According to Plan

The city lord glared at Lei Mingxing and Jing Jiang while making his announcement before accusingly glancing at Suan Bi whose smile had turned a bit awkward after realizing that his perfect plan had failed.

But rather than being mad, although he had to admit there was also a bit of anger inside his heart, Suan Bi felt more puzzled than anything.

Obviously, the plan had been going well, even better than he initially expected.

The inspector had damaged the furnace, and the Unbending Branch duo didn't notice it until they were already in the middle of forging. But even with the furnace falling apart, Jing Jiang kept going, starting to embed the Spirit Core into their artifact despite the furnace visibly falling apart, inching the inevitable explosion ever closer.

But no matter how much time passed, nothing happened.

The furnace just continued to silently crumble away while being hugged tightly by Lei Mingxing.

It was almost eerie to witness how the furnace with deep cracks covering its entire metal body remained standing right until the moment Jing Jiang finished embedding the Spirit Core.

Then, from one moment to the next, as if sensing that its duty was done, the standing, solid metal furnace trickled to the ground like falling sand in an hourglass.

And left in front of Lei Mingxing and Jing Jiang was only a pile of ash and dirt.

It was completely unscientific, Suan Bi had never heard of something like this happening, let alone seen it.

The same also applied to the other artificers.

So, the audience and other participants could only stare in silent wonder at what they had just witnessed.

Some of the other participants were even so distracted that they embedded their Spirit Core a bit unevenly, throwing the competition and leaving them with a bitter taste. The only fortunate thing was that no one had been seriously injured because of inattention.

But it also meant that of the 10 teams, only 7 remained.

These 7 were now motioned to neatly step back into their original positions while the stage was swept clean and the equipment carried off by several guards.

They all tightly held onto their still-warm artifacts, impatiently waiting for the final judging to begin, putting the strange occurrence they had just witnessed aside for now.

Although none of them actually expected to get first place.

That was reserved for Suan Bi, like every competition.

But there was still the second and third place to aim for! At least that would be good enough to get their name out there and gain more customers...

While this outcome was enough for the other contestants, however, Jing Jiang and Lei Mingxing just grimly stared at Suan Bi, both clutching the fateful artifact with one hand each.

If it was just in terms of quality and power, they had to have the clear upper hand over Suan Bi, they were sure of it.

No way in h*ll had Suan Bi also forged a fourth-rank artifact.

So, they should be able to win by default.

Should, there was no guarantee Suan Bi would play fair.

And if everything that happened until now taught them anything, it was that Suan Bi definitely wasn't the type to just leave it at a tampered-with furnace.

Actually, judging from the city lord's expression, something was going on between them, probably something involving money and influence.

And there was no telling if Suan Bi had done the same with the other members of the judges' panel...

The guards finally finished clearing the stage and the competition could continue.

With a proud expression on his face, the city lord sat down next to the other two judges and announced the start of the artifact judging.

One after the other the teams stepped in front of the judges' panel and gave a demonstration of their artifact's might.

Generally, the judges weren't that impressed with the displays, but this wasn't the intention of most participants anyway, only aiming to show off that their wares were good enough to buy when you didn't have the budget for an artifact of the Bending Rock Forge.

And in that sense, they succeeded.

So even when they reached a score of 20 or barely over 20, they still had happy smiles on their faces when they returned to their designated spots.

Finally, it was Suan Bi's turn, and although a lot went wrong the last two days, he still donned a confident expression while stepping in front of the judges.

He calmly ignored the burning gazes of Lei Mingxing and Jing Jiang while turning around to pick his artifact out of Gu Zhong's arms to start the presentation.

Gu Zhong wasn't as good as Suan Bi in acting unperturbed, sweating buckets while staring at the ground, clutching his clothes.

In his mind Suan Bi snorted in disdain at the other's spineless behavior but pretended not to notice, it wasn't like he hadn't known how weak Gu Zhong's spirit was, in fact, he had exploited precisely this when enticing the other to forsake Jing Jiang and the Unyielding Branch Forge.

Anyways, he began injecting Qi into the Spirit Core of the long spear in his hand. Immediately, bellows of wind blew around him pulling at his robes and beard, prompting him to start his explanation.

"Dear judges, as my contribution to the competition this time, and as an homage to my first time participating 20 years ago, I created this fourth-rank Wind Spear," Suan Bi leisurely spoke every word loud and clear, savoring every single one of them, while imagining his old rival gradually growing rampant with rage, unfortunately, he still had to wait a bit before he could turn around and enjoy the fruits of his labor.

He continued with his explanation, appearing calm and collected, although the gleam in his eyes betrayed the schadenfreude he felt.

"The staff is made of Mellow Steel with a tip of Marbled Steel Aloy ensuring that the staff will not break and the spear tip won't become blunt no matter how many battles it faces. And the winds conjured by the Spirit Core allow the user to perform even more devastating blows that will pass through practically anything."

The judges nodded, asking a few more questions, which were more thinly veiled praises than genuine questions, before allowing Suan Bi to demonstrate on a dummy made of straw.

And just as Suan Bi had said, the spear and the winds around it left a clean, almost thigh-sized hole in the dummy.

So, ultimately, Suan Bi received a score of 28, with two points being deducted by the Mercenary Association Branch Manager because of uncreativity, although Suan Bi had the sneaking suspicions that it was less because of uncreativity and more because the other also held somewhat of a grudge against him.

Regardless, Jing Jiang and Lei Mingxing would never score higher than him!