1526 Divine Blacksmith Competition

"Let the competition for the Void Meteoroid Core begin!" Zi Xuan declared shortly after the three Divine Blacksmiths arrived at their workstations.

When the competition began, the three Divine Blacksmiths used their divine sense to check the materials. Each of them brought their own material, and none of them knew what the other would bring until the day of the competition. This made it so they couldn't spend half a year preparing for the competition.

Once they identified all of the materials, they sat down and closed their eyes to run simulations within their mind.

"What are they doing?" Someone who wasn't knowledgeable about the process asked out loud.

The person next to him, a renowned blacksmith, explained, "They are currently crafting the weapons in their mind. An experienced blacksmith has the ability to recreate the process of creation inside their head, and the more skillful they are, the more accurate it'll be."

"Since they're not just crafting a single weapon but seven weapons, each with a different grade, they need to allocate the materials for each weapon properly, or they might not have enough materials."

Four days later, Eternal Blacksmith was the first one to emerge from his meditation and immediately got to work. He retrieved several materials from the pile and started refining them.

"Judging by the materials he picked, he's going to start crafting an Ancient-grade treasure. It's not too easy and not too difficult—perfect for a warmup." One of the blacksmiths there explained.

Heaven and Earth Blacksmith emerged from his meditation six hours after Eternal Blacksmith and immediately went to work.

"Looks like Heaven and Earth Blacksmith plans on starting at Spirit-grade, working up the grades one by one."

Tian Qiyuan remained in meditation, seemingly unaffected and undisturbed by the noises coming from the other two.

A few hours after Heaven and Earth Blacksmith began his work, he finished his first creation, a shortbow, and placed it on a display rack with seven slots.

Heaven and Earth Blacksmith was renowned for crafting the finest bows, daggers, and gauntlets in the Nine Heavens and was expected by many to focus on creating these weapons during the competition.

"Oh! Even though it's only a Spirit-grade treasure, its aura is stronger than many Earth-grade treasures!" The audience inspected the result with their divine sense.

Heaven and Earth Blacksmith immediately proceeded to work on the second treasure, which, as someone had anticipated, appeared to be Earth-grade.

Three more days passed in the blink of an eye, and Eternal Blacksmith had just finished his first creation. It was an Ancient-grade spear.

Just like Heaven and Earth Blacksmith, Eternal Blacksmith appeared to be focused on his strengths, which were spears, swords, sabers, and anything with a similar shape.

Meanwhile, Heaven and Earth Blacksmith was already on his fourth creation at Divine-grade.

As for Tian Qiyuan, he was still meditating.

"Exalted Blacksmith may produce higher quality treasures, but his speed is lagging behind the other two, and it's not by a small margin, either."

"I wonder what's taking him so long."

"Only time will tell."

Meanwhile, Eternal Blacksmith began working his way down to Divine-grade.

Sometime later, as Heaven and Earth Blacksmith finished his Divine-grade treasure and began working on his Ancient-

grade treasure, Tian Qiyuan finally emerged from his meditation and walked to his pile of materials.

Both Heaven and Earth Blacksmith and Eternal Blacksmith gave him a quick glance that lasted half a second before ignoring him again.

Once Tian Qiyuan picked his materials, it was clear that he intended to follow Heaven and Earth Blacksmith's path by working his way up from the lowest grade.

The moment Tian Qiyuan started refining the materials, his skills also became clear. Although his mental simulations appeared slower than the other two, his craftsmanship was clearly superior. Each time his hammer struck the material, it produced a harmonic sound that soothed the heart.

When the audience heard this noise, several individuals there suddenly closed their eyes and began cultivating. They quickly realized that it was easier to cultivate while listening to the sound of Tian Qiyuan's hammering, feeling as if they were being guided by it.

In fact, even the other two Divine Blacksmiths found themselves hammering to Tian Qiyuan's rhythm, as though they were hypnotized by it.

'Fuck! Why does the hammer feel so much better in my grasp when I follow his rhythm?!' Heaven and Earth Blacksmith gritted his teeth in frustration when he realized this.

Eternal Blacksmith also sighed inwardly. He'd been a blacksmith for hundreds of thousands of years by this point, but he'd never felt such peace when hammering at the anvil.

'What's so different between the way he hammers and the way I do it?! I cannot tell!'

What frustrated him the most was his inability to comprehend their difference. This sort of phenomenon only happens when one's skill is drastically superior to the other.

Both Heaven and Earth Blacksmith and Eternal Blacksmith felt defeated by the sound of Tian Qiyuan's hammering alone, but they couldn't afford to mess up in this competition and told themselves that this competition was more than just about quality. Moreover, no matter how high-quality Tian Qiyuan's treasures may come out, there was always the chance he would mess up at the very end.

'Let's see if he can keep this up for the rest of the competition!' Eternal Blacksmith started hammering his weapon more fiercely, creating a separate rhythm that directly clashed with Tian Qiyuan's.

Not wanting to lose to either of them, Heaven and Earth also created his own cadence, one that would go fast and slow at a specific rate.

Even though there were three distinct rhythms, none of the competitors were distracted by the others; each was entirely focused on their own cadence.

Half an hour later, Tian Qiyuan's cadence stopped when he finished his first creation, which turned out to be a gauntlet.

"He finished the Spirit-grade treasure so quickly! Several times faster than Heaven and Earth Blacksmith!" The audience didn't miss this detail.

After putting his creation on display, Tian Qiyuan immediately began working on the next grade.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

The audience was surprised when Tian Qiyuan's cadence sounded different than before. This time, it was slightly quicker, with pauses every five strikes.

Half an hour later, Tian Qiyuan finished the Earth-grade treasure, a bow, spending the same amount of time he spent with the Spirit-grade treasure. Typically, it takes longer to craft higher-grade treasures due to the stronger materials used, but that logic did not seem to apply to Tian Qiyuan.

The same phenomenon occurred when Tian Qiyuan crafted his Heaven-grade treasure, which took the form of a saber.

"How's he doing that?! I have never heard of anyone crafting a Heaven-grade treasure in less than half an hour!" The blacksmiths watching were left stunned.

"Fuck! It's too amazing! Do you think he'll do the same with Divine-grade?!"

"Surely, that won't happen."

"It can't happen! My heart won't be able to take it!"

As Tian Qiyuan began working on his Divine-grade treasure, his cadence sped up again. It'd become clear to the audience that Tian Qiyuan increases his cadence the higher the grade.

Half an hour later, Tian Qiyuan hung his finished product on the display, catching up with Heaven and Earth Blacksmith. The audience stared at the Divine-grade spear with awed expressions, many of them in disbelief.

"Don't tell me he'll do the same thing with Ancient-grade…"

"That would be ridiculous!"

"Won't the quality suffer if he's working this fast?" Someone asked.

"That will depend on his skill.

The audience expected Tian Qiyuan to spend half an hour with the Ancient-grade treasure. However, he didn't start working and sat down to meditate again.

"Huh? He's meditating again? I thought he finished with that already."

"Perhaps he'd only managed to craft up to Divine-grade initially?"

"If it already takes him so many days to craft up to Divine-

grade, how long will it take him to finish Ancient-grade and above? Weeks? Months?"

"This doesn't make any sense. One typically works faster in their mental simulation than in reality. Exalted Blacksmith is somehow doing it in reverse!"

"Truly an unfathomable existence…"

Several days later, Tian Qiyuan emerged from his meditation at the same time Heaven and Earth finished his Ancient-grade treasure.

As for Eternal Blacksmith, he'd also finished every grade below Ancient-grade.

Both Eternal Blacksmith and Heaven and Earth Blacksmith started working on their Mystic-grade treasure on the same day, with Eternal Blacksmith being an hour ahead.

While they started refining their materials for the Mystic-

grade treasure, Tian Qiyuan began working on his Ancient-

grade treasure.

The audience held their breaths as the timer neared thirty minutes, wondering if Tian Qiyuan would be able to create another miracle.

When thirty minutes passed and Tian Qiyuan was still hammering away at the material, many sighs of relief could be heard from the audience, most of them coming from blacksmiths.

"Thank the heavens he didn't finish in thirty minutes. I would've quit my career as a blacksmith if he did."

However, after another twenty minutes, the blacksmiths who sighed in relief earlier began holding their breaths nervously again, as they could tell that Tian Qiyuan was on the verge of finishing.

"Heavens! It hasn't even been an hour! What kind of ridiculous speed is this?! Even the Heaven and Earth Blacksmith and Eternal Blacksmith took several days to craft an Ancient-

grade treasure!"

Meanwhile, both Heaven and Earth Blacksmith and Eternal Blacksmith were too absorbed in their work to pay attention to anything else.

After putting up his treasure, Tian Qiyuan returned to meditating. However, nobody dared to make fun of him for being slow anymore.