Shixuan and Qianyu looked at each other and smiled as one said, "Do you think big brother will be mad that we did that before we discussed it with him?"
"Why would he? As much as I know him, he would have made it just like us and even better!"
Both of them kept discussing and talking, when someone knocked at the door. Shixuan looked for a second before he said loudly "Steward, step in."
Qianyu looked at the scroll in the stewards' hands when he just came in and asked "Did the books arrive? Read out loud everything we received."
And so, the steward did "We have in total three hundred and twenty books, like it was requested. First, there are a hundred and thirty books about weapon smithing, a hundred and ten about tool making and fifty about Jewellery, all of them in the body strengthening stage.
Then we have ten about weapon smithing, nine of tool making and eight of jewellery in the Essence Awakening stage, all of these are deeper introductory and include middle stage cultivation methods of the same cultivation stage.
Lastly, we have three unique middle grade cultivation and awakening methods, each for one of the three main smithing pathways.
Additionally, there were also some black iron chests, which I guessed to have several medium grade Essence Stones, herbs that help one in the body strengthening stage and some other things that have the same use and are of the same grade.
I have sent all the things into the private storage room at the third floor, esteemed eunuchs, should I change anything? Please tell me how I can serve."
The steward read out the list and explained, but neither Shixuan nor Qianyu really cared for any of the prizes. They had consumed more than enough resources and were already at the peak stage of the body strengthening stage. Also, they weren't smiths, and then, they would easily get access and wouldn't need to greed over stuff the Eunuch Palace threw away. Their awakening method was also the best, a peak stage method that worked fluidly and remarkable and counted as one of the strongest, if not the strongest method.
They dismissed the steward after telling him to make preparations, as the town will be swarmed the next few days. Having finished all their now preparations, they also lost interest in just waiting till the others finished their work, so they went into seclusions to stabilize their cultivation.
…
Three days later, a day before their brother would step out of seclusion and two days before the competition would officially start, both left their room and met again in the garden. They weren't particularly excited as they had already planned everything out and were just going to check out whether everything was done properly.
They only had their meals in the garden and talked for a short time, mostly about how they had to make sure that the competition will be perfect, so that when their brother checked tomorrow, he would be proud of them. At this point they really saw him as their older brother and he was a sibling and their strongest relation, and so did Ji Li too.
Not even his mentor, Hua Jing, who is currently missing, is as important as monkey and stone. Nonetheless, the other people were still a large part of his life, so Ji Li was worrying about his mentor which didn't respond at all after leaving for a longer mission.
Once Shixuan and Qianyu finished their breakfast, they went out into the front yard where they were met with the steward that was welcoming guests. It seemed that the visitors were only paying respects as they left shortly before the steward noticed his two masters.
The steward went a few steps into the back where he cupped his hands and greeted "Your servant is here, how may I help you, esteemed eunuchs?"
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"Give us a report for what happened these days" Qianyu answered.
"Yes, esteemed eunuch Qianyu. Like you have predicted, just the afternoon three days prior was already full of visitors from all the nearby villages that usually interacted with the town. They asked around about the competition, and once they got to know about the situation, they left for the competition camp, where some tents were already put up.
From then on, there would be some more guards at the entrance and all the visitors of the competition were told to first go to the competition camp, sign up as visitors or as challengers and then they were allowed to enter the town.
The town chief also assigned a lot of the lower smiths to the guarding team and let them patrol the streets more frequently. Nowadays, there is not one street that doesn't at least have a team of five, while others have up to three. Since the visitor friendly central district was only one fourth of the towns total size, it wasn't too difficult to manage.
The few inns in town were reserved for esteemed guests, such as smiths of high body strengthening stage and above. The largest and most luxurious inn was used for the Essence Awakeners, officials and other important people. The competition attracted quite a few high ranked people who wanted to see what the Eunuch Palace was planning and just like right now, they would send someone here to greet us and inquire about it. I have told all the servants to direct them to me and told them that the Eunuch Palace is just holding a short competition to liven up the spirits." The steward continued to explain that there were over fifty thousand signed up competitors, a large part consisting of the local smiths. If the restriction wasn't in place, then there would at least be over two hundred thousand competitors, as the total count of visitors alone was already in that range.
The town managed to hold all of them because they were already prepared to become a small city and had full stocks of many things which they would have used to expand later on. They used these stocks of prepared wood, leather, stone and other things to build the competition area and tents. Luckily it was a blacksmith dwarf town, as they were experts and had built already everything on the second day.
Ji Qianyu and Ji Shixuan were very satisfied with how Rong Xi handled everything and they were sure that the earnings largely outweighed the investment, as they only had to have slightly raised prices and no one would complain. Since the competitions preparations only took four days and the tournament itself would only take two days, there wouldn't be any issue of not having enough resources to hold the visitors. Even if all decided to stay a few days longer, it wouldn't be too much of an issue. Worst case they could just close their gates and send out everyone temporarily.
Both Junior Eunuchs nodded and slowly went to the entrance, their own four guards and the steward already behind. They didn't take the carriage as that was too high profile and wouldn't let them observe the streets properly, so they just went by feet, as trained cultivators it wouldn't hurt to walk for hours and hours, so a journey around the town's central district was very quick.
They saw many people and also some esteemed people just like them with their guards and servants, it seemed that there were also many young masters that came to try their luck while also wanting to wander outside their sheltered home for once.
None of these bothered the eunuchs, not only were they in their official gown, but they were also followed by guards and an essence awakening stage cultivator. If they misspoke, there were surely consequences such as being sent out of town, as the whole competition was arranged by the town under the leadership of the Eunuch Palace. The most important reason was that they saw that the eunuchs were only Junior Eunuchs and not Intermediate, like their sources had told them, meaning that those lower eunuchs were checking something or under the mission of their senior.
Qianyu and Shixuan weren't bothered at all by the stares they got, they just behaved like they always did outside, being cold and indifferent to everything. They lived in the capital, and although they never left, he inner palace, there were more than enough people in there already. It wasn't difficult for streets to be fully clogged while all people were rushing about, so naturally the many people on the streets seemed to just barely count as 'few' in their eyes.
After a short tour, seeing that everything was normal and no problems came up, they left for the entrance of the city towards the east. The guards at the gate didn't stop them at all, apparently having been warned already. They went through an already walked path to the left of the gate which went around into the direction of the outer workshops.
Halfway through they saw lots and lots of tents that build a forest, looking like a military camp that was stationed right before the town planning to swarm in. The tents were full as the town itself wasn't too interesting and many smiths were also preparing themselves, so there were clear clinging sounds to the ears. Shixuan and Qianyu slowly made their way towards the wooden entrance that had fences to the sides, apparently distinguishing the border between the competition ground.