273. The Exam Preparation

"We are almost done setting up the dungeon pillars" a worker reported to the Vice-Master. Jane stood to the side and watched the workers scramble around the stadium.

"I would have never thought something like this was possible," she commented.

"Well, the guild is not exactly going around bragging about this. "

Minas Mar would take care of renting the stadium while the guild would take care of the adaptations for the exam. The guild would also take care of advertisements and other preparations. In exchange 2/3 of the proceeds would go to them.

It was the guild's proposal to turn the exam into a public event and sell tickets. The exam was changed in accordance. The proceedings were announced the day after the deal was made. The exam would be held over a span of 6 days.

The first section would encompass all adventurers below lv. 30. They could either enter solo, in a party, or make parties among each other. The first three days would be composed of fights against summoned Monsters of increasing levels in the Arena.

The last 3 days would be the highlights, featuring duels between people above lv.40. First in parties and then 1v1 -Duels. The selling point of the event was that these could be duels to the death.

With the guild's adaptions, the colosseum would become a dungeon field, and the people could revive within the stadium in case they died.

It would become a good publicity stunt for Minas Mar on top of being able to find talents for the Oathguard. Jane was glad that she could leave most of the work to the Adventurer's Guild. She had more than enough to do managing the Turquoise Anvil.

Besides lending their name, the "price", and spending some money they had to do nothing. The price in this case was not becoming part of the Oathguard, but some epic equipment Seth had made during his experiments.

With the changes, the exam details also changed. People could keep signing up for the tournaments and anyone had the chance to be scouted for the Oathguard. Those who had already registered but did not want to compete in the public would go through the originally planned exam.

This way they could also reduce the people Minas Mar had to check on their own.

"But are you sure about putting up epic-rated items as the price?"

"Don't worry about it. The Tower Master said it's okay, so there won't be a problem."

----------Minas Mar--------------

Totally not a problem. Since Seth didn't want to start on a different Lord's set, he started with making the price items. He was still waiting for Neeco Boos to assemble Mina's leather armor.

He had only promised epic items, not how useful they would be. It was the perfect excuse to experiment with the rare <Bones of Seth> and their random effects.

Seth had not used a lot of it in these three months. The random effects made making good items from it too time-consuming. Looking for better donkeys or jackal blood was also an option, but it was hard to find dungeon beasts that counted as higher versions of those animals. He hoped that it would increase the chance for a better effect because only using better iron did not do the trick.

As such most of the Oatharmors were created with rare <Olympian Silver>. He got the silver from the church for cheap and he was able to leave operating the magma furnace to Cerberus. As such he had no scarcity of good, rare materials.

To try for good effects, he made a bunch of simple greaves, bracers, and pauldrons using the reflective ballad. He would melt down the bad ones later and put the really good ones to the side to maybe use for the people of Minas Mar later.

The really good ones were effects that came at no cost or only cost mana almost like an enchantment while the better ones had a cost similar to the mask he made for Jonah. The really bad ones had bad effects or bad effects that came at an even worse cost.

As he kept making the same items to see what random effects they would get, a thought grew in his mind. Actually, it was an old idea that lifted its ugly head again. How nice would it be if he could leave this kind of stuff to Cerberus?

Over the last months until he reached lv. 50, he had collected 7 AP he could distribute. His <Spirit Smithy> was lv. 5. he had enough ability points to level his skill up. Maybe Cerberus would become able to make items this time?

For Seth, the question was whether to use the ability points to level up <Soul Infusion> or <Spirit Smithy>. In the end, he still decided on the latter, even if Cerberus would not be upgraded. <Spirit Smithy> was the one skill where he had no idea how to level it.

All others he could grow with his actions. He decisively put the 7 AP into <Spirit Smith> leveling it to lv. 6! Quickly a message window popped in front of him.

<Ding! A quest has been triggered!>

< Quest: Beat the Golem (2)

Difficulty: A

"Cerberus" gains greater freedom and is able to make Items from your <Blueprint> catalog on his own. It is limited to rare equipment and the resulting proficiency will be split with 30% going to the smithy's owner.

With greater freedom comes a stronger will. Prove your superiority to convince "Cerberus" to keep working with you. To prove your superiority, you have to best the golem in a contest of forging:

Enter the forging arena, a place where only your skills matter and create a better weapon than the golem from the provided materials.

Requirement: Win against Cerberus 0/1

Rewards: Permanently Unlock "Affiliate Blacksmith". >

<Do you accept the quest?>

Seth was surprised by the sudden prompt. It was similar to the quest he had to do to unlock Cerberus in the first place. A forging competition against the golem? The difficulty was judged as A, so it would definitely not be easy, right?

It didn't state any punishment for losing. The worst situation Seth could think of was losing his assistant. Was it worth it to risk Cerberus for the chance to have him constantly produce items?

Probably. However, Seth was unwilling. But there was a small feeling telling him to do it. It wasn't his calculative side that kept weighing the pros and cons of a decision. He felt competitive. He had done a lot to grow his own skills.

It was always in the back of his mind that he only got this far because of his equipment. In a logical way, he was aware that this didn't undermine the worth of the work he put into his skills. Everyone started at different points. He was not the only smith who worked with better facilities.

But unconsciously. The quests asked him to prove his skills and he wanted to test them. He would prove that he was where he was not only because of his better class.

He accepted the quest. In the next moment, he stood in a foreign workshop. There were 2 forges, 2 anvils. Everything was present twice and Cerberus stood at the other set of crafting stations.

<Ding! You can only use your skills and the provided tools and materials in this workshop. You have 10 hours to make a weapon of your choice from the materials provided.>

It meant what it said. Seth couldn't even wear any equipment. He was clad in a shirt, simple trousers, and a leather apron. He also couldn't use Charon's Obol. He took a deep breath and looked at the materials provided.

There were some he knew like <Dark Steel> or <Mithril>. But also, some he had never even seen like <Hollow Silver> or <Grim brass>. Most of the materials in the pile were rare but there were also one or two epic ones.

<Heavy Wugrum> a metal with a yellow tinge. It was ungodly heavy compared to its size. It stuck out because it didn't fit the other epic materials on the table. All of them followed a theme like <Divinium> which was the crystallized blood of a blessed angel. The was also the exact opposite of this material called <Daemonium> which was created from demonic blood.

These made sense but the metal he was even more interested in was <Necronite>. A crystalline metal he had never even heard of.

<Necronite, Crafting material, Epic

A purple metal with a strong miasma of death. The crystallized blood of a tainted earth elemental. The metallic blood had taken on the wicked properties of the magic that denied the elemental eternal rest. Over a long time, it crystallized in an environment filled with miasma.>

This material immediately gave him an inspiration which he followed. The dings of metal made Seth look over to Cerberus. The Golem had already started and was stoically forging a billet.

Since this is a battle of skills, i will use everything I have. I will show you what i can do.