Chapter 576: Crafting Competition

His next match was tomorrow, and it was against none other than Eren. Julius had always been curious about Eren and his skills. He had already seen several of his fights, but that was as a spectator, rather than as an opponent.

The other thing he was worried about was whether or not Eren had some kind of trump card still tucked away. Julius had one, but he also didn’t really want to show it in front of the whole capital. The only person left in the tournament who might know about his healing skill was Isaac.

And the big brute couldn’t be sure if Julius had used some kind of healing item or potion instead.

He was fine with revealing his teleportation skill. That wasn’t an issue, since the real secret was its ability to bypass anti-spatial enchantments and techniques. He didn’t think many people knew about that aspect.

He was currently sitting with his friends watching the crafting competition. They all wore some kind of disguise. Lily and Derek even had some nice illusion-type items that shrouded their faces. They wouldn’t hold up against any deep inspection, but for this purpose, they were more than sufficient. Aubrey didn’t have a need for an item; she was able to repurpose her clone skill to create an illusory layer over her face.

Edgar and Julius didn’t have any items or skills, so they were left on their own. Edgar didn’t really bother to hide much. He wore a straw hat and a rough knitted tunic, making him look like some kind of farmer. A very large farmer, but the look suited him.

Julius was much lazier and went with a black cloak that hid most of his features. He had tried to take off his crown and put it into his soul for safekeeping, but for some reason, the crown had thrown quite a fit when he did that.

Large pulses of ruinous flames exploded from inside his soul. It was very uncomfortable, and despite his best attempts at scolding the crown, it was a stubborn little thing. Julius ended up surrendering to its whims and allowed it to stay on his head.

However, this meant he had to hide it under his hood. Thankfully, he didn’t stand out too much. A lot of people had cloaks and hoods. He wasn’t too conspicuous.

They all found some nice seats to watch the crafting competition. The competition was quite exciting. The entire process was on display for anyone to see. Julius was quite impressed at the level of expertise.

This particular crafting competition was only for people Tier 4 and under, but the skill the crafters showed was evident. Their mana control was better than what Julius had seen from elite fighters. Which honestly made sense considering their entire livelihoods depended on it.

He was curious about what kind of skills these crafters had, though. How much did their skills diverge from those of people like him who focused on combat? Did they have similar skills to him and just utilize them differently? Or did they have skills that specialized in pure crafting?

He reminded himself to ask Cassian the next time he talked to the weird man. According to Freya and Reinera, the man was quite the crafter.

One person who stood out to Julius was a crafter who used wood magic. It was a young woman with dark brown hair and extremely vibrant green eyes. They were glowing with such intensity as she worked on the wooden box in front of her.

At first glance, the box was just a regular wooden box. It was around the size of his head, but looking closer, you could see that it was decorated with such immaculate care. Intricate swirls carved into the wood, along with metal inlaid in the grooves.

He had seen her mold each metal piece by hand and use some kind of skill to infuse the metal with mana. He wished he could have seen the box up close. The video displayed above the arena was nice, but it didn’t capture all of her work.

If that were all, Julius would already be impressed. However, this wasn’t just a normal box. He could sense something special about it. He felt slight waves of spatial energy rippling from its surface a few minutes ago. She must have done something to hide this radiating energy.

There was a time limit as well. The competitors had an hour to create something from scratch. It also had to fit within the parameters that the judges explained to the competitors. Creating a masterpiece in less than an hour sounded difficult, even to Julius.

“I wonder what she is making,” he muttered to Lily, who was also focused on the competition.

“Oh? You think she is gonna win?” She asked him.

He shrugged. “Maybe. Why? You don’t think she is going to win?”

“Hmmm. I think he has a better shot at winning,” Lily said, pointing at an older man a few stations down from the wood crafter.

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Julius glanced at the older man and saw that he was making a tall, skinny pole. He had no idea what it was supposed to be.

“What is he making?” He asked her.

“I think he’s making something that deters monsters or people from approaching a place. It looks like the Guardian Pillar I have seen our family guards use when we are out in the wild.”

“Like a protective barrier?”

“Sort of. These seem to have some sort of enchantment that utilizes several branches of magic. A general confusion spell, as well as something that interferes with people recognizing that something is there. It’s hard to tell from here. But it seems like he knows what he is doing,” she explained.