Second Patriarch: Rise Of The Liu Clan

After several hours Liu Zhu woke up, feeling much better than when he had gone to sleep. Upon looking around he saw that only half of the refiners who passed the written test were left. "...Did the test already finish? I hope I passed." Liu Zhu stood up and approached Yu Bai, who was still in attendance. "Looks like I was out for a while. Did we already go through another round of eliminations?" Yu Bai shook his head. "No, the last person is in that shack right now. Everyone who's gone was kicked out during the refining process." Liu Zhu was shocked by this elimination rate, but was more happy for himself than sad for the others- if they all failed then that meant he did better than at least half the people here. "That means you finished fine then?" Yu Bai shrugged his shoulders in response to the question. "Technically? To be honest, I barely finished. I'm probably going to be eliminated after this."

The two chatted for a bit, but after a few minutes they were interrupted by the sight of Refiner Long leaving the shack with the last refiner. All of the competing refiners stopped talking, waiting for the test's results. Once the last refiner took a place among the rest of the group Refiner Long spoke up. "That makes the last of you. I've already come up with my results so I'll just announce them here." As everyone stared on, some nervous, some confident, Refiner Long began announcing the results. "The cutoff is 60 points. 1st place, Cai Fang, 94 points." Upon hearing this everyone's collective gaze settled on a boy with rough, blackened skin and simple clothes. Cai Fang had scored 26th on the written test and appeared to be an ordinary blacksmith, so not many people had taken note of him before. Now they had little choice but to take note of him.

Ignoring everyone's surprise, Refiner Long continued speaking. "2nd, Kin Wei, 83 points. 3rd, Liu Zhu, 81 points. 4th, Hi Min, 79 points." The point totals rapidly dropped after this, and the cutoff of 60 points was reached by the 8th person. At this point even some of the juniors from the Five Families had been eliminated. The announcements ended with "14th place, Yu Bai, 48 points". Liu Zhu felt bad for him, but while he had scored last among the people still here, he had finished making his brick. That was better than what half the people participating could say.

"The eight who passed can rest until six at the latest. When you want to take the test get one of the servants and they'll lead you to me. I'll announce the results and who I decided to make disciples at seven." Refiner Long went to leave after saying this, but before he got far he suddenly paused. "Oh, I almost forgot. The eight of you passed, so you do deserve a reward. As a show of good will, you can all have your bricks back. They're all made from good materials, so they're worth keeping. Maybe you can use them as paperweights or to beat some sense into someone or something. I'll leave it up to all of you." After saying all this Refiner Long disappeared into the mansion, leaving the eight remaining refiners with the bricks that served as tickets into the final part of the competition.

Liu Zhu decided to forgo any further rest and to go take the last test immediately. Even if half the people present hadn't finished refining their bricks, the last test had just dragged on for a long time. He'd slept for long enough to regain most of his strength. As Liu Zhu left the group and walked towards the mansion, he was suddenly approached by Cai Fang. "Are you going to do the final test now?" Liu Zhu nodded. "I went directly after you so I'm well rested. I'll go with you then." The two headed into the mansion and a servant led them to Refiner Long.

"The two of you couldn't even give an old man time to rest, huh? Oh well, follow me." Refiner Long led the two out of the mansion and to a large wooden building on the edge of the mansion grounds. Upon entering Liu Zhu saw that it was separated into a main room and a side room. The main room had several long, metal tables with sets of tools scattered across them. A smaller side room contained piles of metal ingots, ores, spare tools, both finished and unfinished armor and weapons, and much, much more. All of these items was messily scattered about the room, completely unorganized.

"This is where you'll take the second test. Here I have two identical rings. You'll have five minutes to examine one, and then you'll have to engrave as much of the pattern on it as you can onto an unengraved ring." As he said this Refiner Long took two gold-colored rings out of his pocket, handing them to Cai Fang and Liu Zhu. Liu Zhu's first impression was, just like with the ore, that it was heavy. The ring wouldn't be as hard to deal with as Etrium ore, but it would probably take a lot of strength to carve anything onto a ring made out of this metal. Not having very long to dwell on things like this, Liu Zhu quickly began examining the ring. Upon doing so he was greeted with the sight of hundreds of thin lines and complex patterns scattered across the ring. He wouldn't have time to carve all of this even if the length of the test was increased several times over, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to memorize all of these patterns even if he was given enough time to carve them. Still, all he could do was his best- he focused on a section of the ring, trying to commit all of the small patterns and variations on it to his memory before it was taken away from him.

Five minutes after the two received the rings Refiner Long took them back and gestured towards a couple of stools in front of the metal tables. "I'll be back in an hour." He left immediately after saying this, leaving the two youths to their struggles. Liu Zhu sat down at one of the stools, where a golden ring with nothing carved into it and a set of burins and other tools sat in front of him. The first thing he did upon sitting down was to spend a minute checking if all the burins were properly sharpened. He figured they would be, but better safe than sorry- if they weren't sharpened then it would affect the engravings.

Besides the ability to keep all of these lines and patterns burned into one's memory, this test mainly focused on one's precision and their ability to control their strength. If someone wasn't precise enough then they'd end up engraving wiggly lines and lopsided patterns onto what they were working on, and if they couldn't properly control their strength then they'd get the wrong depth. Normally it wouldn't be difficult for Liu Zhu to engrave basic patterns onto something, but these lines and patterns were smaller than anything he'd worked on before and the metal was much harder than most things one would engrave. It'd be a struggle.

Liu Zhu slowly carved lines and stippled dots into the metal, pouring massive amounts of force into his tools as he did so. This test required him to spend an hour focusing on extremely small areas and despite Liu Zhu's best efforts he inevitably lost focus at some points. Fortunately he was able to pinch himself, get his head straight, and pull through it. After an hour had passed he'd finished around a fifth of the carvings. As he was about to tackle the next portion he heard a door open behind him followed by the announcement "Its been an hour. Time is up." He sighed, disappointed that he hadn't been able to do more, but didn't linger on it too much. This competition had been a good experience for him, and this final test had helped him temper his will and practice carefully using his strength. It had been worth competing.

As the two handed their rings to Refiner Long, Liu Zhu threw a curious glance at Cai Fang's ring. He was surprised to say the least. The carvings on Cai Fang's ring were neat and looked nearly identical to the original ring. On top of that, he'd finished almost double what Liu Zhu had been able to. Even if his refining knowledge was lacking, these last two tests showed that his skills clearly weren't. After staring for a second Liu Zhu tore his gaze away from the ring and went to leave. After all, there wasn't any purpose lingering around here for the rest of the day- the only thing to do here was try to chat with a small group of people who didn't want to talk to him.

As Liu Zhu prepared to leave, Cai Fang approached him once more. "Zuo Shi, I was about to grab a late lunch. Want to come with?" Liu Zhu didn't expect Cai Fang to be so outgoing given the circ.u.mstances, but quickly accepted the offer. Cai Fang was probably going to win the competition so he'd be worth making friends with. More importantly, Liu Zhu wanted to discuss refining with him- knowledge was better gained in the company of others than from books.