Infinite Realm

"Welcome, everyone, to this year's Apprentice Blacksmith contest for Black Rock Province held by the Blacksmith guild of Black Rock City."

A white-bearded who could fit a character in the Bible stood on the stage at the centre of the hall as he announced the start of the tournament. He wore a navy blue gown with gold embroideries and 3 black stars. Just by standing there, the sharp mages amongst the player noticed that the flow of mana in the hall imperceptibly moved towards him.

Sato and the other player blacksmiths, as well as the NPC participants, sat at one side of the hall. The hall could fit about 900 people but the stage alone could only hold less than a hundred. Hence, the 300 or so participants had to sit at the stands but were a lot closer to the stage than the spectators, so, they were able to feel the eerie man flow even better than the others.

'He's probably the guild leader or some high-level figure.' Sato thought.

Just as he reached that conclusion, the old man's next words denied and affirmed them.

"As you may or may not know, I'm Master Kolin, the Vice-guild leader of Black Rock City's Blacksmith guild as well as the head of external affairs of Black Rock Province's blacksmith guilds." The bearded old man said.

"Due to certain reasons, the guild leader won't be available for this event so I'm in charge of overseeing it."

"This contest aims to enable our young ones to get a bit of fame for themselves while also proving themselves worthy of becoming an official blacksmith. In other words, the top performers would have the opportunity of being promoted to the next rank without having to take any test while the rest would be able to grow a certain level of fame that would aid their careers. This is a win-win for everyone participating and I hope that you can still give it your best shot." Kolin glanced at the participants as he spoke until here.

"Even without the guild leader's presence, there's still myself as well as few other honourable characters so you should do your best to strive for the top. Hold nothing back in this tournament as it could very well define your future in this occupation and maybe even affect your future. 

"Also, to help motivate you younglings, we have prepared a few prizes for the top placeholders. Some of you may already know that among these prizes is a copy of Saint Savir's blacksmithing manual. Even though he was a Scribe, his blacksmithing skills weren't any lesser than a 4-star master's. some rumour that he had even reached the level of a 1 hammer Grandmaster but that we haven't confirmed yet. From this information, you should know how valuable his manuals are, even if it's just a beginner's guide.

In blacksmithing, just like in every other subclass, ranks existed. They were, in order of low to high, Apprentice, Practitioner, Master, Grandmaster, Saint, and Divine. As from the Master rank up though, there were still differences in skill. Each of those ranks was divided into 4 sub-ranks. 

For the Master rank, they were classified into stars, from 1 star to 4 stars. For Grandmaster, they were classified into hammers, all the way from 1 hammer to 4 hammers.

The old man before them, vice-guild leader Kolin, had 3 stars on his gown, meaning that he was a 3 star Master Blacksmith, close to the peak of Master rank. At that level, forging Rare-Steel and Dark Silver equipment was a piece of cake for him and he could even create a level 20 legendary equipment with one eye closed, if one ever existed[IF]. 

Kolin's limit, however, was making equipment of Legendary rank at the same level as he was or at least, 5 levels below, which he hadn't yet reached. Kolin could forge a piece of legendary equipment only if it was 20 or more levels lower than he was and also he was familiar with the materials and prices, otherwise, it would just be a Dark Silver product. However, forging a legendary rank required a lot of very precious materials which the Blacksmith guild didn't have so many of. Also, Kolin needed to be at least level 100 to attempt forging one. With all these criteria, Kolin couldn't meet the requirements to forge a Legendary item but he was still a highly valued blacksmith.

Grandmasters were rare; very rare, and the same was true for 4-star masters. The number of 4 star Master blacksmiths in the Fallen Heart Kingdom could be counted with one's hands and so, most of the high-level products were made by their 3 star Master, who were in larger numbers than the 4 star Masters.

"So here's how the tournament would go. The tournament would be divided into main parts, the written and the practical. The written part only occurs once and would consist of questions from the apprentice exam, a few from the practitioner exam, and some related to everyday blacksmithing that one ought to know. The participants are expected to complete this part of the tournament within an hour and a half, irrespective of your opinions."

As Kolin spoke up to here, quite a few of the players had a weird look on their faces. It was okay to tell them the duration of the test but the additional comment wasn't really needed.

"The second part of the tournament is the practical part. It would be divided into 3 sub-parts with the 1st sub-part being a basic test for apprentices. The next would be a bit more difficult and the third sub-part would be harder than the two combined. To summarize, each sub-part would just be you forging whatever blueprint we pass to you. Whether or not you were previously familiar with it has nothing to do with us, but to make sure that doesn't happen, the blueprints being used were made by our professionals or dug up from ruins so I doubt anyone of you have seen it elsewhere."

While using a regular blueprint of equivalent difficulty in forging procedures wasn't much different, to prevent the participants from bringing up excuses and claims that the winner was previously familiar with the blueprints more than the others, the Blacksmith guild had decided to dig into their treasure trove of low-grade blueprints for this event. The blueprints weren't anything special, apart from being from an older civilization or era, and since they were low-grade blueprints, they were anything but special. 

The only reason such blueprints weren't popularised first had to do with the fact that the forging procedures in it were a bit more complicated than modern methods, and also, the Blacksmith guild didn't intend to plagiarize it as they saw no need to do so.

"Scores would be received from each part of the tournament as well as each sub-part, and these scores would be tallied and displayed on ranking board that updates real-time that way, the results would be obvious to the public and the Blacksmith guild would not be accused of messing with the scores. While the scores will be public, the core criteria for scoring won't be made known. Participants just have to be aware that their forging method and familiarity with it, efficiency, speed, the success rate of production as well as the final quality of the product would affect their scores.

"So without any further ado, I announce the commencement of this tournament."