At the site of the Smithing Tournament…
Lin Feng was the participant who stood out the most in the first round, so he was invited to enter the Smithing Association before all the others.
He greeted some of the smiths he recognized from before when he was accepting smithing commissions and then handed over the feather as proof of entry.
Upon entering the forging workshop that was the site of the next round, Lin Feng breathed in the scent from the forge and stretched out comfortably.
As a smith, he was exceptionally sensitive to the smell of coal in the room. After three days spent away from any forge, he had begun to feel restless and unfulfilled.
Now that he was standing in a room filled with the smell of coal and fire again, he finally felt that emptiness in his heart dissipate.
According to the rules, those with the right to enter the Association's workshop also had an added advantage of more time to forge their weapons.
However, Lin Feng was in no rush to start forging. He walked around the modestly-sized room and occasionally picked up some of the low-grade material the Association had piled up on the floor, examining them closely for a long time. Now and then, he would also try swinging the brand-new forging hammer that had been placed on the forge.
Three minutes later, Lin Feng finally got to work.
He held the steel shovel and mused over something for a moment before shoveling a bit of coal into the bottom of the forge.
As he pumped the blower, waves of heat instantly filled the room.
Lin Feng languidly took two deep breaths full of that intense heat.
Suddenly, he then threw a few scattered pieces of low-grade ore into the forge.
Unlike high-grade ore, there was no real order to the melting of low-grade ore.
As long as they ended up melding together, it did not really matter what sequence he added them in.
Since he had God-level Forgery, Lin Feng knew that perfectly well.
A normal longsword would use about five to eight pounds of ore.
Lin Feng poured all of the ore around him into the forge and then blinked, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"Interesting…"
The Smiths' Association should have provided every participant with a fixed amount of materials.
That was why Lin Feng was almost certain that the Association had hidden another card up their sleeve, something aside from what their member had told him earlier.
"All the ore here adds up to four or six pounds at most…
"Haha, seems like this contest is slightly more fascinating than I expected."
Lin Feng pulled down a piece of sheepskin parchment pasted on the wall.
The requirements for the weapons every smith had to make were written on that parchment.
As he expected, Lin Feng chuckled to himself the moment he skimmed through the parchment.
The words 'Vanguard Greatsword' were written in large font across the page.
A normal greatsword needed at least more than ten pounds of ore, and a Vanguard Greatsword, used to charge head-first through the beast tide, only needed even more.
A weapon like that usually took at least twenty pounds of ore to forge.
All of the ore in the room amounted to less than ten pounds in total.
In other words, this test was practically asking the impossible of the participants.
Not long later, Lin Feng heard a commotion outside the workshop.
He placed his ear to the wall and tried to listen in.
The voices were a cacophonic mess. At least a dozen smiths had stormed out of their respective workshops.
"The veterans of the Smiths' Association are quite impressive… To think they came up with such a test of skill… Haha."
Lin Feng chuckled to himself. The flames in the forge had risen to their highest, and the ore in the forge was already twinkling amidst the heat. Finally, he began the actual forging process.
In contrast to his workshop, which was gradually heating up, the Association outside his doors had devolved into a mess.
Several dozen people dressed in the smiths' uniform were gathered at the reception counter of the Association, all at once.
They looked quite agitated, their expressions all tinged with anger.
"We demand an explanation!"
"Isn't Grimm's Smiths' Association being unreasonable to us?"
"That's right! What do you mean by this, giving us less than ten pounds of ore and asking us to make a Vanguard Greatsword?"
The vice president of the Smiths' Association at Grimm looked unnaturally calm, his even gaze looking at all the smiths in front of him. After a long time, he actually snorted through his nose.
"You say we're being unreasonable to you?
"Haha… Before you say that, think carefully. Why would the Smiths' Association bother doing something so pointless to people like you? You're not worth it!"
His words and poker face incensed the many smiths even further.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You're looking down on us!"
The vice president stared down the dozens of smiths all on his own, snorting coldly as he pointed at each room they had prepared for the participants.
"There are fifty participants in this round. If we really are being unreasonable and asking for the impossible, why do you think there are still ten people working their forges right now? Why aren't they kicking up a fuss like you lot?"
The vice president's words made everyone pause.
However, a young-looking man suddenly harrumphed and said,
"Maybe they used some underhanded methods to bribe your Association members."
The vice president's gaze turned abruptly cold. He stared at the young man for a long time and then picked up a feather embedded with the Smiths' Association logo, saying,
"Of the ten people still inside, there is the grandson of the legendary Six-Star smith, Valentine, as well as Grimm's famous veteran master smith, Goldwin.
"Are you questioning their integrity?"
The young man was immediately rendered speechless at that. He opened his mouth to try and say something, but in the end he retreated back into the crowd helplessly.
The young Valentine and Goldwin were both respected superstars among the blacksmiths.
The two of them had won all sorts of smithing awards before. Grimm's Smithing Tournament was nothing to them.
The idea that they bribed an official to win would be nothing short of a joke.
The vice president's gaze was extremely sharp right now, sweeping across the crowd as he spoke again.
"Don't use your ignorance as an excuse to sully the name of our Smiths' Association.
"Who ever said it's impossible to forge a Vanguard Greatsword with ten pounds of ore?"
His words sparked another commotion.
However, these smiths clearly did not have the skill to make a miracle out of nothing, so they could not comprehend what the vice president meant by that.