Chapter 453 - 447 : The Apprentice Blacksmith Tournament Begins

Right after Sato left the room, he headed straight towards the nearest NPC store where he purchased a few materials with the proceedings from the sale of the [Balk Rose Armour] following which he then left for the blacksmith guild to improve on his skills.

As for the others, since they weren't blacksmiths like Sato, they went levelling up outside of the city rather than to waste their time inside the city. According to the plan from Sato, once the tournament was over, they would test-run the dungeon to see how far they can go so the team had to make preparations. Sato was level 16 so he didn't need to worry much about his level. But the others averaged around level 10 and 11, which wasn't enough for them to explore the dungeons. In Sato's own words, level 13 would be the basic for them to check out the place.

24 hours later...in real-time...

The Blacksmith guild's base in Black Rock City consisted of 5 buildings; three 3-storey buildings, one 2-storey building and one 4-storey building that served as the administration centre. In one of the 3 storey buildings was a large hall that was enchanted with space magic, increasing the capacity of spectators it could housed. This very building was the 3-storey building Sato usually rented a basic forging room in, however, the location of the hall was on the top floor of the building.

In front of the building was a long line of players who were waiting to register for the tournament. Most of them weren't so serious about blacksmithing, but they decided to give the tournament a shot to see whether they could profit from it.

"Show me your apprentice badge."

At the front of the forging building, a table was placed in front on which sat an NPC blacksmith who was in charge of the registration procedures.

To prevent a blacksmith from participating in the tournament as an apprentice, all the participants had to be checked and verified just before they entered the building.

The procedure wasn't something stressful. They just had to show their apprentice badge and spill a drop of blood on it to confirm that it belongs to them. When a player receives the token for the first time, it absorbs a drop of blood from them. Sprinkling the token with the same blood could help to confirm that it belonged to one.

The cloaked figure who stood before the blacksmith handed his badge to him, before making a slight cut on his thumb and pressing the said finger onto the badge. Immediately after, the badge shine with a full rrd light, showing that the badge indeed belonged to the cloaked individual.

"Alright, you can go now. Here's your tag. It also contains a map of the place so you don't get lost. Good luck."

The tag was a wooden object that looked a lot similar to a clothing tag. At the top was the number "778" indented on it and behind was the insignia of the blacksmith guild. By simply pressing on the hammer in the logo, a map would appear in the player's interface to help direct them to the exact location of the tournament.

Taking the tag with him, the cloaked player sighed with relief as he walked inside the building.

'Luckily, the searching isn't that strict.'

The registration didn't bother about the true identity of the participants for the tournament which was advantageous to those who wanted to remain in anonymity. As long as one was confirmed to be an apprentice blacksmith and was also not a criminal wanted by the kingdom, they could participate in the tournament even I they had a creepy demon mask on.

To prevent there from being any occasion where a connection between him and his blacksmith identity is discovered, Sato had worn a black cloak with a mask on his face. Sato wanted to maintain that anonymous presence for the character Cloudsmith as it would make things a lot easier for me for now.

The hall where the tournament was supposed to be held was on the 3rd floor of the building, or rather, the entire 3rd floor was the hall. Logically, such an area won't be able to house much people within as the floor's measurements weren't suited to handle more than 300 people at once, however the blacksmith guild wasn't one to be underestimated. With the large amount of funds they had made throughout the years, they hired a professional space magic user to increase the capacity of the hall. As a result, while from the outside, the floor looked to be able to house about 300 people due to its spacious nature, in reality, it could carry at least thrice that number. In other words, it would take at least 900 people to fill it.

As Sato walked into the hall, he was greeted by a bunch of familiar and unfamiliar faces. On the side of the unfamiliar faces were both random solo players as well as guild representatives of various small and top guilds. This tournament was an opportunity for them to spot the player blacksmiths with the most potential and if possible, they would then recruit the player to their respective guild. Hence the reason why so many guild representatives were here.

As for the familiar faces Sato spotted, their roles were similar to the previous ones with some of them being Daichi, the guild leader of the 2nd tier guild East Crow, one of the captains of Mountain Rift Club, One Sword, Chesces and Kotaro(Fudo's half-brother), Blue Flame as well as the other members of the League for Hammers, and some other players.

As he wore a mask together with the black cloak's shading feature, none of them had seen his face but the all noticed the character with a black cloak but weren't too bothered. This was because there were 3 other players who had also worn black cloaks and were participating in the tournament. Even if one were to exclude the participants, there were 7 other individuals among the spectators with black cloaks. So Sato, who might look suspicious to some, was anything but that here.

'That's good.' Sato inwardly sighed.

He had been thinking that if he was the only one with a black cloak while participating, he would easily be suspected to be the Cloudsmith. But as there were others amongst the participants, Sato's identity won't be revealed unless announced.

2 hours after Sato had entered, all the participants had finally arrived. There were a total of 400 participants in this contest and the numbers were given randomly. That was why Sato had the number "778' on his tag, but I'm reality he was within the 300-400 count.

Of this large number, only about 70-80 of the blacksmiths present were players, and this number represented the number of player blacksmiths in the entire Black Rock Province currently. The ratio was poor but understandable, after all, blacksmithing was one of the hardest lifestyle classes to improve and most players weren't interested in doing so. Their only focus was in exploration and battles so why would they bother to tie such a heavy burden to themselves.

The League of Hammers had about 20 of those players, while about 15-20 were, freelancers/solo players. The remaining 40 or so belonged to various guilds and professional clubs.

'This is where the greatest player blacksmith for this period would be born. Cloudsmith, I hope you're here to watch me surpass you.'

A figure in black cloak gripped their right hand tightly to form a fist as they stared at the stage in the middle of the hall.