"The bet is in!" Eli exclaimed, his voice echoing alongside a cling of the door chime. He pushed the door open with more force than the hinges of Vivi's poor door would have liked. "Five hundred ether in the raindrops' rise to top split!"

"Not quite a thousand, eh?" Owyn asked. He, too, was present in Vivi's smithy for some reason. The three seemed to treat the Lost Raindrop as some sort of tavern.

"I did some research," Eli said, "and found out that the last time a smith rose from low split to top split was thirty-four years ago, and his final score in top split was dead last. If Vivi makes it to top split, the counting master promised me fifteen thousand ether."

Fifteen thousand ether? Eli will win so much from my score alone?

The three customers continued chatting. Vivi stretched, wondering how she'd get them out of here.

"The store is closing," Vivi said. "I need to prepare for the competition. And Owyn, here are your daggers." She handed two asmite daggers over.

"You finished them?" Owyn asked. "Already."

"I thought I'd wake up early and get warmed up," Vivi said. "How do you like them?"

Owyn regarded the daggers as if they were newborn babies. He ran ether through each one of them with a look of utter awe. The black asmite glimmered. A slight flow of ether could be seen inside, similarly to Abyss Destroyer's translucent surface. "Wow," he said. "Just wow."

"What was it we agreed on, five thousand ether?"

Owyn lifted his head. "Yes, I've got five thousand in an orb."

An orb? Vivi thought, recalling the useless dun spheres Zand used to sell. But when Owyn picked up a black shining orb, Vivi realized Owyn was speaking of actual transferable ether orbs.

Vivi took the ether from the orb. Five thousand was added to her reserves, bumping her up to 25678. She was surprised that so much ether could even fit into a tiny little orb.

"Thank you," Vivi said. "Now, the store is closing. Please leave. I think I might be late."

"You better not be," Eli said with a laugh. "I should have bet more."

Everyone left, and the smithy became silent again.

"So…" Vivi said. "How are we going to get all of our equipment to the square? Do you have room in spatial storage?"

"It's filling up," Lucius said. "You've tossed a lot of junk in there. If we empty out some stuff, I think we have just enough space to fit most of what we need."

"Let's empty it all out and see what we don't need, then," Vivi said.

Lucius did exactly that. The most important items in spatial storage were Vivi's swords, of course. Abyss Destroyer, and her two-runed backup sword that she used whenever venerium poisoning got too bad. Additionally, Vivi had a lot of junk she didn't even remember placing into storage. The first steel sword she crafted in Zand was still there. There were a few of Zand's exchange orbs, a haphazard length of rope Lucius had apparently placed into storage, an old stale fish that had suffered venerium poisoning, and for some reason, a human-sized statue of a duck.

"Lucius… Why do you have that in spatial storage?" Vivi asked. "The duck."

"My old wielder stole it from a merchant a few years ago," he said.

"And you've just kept it there?"

"Well, I've never had a chance to get rid of it," Lucius said. He grinned at the duck's exaggeratedly large eyes. "I think it looks funny."

"Sure, whatever," Vivi said. "The duck frees a lot of space. We'll need to bring an anvil, a vise, a crucible, our crochet hooks and carving knives, hammers, a whole forge, emberstones… Pretty much everything. And let's not forget the ether roots and metals. We need a lot of ether roots."

Lucius sighed, but got to work, fitting almost everything in Vivi's smithy into spatial storage. He devoured the anvil and tools, and even managed to eat the crucible in one bite. He moved slower by the end of it.

For the forge, Vivi had purchased a portable forge. The old one was partly embedded into the house, and it was way too large to carry around. The new forge had handles for carrying, though the clerk that sold it said that it was designed for two people to carry.

"The forge would just about fit," Lucius said. "But we'd need to leave our swords. We can't do that. I want to keep our two-runed swords safe. They're too expensive."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"They really aren't anything special," Vivi said. "Abyss Destroyer is the only sword that can't be easily replaced."

"That one is worth fifty million at the very least," Lucius said. "We'll never leave Abyss Destroyer out of our sights. But I also want to keep the other swords safe in storage."

"Fine," Vivi said. "I can carry the forge to the site as long as you help out with ether."

She snuck into her smithing outfit that included simple trousers, a shirt, and an apron. Unnecessary items, such as her dress, were left in the smithy.

With that, she was ready. Vivi locked the doors and began waddling up the city streets, her back arched from the weight of the forge. She could only use a hundred ether to help carry it. Any more was forbidden. If she had her full aura, Vivi could have carried it with one arm.

After a gruesome walk, requiring more than thirty minutes, Vivi finally made it to the market square. She placed down her forge and took a moment to rest.

The market square was nothing like it had been yesterday. The whole area was filled with plots and canopied workstations. Most contestants already had their stations set up: sword vises, seats, canopies, L-shaped tables. Everywhere Vivi looked, she saw old dwarves, and a few middle-aged men preparing for the competition.

Seats and stands overlooked the competition by the sides of the square. The audience was small for the lowest level of the square. It looked like only family members were rooting for low-split's contestants. The larger stands were concentrated at the square's highest level, where a surprising amount of people were already cheering for the contestants of the top split.

So where's my spot? Vivi thought. Looking around, the lowest level of the market square was messy. With fifty contestants, the square was almost totally filled. Vivi struggled to see where she could fit even if she could choose a spot freely.

"A contestant?" a guardsman asked, seeing Vivi's outfit. "The reception is over there."

"Thanks," Vivi said. She walked over to the location in question—a station near the side with a sunshade. A group of workers in uniforms bustled about, checking papers, organizing everyone to the right places. Vivi walked up to someone that looked free.

The middle-aged woman checked some papers to confirm her identity. She scanned Vivi's core—surprised by the twenty thousand ether and two skills—before leading her through a narrow walkway amongst the mess of workstations, onto Vivi's designated spot amongst the fray.

The spot was smaller than Einord's cell-like smithy. Vivi was surrounded by runesmiths on all sides. She had enough space to lay down and spread her arms, and not much more. The spot was very much a spot—an empty space with nothing included, where she was somehow supposed to miraculously craft a sword.

"We apologize for the lack of space," her guide lady said. "We had an unexpected amount of arrivals today, and you signed up at such a late time."

"Don't I have a canopy?" she asked. "Any sun shade?"

"No, Miss," the guide said. "Canopies and equipment are brought in by contestants. The organizers will arrange bathroom breaks and lunches, as well as any necessary water, but everything else is up to you."

"Oh…" Vivi said. She glanced up and squinted at the bright facets. This will be a hot week…

"You did bring your equipment, right?" the guide asked.

"Yes, of course," Vivi said. She placed down her forge, then reached into spatial storage. She summoned her anvil. The guide woman flinched, seeing it spawn out of thin air.

"When are we starting?" Vivi asked.

The guide smiled awkwardly. "The preparation phase will continue for thirty minutes. Good luck."

"Thanks," Vivi said. She sat on her anvil underneath the facets, wondering how she'd survive without passing out.

"Ugh," Lucius said. He floated above her, examining the area. "Those top split assholes have so much space. They've practically brought entire facilities to the square. We're left with this? The audience can't even see us!"

Not like anyone will be watching us, Vivi thought. Maybe Eli…

"Oh my, this can't be real," a familiar voice said from behind Vivi.

She turned her head to see Frewell in his bandana arriving at a workstation next to hers. Frewell was prepared for a whole party; underneath his canopy, he had an ice box filled with what looked to be beer bottles. He had a sword-vise for outside-carving, and his table was filled with tools as well as a bottle of conductive paste.

"Nice to meet you…" Vivi said with little enthusiasm. Out of everyone, why was this man next to her?

Frewell looked strangely amused. "You brought a damn anvil? This is a runesmithing competition, you know."

"I couldn't quite pick a good base sword," Vivi said. "I'll have to make my own."

A laugh came from a nearby workstation. Another one of Vivi's neighbors turned to her. He was a short dwarf with a wide grin. "Interesting. Who's this girl?"

"She's a nutcase," Frewell said. "Apparently, she's a runesmith from the Lowmoor district."

"Lowmoor?" the dwarf asked. Then he burst out laughing. "A slum smith?"

"Slum smith?" Frewell laughed. "That's a good one."

Vivi rolled her eyes, resting her chin on her hand.

"Sorry, sorry," the dwarf said. "Good luck to you, Lowmoor's smith. I'm interested to see what you come up with."

"Let's hope she doesn't send sparks to our faces," Frewell said.

Vivi didn't listen for the rest of the conversation. She focused instead on the vision in her head. What kind of sword did she want to craft? She still wasn't entirely certain. A three-runed sword, obviously—anything less would be an embarrassment, but the specific shape and runes were still uncertain.

Around her, base swords were being distributed to their respective owners. It seemed each smith only got a single base sword. If they failed, they were out.

Swords were delivered to the dwarf and Frewell. The distributor glanced at Vivi, checking his papers, then asked, "No base sword? Really?"

Vivi nodded. "I'm fine."

"You actually don't have a base sword," the dwarf asked. "For real?"

"I am going to make my own, as I've said how many times now?" Vivi said.

Everyone around Vivi, even those a few workstations in the distance, were looking at the weirdness of her workstation. Something about bringing an anvil to a runesmithing competition was apparently really funny.

With the base swords delivered, the preparation phase ended, though the wait didn't end there. Before they were allowed to touch their tools, the opening ceremony had to take place. The ceremony was mostly directed for members of top split—each of the ten contestants there was introduced, receiving cheers from the audience. The announcer's voice echoed to the lower splits through an ether-powered voice amplifier. Low and middle split contestants simply waited.

After a painful eternity, the announcer called, "Shivenar's runesmithing competition may begin!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.