Infinite Realm

*Shhhhh*

A large vapor escaped from the bucket of water as the blade of metal hurriedly began to cool.

Sato's face had a red hue to it as he withstood the heat while waiting for the metal to cool down to the appropriate temperature. 

Once it had attained a satisfactory form, Sato immediately took the metal blade out of the bucket. He then immediately proceeded to hammer the blade till it was able to achieve the perfect shape in his eyes.

Sato then finally attached the blade to a hilt he had already prepared for it, before applying the final touch to the sword after which it was complete.

[[ System notification :

Greysteel long-sword completed.

Analysing product...

Product has succeeded to reach the required rank 

]]

As Sato used the [Appraise] feature in the sword, he discovered that hat it had managed to reach the Upper-tier Mortal rank. This was already in impressive here but as he was hoping on forging a Low-tier Rare-Steel rank weapon, it was considered a failure to him.

'One more.'

Glancing at the remaining time he had, Sato sighed as he prepared for his last attempt. If he could forge a Low-tier Rare-Steel rank version, Sato was sure that he would be able to maintain his rank as first of place. It was less than 30 minutes left and Sato wasn't sure that he could pull it off.

First of all, the materials, as well as the final product, had an innate limit that reduced the chances of developing a Low-tier Rare-Steel rank weapon from it. Finally, the fact that Sato had to apply Cold Metal Mana Infusion had inevitably damaged a few properties of the cod metal Blue Pod, thereby affecting the chances of a Low-tier Rare-Steel rank being the final result. But since all the other combination methods Sato knew were a lot harder and required certain equipment and catalysts, he couldn't change his combination method.

'I can either hope that the others don't forge a Low-tier Rare-Steel rank or lose out on a few points here.'

Unknown to Sato, he was thinking too much about things.

First of all, the difficulty of the blueprint in this round was higher than the previous one. If the former blueprint was something any Apprentice blacksmith could have a shot at forging and succeed, the current one wasn't exactly so. While it was still beneath the rank of a Practitioner, it still wasn't something an average apprentice could make. This was even more so when confronted with the problem of combining a cold metal with a metal that required to be worked under high temperatures. While Sato was able to easily figure out a solution to this problem, the same wasn't so for the others. 

Apart from the top 5 contestants on the rankings, the others were all having a very difficult time at this. Some of them didn't know of any method to use to solve this issue and were still stuck in the testing phase, while those who knew hadn't practiced it much or weren't exactly exposed properly to the technique so their works ended up as failures. Hence, even though there was less than 30 minutes left, not a lot of participants had made more than 1 successful weapon. Most were scraps while those who had succeeded had narrowly done so, wasting 1 or 2 sets of the materials before they succeeded in the next try. It was only very few who had made 2 complete works but even then, the swords were stuck at the Low-tier Mortal rank.

Even those in the top 5 weren't exceptions to problems as they still experienced their own difficulties. Floating Mirage had problems with raising the rank of the final product. He had already completed one and was almost done with the second one, but he felt that the quality wouldn't surpass the Mid-tier Mortal rank, which was a problem he had encountered with the first work.

Normally, as a professional apprentice blacksmith, making items at the Upper-tier Mortal rank was a breeze for him and his eyes were at the Low-tier Rare-Steel rank. This was very obvious from the previous contest where, just like the other top 5 candidates, all 3 of his works had successfully reached the Upper-tier Mortal rank, enabling him to surpass his predecessor who only had two Upper-tier Mortal ranks. Now, however, going past the Mid-tier Mortal rank mark was a lot tougher than usual. 

Floating Mirage felt that it had to do with his combination method, but as he had no other one in mind, Floating Mirage had no choice but to keep using the same method.

Similar to Floating Mirage, the other top 5 contestants faced various issues. Apart from Sato, who already had earlier exposure to this in the Caventry's library, only Handel Gretkart was the only contestant who had things a tad easier than the rest. Similar to Sato, all two of his works had reached the Upper-tier Mortal rank and he only faced issues in getting them to the Low-tier Rare-Steel rank.

30 minutes wasn't long and before the players knew it, their time had to come to end.

"That's enough." The old fella Kolin spoke up.

With just a single sentence from him, all the furnaces had shut off down and the same held true for the formations that were active. As a result, a lot of unfinished works became scraps as they suddenly lost their support.

A few players silently cursed as they were originally close to success but had just ended up failing thanks to Kolin's deeds. However, none of them dared to speak out loud as they all realised that the old man had a few screws loose in his brain; who knew what he might do if they spoke out.

"You've all done your best in this contest and while some of you may have succeeded, others decided to just waste our materials." Kolin said with an irritated expression.

"Just like the last time, kindly leave the stage while I test the quality of everyone's work and give out the necessary points."

With the order given, all the participants including the players, left the stage at the centre of the arena and returned to their seats in the stands. Some did so with hopeful expressions while others were just in a terrible mood after this.

On the contrary, those in the top 5 were quite relaxed, though signs of stress and weakness could be seen into the faces of those who weren't in black cloaks.

"Hey." A young man waved at Sato before walking over to him.

At first Sato was confused before he suddenly recalled the identity of the young man. It was the current number 2 in the tournament as well as the NPC rumoured to be the son of a Master Blacksmith, Handel Gretkart.

'What does he want?' Sato wondered.