Muka frowned at the ear-splitting cheers from the audience. He felt like a circus monkey.

“Tsk, what a goddamn joke...” he mumbled.

He looked around and saw the other artisans nervously looking at the top of their anvils. They were each covered by a black cloth, and anyone who touched it before the exam began was disqualified.

“Alright! Artisans, you may remove the cloth above the anvil!” the dwarf host shouted.

Muka and the other artisans removed the cloth.

“What’s that?”

“A ball?”

“It’s colorful like a beach volleyball.”

There was a metal ball the size of a child’s head. It was a scrap made up of various metals.

“The metal you see before you is your assignment! It is a hellish metal mixed with one hundred and two different kinds of steel!” the host announced.

“Dammit!”

“How are we supposed to use this?!”

The artisans cursed, while the audience laughed.

The host gave enough time for the audience to enjoy themselves and continued, “You must extract the following steels from the metal ball: yazoteel, shizteel, veteel, and tamateel! You must blend these four steels and create a blade with a vivid damascus pattern!”

A few artisans were left in despair from the host’s announcement because they had never even heard of some of the announced steel names.

The host disregarded their despair and continued, “The blade’s dimensions must be the following! Excluding the handle, the blade must be between twenty-five and thirty-five centimeters long! The finished product itself must not exceed fifty-eight centimeters, including the tang!”

“I should make a Bowie knife.”

“A parrying dagger isn’t bad either.”

The artisans began to draw designs for the item they would create using the provided pens.

“You have exactly five hours to create a complete item, including the blade and handle! Anyone who does not submit an item by then will fail the exam! If more than 1,103 participants pass, they will be eliminated based on the quality of the items submitted! The time starts now!”

The artisans of various races rushed to the scrap metal on the anvil and the mini blast furnace. However, Muka and the other dwarves brought the Artisan’s Soul to their chest first. Their hearts absorbed the Artisan’s Soul, faintly illuminating the dwarves’ eyes.

[Absorbing the Artisan’s Soul.]

[Drastically boosting Mineral Force.]

“Huuu,” Muka exhaled as he put his hand over the hellish scrap metal ball. “Five hours, huh? They used to give us a whole day just for the first exam...”

He did not like the fact that they added a time limit. Five hours was the bare minimum amount of time required to create one dagger. Its level of completion was bound to fall.

“Looks like they prioritized the audience’s fatigue level. Tsk, this is why I hate the artisan exam.”

The exam prioritized the audience’s attention span over the artisans’ focus and results. It was a mockery of the artisans who prepared for these exams with everything they had. The artisan exam had long since deteriorated from a way to discern true artisans into a circus show to choose the greatest entertainer.

“Despite that, a dwarf must advance steadfast with feet as hard as steel,” Muka mumbled an old dwarf proverb as he infused Mineral Force into the hellish scrap metal ball.

He closed his eyes as a faint brass-colored light enveloped the metal ball. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

— Use me! I’m strong!

— Let me out of here! I hate being in here!

— I’m flexible and pretty!

— Caress me! I’m bouncy!

He heard the voices of each steel. This was why the dwarves were far superior to the other races as artisans. Dwarves could hear the voices of metals and what they wished for.

“Here,” Muka said as he placed his chisel on an area of the scrap metal ball.

His eyes, filled with Mineral Force, could see the grains in the ball of metal assortments. He struck the chisel with his hammer, and the metal ball fell apart by itself, disassembling into the individual steels.

“W-what the hell?”

“How did he do that?”

The nearby artisans were left impressed as they watched Muka picking out the steel he needed. They had placed the scrap metal ball in the mini furnace to melt it, but Muka had disassembled the metal so easily.

“Artisans do not make weapons. They just help the metals transform into the shape they wish to take,” Muka said to the surprised artisans.

A hundred thirty-five others disassembled the scrap metal ball the same way as Muka.

***

The audience chatted excitedly as they watched the sweltering hot artisan exam venue.

“Man! Dwarves sure are on another level!”

“Especially that dwarf at the front row! He’s already started smelting!”

“Aha! He must be Kazafu of Blue Anvil. He’s the son of the World Ranker, Hadafu!”

“Oh, that’s him? Hey! I bet a hundred thousand Coins on you!”

Seong-Hwi overheard the others and observed the dwarf named Kazafu with the Observer’s Earring. He was a confident-looking dwarf with blue hair in a bun and a blue beard. The red-hot metal he removed from the furnace had already taken the shape of a cleaver knife.

“He’s indeed fast, but everyone has been given five hours. You just need to finish by then,” Seong-Hwi mumbled as he stared at Muka.

Muka’s eyes were closed as he grabbed the four minerals, yazoteel, shizteel, veteel, and tamateel, one after the other.

Seong-Hwi thought, That must be Mineral Force. I’ve seen it being used in combat, but it feels different.

Mineral Force was a difficult secondary force to face. The few elite dwarves who had mastered the use of Mineral Force were known as weapon breakers because whenever their attacks struck an opponent’s equipment, its durability plummeted and was eventually destroyed.

I’d love to acquire Mineral Force as well, but it’s not like I can kill just any dwarf... I hope a dwarf Ranker would pick a fight with me.

People would think Seong-Hwi was crazy if they knew what he was thinking.

Just then, Muka raised his hammer at last.

***

Muka adjusted the temperature of his mini furnace. The red flames blazed serenely.

“How is it? Is it hot enough?” Muka asked the four steels.

— It’s good for me!

— I’m a little cold.

— Mm, I’ll wait and see.

— Forget that, just hammer me already! It tickles here!

Muka smiled and replied, “You can be further inside, shizteel. I like your patience, veteel. Tamateel, take after veteel. I’ll hammer you as much as you want if you’re patient.”

— Wow! It’s warmer!

— Thanks for the compliment!

— Okay! I’ll be more patient.

Muka’s words were filled with infinite love for the metals. He loved talking to metals and couldn’t be happier to fulfill their wishes. Just then, a large orc artisan hammered so hard that the anvil would break.

— Ouch! That hurts!

— It’s so cold!

“That ignorant bastard!” Muka cursed.

The orc was hammering away at the metals that hadn’t been heated enough. His brute force lengthened the metal, but Muka could tell from the screams of the metal that its structure had been severely damaged.

A giant pillar of fire surged from in front of Muka.

“Ahaha! How am I supposed to smelt with such a tiny furnace? These flames are more like it!” a male elf shouted as he showed off his powerful fire skill.

The audience clapped at the flashy performance, but Muka simply clicked his tongue.

— It’s too hot!

— It hurts so much!

“Tsk, tsk, what a lunatic. He’s hurting the metals. Does he think the hotter the fire, the better? How did that idiot even pass the preliminaries?”

Muka could see through his abundant Mineral Force that the metal being heated by the fire skill was burning instead of melting. Its durability would undoubtedly fall. He sighed at the fact that there wasn’t a single decent artisan around him.

“How could those who can’t hear the metals’ voices, understand their feelings, and fulfill their wishes call themselves blacksmiths?!”

Muka lamented as he removed the four steels from the furnace one after another and hammered them. He hammered them weakly, quickly, strongly, a little slowly, and as if brushing past them. His hammering considered the areas that the metal wanted to be struck, how hard, and at what timing. Hence, not one swing of his hammer sounded the same as another. It was a perfect harmony played by the metal and its blacksmith.

“Whoa! Look over there. That dwarf’s hammering sounds so clean.”

“It’s like music to my ears.”

“It is music. It’s called the hammer’s song, which can only be played by artisans of a certain level of skill... Amazing.”

The audience’s attention instinctively shifted to Muka even amidst the flashy fire show and the display of physical strength. Muka’s joyful smile and the beautiful hammer’s song brought a smile to those who heard it. The VIPs also noticed it.

“What is that dwarf’s name?” asked Kirasosa, the assault captain of Clan Dragon’s Teeth, as his blue eyes with vertical pupils flashed under his horned bone helmet.

“His name is Muka. Muka Haswell.”

“Haswell? That’s Rika Haswell’s house. Then he must be a member of Red Hammer.”

Sarazza, a Balrog demon of Clan Affligo, said to Kirasosa, “Keh! I called dibs on that dwarf, Bones! I’m recruiting him to our clan, so back off.”

“I highly doubt that such an artisan will follow an idiotic musclebrain demon like you.”

“What’d you say?”

As Sarazza and Kirasosa bickered with one another, the beautiful female elf behind them giggled. “Hoho, I believe that artisan will prefer Sefirot over Dragon’s Teeth and Affligo.”

She was Lilicia, a high elf who attended the Ferrum Festival as a representative of Sefirot, the elven society. She was a Ranker above both Sarazza and Kirasosa.

“Hah, you say that while knowing who the leader of Clan Dragon’s Teeth is?”

“I will relay your words to the Demon King of Affligo!”

Lilicia giggled leisurely and replied, “Hoho, go ahead. Oh, that reminds me! I’ve heard that Lady Floriana, one of the consuls of the Sēmen, is in the area. Do you happen to know anything about that?”

Kirasosa and Sarazza frowned intensely because Floriana was a former member of Sefirot. As the VIPs were chatting, the face of a dwarf in the front row of the VIP seats slightly crumpled. He had the same blue hair and eyes as Kazafu and wore shiny silver armor.

“My son is... losing?” Hadafu mumbled with a frown.

The hammering of a dwarf in the back rows was grabbing more attention than that of his son, Kazafu, hammering in the front row.

“The hammer’s song of your grandson is magnificent, Madam Rika.”

“It’s just a small melody. Nothing to write home about,” Rika remarked.

“The metals sound happy.”

“Hmph! Anyone can do something like that if they put their minds to it,” Rika said.

The dwarves around Rika in the VIP seats congratulated her. Rika snorted at them, but she couldn’t hide the corners of her mouth rising.

“Red... Hammer! How dare a half-dead tribe like them do this?!” Hadafu mumbled as he glared at Rika.

Red Hammer supported Steel King Bafor. Hadafu had failed to impeach Bafor in the previous Faber conference because he had failed to appease Red Hammer.

“They’re getting in my way yet again!” Hadafu turned to his subordinate beside him and said, “Summon Jazathura.”

***

A clear and melodious hammer’s song echoed to the deepest point of the Golden Iron Palace among the racket.

“I hear an artisan this year,” Bafor mumbled as he listened to the hammer’s song.

His use of the word artisan was different from the title that anyone could obtain these days.

“Hmm? Is that so? It all sounds the same to me,” a girl’s voice said cutely.

“You will hear it if you are willing to listen. However, there’s no way you would hear the hammer’s song played by an artisan devoted to his craft. All you care about is what the God of Heaven has to say, after all.”

“Kyahaha! Thank you for the compliment!”

An angel flew around before Bafor. She was a chubby blonde little girl with blue eyes and eight pairs of wings. She was one of the Cherubim, the God of Heaven’s adorable calamities. Not only that, but she was Bethaniael, the head of the Cherubim of Orbis’s Fifth Legion.

“I only hear the hymns for the almighty God of Heaven. Ahhh, I got it, Master Uriel! Sheesh, he’s telling me to stop chitchatting and get to the point.” Bethaniael smiled playfully as she pointed at the golden halo above her head. “We have an Elixir, and the priestess... My, what a blasphemous name! Anyway, you will need Holy Force to cure that woman’s illness.”

Bafor remained silent, thinking, My daughter...

Lilar was reaching her limit, and the angels had everything required to cure her illness.

“Kyahaha! We’ll help you! All you have to do is read the declaration we sent you during the upcoming Faber conference!” Bethaniael said.

“The declaration to support the angels, and that all items from Faber can only be distributed through Orbis? Do you seriously believe such a monopoly will be tolerated?”

“Hmm... Complicated things aren’t my forte.” Bethaniael stuck out her lips and shook her head.

Bafor’s eyebrows twitched as he asked, “Where is Uriel? I will speak with him in person.”

“Master Uriel is under surveillance right now. A consul of the Sēmen was mobilized because of a minor... Kyahaha! A minor incident.”

“A minor incident? I wouldn’t call the obliteration of Superficies a minor incident. You angels destroyed the city, did you not?”

“I don’t know! I have no idea! Where’s your proof?!” Bethaniael screamed as she flew around.

Bafor clenched his fists but couldn’t act.

“In any case, Master Uriel is busy. The rest is up to you whether to... Hehe, O almighty God of Heaven! Forgive your adorable child, Bethaniael, for saying this blasphemous word! Whether to save or kill the priestess!”

Bafor thought about what a declaration to support the angels meant. Faber declaring their support for Orbis meant that all of Orbis’s enemies would become Faber’s enemies as well. On top of that, once the item supply monopoly began, dwarves were sure to be oppressed by every race in the Mirror World.

People would have Coins but no items to buy, forcing them to use Karma instead. Their dissatisfaction would naturally be directed at our race. It would be the beginning of an item wave.

There was one more problem—the main reason Bafor was hesitating. Bafor glared at Bethaniael, who was smiling as if she knew nothing.

Could it be... they know that Lilar is the dwarves’ Race Stone?!