the striker into the internal anvil.
By the tenth day, the storm began to lose its grip. The howling wind softened into a freezing breeze, and the first pale rays of sunlight filtered through the leaden sky.
Inside the workshop, lined beside the new bronze cannon, rested twelve completed impact shells. Garik wiped the sweat from his forehead with a soot-stained forearm, gazing at their creation with an exhausted smile. They had birthed the metal monsters that would alter the tribe’s destiny.
Meanwhile, Kellar had not been idle either. Ten days confined by the blizzard represented time he had no intention of wasting. He had been postponing tasks due to his daily workload and settlement management, making this forced isolation the opportunity to focus on system development.
Seated before the hearth in his home, he opened the translucent interface. To streamline its use, the first thing he did was organize his spell and technique catalog into four categories:
[Blessings]
[Curses]
[Offensive Skills]
[Defensive Skills]
He began by reviewing the Blessings section. At that moment, he had one primary ability loaded into the tribal totem: [Bear’s Fury], which granted a 50% increase in physical strength for two minutes. Although it served as the primary source of extra damage for his warriors, it had grown insufficient for their current needs.
Taking advantage of the tribe having reached Level 2, Kellar accessed the system editor to upgrade and enhance its effects:
[Tribal Blessing: Bear’s Fury (Upgraded)]
Effect: Increases the target’s physical strength by 100% for 10 minutes with no side effects.
Restriction: Usable 1 time every 3 hours.
By updating it, the restriction shifted to its usage frequency, but the surge in duration and power boost would allow them greater tactical flexibility in prolonged engagements.
Thinking of his hunters’ safety and how to complement this upgrade, Kellar decided to craft two new blessings aligned with the Bear God totem:
[Tribal Blessing: Bear’s Endurance]
Effect: Reduces all incoming physical and magical damage by 20%.
[Tribal Blessing: Bear’s Vitality]
Effect: Increases wound healing and regeneration rate by 80% for 10 seconds.
Kellar looked over the three skills displayed on the screen with a nod. With this suite of blessings bound to the totem—raw strength, damage mitigation, and emergency healing—his warriors and hunters could engage in hand-to-hand combat effectively and return alive from hunts.
Continuing with the panel reorganization, Kellar selected the Curses category.
Under this tab, he grouped the three spells he had previously created: [Poison Curse], which progressively drained the targets’ vitality; [Slowness Curse], which hindered the movement of prey or rival warriors; and [Pain Curse], designed to amplify physical suffering and disorient enemies in the heat of battle.
While these were effective tools for hunting and harassment, Kellar felt he lacked a strategic spell that could neutralize a dangerous opponent or shatter a beast pack’s formation without forcing him to expose himself.
If an enemy cannot see where the attack is coming from, they lose all ability to coordinate, thought Kellar.
With that in mind, he proceeded to craft a fourth technique within the list:
[Blindness Curse]
Effect: Envelops the target’s eyes in a dense magical mist, stripping them of sight for 15 seconds.
Restriction: Usable 1 time every 5 minutes per caster. Requires direct line of sight or target lock.
Kellar observed the new spell integrated alongside the three he had previously developed. The [Blindness Curse] would serve as a tool to prevent enemies or the valley’s beasts from spotting him and his hunters, while granting them an advantage in ambushes, allowing them to blind rival leaders before they could issue commands.
Kellar moved on to the next tab in the interface: Offensive Skills.
In this category, his repertoire was limited. He relied almost exclusively on [Lightning Spear], the electric spell he had created previously, which served as his go-to attack. While the speed and destructive force of his lightning were devastating, Kellar knew that relying on a single energy type was a tactical flaw.
Throughout his encounters in this world, he had realized that creatures and monsters possessed distinct elemental affinities, strengths, and weaknesses. Striking a beast born of lightning or one with high electrical resistance using his [Lightning Spear] would prove useless. He needed versatility to adapt to whatever threat crossed his path.