Kale swallowed nervously, not because he had any faults in him; it was just that the booming voice of the Grandmaster rank Toolcrafter was such that it simply planted a trace of fear in those lesser than him.

With his senses, he could clearly see and feel that the man’s voice indeed contained a trace of mysterious power that spread like surging waves, crashing against the bodies of all the candidates and generating an innumerable number of ethereal ripples.

Perhaps when those energy ripples carried by the voice of the man touched them, only then did that feeling of slight fear rise in the hearts of the Artificer candidates.

Noticing the reactions of everyone else around, as well as the timings of their change of expression, Kale only became sure of his hypothesis.

The Grandmaster Toolcrafter no longer spoke and fell silent. The Pillcraft grandmaster at that moment snapped his fingers, which instantly shook away the feelings of apprehension generated by the voice of his Toolcrafter colleague. He smiled gently as usual and said, "The test starts from this moment forth...."

Even though Kale was the one least affected by the energy ripples of the Grandmaster rank Artificers, he was still taken aback by how they suddenly started the test without even giving the candidates a moment to recover.

He frowned for a moment and looked around. Just as he expected, the test’s sudden start made most of the candidates panic and act hastily. With his experience, he could easily see through what these old farts were trying to do.

What they wanted to see was talents that thrived in the face of adversity, those who remained calm, even when the situation was not.

So, Kale did not give in to the pressure from his peers’ desperate activities; instead, he first focused on examining the items in each of the three boxes.

Kale was able to identify all the items in each box in a few seconds at most. But he did not start immediately; rather, he began to think, with a calm gaze in his eyes, about how to approach each test, drawing on the immense reservoir of knowledge he had consumed.

Eventually, after a minute of standing like a statue while receiving occasional scornful looks from his peers, he stepped closer to the leftmost glass box and opened it.

There were only three items in it.

One was a wooden dagger, made out of a very strange, almost black colored wood. There was a small hole in the place of its hilt. Then there was the Carving knife, which would be used for carving the wooden dagger for the necessary procedure.

Last but not least was a small, glowing, whitish orb slightly larger than the hole in the dark wooden dagger.

The thing about this world’s magical tool-making process was that it was vastly different from everything else one could think of; there was no hammering, magical symbol engraving, or any such activities involved.

That whitish Orb was the core of a Feral Rank Beast. What needed to be done here was quite simple, actually. This Beast core contained the will of a certain dead Beast as well as its power. And this core needed to be planted perfectly into that small hole in the black wooden dagger.

Unfortunately, every part of this extremely simple process was filled with immense difficulty for any newly awakened Artificer.

Bang!!!

Suddenly, a small sound of an explosion came from behind him, stirring a small wave of wind.

"Arghhh!!!!!" followed by a pained scream of an Artificer candidate.

Yet most dared not turn their heads for fear it might warrant instant disqualification.

But what that sound indicated was quite obvious: someone had already failed.

Kale’s eyes flashed, judging by the sound of the glass shattering, as well as the scream of the candidate who failed.

It was likely the Beast core that exploded.

With a serious expression, Kale put his hand on the Beast core in the glass box, and the moment his fingers touched the glowing core, a jolt of shock traveled through his arms like a wave of electricity passing through his nervous system.

It was extremely painful, and he had to grit his teeth; it was the result of touching the power of a higher-ranking entity. His body was not accustomed to touching such a power directly. But the very next moment, an indistinct hiss of a strange beast rattled his ears. Shaking his mind very badly.

The will of the Beast was retaliating; it would not have dared to do anything if an Apprentice Artificer touched it, but he was merely a newly awakened. Not only that, when the Beast Will sensed the smell of the vicious Curse upon him, it was as if the creature had gone completely mad.

It started to fight back brutally without minding the destruction of its own, all while Kale was utterly paralyzed from the moment he touched that orb. Most of the candidates were also the same, their expressions twisted in pain. Unable to move.

One after another, many candidates fainted, unable to bear the pain or lift the Beast Core, let alone begin the next process.

Almost a quarter of the candidates in that space were instantly eliminated just from this initial step of the test.

Kale experienced even greater pain, like an invisible beastly pair of claws was smashing onto the innards of his brain, alongside the continuous electrical shock. The pain he was experiencing was five times or more than what should be, due to the severe retaliation of the Beast Will.

Kale’s eyes flashed coldly, due to him having experienced death twice; pain wasn’t the main issue, but the Beast Will was trying to invade his mind, trying to break his spirit, which was the main problem.

In the end, he gritted his teeth and let out a burst of his killing intent, not outwardly, but making it flow inwards, directing his bloodlust towards the maddened Beast Will, which was trying to destroy him, by the authority of the World Dragon’s curse.

When the remnant of the Beast clashed with Kale’s own intent to kill, which he earned from slaughtering a Tyrant-ranked Dragon.

The remnant shuddered in fear; it hastily retreated, and the sudden change was so abrupt that the Beast Core began to glow and dim rapidly, on the verge of bursting apart.

Kale cursed in his mind, ’Damn it, too much suppression and the Beast Will would self-destruct, and too little it would attack me madly.’

Despite being completely inexperienced in this manner, he was forced to think of a new approach; he had to control something as abstract as his own killing intent to an extremely fine degree, reaching the perfect balance and forcing the Beast Will to stay put.

Only then did the Core’s glowing brightness stabilize. The severe pain in his body and mind also receded gradually. He was able to move once more; he could now easily pick up the core and play around with it without much worry.

Though the sheer focus he had to maintain to constantly keep pushing the exact degree of bloodlust into the orb was anything but easy, it was making him sweat nervously.

Kale sighed and put down the core, and the moment he did so, the orb glowed violently a few times again. Meaning, once Kale touched the orb again, he would again have to experience that same or even higher degree of pain for the first few seconds.

If not for the curse, Kale would have only needed to subdue the Beast Will once, and it would not have caused problems anymore until the point when he would plant the Beast Core onto the Black wooden Dagger.

Kale shook his head and focused on what he needed to do next, as he brought out the Wooden Dagger and Carving Knife.

He instantly started to carve on the sides of the small hole in the wooden dagger with the Iron Knife, making the spot bigger as the Beast core would not fit in there as it is.

Surprisingly, this process was the easiest for him, since his father, Darius, was a Carpenter and an aspiring sculptor, and Kale had some experience in wood carving, which now proved handy, as the work required extreme meticulousness.

Because the better the Beast Core fits into that spot of the Wooden Dagger, the easier it would be for the Core and Will to integrate with the body of the weapon, thus turning the whole thing into a magical tool...

That is... If... he managed to succeed throughout the entire process.