Chapter 74: Blacksmithing Competition

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Blacksmithing Competition

Seraphina made her way up the arena ramp and back into Squad 07’s seating section, a broad, triumphant smile on her face. As she reached the group, she held up her palm and went down the line, giving a crisp high-five to Rowan, Caelen, Mirei, and Barney in turn.

"Not bad for a warm-up," Seraphina said with a satisfied smirk, taking her seat beside Rowan and leaning back into the leather cushion. "That 3rd place slot is officially locked in."

"You set the bar high for the rest of us," Rowan said, grinning as he adjusted his enchanted straw hat. "Now it’s time to keep the momentum going."

Down in the main colosseum, a swarm of arena staff members moved with practiced efficiency. In a matter of minutes, the alchemy tables and chemical containment fields were completely cleared away. In their place, heavy industrial cranes and mechanised platforms rolled into the arena floor.

Massive, runic-reinforced portable forges—equipped with subterranean heat pumps and mana-venting funnels—were placed evenly across the stone grounds. Next to each forge stood a solid, heavy-grade steel anvil and a workstation shelf holding specialized hammers, tongs, and quenching troughs. Beside each station, large crates of raw materials were wheeled out, every single pile hidden under a thick, dark canvas cloth to prevent early inspection.

The stadium’s sound system chimed loudly, and the announcer’s voice reverberated off the stone walls, echoing out to the packed stands and balcony suites.

"Attention, Cadets and Spectators! The Alchemy Division evaluation is officially complete! We now transition immediately to the second event of the Initial Competency Testing Trial: the Forgecraft & Equipment Mechanics Competition!"

The crowd cheered as the overhead holographic display updated, shifting from green chemical runes to fiery orange hammer emblems.

"May all blacksmithing and forgecraft candidates make their way to the arena grounds immediately!"

Barney stood up, cracking his thick knuckles with a deep, rumbling chuckle. He reached over to his weapon rack and unslung his massive relic—the Hammer of the Sunken Bastion. He rested the legendary hammer comfortably over his broad shoulder, its heavy head gleaming under the stadium light.

"My turn to crack some iron," Barney grinned, looking over at his squadmates.

"Show them what real blacksmithing looks like, Barney," Caelen said, giving him a firm nod.

"Don’t go breaking their anvils," Mirei added with a rare, faint smile.

Rowan patted Barney on the arm. "Go secure our second point."

"Consider it done," Barney laughed. He gave a final wave back toward Squad 07, his heavy boots thudding against the stone steps as he marched down the access ramp, joining the crowd of imposing blacksmiths and artificers heading onto the arena floor.

As Barney stepped onto the stone arena floor, resting the head of the Hammer of the Sunken Bastion against the ground beside his anvil, he looked around at the sheer variety of artisans taking their positions at the surrounding stations.

Because the academy defined "Forgecraft & Equipment Mechanics" in its broadest sense, the competition wasn’t limited solely to traditional iron-forgers and steel-smiths. The crafting discipline was vast, encompassing every specialized art required to create, reinforce, and maintain high-grade gear for Tower exploration.

Spreading across the arena were master woodworkers carefully arranging specialized chisels beside blocks of spirit-grained ironwood and mana-infused timber; glassblowers igniting high-heat thermal conduits to melt pure quartz and elemental silica for optical lenses and liquid-mana conduits; and arc-weavers, leather-smiths, and rune-engravers setting up their bespoke toolkits. Every unique trade that fell under the umbrella of equipment fabrication was represented, each craftsman preparing to demonstrate their specific contribution to gear creation.

Barney cracked his knuckles, looking over the eclectic gathering with a deep rumble of appreciation. "Quite a turnout," he muttered, adjusting his grip on his hammer. He knew better than anyone that a great weapon or armor set rarely relied on metal alone—it took a master glassblower to craft containment vessels for volatile flame cores, and a skilled woodworker to shape composite handles that could absorb the shock of a direct impact from a boss-tier beast.

Up in the spectator stands, Rowan and the rest of Squad 07 monitored the arena floor through their seat tablets, switching through the camera angles of the various crafting stations.

"Look at Sector 8," Seraphina pointed out, tapping Rowan’s tablet. "That glassblower is using a mana-focused torch to pre-heat molten crystal. That’s the exact kind of high-thermal glass required for tier-3 alchemical cauldrons."

"It makes sense that the academy groups them together," Caelen observed, resting his chin on his fist. "In a real field unit, an artificer needs to understand how raw materials interact—metal, wood, crystal, and leather all have to resonate at the same mana frequency, or the entire piece of equipment shatters under stress."

Rowan nodded, his eyes tracking Barney on the primary camera feed. "And Barney knows how to work with almost all of it. Let’s see what kind of mystery materials they’ve brought out for them today."

Down on the arena stage, the head blacksmithing inspector stepped up to the central platform, raising a heavy brass gavel.

"Candidates!" the inspector’s voice boomed across the colosseum. "Whether you shape steel with a hammer, bend glass with flame, or carve spirit-wood with a blade, the essence of forgecraft remains unchanged: turning raw, unyielding components into reliable instruments of war and survival!"

With a sharp strike of his gavel, the inspector signaled the assistants lined along the rows. "Unveil the raw materials!"

All across the arena floor, the heavy canvas covers were pulled away simultaneously, revealing the surprise resources each craftsman would have to work with for the trial.

As the canvas covers fell away, a wave of collective groans, gasps, and shocked murmurs rippled across the colosseum floor.

Instead of glowing mana-steels, refined mythril ingots, or high-grade spirit woods, the workstations were stocked with the most basic, bottom-tier raw materials imaginable.

At the blacksmithing stations, candidates found heavy blocks of crude, brittle pig iron choked with heavy slag, covered in thick rust, and pitted with internal air pockets. The woodworkers were presented with knotty, splintered planks of unseasoned common pine, full of sap pockets and prone to warping. The glassblowers received cracked piles of cloudy, impure silica sand and reclaimed slag glass, while the leather-smiths stared at stiff, unrefined scraps of raw hide.

"Is this a joke?!" one noble cadet shouted from Sector 4, kicking the side of his forge. "How are we supposed to craft anything usable out of garbage iron and rusted scrap?!"

"My iron block has so many air bubbles it’ll shatter on the first strike!" another craftsman complained loudly, throwing down his tongs in frustration.

Up on the central platform, the head inspector leaned into the broadcast rune, his sharp voice cutting through the rising tide of complaints.

"Silence!" the inspector commanded, his voice echoing across the arena. "Anyone can forge a decent blade when handed pristine mithril or pure solar-steel. High-tier materials hide poor technique! A true master craftsman in the field must be able to assess flawed, low-grade resources, purge their impurities through sheer discipline and refinement, and elevate them into reliable, battle-ready gear!"

The overhead holographic display updated, revealing the trial’s core objective:

[ FORGECRAFT TRIAL OBJECTIVE ]

Target: Fabricate a functional piece of equipment or artisan component using only the provided low-grade base materials.

Evaluation Criteria: Material Purification Rate, Structural Integrity, Runic/Elemental Conductivity, and Craftsmanship Efficiency.

Time Limit: 30 Minutes.

Up in the spectator section, Rowan leaned forward, his hands resting on the balcony rail as he watched the arena below. "A test of pure fundamentals. They’re stripping away all external advantages."

"It’s a brilliant setup," Seraphina said, crossing her arms with an appreciative smile. "A bad artificer relies on the raw power of expensive ingredients to carry the item. A good one turns scrap into gold through technique."

"Most of those cadets have never had to refine their own metal from raw pig iron in their lives," Caelen added dryly. "They’re used to buying pre-purified ingots from academy suppliers."

Down on the arena floor, Barney crouched beside his anvil, picking up a heavy chunk of the rusted, slag-filled pig iron. He turned it over in his large palm, scraping off a layer of loose orange rust with his thumb and peering closely at the coarse grain of the metal.

Instead of showing frustration, Barney let out a deep, rumblesome laugh that drew surprised looks from the frantic smiths at the neighboring stations.

"Rusted pig iron and knotty timber, huh?" Barney muttered under his breath, a sharp, confident grin spreading across his face. He hoisted the heavy piece of metal onto his anvil and unslung the Hammer of the Sunken Bastion from his shoulder, the legendary weapon humming softly in his grip.

"Perfect," Barney chuckled, raising his hammer high as his forge ignited with a roaring, high-intensity furnace blast. "Time to show these kids how to beat the garbage out of iron."