Feeling his heart warm up from Tristan's words, Valyr went ahead and gave the man a sincere thanks as the two of them continued to watch the remaining participants in the third round finish up their entries. While doing so, they talked about which new piece of equipment the participants seemed the most interesting, with a couple of the equipments making them go slack-jawed in slight wonder.
Eventually, all of the participants that remained in the third round had finished forging their entries, with most of them having despondent expressions as they left the premises. Nevertheless, hidden beneath the despondence on their faces was the feeling of satisfaction, inwardly proud of themselves that they had been able to reach the end of the tournament with their own effort.
With that, the audience surrounding the designated area for the tournament dispersed for now while the judges of the tournament assessed the performance of every participant that had lasted until the end of the third round. As it seemed that it would take quite a while for the final rankings to be announced, most of them wandered through the other areas where the Forge Festival was being held, with Tristan and Valyr visiting most of the food stalls they came across along the way.
By the time the sun was only a couple hours away from setting, an announcement soon resounded throughout the town, prompting a great portion of the people in town to head towards the area for the tournament, including the participants. Fortunately, as they had only roamed within the periphery of the tournament area, Tristan and Valyr were able to get prime spots for themselves, their curiosity of who won what bursting at the seams.
Thankfully, the one to satiate their curiosity had arrived a couple minutes later, with Hyun standing at the center of the raised platform with a calm smile on his face.
"Before I start my announcement, I would like to tell everyone that I am honored to be the one announcing the rankings of this year's Fledgling Forgers' Tournament." Hearing those words, a great portion of the audience let out cheers. On the other hands, most of the participants that reached the third round watched on with bated breaths, nervous as to whether they had occupied one of the top spots.
"Well, let's not delay this any further, shall we?" With a grin, Hyun retrieved a scroll from one of the pockets in his inner robe, unfurling it before hoisting it up in the air with a bit of mana. Taking a couple steps back to see the entire contents of the scroll with one glance, he then cleared his throat, his voice booming throughout the vicinity soon after.
"In first place, Nathan Forgers with his Blazing Cutlass!" As he said these words, a man appeared beside Hyun, brandishing the blade that was forged by Nathan as the entire blade portion of the weapon blazed with a fiery red flame.
Looking at it, Valyr inwardly nodded in understanding as to how he had gotten first place. 'As expected from a Forger of the Red Blaze.'
"In second place… Denise Paulson with her Rainfall Star!" Just like what was done for Nathan's weapon, Denise's weapon was soon brought out, revealing a throwing star that, when thrown, split up into smaller throwing stars. Watching Denise's weapon in action, he could not help but think about adapting the same mechanism in his entry, only to place the matter to the back of his head soon after with a chuckle.
"In third place… Julianna Meyers with her Whiteflash Lance!" Hearing this name, most of the audience were taken aback, thinking that Shadow would be the one taking third place. This thought soon became the main thought of many when the weapon was brandished. Unlike the first two weapons, there were no mechanisms at all.
Only pure speed.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
With every wave, thrust, and chop of the lance, a strong gust of wind would arise, prompting most of the participants to come to an unanimous agreement that Julianna was deserving of third place. After all, none of them could say that they had a level of foundation as solid as her to be able to do that.
"After that, we move onto fourth and fifth place, with Shadow's Nightfall Dagger and Valyr's Red Blossom taking those spots respectively." Hearing his name mentioned, Valyr's eyes slightly widened in surprise, only for it to return to normal soon after as he looked at Tristan beside him. Seeing the man genuinely happy for him, Valyr could not help but flash a grin as the two of them celebrated his victory.
'To be honest, I was expecting myself to be placed lower. After all, I haven't even utilized everything in my arsenal,' Valyr thought to himself as he continued to listen to Hyun announced the ones at sixth to tenth place. 'Hmm… it's probably because of that mechanism I implemented.'
'Either way, I can't change anything about that. I am quite curious as to what kind of rewards I can obtain, though.' With that in mind, Valyr perked up his ears to listen to Hyun's next words, expectant of the prizes he and the others would get.
Seeing as everyone's attention was fixated on him, Hyun did not waste any time and told everyone of the prizes those at the top 10 would get. "For the one at first place, they would get 100 Technology Points, the freedom to choose four recipes up to Uncommon grade from the Blacksmith Guild's blueprint archives, a promotion to Elite Member…"
"…as well as a Common grade Skill Crystal."
At the very moment Valyr heard the term 'Skill Crystal', his mind went blank for a second, not expecting a town to have access to such a precious resource. In his memories, only those living in cities and larger settlements would be able to get their hands on something like that.
And that would only be available in auctions!
However, it did not take long for Valyr to find out the reason why such a precious resource was found at a town-level tournament. 'Since the Blacksmith Guild is behind this tournament… then it makes sense.'
With that in mind, he eagerly listened to the prizes of those at second place and below, wanting to find out what he would get.
"For second place, they would obtain 80 Technology Points, the freedom to choose three recipes, a promotion to Elite Member, as well as seven Common grade Skill Shards."
As he heard Hyun mention Skill Crystals before, hearing Skill Shards being mentioned did not surprise him as much. Though, he was definitely curious as to how many he would get. After all, having access to a couple Skill Shards would definitely allow him to save a great amount of time grinding.
Why? That was because Skill Shards and Skill Crystals had the ability to raise a skill's level without needing to spend XP!
Considering how Hyun announced that the prize for the one at first was a Skill Crystal, it was quite apparent as to how precious one was compared to the other. A Skill Shard increased a skill's level by one. In comparison, a Skill Crystal increased a skill's level to their maximum. However, only Skill Shards and Skill Crystals of the same grade to the skill could be used.
Aside from that, higher rarity Skill Crystals would only be able to increase a skill's level to the nearest 10 rather than maxing them out. Though he knew the exact reason behind it, Valyr placed the thought at the back of his head for now, attentively listening to Hyun talk about the prizes for the one at fifth place.
"For fourth and fifth place, they would obtain 40 Technology Points, the freedom to choose one recipe from the Blacksmith Guild's blueprint archive, a promotion to Elite Member, as well as three Common grade Skill Shards."
'Coincidentally, that's enough Skill Shards for me to max out [Analysis].' Chuckling at the thought, Valyr pondered over how he was going to allocate the Skill Shards. Though, this thought only lasted for a while as he thought about the recipe he could obtain from the guild's blueprint archives. 'I wonder if they have that recipe available?'
As he continued to ponder over how he was going to use his prizes wisely, Hyun eventually finished announcing the prizes for those at sixth to tenth place, as well as the bonus rewards for those who had finished the fourth and fifth blueprint in the first round, which was more or less a considerable chunk of Technology Points.
"And with that, I announce that today's Fledgling Forgers' Tournament is officially over."
"Congratulations to everyone that took the time to participate and I hope to see you the following year."
