Silence.
Shock.
Disbelief.
At the very moment the woman introduced himself, such emotions enveloped the entirety of Valyr's mind as he thought about the odds of this current situation happening.
'First, it was Sven. Then, it was Arcaelus,' thought Valyr to himself.
'And now, exactly on the fight after Arcaelus, I'm put up against the High Priestess of the Eternal Flame.'
Of course, the only reason why the young man would have been shocked to silence was the fact that the woman before her was incredibly familiar, just like the two he had fought against before.
However, unlike the previous two, which were great blacksmiths in their own right, Nila was a cut above the rest.
After all, she came from the highly renowned Hephaista clan.
'Is this some sort of sick joke the Gates of Awakening is trying to pull on me?' muttered the young man inwardly, still feeling a hint of disbelief at his current situation.
"Er… hello?" Oblivious to what was going on in Valyr's mind, Nila looked at the young man before her with a slight frown.
"Was I not loud enough?"
"Ah." Realizing that he had not answered her question yet, Valyr looked at her with an apologetic smile as he shook his head.
"I apologize for not answering your question earlier. I hear you loud and clear."
At that, Nila let out a brief sigh of relief.
"And here I thought I'd have to send mana first before getting a response from you," said the woman. "In any case, let me ask you once again."
"How many opponents have you fought against so far?"
"Six," Valyr replied, prompting Nila to nod as she moved around for a bit.
After a while, she let out a faint chuckle.
"It's been quite some time since I've been assigned as an opponent in a taker's final sub-trial."
After that, she looked at Valyr, recalling the expressions that appeared on the latter's face a while earlier.
Slightly frowning, she then asked him. "I'm getting the feeling that there's something else to your gaze. Have we met somewhere before?"
Valyr shook his head in response. "We have not."
Hearing that, the woman was about to ask the reason behind his odd gaze.
Fortunately, the young man's answer was not done.
"However, I have seen you in a memory I watched."
At those words, Valyr proceeded to explain what had transpired in the Chambers of Enlightenment once more, causing Nila to look at him with a hint of shock.
"That's impossible," said Nila. "Something like that isn't so easily accessible. If anything, there are only two possible conditions as to how you've gotten access to that memory."
"It's definitely not the one you're thinking of," replied Valyr with a slight chuckle. "To be honest, I was surprised that an organization like the Eternal Flame existed."
"Then…"
Furrowing her eyebrows, the gears in Nila's mind turned before eventually looking at the young man with slightly widened eyes.
"Your authority within the Gates of Enlightenment is beyond Level 10? That's even more impossible."
"What can I say?" Valyr let out a bit of laughter. "I make the impossible possible."
Frowning at his words, Nila turned around for a bit as she pondered over the words Valyr had said to her.
Eventually, she let out a sigh, looking back at the young man with a shrug.
"I guess the Gates of Enlightenment changed a lot of things ever since I made my way to the Gates of Awakening," said Nila.
"I don't even have a smidgen of a clue as to how many years have passed since I gave this memory image to the Gates of Awakening."
"Anyways, I've digressed," she said not long after.
"Let's return to the main topic."
Taking in a deep breath, Nila condensed part of her mana on her palms before slamming both of them to the barren ground.
Rumble…
In response, the trial grounds began to quake with great intensity, prompting the young man to wonder for a bit if Nila had caused an earthquake.
But of course, with how many times he'd witnessed this situation before, Valyr knew that the ground quaking was a sign for something else.
Rumble…
"Holy shit…" Watching two workshops begin to jut out of the ground once more, Valyr was left at a complete loss for words after seeing the equipment making up the workshops.
Recalling his fight against Sven, the young man remembered that the workshop the two of them worked with was a workshop that had a similar caliber to the private workshops within the Blacksmith Guild.
On the other hand, during his fight with Arcaelus, the workshops the two of them made use of was on a whole other level.
After all, a great portion of the tools within those workshops incorporated a bit of automation through the usage of mana, a technology that had only been made possible for furnaces in the outside world.
As for the workshops that appeared before him and Nila, they were on a league on their own, even making the young man think that he had been transported to a world away from Veldanyr.
Then again, being faced with forging equipment that was only a couple of eras behind the technology Earth had currently achieved, anyone would lose their mind in disbelief.
Taking in a few deep breaths to compose himself, Valyr began to walk towards one of the futuristic workshops as he went through the memories he had from his past life.
"There's a hydraulic power hammer, a lathe, a CNC machine, some power tools…" Looking through the equipment he would be working with during his fight with Nila, the young man felt a bit of nostalgia as he faintly smiled.
Though he had gotten used to working with medieval forging equipment, that still did not change the fact that a great portion of his time in Greater Beyond back then was spent working with equipment similar to the ones before him.
With that, the young man felt a slight sense of belonging while in the workshop, making him feel like he had returned to where he was back then.
As for Nila, she made her way to the remaining unoccupied workshop before familiarizing herself with the equipment within.
After nodding a few times in understanding, she then called for Valyr's attention as she began to discuss the rules of their fight.
"Though I'm sure you've more than figured it out from the memory you viewed, I must remind you that I am a blacksmith through and through." "Thus, our fight would be related to an aspect of that field."
"Some blacksmiths would test the opponent's ingenuity, while some would check if the opponent could maintain a consistent output over various items."
"Unfortunately, we won't be doing that. That's not really my style."
"Instead, what I want to see… is the limit of your blacksmithing capabilities.
