"So…" With both him and Theraldine being left alone to their own devices, Valyr went ahead and struck up a conversation with the young woman near him. "I'm guessing you asked for this forging duel to happen since you wanted to find an excuse to see if the knowledge I've just given you was correct, right?"
"Wha—" Not expecting to have her intentions be found out so easily, Theraldine looked at the young man in front of her at a slight loss for words, only for her expression to become somewhat furious not long after. "I-It's not like that at all!"
"Is that so?" Faintly grinning at the young woman's reaction, Valyr decided to tease her a bit more. "Well, considering that I now have a rough idea of how you act around others, I'm fairly certain that if I hadn't shared the knowledge I have regarding the method to forge artifact replicas, we'd still be engaging in a forging duel at some point. However, the approach would be more on the aggressive side, wanting to prove to the Guildmaster that you're the one more worthy of the spot for the inheritance."
"That's…" Listening to Valyr speak, Theraldine was about to refute the man's words, only to think that she did not really have anything to say to refute him. After all, the words he had spoken resonated deeply with her, prompting her to think that it was the move she would have made, if not for the knowledge Valyr had graciously shared to her.
"Then again, my conjectures could be wrong." Seeing the slight glum expression that appeared on Theraldine's face after he had said his piece, Valyr briefly thought to himself that he might have guessed the woman's original intentions a bit too correctly, which prompted him to try and salvage the situation as he swiftly shifted the topic. "If anything, I kind of find this nice, actually. In a way, it feels like you want to show me what you can do with the knowledge I've given you… or something along those lines."
"I definitely have no clue what you're talking about." Seeing that the young man wanted to shift their conversation to another topic, Theraldine did not hesitate to do so, turning her head to the side as she feigned ignorance towards Valyr's words.
"Alright then." Valyr chuckled in response. "Keep your secrets."
"So… do you already have an idea of what kind of artifact you're going to try and make an Emulation of?" After a bit of silence had surrounded the two of them, Theraldine took the initiative to start a conversation with the young man, hoping to improve the man's impression of her through it.
"I guess so." Looking at the young woman, Valyr stared off into the distance for a bit before eventually nodding. "I don't know if I'd be able to pull off an Emulation of the artifact, though. Nevertheless, I'll still try my best."
"How about you?"
"I'm pretty set on what I'm going to forge," said Theraldine in response, her expression exuding confidence. "With the knowledge you've shared to me earlier, there's a high chance that I might actually be successful."
"Oh, really?" Feeling a faint smile creep up onto his lips, Valyr looked at the young woman. "Then, I guess I'll be looking forward to the item you'll be forging later."
Deciding to allow the two of them to go over their respective plans on what they were going to forge for the forging duel, Valyr went ahead and distanced himself from the young woman for the meantime, heading towards Julian's personal workshop to possibly get a couple more ideas on what he was going to forge, as well as make sure that the young woman could not listen to his murmurs.
"I definitely didn't expect that I'd be participating in a forging duel all of a sudden," muttered Valyr to himself, only to grin not long after. "Then again, it's a great excuse to finally forge something that I should have forged a long time ago."
"In any case, she plans to forge the Infernal Hammer, huh." Sitting down on Julian's anvil for a brief moment, Valyr thought about the item that Theraldine was hoping to forge, finding her choice of artifact somewhat peculiar, but not that surprising. "Compared to other legendary forging artifacts out there, the Infernal Hammer is one of the greatest artifacts one could get their hands on if they plan on forging a lot of items and equipment of the Fire attribute."
"Since that's what she's definitely going to forge the forging duel, I guess I should go one step further and make a forging hammer that's better in many ways." Seeing the forging duel as the perfect excuse to forge his own forging hammer, with the materials that would have normally taken him a long time to procure now being available to obtain from the Blacksmith Guild directly, Valyr went ahead and rummaged through his treasure trove of memories from his past life, trying to recall as much of the legendary forging artifacts he had come across as possible.
"Though it would be hilarious if I forged a forging hammer that's better for Water-attribute equipment, I should think of the forging hammer as something I'll be using for a long time," Valyr said to himself. "I should also probably take into consideration the possibility of upgrading it into an Imitation or a Replica later down the line. Perhaps, even the possibility of turning it into an artifact of its own."
"With that in mind, I should probably focus on legendary forging artifacts that have no attribute, or those that are inclined towards multiple attributes at the same time." With the thought in mind, Valyr went through the list of legendary forging artifacts he had compiled from his memories and swiftly discarded a great portion of them, leaving behind only a few that met his new criteria.
"Well, then. I guess this is just the heavens telling me that it was fated to happen at some point." Eventually, after weighing the pros and cons of forging a replica of each artifact, the young man made his choice on what he would forge for the forging duel later, chuckling as he pondered over the materials necessary to create a replica of the artifact he had chosen.
"The Hammer of Primeval Origins…"
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