"Oops…" Jason said when he noticed the cracks appearing on the beautiful floor while the receptionist´s face paled within seconds as she saw the humongous-sized anvil landing on the floor, breaking it open.
Not only was she pale, but even the people around the entrance hall were also alarmed at the appearance of the dark-blue titanic anvil appearing, and the guards at the entrance charged towards Jason, with their weapons unsheathed.
"What happened here!?" the guard that let Jason through asked seriously glaring at Jason... Damaging the Artisan towers property was nothing to scoff at and it was obvious that this wasn´t an accident.
Scratching the back of his head, Jason explained the situation roughly and the receptionist's face grew even paler if that was even possible as her legs gave in, thinking about the possibility that she could be fired or even worse.
Her eyes turned wet with tears pouring down her cheeks.
'Aren't you a little bit over the top?' Jason asked in his mind, and only now did he notice that he wasn't flustered to be the center of attention anymore like it was when he gained his eyesight.
'Weird' Jason told himself, but without giving him any time to think about it, a familiar woman entered his sight causing him to grew slightly excited.
"Miss Sharon!!" He said happily, not knowing why he was so happy to see her.
Jason just didn't like this situation he was in right now and he had much more things to do than wasting time to explain the whole incident he was dragged in.
"Oh...Jason Stella?" Antalia remembered the youth that topped all Basic-Artisan exams with flying colors even though he only learned for a week and a weird shining light appeared in her eyes.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"What happened?" She inquired and Jason summarized what happened, which caused her to look at the receptionist weirdly.
Antalia knew this receptionist for a few years and she was always extremely ambitious and from her knowledge, she roughly knew that the receptionist didn't want to bother the Artisan´s inspections too much if it wasn't necessary and most of the time she was right, but apparently not this time.
Sighing Antalia said
"It's okay... Sarah just don´t be too ambitious next time, if something like that happens ever again, even I can´t help you out" before she ignored the crying receptionist on the ground, as she looked at Jason "Follow me"
Turning around she walked toward the elevators and Jason had to quickly envelop the anvil with his mana before it was stored away.
Afterward, he looked one last time back at the guards and the crying receptionist with slight pity in his eyes, before he rushed after Antalia.
He wasn't sure where exactly they were going, but he thought Antalia might bring him to an inspector which caused him to follow her.
Entering the elevator, they descended towards the underground, and only a few seconds later the doors opened, revealing a massive white-silver shining hallway with dozens of doors leading to other rooms.
With his mana eyes activated, Jason could see the mana fluctuations through the doors and there were all kinds of testing machines, smithies, brewing rooms, and rooms for runemasters to learn about inscribing.
Antalia explained where they were and apparently the rooms above the surface were for Rank 2 and above Artisans, while Rank-0: Apprentice´s and Rank-1 Beginner had to stay below the surface.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})This was only so because there were just too many Rank-0 and Rank-1 Artisan to house them above the surface. Otherwise, the Artisan tower would need a height of more than a few thousand meters, which the current dome wouldn't support.
Antalia talked a lot and she seemed to be excessively proud of Cyry-City´s Artisan tower, causing Jason to suppress a chuckle.
'How funny it would be to tell her about my masters´ Artisan ranks' Jason thought in his mind laughing inwardly.
But Antalia looked extremely satisfied which Jason found it quite interesting, so he followed her to a seemingly ordinary room, they entered without knocking.
Entering the room, Jason saw a middle-aged man hammering on a red shining ore, which began was shaped under the violent assaults of the hammer strikes, while black grains and impurities seemed to be expelled.
The ingot cooled down extremely fast, while the middle-aged man released a red-orange flame from his hand, enveloping the chunk before it ignited once again.
Continuing to strike the red shining ore until it was shaped a perfect chunk, Jason´s mana eyes were drawn to it, as he noticed something important.
First, the red chunk, was a grade-3 fire affinity infused ore, called Hephaestit which was mainly used to manufacture fire affinity mana weapons, and the mana veins within the red chunk seemed to be partially cleansed to Jason, even though he wasn´t sure why it looked like this.
Second, and the most shocking factor was, that right in front of him was a Tier-1 D-Rank Origin flame, which was said to be extremely rare…
'Did Shane or Dalia lie to me?' Jason wondered but then he remembered that not even Shane himself had one which meant it had to be rare.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})'Who is that man?'
Giving it some thoughts, there couldn't be many humans within on Astrix with such a valuable flame.
'Is that maybe Cyro-cities Rank-5 Blacksmith who is also the president of the Artisan tower?'
Was Antalia trying to bribe him or what was going on? Jason wondered and only know did the bulky middle-aged man notice his guests.
"Oh Tali, what are you doing here? And who is that small boy?" He asked and Jason wondered `Tali? `
But hearing Antalia´s response, everything was immediately clear.
"Dad! This is a student of the 6th affiliated Vanguard school who has passed all Basic-Artisan exams with 100%" Antalia said and somehow Jason thought there was a meaning behind her behaving like that
However, he didn't really care about that because he only wanted to make business today.
"Hello, Sir...My name is Jason Stella and today I'm only here to conduct business with the Artisan tower" Jason said, explaining everything clearly without creating any misunderstanding, while glaring towards Ms.Sharon, without anyone saying anything.
The middle-aged man seemed nice and he decided to ignore his daughters scheming as he greeted Jason friendly
"Hello Jason, my name is Cheng Sharon and I´m the president of the Artisan tower and also the only Rank 5 Blacksmith we have here"
Cheng´s smile seemed genuine and Jason shook his hand with a bright smile and Cheng could hardly contain to comment on his looks.
"Pretty! Are you sure you're a man?" He asked causing Jason to frown.
Since the baptism, his skin seemed much smoother and if his facial features weren't sharp, one would think he was a flat-chested woman which was not what he wanted.
Looking at Cheng, he wondered why he didn't look similar to him because Cheng´s skin was not as fair as his, but thinking about the difference of Ranks between their Origin flames, Jason conducted that a D-rank baptism was relatively weak and would only cleanse a small portion of impurities.
But what wondered Cheng and his daughter was rather that Jason seemed unmoving with his comment that he was either the president of the Artisan tower or the only Rank 5 Blacksmith which was new to them.
Normally everyone wanted to get closer to them once they found out that Cheng was the president or Antalia his daughter, but Jason frowned, which was refreshing in Cheng´s opinion as he began to laugh.
While Cheng laughed, Antalia looked at Jason seriously and she couldn´t avoid asking.
"Why are you not astonished about my dad?"
And Jason´s answer caused Cheng´s laughing to immediately stop as it seemed to have been stuck in his throat.
"I don´t think anyone else except the Artisan tower´s president and Rank 5 or probably almost Rank 6 Grandmaster Blacksmith should have an Origin flame on Astrix, right?"
Both Antalia and Cheng looked at Jason with widened eyes as the existence of the Origin flame was their family secret and Jason could only chuckle, saying
"If you expose your flame like that, it´s only normal for someone like me to notice an Origin flame" With that he meant his mana eyes but he continued without explaining
"May we start our business?" Jason asked politely and Cheng subconsciously nodded his head without caring that he previously wanted to finish forging a mana weapon out of the Hephaestit chunk he had already prepared.
"You are here to get some things inspected, right? If my daughter brought you to me, you must have something expensive with you. Show it to me, please!" Cheng was subconsciously already politely to Jason, who was only 14 years old, as it was not normal for a youth at his age to either knows about Origin flames or how to identify them.
'Maybe he is an heir from a different Island or even Canir? Who knows... anything could happen and its not like it's the first time either' Cheng thought while seizing up Jason once again.
After receiving his baptism, Jason´s mind became more rational than before and he didn't mind the attitude others give him as much as before.
As such he entered his spatial device with his mind and threw out: 215 stone weapons with inscriptions on them, 60 iron weapons made out of rhyolite ore, 25 low and mid-grade-1 weapons that previously belonged to hunters, three peak grade-1 weapons from the hobgoblins, inside the large room, which was now littered with weapons.
In Jason´s hand, one could see 15 protection pendants and with a smile he could barely draw the attention of the two Artisans in front of him.
Antalia couldn't get a grip over her emotions as almost the whole room was littered with weapons but it seemed as if there was something missing?
Meanwhile, Cheng´s thoughts were completely different from his daughters
'Stone weapons with intact runes on them? There are definitely not from the Goblin siege! Almost all runes were destroyed by the corrosive rain...` as he faintly heard his daughter´s voice
"Where is the anvil?"
*BOOOM*
