As soon as the preliminaries ended the real tournament started, I was surprised at how fast the preliminaries were, Borges had no mercy in eliminating almost all the participants and not even saying how they got it wrong.
Everyone was watching but didn’t understand a thing about analyzing a weapon or analyzing metal.
Diana said something about being able to analyze how someone fights by seeing the sword that person uses, I imagine a Blacksmith should do a similar but deeper analysis.
When the real tournament started we could see all the Blacksmiths working, thanks to my senses I was able to perceive a lot more things than the others in the audience, I’m sure it would be the same for my companions.
Some of the Blacksmiths use the kiln the way I imagine it to be the norm, but two Blacksmiths use fire magic and ignore the kiln, there was also a Blacksmith who started shaping metal without even taking it to the kiln using magic, this one had Affinity with the metal element Just like Anton.
Anton used magic too, but it was to control the furnace temper while heating the metal to high temper, so he took a Hammer the size of my head in one hand and waited while staring unblinkingly into the furnace, he looked like a statue where it was until the moment he took out a glowing metal and took it to the solid metal cube that I imagine he will use as an anvil.
Anton placed the glowing metal on top of the metal cube and concentrated mana from the metal element into the Hammer he used before he started hammering.
Every hammer blow from Anton sent waves of mana of the metal element through the glowing metal bar, with my vision I was able to see dark plates accumulating and breaking around the metal bar.
Anton’s hammering seemed to follow some sort of pattern where every three hammers more of what I imagine to be impurities come out.
Anton continued his work without bothering to look at what the others were doing, his eyes were completely focused on his work with a level of twitch that the other competitors didn’t show, some were even doing things that even I believed were unnecessarily exaggerated.
As time passed Anton took the metal bar back to the oven where he increased the temperature each time, furthermore I felt that the metal element inside the glowing bar was increasing.
After more than half the time is over Anton stops his movements for the first time and dips the metal bar in a barrel with some kind of blue liquid where he leaves it for a few seconds before taking it out.
He checks the result before smiling, then chooses with a thoughtful face looking at the metal bar the rest of the time while he waits until the end of this stage.
When time runs out Borges kills his hands screaming a loud bang, this demonstrates that his muscular arms are not just about appearance, his physical strength must be very high.
“Time’s up, let me see what you guys did.” (Borges) ｂｎ𝚘ｖ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐
For the first time Borges leaves the middle of the arena and walks by the competitors, he looks at the metal bars, feels their weight, and does liters of tests, but I didn’t know enough about the forge to know exactly everything he tested these metal bars.
He passed most of them without showing any expression, but there was one where he grimaced when he picked up the metal bar, there were also two people who smiled when they saw the metal bar and one of those two people was Anton.
After passing all the contestants he returned to his seat before starting to speak again.
“The three people I’m going to name now go to the final, you guys did a good job, at least two of you, the others can leave.” (Borges)
Borges called Anton’s name and two more, the others weren’t happy, but after seeing how the other disqualified people were treated, they reluctantly left the arena.
“The last stage of the tournament will be for you to use the metal bar you have just refined to create the blade of a dagger, the handle is already ready and will be placed on top of your work tables, whoever creates the best dagger will be the winner.” (Borges)
“You have 3 hours, start!” (Borges)
While Borges explained everything to the competitors and the public, one of the Mages who has been an assistant for this tournament placed 3 dagger handles on top of the three work tables of the finalists of the competition.
Anton goes to the cable and calmly analyzes it while his two opponents run straight to their own metal bars, so far I don’t know what kind of metal this is, Borges talks like it’s obvious what kind of metal it is and the competitors looked know too.
Soon Anton started to work, he didn’t run, he did everything with great calm as if it was one of his daily jobs, he took the metal bar and put it in the oven which was still hot, after several minutes when the metal bar it was glowing again and more malleable, he takes it out and starts hammering, every hit of his Hammer was filled with Mana from the metal element.
He slashed until the metal bar became almost flat, then he cut with great ease in drawing a dagger blade using a magic item for the slash.
After that he hammered a few more times and made magic circle patterns in the center of the blade before cooling it in the liquid he used before, with the cold metal he analyzed the material that was still raw before starting to sand the entire blade while highlighting the notches magic you did before, the next step was to sharpen the blade and finally polish it.
The end result was an aggressive looking blade with a slight curvature and single-sided blade, and in a matter of seconds attaches the blade to the hilt, after which he enjoys his own work as he nods his head in approval before leaving it on top of the handle table.
All of this was wind for almost two hours, Anton had been the first to finish again, throughout the competition he was always the first to finish, he also always does everything very calmly and doesn’t seem to mind being surrounded by people watching him work.
When the time was up Borges took a look at each dagger, he seriously and carefully looked at each one before announcing the winner by slapping Anton on the back and laughing out loud, the prize of this competition was a Great Piece of Red Mithril, a variant of normal Mithril with high affinity to the magical element of fire.
I just discovered that there are many varieties of Mithril.