Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial was not a great blacksmith and neither a special alchemist with some special techniques to draw out the impurities of the ingredients he used.

That may be necessary if he were to attempt creating high-tiered runic armaments on his own, but it was certainly not a necessity to create Tier-0 or Tier-1 runic armaments.

With that in mind, he decided to focus on the task at hand after shoving away all the negative thoughts.

Tightening his grip over the hammer with which he would strike the mold, he began to control the entire process of the Weapon cast creation with [Mana Sense]. The hammer weighed more than 100 kilograms, but it felt like an ordinary hammer in his hand which made things a lot easier.

He had clearly visualized what kind of Mold he wanted to create, which was why he crudely 'formed' them with his mana before he created the mold around them.

Lithari iron ore was close to a liquid state when it reached the melting point. This was one of the biggest reasons for him to pick Lithari Iron as an ingredient to create his molds.

The 200 kilograms of Lithari Iron ore turned into around 120 kilograms of Lithari Iron when the reduction process of the carbon was completed. The metal was extracted from materials that couldn't be used in the forging process.

Afterward, Nial heated up the Lithari iron before forming his first weapon cast by controlling both the Lithari Iron and his mana precisely.

'How long will it take until I finish all of this?!' Nial grumbled inwardly when several hours had passed by. He had created only three batches of Basic runic solutions and had already used two of them to engrave them on the weapon molds.

The weapon molds had been normalized quickly, meaning that they had been heated up before he put them inside a huge bucket of water to rapidly cool them.

Water was not exactly a great choice to temper metal but it was everything Nial had, and it was enough. By normalizing weapons, and other goods made out of metals, they were tempered and became stronger in terms of Endurance.

Nial had already engraved a few [Endurance] runic constellations on the molds but the normalizing process was still not to be ignored.

In the end, Nial created a total of 4 casts within the first 4 hours of the tournament's first round. To be 'fully' equipped the 10 Originals were required to wear and wield a total of 3 runic armaments.

Nial thus created a mold for swords, spears, chest plates, and boots. He didn't really like the boots but Nial thought that they were the easiest to mold because the information of the 10 unknown Originals showed that they roughly had the same foot size.

The same applied to the size of their torso, almost indicating that all the 10 Originals more or less had the same body measurements. This was why Nial had chosen the chestplate and boots to be their protective equipment, while the sword and spear were going to be their weapons.

After the molds had been created, Nial started with the casting process. He melted various ores, and filled the casts one after another with the near-liquified metals before he activated the other runic constellations he had engraved on the molds.

They were runic constellations like [Cooling] to decrease the temperature of the molds to the temperature Nial wanted them to have. This made it easier to vary the speed at which the liquefied metal cooled down.

Nial, Miranda, and Mathias had experimented a lot with casted weapons to accelerate the creation process of Tier-0 runic weapons.

Making use of this, Nial spent only an additional twelve hours creating a total of 20 Tier-0 runic swords, 10 Tier-0 runic spears, 10 Tier-0 runic chest plates, and 10 pairs of Tier-0 runic boots.

That speed was shockingly fast, which was mostly owed to the fact that Nial was capable of engraving Basic runic constellations with a 100% perfection grade in a minute when he was fully focused.

Nial was excited about the Runicier tournament and he didn't want to be eliminated in the very first round. His focus sharpened and it was as if he had been alone in the entire Colosseum for the last 12 hours, especially at the end.

When he finished the casting process, there were still 32 hours left on the clock. Nial was pretty sure that he was the only one who could be said to have fully equipped the 10 mysterious Originals.

Of course, that didn't mean he had created perfect runic weapons and protective gear, and it was more like Nial wanted to make sure that he would get the points for fully equipping the Originals than anything else.

The Tier-0 equipment was certainly not good enough to survive many slashes of the Tier-1 weapons he had perceived around him.

Nobody under 21 was able to create Tier-2 runic armaments. There was a distinct difference between Tier-1 and Tier-2 runic armaments that even talent couldn't make up for.

To create a Tier-2 runic armament, one was required to use high-quality metals. Their mana veins were usually well hidden from the surface and the senses of the Runicier. In the hardened state, one wouldn't be able to detect the living mana veins, which was why one would have to be a blacksmith to detect the mana veins' precise location in the heated block of metal.

However, forging materials that could be used for Tier-2 runic armaments without damaging the mana veins was extremely difficult. One was required to expel the impurities within the ore, which meant that one had to avoid the impurities from coming in contact with the mana veins when they were expelled.

One required even more practice purifying metals than it took to engrave Intermediate runic constellations with high perfection grades. One needed talent and practice as a Blacksmith to prepare everything for Tier-2 runic armaments, and the same could be said about Alchemists.

In such a case, using Basic runic solutions, or modified Basic runic solutions wouldn't be enough anymore. One required lots of practice to create high-quality Intermediate runic solutions and other runic solutions that were basically customized to engrave certain runic constellations.

To summarize, the difference between Tier-1 and Tier-2 runic armaments was ginormous because one needed to be an Artisan, who was proficient in the ways of concoction, forging, and engraving to create the lowest Tier-2 runic armament, while the same was not required for Tier-1 runic armaments.

If a current participant was able to create Tier-2 runic armaments, they were either cheating, had been taught the ways of a versatile Artisan even before they were born, or they were prodigies of some Ancient race known for being the best in the creation of Runic armaments.

Nial wouldn't be able to understand what to do in such a scenario, especially since Master Crevian's information didn't mention such a prodigy.

Furthermore, Tier-2 runic armaments were actually not useful for the 10 mysterious Originals. They wouldn't be able to control Tier-2 runic weapons because their information clearly stated that the strongest of them was at the 3rd Superior Mirae rank!

Some participants of the tournament could engrave the weirdest runic constellations, and they were certainly able to create Tier-1 runic armaments but that was of no concern for Nial.

He was able to do the same, with a 100% perfection grade at that.

In the last 13 months, his practice with all kinds of runic constellations had paid off. He didn't face any problems engraving various Intermediate runic constellations with a 100% perfection grade. Not many were able to do that, including Meryl.

Nial knew that he had become a better Runicier than Meryl in the last few months, even if her forging and concoction foundation was much deeper. She might be able to create Tier-2 runic armaments in a bunch of years but Nial could tell that she was rather relaxed with her lessons.

Meryl may look like she was determined to become the best Runicier of the Elven races, however, it was also a fact that Nial surpassed her rather easily. His talent was not even higher than hers but she had lost her enthusiasm even before she encountered Nial.

Her fire had died down when the Elves had begun to call her the most prodigious Elven Runicier of the new generation. Finding competition in her peers to become stronger had been one of the easiest ways to ignite her competitive spirit and to flare it up.

Only when she encountered Nial and his 'talent' that was mostly composed of determination and a combination of his range of perception, and [Mana sense], did Meryl's ambition to compete with someone awoken again.

Nial could tell that there were a few Runiciers similar to Meryl. They wouldn't pass the first round because they were occupied with staring at others. The pressure they suddenly felt prevented them from doing their best, which was why their final results were not as good as they would usually be.

Other than these Runiciers, there were also a bunch of people, who had no reason to participate in the U21 Runicier tournament, to begin with.

Their talent was probably not even as good as that of Mathias.

"If Mathias had begun engraving runic constellations from a young age, he would be much better than these no names…" Nial mumbled before he turned away his attention.

The alloy he had created had just been completed, which was why he could start the shaping process. He had lots of work to do, especially since there were numerous ideas of customized runic armaments that swirled through his mind.

'The 10 mysterious Originals may have to do with the second round, or maybe not. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. There are 6 close-range Originals, 1 Original with supportive and healing abilities, and three Originals with long-range abilities. One of the three Originals is more suited for the use of a Wand because of his elemental affinity, while the others should use bows…'

Nial could customize the equipment of all Originals, but he had come up with a decent variation by using different metals to create the casted Tier-0 armaments. The three Originals that focused on long-range and the Original with supporting abilities received flexible metal chest plates and more comfortable boosts that were not that heavy.

Their weapons would be exchanged with Tier-1 runic weapons, which he would customize for them in the next 32 hours.

There was too much for Nial to do but he tried to make use of the information every participant received as well as possible.

There had to be a deeper meaning and Nial wanted to make use of this.

Nial didn't sleep or rest even for a minute in the following 30 hours. He worked relentlessly, and created various runic solutions with his utmost efforts, which worked out pretty decently.

Unfortunately, his blacksmithing skills lacked the most finesse, which was why he took longer to create certain weapons and goods than he wished for. However, that was still fine because he could tell that his engraving speed was much higher than the vast majority of participants.

In the last 40 or so hours, Nial had gotten to know that the consistency of many Runiciers was much worse than expected. Their stamina was quite bad and it was not possible for them to handle the situation and stress well.

They may have a higher mana core rank than Nial but their focus waned much faster than his. While Nial had only required a single break of 10 minutes to grab a snack and to rest his mind that was under constant strain, either way, the others seemed to be on the verge of collapsing.

It didn't look like they had created more than a dozen runic armaments in a row to train themselves and improve their stamina.

"This may be much funnier than I expected," Nial chuckled when he finished the last runic armaments less than five minutes before the countdown was over.