Event

A few days ago, the Tower of Babel was full of adventurers there maybe to buy some equipment or maybe to get something repaired by their blacksmiths, there was a sort of calm that fished in the air, making the Tower of Babel a place populated, but at the same time with a tranquillity that Haru found very relaxing, but now instead, the situation was completely different. The event in which he had decided to take part wasn't limited to Orario. Literally any person who could carry out the first forging process could win a place in one of the most important familias of Orario, and this obviously attracted a huge number of people from the entire continent.

But even if this was the case, as soon as Haru arrived at the tower he could see there was the presence of a very crowd lined up one behind the other so as not to create too much confusion.

Given the huge presence of people in fact, the Hephaestus familia had organized a sort of eliminators where people would be supplied with a material to then have to pay later, and in case they managed to surprise Hephaestus the value of a single material was worth nothing in their eyes.

It could be said that thanks to this, Hephaestus still earned a large sum of Valis even though she did nothing but evaluate the work of hundreds and hundreds of blacksmiths.

To make it even faster, there were about 50 'workshops' at a safe distance from each other, and after beating the material by 2, 3 times maximum, if one weren't called by Hephaestus then it meant the person hadn't been able to impress her. Obviously there were cases in which some blacksmiths refused to leave the grip so easily and continued more than due, which is why this time the security was also much narrower than before, formed by the Captain of the Hephaestus Familia, of which Haru had only heard whispers from the people before him, being so far from the area where the eliminators were being held in fact, Haru couldn't even see the area itself and was just listening to rumours circulating among the blacksmiths as the eliminators went on, eliminating hundreds and hundreds of blacksmiths by the moment he was arranging this information in his head.

Thanks to the speed of the event itself, it put enormous pressure on every single blacksmith who had to work the metal. To make a long story short, the test turned out to be extremely simple and there were no particular requirements to succeed, just the thing that frightened all the blacksmiths present. The Hephaestus familia was considered one of the best familias for a reason, if everyone could enter it so easily, surely they wouldn't have been here, but their descendants as all the present smiths would have already chosen to enter the familia.

Combining all the information and rumours he had heard, Haru had deduced the test did indeed weigh a great deal of stress on both the body and the mind, a weight that not many could bear on their shoulders easily, and even those who could then had to deal with the second part of that simple test, namely the more complex part of it.

But a few moments after arriving at this conclusion, Haru turned around noticing there were already hundreds of people behind him, while in front of him barely ten had remained.

In those that seemed to him a few moments, however, the 10 people went towards what was a small door, and being apparently called in blocks, Haru also had to move towards that door.

Listening for the second time to information about the 'competition' as it went on, Haru confirmed the voices were correct. There were 50 different small work areas and each one was supplied with a hammer, an anvil and the material he would have to pay for later, as well as a furnace.

Although Haru had not given much weight to it before, while the blacksmith had made him work temporarily as his 'apprentice' to teach him how and where to hit the metal, the latter fell into speeches related to iron. In fact, the blacksmith explained to him that materials often had impurities, and in the case of iron carbon was the cause. Depending on the percentage of carbon inside the iron, it assumed different properties. In this case, what Haru would have been working with was exactly the iron with the right percentage of carbon to be smelted, called steel.

Sitting for a moment, Haru had in mind the process he would have to follow, and while some in the room anxiously thought about the whole process, others hoped they were doing nothing wrong and that the temperature of their material was the right one to work with, and a minority trusted in their abilities, Haru noticed how the furnace was already burning, with an already rather lively fire that would have saved him the trouble of lighting it by himself...

---

Observing other participants enter the room after the previous 50 left with a broken soul for having failed to impress the Goddess of Smithing, the latter found herself in front of everything else in the room, sighing as she looked down.

'I guess there isn't anyone who can impress me this year as well...'

The event that the Goddess continued to hold didn't have the purpose of collecting as many Valis as possible as someone speculated. No, it was just the interest of a Goddess who wanted so much to feel impressed by someone, to be more precise by some creation of such a high level to leave her speechless, yet there was no way, no matter how long she waited, there didn't seem to be anyone with a latent ability so impressive that they had to be caught in the familia at all costs.

However, even if this event broke the desire to continue this career to many blacksmiths, the Goddess considered them to be unworthy to pursue this work any further, there was no need in the sector of people with such weak wills, after all. But, there also were as many people who felt inspired by the failure, and so they chose to do everything possible to realize their desires.

Even though she wouldn't find this year like the others someone worthy of 'winning' this event, the Goddess felt happy to have inspired so many people to continue, looking at defeat as nothing more than the chance to improve even more.

By glancing at all the people in the room, her eye focused on noticing the abilities of each individual participant in the room, and her expression didn't change at the vision of the first 49 people, except for one. Her ability was to recognize the talent in forging of whatever living being would have been in her sight, and yet there was something strange about the 50th participant. No matter how much she tried to see what his abilities were, her eye wasn't able to go through the 'defences' that had been 'built', which surprised her greatly, but since they were in the public arena, Hephaestus didn't emit a single sound nor decompose a moment. All she did was lay her eye on what the boy was doing, avoiding even looking at his appearance.

'The metal has maintained its quality, and it seems that so far he has brought the metal to a good temperature.'

Although the boy was about 70 feet away from the goddess, the latter could see all the details of the metal itself, and after pulling the material out of the furnace, Hephaestus was waiting for this moment.

She saw the boy raising the hammer slowly, and expecting a normal blow, Hephaestus was ready to return to focus on the whole group instead of just one strange individual, although she would surely have stopped him to ask various questions regarding why her eye didn't work on him, But what happened was totally out of the question.

What before seemed to be the preparation of a very normal blow of a rookie, for a second had a change of trajectory. She was able to almost see an azure coloured line formed by the precision with which the blow had been carried out, it had managed to completely centre the point that had to be centred, and Hephaestus understood this could not be the attempt of a rookie. And yet everything apart from that single moment didn't resemble a professional blacksmith at all. To make a long story short, Hephaestus had just witnessed something even she couldn't explain, which is why before he could continue, Hephaestus chose she had to talk to this person. It could be said that, in a certain sense, she had been so impressed, so much so that her previously calm eye gazing at him, was now so open as to form a perfect circle, she couldn't ignore the boy a second longer.

---

Now removing the material from the furnace, Haru looked at the metal for about a second, and after resting the hot part on the anvil, Haru already had the hammer in his hand, only that shortly before he struck his first hit, he felt as if by instinct the need to change the trajectory of his blow, and the effect was that of a noise rather noisy and ringing, but it was a noise to which all the blacksmiths present in the room were well accustomed to hear, all except Haru who still had to work with the metal.

Before he could strike the metal a second time though, Haru stopped noticing something unusual. Slowly looking to his right, he noticed a woman with a crimson eye, hair barely reaching up to her neck and the presence of an eyepatch covering the whole upper left side of her face, There was no doubt, in front of him was the Goddess who was at the head of the familia he was trying to enter, Hephaestus.

He was visibly confused, immediately stopping his work in fact, he could hear Hephaestus declare

"I thank you all for your participation in the event, but I officially declare it has reached the end...! I'm sorry for the trouble. To repay you the cost of the material will not be charged."

Seeing how several adventurers, to the words of Hephaestus took care to report and at the same time 'to drive away' the blacksmiths obviously without resorting to any kind of violence, Haru had remained completely motionless, because Hephaestus was staring at him so intently that he realized maybe he should have stayed.

Being able to hear the sighs of the blacksmiths disappointed, while others looked with curiosity at the area where Hephaestus had stood up, they were however made to leave by the staff. Hearing their Goddess' words, The members of her familia understood what that meant. There was someone who was able to surprise Hephaestus, and while most of them looked surprised and at the same time shocked, the Captain of the familia instead had a cheeky smile on her face.

Left alone now, Haru felt a bit uncomfortable. He expected to beat that metal three times, leave this room and look beyond what the future would have reserved for him, but right now it was Hephaestus who seemed to be staring at him. What he didn't know however, was that she was carefully trying to understand what had happened, but no matter how many times the event repeated in her mind, it was impossible for her to understand what kind of force had come into play, or why.

But realizing she had't yet said a single word to him and that the boy seemed visibly uncomfortable, Hephaestus blinked before adding apologetically

"I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. But you and I have a lot to talk about, do you think you can spare me some of your time?"

Haru did not know what Hephaestus wanted to discuss, but he chose to nod because the Goddess seemed really interested in him, although from his point of view he had done nothing special, he believed that what he had imagined to be his future would now change, probably for the better.

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