"The limit of one's capabilities…" Valyr muttered to himself as the gears in his mind began to turn.
"Er… what do you mean by that exactly?"
"Hmm…" Hearing the young man's question, Nila rubbed her chin for a bit as she pondered. "Now that I think about it, it's quite the vague concept, even more vague than either ingenuity or consistency."
"Mind if you let me explain my thought process?" she asked, to which Valyr gave her the go ahead.
Nodding back in response, the woman went silent for a bit as she organized her thoughts.
After some time, she looked back at the young man, her gaze now solemn.
"Well, as we all know, blacksmiths come in many types and forms," said Nila to begin her explanation.
"There are those who rely on hammers to shape materials into items, while there are also those who rely on their mana to achieve the same thing. Naturally, a fusion of the two exists as well."
"There are blacksmiths who utilize equipment to achieve a few of the steps in the forging process, while there are those who don't utilize any equipment at all, instead relying on their strength to achieve the same thing."
"Of course, there are also those who solely rely on their equipment, utilizing their blacksmithing skills to refine their equipment to the point that the output would be indistinguishable from an individual's work."
"Without going into an even lengthier explanation, the world of blacksmithing has many paths one could traverse," said Nila, prompting Valyr to nod in agreement.
"One could traverse the path of manual work, one could traverse the path of magic, one could traverse the path of automation, one could traverse the path of nature, and so on and so forth."
"With that, focusing a fight on something like ingenuity or consistency isn't really ideal."
"After all, not all paths could offer the level of ingenuity manual work usually could. The same goes for consistency, which the path of automation could achieve without a problem."
"Thus, it's better to test a blacksmith's ability by seeing how far their capabilities reach." Nila looked at Valyr.
"Whether it's ingenuity, creativity, consistency, or sheer skill, all of that would be considered during this fight as we bring out the greatest we can muster."
Nodding in understanding after seeing Nila was done with her explanation, Valyr went silent for a bit before asking her a question.
"So, if I'm getting this right, the two of us would forge an item that would showcase the limits of our abilities," said the young man. "After that, all aspects of one's skill would be considered before choosing the victor."
At those words, Nila faintly smiled.
"You're partly correct."
"Rather than forge an item that would showcase the limits of our abilities, we would instead forge an item that could be considered a blank slate," said the woman. "In other words, an extremely basic item that even a beginner blacksmith would have no problem forging."
"After that, we would swap items before utilizing our skills to the best of our abilities to upgrade each other's work as much as possible."
Hearing that, Valyr's eyes briefly widened in surprise for a bit before eventually having a look of understanding on his face.
"Limitation breeds creativity," muttered the young man, causing Nila to let out a faint chuckle in response.
"Indeed. That's part of the reason why I made the mechanics this way to make sure all aspects of blacksmithing could be checked."
Nodding once more at Nila's words, Valyr then asked her another question.
"Any deadline?"
In response, Nila shook her head.
"Nope. As I said, we're testing the limits of our capabilities here. Having a time constraint would just hamper that."
After that, Valyr asked a couple more questions related to their fight, though they were more like clarifications of some certain parts rather than actual questions.
Nevertheless, once he was done asking, the two of them began to make use of their workshops as they proceeded to forge items that would be the blank slates their opponent would use.
"Hmm… what type of item should I forge?" asked Valyr to himself as he perused through the collection of blueprints in his mind.
At the same time, he looked through the cache of blueprints his workshop contained, storing all of the new blueprints he found to his memory.
Once he was done looking through his blueprints, he grabbed a few basic materials from the material cache before starting up the furnace.
"Guess I'll forge a dagger, then. The most basic item a blacksmith could ever forge."
Keeping an eye on the temperature within the furnace, he soon chucked all of the materials into it the moment the furnace reached an optimal temperature.
After that, he took out the Hammer of Beginnings from his spatial bracelet, only to remind himself that he would be forging an incredibly basic item from scratch.
With that, he returned the Hammer of Beginnings back to where it was before grabbing the forging hammer the workshop provided.
Tossing it in the air a couple of times to get a good feel of the forging hammer, the young man soon took out the materials he chucked into the furnace and placed them on the anvil.
Ttang! Ttang! Ttang!
Then, making great use of the hammer, Valyr gradually hammered the materials into shape, keeping in mind the output he wanted to achieve.
Of course, as he was forging an incredibly basic item for Nila to use as a canvas, the young man did not make use of [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] or [True Prodigious Blacksmith's Sight], giving his vision a bit of reprieve in that regard.
Nevertheless, with the skills that he had honed in his past life and polished further in his current life, the young man still showed a great level of skill whilst he was forging the dagger.
Though, with how simple the item was, it did not take long for him to finish forging, only taking him a bit over an hour to make sure the dagger was as basic as it could be.
"[Superior Analysis]."
Ding!
Looking through the description of the item, Valyr let out a sigh of relief as the dagger was graded as Common grade by the system.
After that, he let out a slight chuckle, seeing that the item was identified to be Level 1.
"It may be the most basic item I've ever forged so far, but it undoubtedly shows that I have great control over how strong the items I forge are," said the young man to himself, feeling a hint of pride at what he had achieved.
After waiting for a bit more, Nila had finally finished forging the item he was going to use as a blank slate, prompting the two of them to swap items.
Looking at the crude sword he had been given, the young man took a look at it with [Superior Analysis] as a few thoughts started to surface in his mind.
Formulating a plan on how he would showcase the limits of his capabilities on this sword, Valyr eventually nodded with a slight smile as a thought popped up in his mind.
'What better way to showcase the limits of my capabilities…'
'If not to upgrade this basic sword into an artifact?'
