When the four raised their hammers, everyone's eyes glued onto them. But when their arms descended, along with a consecutive clanging sounds. The crowd deduced whose movements were more graceful and fluid.
And that was the three men.
Their movements looked as fluid as water without waste and their poundings of the Iron echoed out at the same time indicating their harmonious coordination towards each other.
Meanwhile, Dan's movements looked stiff and his frail arms looked like it couldn't even carry the hammer itself as he smashed it down the iron. Dan glanced at his competitors and noticed their flair, but he didn't mind their flashy movements, after all. He had his own tricks up his sleeves.
The crowd shook their heads and Caitlyn who saw his movements sighed in disappointment. The fluidity of a forger's movements indicated the mastery of their occupation.
The three men. Even though they were wasteful, they could still spit out three weapons after spending ten batches of materials. At the least, even if they had to swallow a loss, they could still obtain their needed weapons.
The members of the Gang who noticed Caitlyn's disappointed and deflated expression shook their heads in return. Some of the arrogant ones started booing with sneers up their faces.
The three men noticed the crowd's agitation as a wicked smile lifted on their lips. They had long since mastered these movements yet the young man actually challenged them in their own territory, hoping that he would win? Fat chance!
Soon, they finished tempering their irons and started melting it and afterward, using a casting mold, they dripped their melted metals and cooled them with sand instead of water quenching, increasing their durability in the cost of sharpness.
After finishing theses process without any problems, they haughtily stared at Dan who was still in the process of tempering his Iron.
"Kid, what's wrong? Why are you taking so long in tempering such a small fragment of metal?"
"Yeah, he really is taking too long, I think that he doesn't even know Smithy in the first place!"
"Wait, if that's the case, he should be disqualified now! What a farce, we're actually competing with an amateur!"
His words evoked the emotions of the crowd and they started nagging at Caitlyn whose expression looked dark and indescribable. The latter glanced at the nonchalant Dan and said, "Contestant Dan, if you could, please hurry up, if you still cannot temper your Iron in the next ten minutes, it would be considered as your loss."
Dan lifted his head and stared right into her eyes. Realizing her intentions, Dan shook his head and chuckled. Raising the hammer up in the air, his movements still looked slow when it descended but this time, when it smashed the Iron, it actually pressed it down that it looked like a pancake.
The sharp eyes of the other men who knew quite a bit regarding smithy shone. The three men stared at Dan with a strange light within their eyes. They realized that even though his movements looked slow, his efficiency in diffusing the impurities within the metal surpassed them by several folds.
But still, they remained their indifferent and cold expression, their eyes shone in a condescending light, after all. Even if he could temper the metal right, that doesn't mean that he would succeed in melting and casting it.
A purified metal would be easy to melt but hard to cast. And even if you managed to create a weapon out of it. Without the right techniques, it would most likely be fragile and wouldn't withstand the test of time.
But who was Dan? He had the Crafting Sub-System guiding him all this time!
Maintaining his casual expression, Dan was exhilarated inside to the extent that he wanted to leap in joy. At first, he had doubts if he could use the Crafting Sub-System without anyone realizing it, but after he tried, he realized that it could set into guidance mode.
Numerous floating semi-transparent screens decorated the air around him, some even labeled the metal that he melted, giving him information about its current temperature, viscosity, and potential to cast.
With a help of an omniscient guidebook, what would he fear?
Glancing at the bastards who continued staring at him as if he was a dead man. Dan shrugged and darted his gaze at Caitlyn who only nodded in return.
The three men took their swords from the glass and several judges from the Gang whose knowledge regarding Forging surpassed or even comparable to the three received the weapons and judged it.
"Hmm, this is good, out of a hundred, its durability is at least at ninety, sharpness at eighty-one and comfort at seventy. Definitely a good sword!" A middle-aged man whose left eye had an eye patch deduced, praising the sword's quality.
Handing it back at the three men, they kept their swords and stared at Dan who was in the process of melting his materials.
"Kid," Monali attracted Dan's attention at the latter turned towards him and said, "Is there any problem?"
"Hmmph..." Monali snickered, "There's no problem about us, but you..."
"Me?" Dan lifted an eyebrow.
"Yes, you." Monali crossed his arms, "You better prepare your luggage since you will definitely be exiled back where you came from..." He turned around and casually chatted with the other men, not minding his existence anymore.
His arrogance and haughtiness could be considered as reasonable. After all, they spent several months toiling inside the Gang, hoping that they would acquire a Forger position but when they acquired it, they would suddenly be pushed away by a no-name brat whose figure looked more like an escort than a man.
How could they not be indignant?
Dan understood their feelings and he didn't really want to cross them either. After all, he wouldn't benefit much from expelling them. Much worse, his workload would increase upon their disappearance.
But since they openly challenged his capabilities, he accepted it to give himself an opportunity in exerting his dominance so that in the future, no one would doubt his abilities.
Completing the melting process, Dan dripped the melted metal inside a casting mold and water quenched it. His actions startled the men, if he water quenched his metal, its durability would surely lag behind the three men, yet why did he do it?
They became puzzled, but their confusion turned into shock when they realized that Dan semi-melted the metals again and this time, he cooled it with sand.
Several tens of minutes later, Dan took his weapon from the sand and when he picked it up. The weapon gave off a mysterious obsidian sheen, which sent palpitations down the heart of the three men as they had a premonition within their hearts.
"What is this..." The judging eye patch man mumbled in shock, it was the first time that he saw such a domineering looking sword. Running his index finger lightly at the blade, he saw that his skin cracked with blood leaking from it.
"How sharp!" He wasn't even satisfied and he took his own precious sword and sliced the body of the newly made sword.
Everyone's eyes focused on the sword that Dan made and when they saw the eye patch man swinging his sword on it. They knew in their hearts that it would definitely shatter along with Dan's dreams of becoming a forger within their Gang.
Clang!
The tip of a sword flew in the air. But contrary to everyone's expectations, what flew wasn't the sword that Dan made, but the treasured sword of the eye-patched man!
It has to be known that his treasure sword accompanied him for several decades. It inexperienced numerous tempering from the blood of his enemies and the reinforcement of other Forgers, but no one expected that its life would end at the hands of a sword made by an amateur...
Wait, what amateur.
If that boy-toy is an amateur, then all of us Forgers would be commoners!
They inwardly cursed and the three men who saw the spectacle happening right before their eyes couldn't say anything as their figures endlessly trembled in shock.
Only the dull thuds of their knees hitting the ground echoed across the silenced hall.
This time, they had truly kicked an iron plate!