Test

Arlo lead the players to a room in the back of the blacksmith building. Inside, there is a tall and muscular middle aged man wearing clothes that befits a blacksmith.

The room is large and spacious with a lot of forging stations all over the place. When the players entered, they were immediately struck by the hot air coming from the burning furnaces which made most of them uncomfortable and they started sweating hard.

Calvin is no exception to this and the leader armor he's wearing only made it feel hotter for him. He hurriedly removed it and placed the armor inside his inventory.

'Much better.' he thought as he feel a bit cooler than before.

"Jack. This is the players that are going to take the exam." Arlo spoke to the middle age man standing inside the room.

Jack looked at the players and smiled before looking at Arlo. "Thanks Arlo. You can go back now. I'll take it from here."

Arlo smiled back and walked towards the door, waving his hand and saying, "Sure go ahead."

Once Arlo left, Jack looked towards the players and saw that many of them were nervous. He laughed and said, "Relax. The test ain't that hard and even if you guys fail, you can always try again later. Besides even if you fail, at the end of this test you'll still be a blacksmith. But you won't be a member of the blacksmith guild."

All the players visibly relaxed but some showed confusion at his last statement. One of them asked. "Can you explain more on the last part?"

Jack explained patiently, "Well the thing is as long as you perform something that a blacksmith does, then the system will recognise you as a blacksmith and shows that on your status page. The test is only meant for testing whether or not your worthy to be recruited into the guild. So in short this is only a recruitment test but the actual process of being a blacksmith is a lot easier. Got that?"

Jack continued, "Also, I'll tell you some of the guilds functions to motivate you guys in doing your best. Members of the guild can buy materials from it and also provides lesson in improving the skills of its members. That's the two main reasons why a lot of blacksmiths wants to join the guild. Also, the guild is the place where you can take the qualifications test to go up a grade. I might as well say that this is the case for the other profession guilds as well."

Most players fell into deep thought while some still showed confusion.

Calvin was one of those who fell into deep thought. 'Doesn't that mean that we can be in a lot of professions and not just one? This is cool. Though in order to actually be good at multiple professions is another thing. But still this changes a lot of things. And the qualifications test is only to make it known that you are in higher grade. Most likely the system will acknowledge it but the world won't.

Calvin thought while grinning, 'This game is so fun compared to the rest. I'm glad I decided to play it.'

Jack clapped and caught the player's attention. "Ok that's enough for the explanations. We'll proceed with the test. The test is very simple. You'll just have to forge a dagger. The materials are provided by the guild for your first test but if you fail, you need to pay 50 copper coins if you want to take the test again in the future. Now I'll show you guys a demonstration first."

Jack walked towards a forging station and started his demonstration. He first chose carefully a piece of iron ingot from the pile on the side and once he got it, he put it in the furnace and waited for the iron to turn red.

Once it turned red, he took it out using metal thongs and placed it in the anvil. He began shaping it using a hammer and when the metal cooled, he heated it again in the furnace. He repeated it until it took the shape of the dagger.

Then he sharpened the dagger before putting in a handle made of wood and finally it was done. A metal dagger with a wooden handle is in Jack's hand.

The whole process took less than 15 minutes and in a way it felt mesmerising to the eyes of people watching it. Jack also explained about things while he was moving which made it easier to understand.

Well at least that was the case for Calvin as this the first time he saw it real time. He only ever watched some videos of it that's why he was interested in it. But now seeing it up close, he couldn't help but feel excited and wanted to try it himself.

Though he is a bit confused since the process of forging here is different from Earth. The difference is that in here, it was faster and more efficient. But in the case of quality, that he's not sure.

Jack looked at the dagger in his hand and swing it a few times, even testing it on a steel armor in the side with multiple scratches on it. He nodded in satisfaction and turned to the players.

"So that's it. Now it's your turn. You have 1 hour to make an iron dagger like this one. It doesn't have to be in this exact shape. You can experiment as much as you want. Your results depends on many factors but the main one is still quality. Just do your best and I'm sure you'll be fine."

Jack walked towards a stack of books in the corner and gave one to each players. "If you have any questions, you can read this book. There's a lot of information for beginner blacksmiths in here. It will be of help to you. Now, chop chop. Your 1 hour starts now."