A few minutes earlier…
Xander and Xavier, the two elven princes, were both leisurely sitting and enjoying their spirit wine.
Xander was busy ogling at Tang Yue while Xavier was busy ogling at other beautiful women in the crowd.
The two had no intention of mingling with any of the blacksmith Grandmasters and continued doing their own thing.
Even after the Grandmasters got up and left for the day, these two still continued to sit there in the pavilion, clearly with an agenda of their own.
The dwarves could only sigh and let them be. A couple of the royal family members even remained seated in order to give them company.
Of course, the dwarven royal prince Jorden had also stayed back but that was for an entirely different reason.
Just like Xander, he was also eying Tang Yue or rather Yana with a hidden interest.
This was not completely unnoticed by Xander but for reasons of his own, he decided not to intervene at that moment.
He continued silently watching Tang Yue.
The woman seemed to be deeply engrossed in her work and hardly even looked up at him.
Xander was slightly disappointed and he silently sulked.
Just yesterday, he had paid a personal visit to that damned woman, but today she acted as if nothing had happened.
Am I not a good kisser?
He subconsciously looked at the brother sitting by his side, thinking if he needed to take pointers from him.
But right at this moment, Xavier started shaking him vigorously.
"Bro. Bro. Look over there. Your snake is in trouble." He whispered to him.
Xander's gaze turned cold and violent as he saw a group of dwarves surrounding Tang Yue and criticizing her without holding back.
He abruptly stood up, wanting to act, but he didn't want to lay waste to Tang Yue's hard work.
So he controlled himself and just silently watched the chaos.
The weird part was that Tang Yue was not responding back at all.
The frown on Xander's face darkened and it only took him 2 seconds to realize what was going on.
Tang Yue was in the middle of enlightenment!
She probably had comprehended some deep insight about the smithing process and was currently in a trance-like state trying to understand that insight.
Xander's crimson eyes broiled in silence.
He had seen firsthand just how much Tang Yue had worked hard in the past few weeks.
The woman even barely slept and gave her all every single day and night.
Of course, this was nothing when compared to how other dwarves had worked similarly for almost their entire lives.
But that didn't matter to Xander.
As far as he was concerned, these insects had no business disturbing Tang Yue, whilst she was in the middle of her breakthrough.
Xander didn't hesitate and acted fast.
His eyes instantly shifted and the man glared at the person sitting just a few feet away from him with visible contempt.
"Hmph. I didn't know that the dwarven empire's famed smithing contest has reduced to this level." He looked at Jorden and loudly snorted.
"Look at your so-called elites standing around and bullying a young girl who is in the midst of her breakthrough. How pitiful!" Xander loudly commented.
Xavier looked at him in utter confusion. His brother had never before provoked anyone this openly.
His style was much more straightforward and ruthless.
Something as small as Tang Yue comprehending an insight was worth provoking the dwarven royal prince?
Xavier helplessly smiled. This brother of his had indeed changed a lot.
Obviously, after hearing such a demeaning remark, Jorden didn't have the face to sit simply and do nothing.
He nodded with a polite smiled and replied. "Ah~ My bad, Prince Xander. I didn't pay enough attention."
"I will apologize to you on their behalf for putting up such an ugly scene."
At the same time, he crushed a jade slip in his hands, which directly communicated his orders to two of the other examiners.
Two powerful Master blacksmiths instantly rushed towards Tang Yue and broke out the crowd.
"Stop it, Xyla." One of the men warned the pointy-faced woman.
Xyla fumed and was about to angrily retort when the other dwarf pointed his finger towards the palace courtyard.
The woman immediately stiffened and stopped all the shenanigans.
Even though she was a direct disciple of a Grandmaster, she knew when she had gone overboard and needed to stop.
The others also immediately quieted down and even the crowd didn't dare to make a noise.
Tang Yue was fortunately not disturbed in the whole process and she was still in her trance-like state, silently comprehending the insights she had gained.
No one disturbed her anymore and that section of Central Square was dead silent.
The two dwarves also put out some runes to make sure that she won't be disturbed.
Xander smiled. He was satisfied.
Jorden, on the other hand, also smiled. He had learned something very interesting today.
The young girl, that he had been eying, had also apparently caught the attention of the almighty elven prince.
Xander, however, had purposefully done this.
He was unsure of Jorden's interest in Tang Yue and wanted to see his reactions after revealing his own interest in Tang Yue.
He had essentially hit two birds with one stone.
The two silently mulled over their thoughts as they politely nodded at each other.
But just as they reverted their attention back to the young dwarven girl, Xander immediately stood up in alarm.
Weirdly enough, so did Xavier and Jorden and the two other dwarves seated in the pavilion.
Because of the commotion, unknowingly everyone was paying more attention to Tang Yue and it was a child's play for them to detect a blatant naked mental attack.
Especially for Xander.
Tang Xi's mental strength might be in the Demi-God realm, but Xander was a true Demi-God through and through.
So how could her attack be possibly missed by him?
But the issue was, even when detected, a mental attack was difficult to guard against.
The person themselves needed to act defensively against the mental attack and right now, Tang Yue was in a trance-like state and was not capable of doing this.
She was extremely vulnerable.