Five minutes after Villin had appeared everyone came down to the first floor making the place look very crowded.

The pieces of Blue Mythril armor had also been returned to Kayley in the previous couple of minutes.

Standing atop some stairs, Villin took his time looking at all the guests, meanwhile, nobody made a sound. Once he had looked all of the guests in the eyes he smiled.

Nearly fifty percent of the people in guilds focusing on runology had made their way here. The two newspapers had also sent someone to attend the event.

“I will keep this short. Firstly, I wish to confirm that everyone who has come will be receiving twenty crystals as a thank you for attending the event.

Now that being said, I believe it is time to properly explain why I have asked you all to come here, you all have come here to compete.

As you all may have heard recently I took part in a competition, this competition had both a section regarding runology as well as a combat section. Coming back from the tournament I realized something, competing in the tournament helped me take a huge leap in my skills. I managed to converse with other people that were interested in runes and managed to learn a lot in my time there.” he said, maintaining a steady face while mixies lies with truth. In reality what he was describing wasn’t what he went through but instead what he hoped would happen here. If he told them that most of what he learned during the competition were all sorts of gossip about his fellow runemasters it wouldn’t help much. After lying for this bit he changed it back to the truth though.

“Now, one of the people I learned most from was actually a student of this school! Seeing how much we learned from each other I figured that she probably wasn’t the only person here who had her own ideas, I believe everyone here has their own specialities. I have decided to be the sponsor of the first bi-monthly runic exchange. The winner of this competition will receive five-hundred magic crystals and a shin-guard made from Blue Mythril.” he paused for a moment letting everyone take in the words he had spoken.

“Now, here is how this shall work. Each guild that is currently here will be given a numerical value depending on the number of people they have with them. This value will range between one and three. Those with less than five members will have a value of one, this includes Athena’s Forge. The guilds that have between five and ten members will have a value of two, and those that have more than ten people will have a value of three.

“Every guild will first send forward a representative, each representative will put on a piece of paper which kind of enchantments they would like the test to be around, there are ten categories including defense, offense, storage, and some more. Whichever category has the most points will be what the competition will focus on. We will be supplying the object that will be enchanted, first, every guild will send one person to pick an object, then everyone will pick a second, and so on.

“Lastly, the enchanting will begin. After two hours everyone will have to quit enchanting, at this point, the final scoring will commence. This will once more be related to the value of each guild. If a guild with a value of three gives a certain contestant a score of ten out of ten, this score will be counted three separate times. The winner will be decided by looking at the median of scores. If two people have the same median the average will be taken into account.”

Hearing everything Villin had to say, a lot of the guests immediately got lost in thought. No matter what, going with the median instead of the average was the right decision. This will avoid any guilds with a value of three to tamper with the score by giving their own people a ten and all others a zero. Other than the fact that the objects were provided by ‘Athena’s Forge’ there didn’t seem to be anything that gave them an edge either. They only had a value of one and there were ten possible categories spanning across all subjects.

After hearing what was going on only a few people ended up leaving the tower, most were actually getting quite excited hearing they would be able to show off their skill while learning things from others as well.

“Now, I would like the representatives of all guilds to come to the second floor, everyone else will be asked to either stay here or leave.”

Soon, all the representatives of the guilds here had arrived. This included guilds such as ‘A Magus’ Aid’ and ‘Today’s Oddities’. They were both invited and would also have a single point of value. 

It took about ten minutes before the leaders and representatives of the attending guilds came back down. The voting truly had gone off without a hitch. Everyone simply submitted what subject they wanted the competition to be on and accepted the results. In the end the competition would focus on enchantments around defense.

This wasn’t too much of a surprise since, other than utility, it was the most popular type of enchantment. And everyone here wanted to continue working with Blue Mythril for a bit longer.

Before anything else, a few rules were properly explained. It was mostly just some stuff concerning the safety of both the competitors and the items used.

As per the rules, each guild send one person forth to pick up a piece of armor they would be enchanting, then another, and so on.

In the end, only about thirty of the guests ended up deciding to compete. It was a fact that the smaller the equipment the harder enchanting would be and so at some point, everyone stopped sending people forward. All of their best members had already gotten their equipment and those that didn’t step forward thus far were all relatively new to enchanting.

The rest of the day went exactly as expected. For two hours everyone that competed worked hard on their enchantments, Villin and Rein being in the middle of the first floor, this way they were in full vision of the crowd.

After two hours passed the enchanting was done and the pieces of enchanted objects were all placed on the first floor. Villin was the first representative to make a remark, he approached one of the pieces of equipment complimenting the complexity of the enchantment. Soon after, the others also came up and submitted their scores.

In total it took over an hour for the grading to be finished. The results also weren’t all that surprising. Villin was happy to see that everyone was extremely honest, only minor bias could be seen overall.

When it was time to grade Villin’s piece of equipment, the representatives couldn’t do anything but give him a ten. He had picked one of the smallest pieces of equipment available and yet he managed to enhance it in all sorts of ways, stunning the people around him.

In total there were three people with a median of ten, Villin and Rein were two of these. But when looking at the average score, Villin scored much higher than the other two, allowing him to win.

Even though winning at your own tournament would normally be frowned upon, when looking at the piece Villin enchanted nobody raised any complaints. The next hour everyone talked as they were all allowed to inspect all of the pieces of equipment that had entered the competition, this could also allow them to determine if there was any foul play.

After this hour was over, it was about time for the event to end, and so, Villin spoke to the runologists once more.

“I wish to thank everyone for attending this event. Looking at the circumstances, I’ve decided to give today’s prize to the third-place winner, John Sterlock. I congratulate you on your amazing performance today. Your enchantments geared toward physical resistance was extremely impressive, I am sure you will become a great runemaster one day.” Villin didn’t elaborate on the meaning of ‘runemaster’, most guests simply assumed he meant a great enchanter.

“Now, since John is part of the ‘Runic Army’ guild, they will be asked to host the next event in two months. If they wish to forego this privilege it will be given to the guild of the fourth-place candidate. 

“Now, before we round this event up, I wish to make one selfish announcement. Athena’s Forge, is currently looking to annex some of the guilds focused on enchantments. Any guild leaders who wish to consider being annexed by Athena’s Forge may come to look for me at any point in time. Lastly, I wish all of you a good afternoon.” with a smile Villin finished his final words before beginning to say goodbye to the guests. In reality, he wanted to say they were recruiting members, but in the end, he decided to say they would be absorbing guilds. To guild leaders, this would seem less offensive than directly asking their members to join. After all, it was a guild leader’s decision to join them, there was nobody pressuring them.

After saying goodbye to the final guest, all of the members of Athena’s Forge felt tired. Still, it could be called a huge success. The competition was received much better than Villin had hoped for with only a few people leaving when they heard the reason for the gathering. He also got friendlier with some of the guild leaders around.

Even though Villin didn’t expect to actually annex any guilds, he was sure a number of individuals would wish to join, that had been one of the main reasons behind the event. As for the other main reason, it was currently spread across the room. The enchanted pieces of armor. Each of them held their own enchantments, many of them unknown to both Villin and Rein. Just by studying these pieces they would be able to learn a lot, and afterward, they could erase the enchantments to create their own ones.

A/N:

Hey guys! I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Now we're slowly but surely getting to the final event of the second arc. I am extremely excited setting up this finale and I very much hope it will be satisfactory.