Kade felt the lid of the pill furnace slip out from under his grip as he struggled with all his might to stay awake.

At the last moment when he thought his ambitions would be shattered, the wave of cold rushed through his body from his head and filled him with renewed vigour.

He clamped down once more on the unruly furnace and pushed it firmly to the ground, unwilling to allow the pills inside to explode and ruin the assessment.

After thirty more seconds of banging and rustling the furnace finally fell silent and Kade slowly released his hold on the handles to make sure the refinement was truly complete.

Once the furnace had fallen still, he extinguished the flames beneath and bowed towards the elder in charge of judging his handiwork.

The final moment of truth came when the Junior Elder took hold of the pill furnace’s lid and prepared to reveal the results.

He’d expected a decent amount of smoke to appear, but thankfully only a wispy black cloud ascended to the ceiling when the furnace was opened, signifying that there was minimal waste products left over from his refining process.

Reaching into the furnace, the elder pulled out three small red pills and one charred black lump. Not a bad result.

Most objects in the world, natural or man-made, were divided into grades to represent their power. Mortal grade was the lowest, followed by King grade and then Sage grade.

Within these grades was a further split between low, mid and high quality, reflecting the minor differences between items of the same grade.

“One failure, two low quality pills and one mid quality pill. There was minimal wastage of the ingredients and your handling of the furnace was average. There is much room for improvement in your dao of alchemy, Disciple Trelawney, but you pass,” announced the Junior Elder.

Kade visibly relaxed, his shoulders dropping slightly and a deep sigh escaping his lungs. All he needed was to pass the assessment; the fact that his alchemy skills were subpar wasn’t important to him at this moment in time.

He left the hall feeling far lighter than he had on the way in, the only obstacles standing between him and advancement to the inner sect now were the crafting assessment and the tournament.

As the crafting examination was to be held that same day, he made his way straight back to the Ceremonial Grounds to await his turn.

He looked out for anyone he recognised on the way but to his disappointment he spotted neither friend nor foe.

Thankfully the process of the examinations was much more streamlined today than it had been the day before and he didn’t have long to wait before he was required to head to the sparring grounds where the crafting assessment was taking place.

For this round, disciples would have the option of either forging a weapon, refining an artifact or inscribing a talisman, depending on the field in which their talents lay.

However, Kade had little skill in any of these disciplines, so he simply chose the one which he felt the most affinity towards - forging.

The reason for his decision was fairly straightforward. Of the three available options, forging was the only one where a practitioner’s physical strength was an influencing factor in the quality of the finished product, at least at this level of the vocation.

He had been led to one of the emptier training areas, which was now occupied by a dozen or so forges, each with an elder assigned as an adjudicator for the disciples undertaking the assessment.

Similar to the alchemy assessment, they had been provided a wide range of ores and other forging materials and were required to discern which held defects and which were optimal for the creation of a high quality weapon or armour.

In the end, Kade decided to once again go with simplicity. Forging was actually one of those side vocations he had a moderate interest in pursuing as a supporting dao in the future and his brawny physique made him well suited to the job.

Selecting a sturdy looking branch that would be whittled and carved into a handle along with a dirty looking lump of silver stone, he returned to his forge and began to work.

The flames of the forge had already been lit for the disciples, all that was needed was for him to reach and maintain the correct temperature to melt his chosen ore.

After throwing the hefty stone into a crucible, he left it within the raging fire to melt down into molten slag. It would take a few minutes, so he took the opportunity to set up the mould for the weapon he was going to craft - a spear.

It was rather simple, just a long flat blade, the intricate and difficult part of the forging process was hammering and tempering the spearhead.

By this time, the lump of ore had completely melted in the searing heat and was ready to be processed and poured.

Before that, Kade used a metal ladle to scoop the impurities and waste that had floated to the top of the molten slag mixture, ensuring the metal was pure and the spearhead would not be brittle.

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After that, he added a few shavings of coal to the molten metal and returned it to the flames of the forge to mix thoroughly.

Another couple of minutes later the alloy was ready to be poured and he did so with extremely delicate movements that were atypical of his muscle bound stature.

When seeking to make an extremely high quality piece of weaponry, master blacksmiths would usually not use a mould, instead directly hammering the shape of their desired weapon from a molten lump of metal.

However, Kade was not in the process of creating his magnum opus and simply needed an average weapon to net him a passing grade.

While waiting for the spearhead to cool in the mould, he took the long and sturdy branch, harvested from a Century Oak that had absorbed spiritual energy for one hundred years and undergone qualitative changes to its density and resilience.

He first trimmed off any smaller excess branches, leaving just one singular strip of wood which would form the spear’s handle.

Next was the slow and painful process of whittling down the branch until it was a good size to grip firmly and of uniform thickness the entire length of the handle.

Due to his lack of experience with carving, it took Kade nearly an hour to complete this stage of the crafting process, which was followed by another twenty minutes of sanding the handle until it was smooth and round.

The final step was to lacquer the wood, ensuring that it would be flexible and not break during the wielder’s strikes as well as prevent any splintering.

His spearhead was completely cooled and so he removed it from the mould, seeing that it had almost set perfectly, just one or two minor flaws visible in the steel.

For a novice in the dao of blacksmithing, he could consider it a resounding success to only have so few imperfections in his early attempts at forging a weapon.

He measured the strip of metal that ran from the base of the spearhead, meant for securing it to the handle, before carving an indent into the top of the smooth wood and filling it with resin.

After inserting the spearhead, he then wrapped a leather binding atop another layer of resin to secure the weapon.

With his rudimentary weapon complete, he gave it a few test swings and thrusts and it was balanced brilliantly, gliding through the air as he executed the moves.

Confident in his result, Kade handed the spear to the Junior Elder responsible for adjudicating his assessment with a bow and awaited the verdict.

After rolling the handle between her fingers, bending it nearly ninety degrees to test the flexibility and slashing so fast through the air it cracked like a whip before slicing a nearby log perfectly in two, the Junior Elder nodded in appreciation before handing it off to a nearby disciple who seemed to be running around collecting all the weapons produced during the assessment.

“A finely crafted spear, it will be added to the sect’s armoury for future disciples to claim as reward for their contributions. You have a budding talent for the dao of blacksmithing, Disciple Trelawney, it will serve you well if you continue to hone your skills and iron out the flaws present,” she said.

He left the sparring grounds feeling elated at having passed both the practical assessment rounds of the inner sect examinations and having exceeded his initial expectations for the crafting assessment in particular.

When it came to the written examinations, the results would not be posted until tomorrow, so any failing disciples would be free to enjoy spectating the tournament round without worry.

Kade just had to hope he’d answered enough of the mind numbing paper to slip through with a passing grade.

On the walk from the sparring grounds to his home, he felt a strange drop of energy floating through his body, circling from his head, to his arms, his chest, his legs and then doing it in reverse.

The energy gave him a similar feeling to the waves of cold that followed a breakthrough in the 【Flowing River Art】, but more concentrated.

He rushed the rest of the way back to his house, with a growing suspicion that there would be an exciting surprise waiting for him once he arrived.

Hinges creaked in protest as Kade flung the wooden door to his humble abode wide open and rushed to the place he had hidden the manual of the 【Flowing River Art】 , taking it out and turning to the first page.

It remained unchanged and entirely as blank as the first day he’d discovered the mysterious manual, save for the single focusing phrase, ‘stillness without form, strength without limit’.

Hesitantly, Kade turned over to the second page, but his hopes were disappointed when he found them both still empty.

He prepared to return the manual to its hiding place when a thought struck him and he focused his mind inwards, attempting to grasp hold of the strange new energy making its way around his body.

Sweat glistened on his forehead just moments later, the full cognitive power of his conscious mind directed to catching or grasping the mysterious force, yet it consistently eluded him.

One moment he felt as if he’d understood its trajectory and intent, yet when he reached out to direct it the energy would slip through his focus or alter course.

It was almost like trying to hold onto a fish while one’s hands were doused in oil, even if you caught your prey it was nigh impossible to keep it within your grasp.

For a full six hours Kade sat in focused meditation, singularly intent on mastering the hidden mystery behind this newfound force.

Finally his tumultuous and constant efforts bore fruit and he was able to not take hold of the flow of the enigmatic drop of force, but simply guide it towards his hand for the briefest of moments, allowing it to make contact with the manual of 【Flowing River Art】.

As soon as the manual made contact with the drop of energy, ink rushed across the page like someone had spilt a bottle of the stuff and happened to accidentally create a masterpiece.

He turned to the fourth and fifth pages, which had also been filled entirely, but beyond that the manual remained blank.

Depicted on those four pages was a series of diagrams, instructing the reader how to perform a multi purpose staff technique that could be used for offence or defence against singular or multiple opponents - truly a masterwork of martial prowess.

At the top of the second page was written just one phrase, the name of the series of movements. Each of the techniques had its own individual name as well, written in small characters above the instructions.

The name of this technique which he’d suffered greatly for in a variety of intense training situations and relaxing strolls or focused meditation sessions was .