Rawl brought Abel closer into the inside of the Blacksmith Union headquarter building. On their way, countless dwarven and human blacksmiths would greet Abel with a bow. Abel seemed like a real celebrity in this place.
“This is the gathering spot, Master Abel. According to the rules, you can bring two men with you as you listen to the speaker.”
When Rawl said that, there was a little bit of yearning in his voice indicating that he wanted to be one of those men. He was currently an intermediate blacksmith. With a little more progress, he would’ve already become an advanced blacksmith. That being said, he really wished for a chance to listen to the masters conversate about their experience and whatnot.
It didn’t take Abel much time to figure out what Rawl wanted, so he pretty much agreed right away, “It’s been a hard and long journey, Rawl. I don’t know if you’d be interested, but if you’d like to, please accompany me inside for a listen.”
“Oh, that’d be great! Thank you, Master Abel!”
Obviously, Rawl didn’t make his intentions clear enough. He wouldn’t dare to ask something directly from someone like Abel, so it was pretty much a miracle that Abel would give in so easily. That being said, he really appreciated the opportunity. It was very hard to get in contact with a master blacksmith even if you lived in Cina City.
When Rawl went to open the big door, Abel realized that the building was a lot bigger than he thought. Inside the hall room were a bunch of long tables and chairs. Twelve dwarves, six humans, and two elves were sitting on both sides. From the badges that they were wearing, Abel could tell that they were all master blacksmiths.
Each of the master blacksmiths had someone standing behind them. They must be their servants or something. Since these people didn’t get to have their own seats, they were all made to stand.
The other half of the hallroom was an operating table for the blacksmiths. There were different tools on the rack. Next to the operation table, there was an odd stone stove glowing in red.
Abel didn’t get to have a close look, though. As soon as he walked in, the twenty-something master blacksmiths all stood up to greet him. Master Robin, whom he visited just then, left the table and walked towards him.
Master Robin said with a friendly voice, “Took you a while, didn’t it, Master Abel? Come, come.”
“Much apologies, sir, and all the masters here,” Abel quickly gave a deep bow to apologize, “this city was simply too beautiful. I didn’t mean to be so late.”
A dwarven master laughed out loudly, “Don’t worry about it, Master Abel! It’s already good enough to have you here! Hurry up and have a seat, yeah?”
For Abel, it was good to see that his seniors didn’t take offense in him being late. And now that he was being all nice and apologetic about it, he actually made a good first impression.
Abel was told to sit at the first seat on the right side. He didn’t do that, though. The first seat was meant for the most acknowledged master in the whole continent. As of now, that seat was vacant. The spot he was told to sit at was the closest to the topmost seat. Right now, Master Robin was with him. He was also the youngest one in the whole room, so whatever the case was, he should try to lay low here.
When Abel scanned around, he began to notice that Hoover was here. Of course, he should refer to him as Master Hoover here. There was an empty seat that was next to Hoover, so after bowing to the dwarven master that offered him the frontmost seat, he went to sit right next to Hoover.
Something else stood out to Abel. Out of the twenty-something master blacksmiths that he saw, he only recognized a few of them. For the dwarven masters, he recognized Master Robin, Master Thorin, and some other three that he knew of when he was getting certified to be a master. As for the humans, Hoover was a close friend of his, but he was the only human that he knew of here.
A white-bearded dwarven master blacksmith, Master Morry, began to speak, “Since it’s the first time that Master Abel has attended our gathering event, we’ll explain the procedures a bit later. As of now, my name is Morry, the blacksmith who’s on post in this city, and I’ll be the host of today’s gathering!”
Master Morry continued to speak in a clear, loud voice, “What I’ve been hearing, Master Abel should be the last master blacksmith to come here today. That’s a total of twenty-one masters coming today. The last time we got this many was, well, many blue moons before.”
The crowd didn’t seem to show much reaction to that. Apart from Abel, all the other people here were experienced old men.
Hoover whispered to Abel, “It’s been the twenty of us for the last ten gatherings. Now that you are here, that breaks the record for a pretty long time.”
“What about the other masters?” Abel asked. From his understanding, there should be a total of around 36 blacksmith grandmasters in the Blacksmith union. Did Hoover mean that the other 16 never attend these events?
Hoover explained, “Those who don’t come are often those who were trained by large organizations. Since their skills and crafts are often privatized, they are pretty much not allowed to come to show themselves in public. Pretty dodgy stuff, if you ask me, but that’s just my opinion.”
Master Morry continued to speak, “We will now begin our first activity. Fellow master blacksmiths, it is now time for you to demonstrate any new achievements that you have. Master Abel, as it is your first time to attend our event, we’d like to inform you that it is up to you to decide what technique you would like to disclose in public.”
“If you don’t want to show us anything, Master Abel, that’s perfectly fine. I will have to remind you something, though: If you don’t agree to demonstrate some of your findings in the next gathering event, we’ll have to stop you from entering into any future gathering event. Unless you become a grandmaster, we’ll have to make sure that you keep showing us your findings when you come here.”
“Grandmaster.” The look on Master Morry’s face seemed kind of strange when he mentioned this word. The other master blacksmiths laughed as they looked at Abel. Abel didn’t seem to mind, though. He just thought that they wanted to see what he was capable of.
Before Abel did anything, he first looked at the other masters that were doing their demonstrations. It was been especially helpful for his learning. Obviously, there was no commentary to explain the techniques that they showed. Also, they were only showing a brief part of the entire craft, instead of doing the procedure from start to finish.When Abel saw that the odd furnace, he thought it was just like the one at the Rogue’s Encampment. It was also powered with inferno flame, which just showed how much taste dwarves had for the fires that they used.
For Master Robin’s demonstration, he pulled a piece of iron into a string. This technique was especially helpful in making bowstrings. Not only could it bolster the sturdiness of the bow, but it could also be used to launch a more powerful shot than most arrows. Of course, Master Robin wasn’t going to tell them what the ratio of the metals was. What he showed was just the start of an area of research, so if the others wanted to look more into it, they would have to spend a lot of time and resources by themselves.
As for the others, some of them added a fire accelerant liquid to boost up the hotness of a flame. It was more like a real-life commercial than a display of craftsmanship, so Abel didn’t really have a use for it.
Most of the stuff was practical, though. A lot of the master blacksmiths would try to show off little tricks that they use in their crafts. As insignificant as these skills might appear to be, there was always going to be a chance that they could be helpful to whoever that knew them.
What attracted the most attention for Abel, however, were the two elven master blacksmiths. Since elves were much weaker than humans and dwarves, they must have been putting the most work out of all the masters here. Their expertise was in making small items such as accessories and jewelry, and they demonstrated a lot about the ways of smelting precious metals and separating gemstones from rings.
While the other skills that these elven masters revealed weren’t of much help for Abel, he really thought that they were the most generous ones with showing off what they knew. Well, there was also Master Robin, but these two outdid themselves.
Come to think of it, Abel had never looked into how to make accessories. Now that the two elven masters have introduced him to this art, he thought that he might be able to start on his own research into this. And since these two have already looked into the process of smelting, he might also want to ask them for some further input. If he could get the data on how to mix different metals together, he might just create some even more overpowered weapons for himself.
Of course, those weapons would be made of alloys.
