Dawn had barely broken when the sound of footsteps shattered the morning silence. The blacksmiths moved with grim purpose, making straight for the competition grounds.
The second round of the junior blacksmithing tournament was poised to be the pivotal contest that would determine the standings.
Arthur and Tang Wulin headed out to compete.
Under the tournament rules, scores from each round would be accumulated, with judges issuing a final composite evaluation to determine the champion.
This round's difficulty far surpassed the day before.
Contestants were required to freely forge using rare metals of their own choosing. The quality, creativity, and craftsmanship of the finished piece would directly reflect their true level of mastery.
Among blacksmiths fifteen and under, completing a hundred-refinement was already a mark of exceptional talent. A thousand-refinement was the exclusive domain of prodigies.
"Attention, all participants in the Skysea Alliance Tournament's blacksmithing competition. The second round is about to begin.
Please make your preparations. Select your rare metals carefully, as a third round of shaping will follow once forging is complete. The second round begins in one minute."
The presiding examiner's voice carried through the soul amplifier and rang across the entire venue, clear and commanding, adding another layer of tension to an already solemn atmosphere.
The contestants steadied their nerves and fixed their gazes on their forging platforms. Most were around fifteen years of age, and completing a hundred-refinement already spoke to remarkable aptitude. Each one now ran through their forging process in their mind, determined to draw out every last bit of their ability.
Arthur stood before his assigned platform. Up on the judges' platform, the assembled masters swept their gazes across the hall before inevitably settling on him.
After what he had shown the day before, his presence felt like something from an entirely different tier of competition.
The white-haired elder at the center of the platform, eyes cloudy yet alert, let a flicker of anticipation cross his face. He turned to those beside him and said, "You all saw the hundred-refined metal he produced yesterday."
"This round is open interpretation. How far do you think he can go?"
"A two-grade thousand-refinement is a given," someone replied, voice trembling. "Could he actually complete a one-grade thousand-refinement?"
Though what Arthur had demonstrated the day before would have been difficult even for a fifth-rank blacksmith, no one had yet connected it to the possibility of spirit-forging.
The two were considered entirely different matters. And a one-grade thousand-refinement was already a bold enough guess. He was nine years old, after all.
A one-grade thousand-refinement at nine would make him the first in history.
"Master Cen Yue, can you give us a hint?" The others turned toward Cen Yue.
He merely smiled and shook his head, keeping his cards close. "Why the rush? Just watch. You'll have your answer soon enough."
Down on the competition floor, the countdown reached zero.
"Begin!"
Every blacksmith launched into action at once, snapping into focus. Yesterday's experience had shaken them all. Having their rhythm disrupted by Arthur had cost them points, and more than a few had gone home too unsettled to eat.
Arthur had no intention of pulling any stunts this round. He intended to take the second round seriously.
He raised a hand, and a fist-sized metal ingot dropped from his storage soul tool onto the forging platform.
The metal was a deep ink-black, its surface laced with fine silver-grey veins. It was the exceedingly rare Star-Fall Gold.
Born from the most refined core of meteorites from beyond the sky, it naturally harbored an intense astral energy.
Its hardness far exceeded that of ordinary ores, and its internal structure was fundamentally unlike any other metal found on the Douluo Continent.
Not only was it extremely difficult to purify, but the forging process required soul power to guide the astral energy within the metal and keep it in balance. The slightest misstep would cause the metal to shatter. Even veteran blacksmiths struggled to manage it.
Despite all that, it was an exceptional material for forging the core components of a battle armor.
Arthur had decided to begin preparing the materials for his own battle armor, and this competition was where that work would start.
"Star-Fall Gold!" Up on the platform, the white-haired elder lurched forward, his cloudy eyes wide with shock. "That metal is several times harder to forge than heavy silver. He actually chose this?"
The masters beside him stirred visibly. One murmured, "Star-Fall Gold requires relentless hammering to drive out the impurities and demands that astral energy be drawn inward through careful guidance. One slip and everything is lost."
"And 'relentless hammering' isn't a figure of speech. It means exactly that. It demands raw, practiced power. Technique alone can't substitute for that."
"He's nine years old. Setting aside whether he can manage it at all, does he even have enough soul power?"
The judges here were blacksmiths by trade and paid little attention to the soul master competitions.
"Clang!"
The first hammer fell, heavy and precise, striking exactly at the junction of a dense impurity cluster on the surface of the Star-Fall Gold.
With a dull, resonant impact, the metal trembled slightly. The silver-grey veins along its surface flickered with a faint glow, as though a dormant constellation were slowly being roused from sleep.
Arthur's hammering had a deep, steady rhythm, one blow following the last at an unhurried, unwavering pace, every strike landing on exactly the right spot.
Each blow drove out impurities while his soul power guided the astral energy inside the metal into a slow, flowing circulation.
The other blacksmiths hammered with varying tempos, some hurried, some measured. Only Arthur's rhythm held like a pendulum.
With each strike, the veins on the Star-Fall Gold pulsed with faint starlight, the glow growing brighter with every passing moment. A soft halo of stellar radiance gradually spread outward, wrapping the metal in a luminous shroud.
"Five hundred strikes, and his soul power is still this full?" someone breathed in disbelief, voice hushed with awe.
Star-Fall Gold drained soul power at a ferocious rate. Even a third-rank blacksmith would be spent by the five hundredth strike. Yet Arthur's movements remained steady, his focus unbroken.
Up on the judges' platform, the masters had begun to take notice.
The white-haired elder said quietly, "This child's soul power reserves must vastly exceed anything normal for his age."
"More remarkable still is his control. He can actually guide the astral energy itself."
Astral energy was not something low-ranking soul masters could ordinarily touch, barring an exceptionally suited martial soul.
Time passed, and the ring of Arthur's hammer grew progressively cleaner and more precise.
The Star-Fall Gold, solid and weighty at the start, had gradually diminished under a thousand relentless blows. Layer by layer, the impurities were stripped away, and its color deepened into a purer, richer hue.
Against the deep ink-black base, the silver-grey veins seemed to come alive, tracing their way across the surface in shifting, winding patterns, radiating a faint but unmistakable astral presence.
"Nine hundred and ninety-nine!" The entire hall held its breath instinctively. Even other blacksmiths still in the midst of their own work could not help but look over.
Every gaze locked onto Arthur's forging platform.
Arthur drew a slow, deep breath. Soul power surged through his body and into the forging hammer, and a brilliant golden radiance bloomed from the hammerhead. His eyes sharpened. His arm drove downward.
"Clang!"
The thousandth blow landed. The force surged dramatically, yet remained perfectly controlled.
The strike carried a crushing weight while holding exactly the right degree of yielding softness, and it came down squarely on the Star-Fall Gold.
In that instant, the silver-grey veins blazed to life. The stellar halo erupted outward. A faint, resonant hum swept through the entire hall, clear as the turning rhythm of the stars themselves.
The metal lifted slightly into the air within the glow. The last traces of impurity dissolved completely, revealing an inner texture as warm and translucent as dark jade.
The silver-grey veins settled across its surface like a river of stars, and within them the astral energy moved in a steady, living current, radiating an aura that struck a trembling chord deep in the chest.