The night passed quickly. Yi Qiang had never been bothered by the boredom and dullness of training, likely because he was so regularly exposed to it. That meant he could improve his strength with double the efficiency.

When Yi Qiang felt the rays of light coming through the window of the room he had rented to be strong enough, he stood up, gingerly hoisting Shenyu into his arms. He didn't wake the dragon up. Not only did the marksman feel every bit of Shenyu's dissatisfaction when he did so, an annoying sensation, to say the least, but he also figured the baby dragon needed as much time sleeping as he could get. Thus, Yi Qiang, anxious to have the young Empyrean Dragon grow as quickly as possible, avoided interrupting his sleep as much as possible.

Thankfully, Shenyu also took after human babies in that he was a deep sleeper, making it all the easier for Yi Qiang to avoid waking him up by stepping silently and smoothly to prevent jarring him into consciousness.

Yi Qiang's memory was quite good, honed by an active consciousness and the practice of memorizing various things in short order. This was because snipers weren't all just aim; they had to carefully consider environmental factors, the quirks or irregularities of their target, and everything with which both sides had to work. Often was the time when Yi Qiang reached his peak as a sniper, he was only given a short briefing before the higher-ups pushed him into the field. Anyway, this all meant he could recall the way to Ororil's shop pretty well; in less than half an hour, Yi Qiang found himself at where the elven blacksmith both lived and worked.

Yi Qiang couldn't deny it; he was interested to see what had gotten Ororil so excited yesterday. The blacksmith, like Elgael, was a naturally energetic person, but the marksman had never seen him as enthusiastic before. Granted, he had only known Ororil a short time, but the point remained valid.

Looking at the sun, it should have been around four hours before noon, so Yi Qiang wasn't terribly worried about waking Ororil up.

As such, he opened the door of the shop. Last time, he had knocked, since he didn't know whether it was polite or not, and thus decided to go with the safe decision - amazingly, the matter had never come up. This time, however, the marksman was pretty confident that it functioned as a legitimate shop in that people didn't need to knock to come in. It would be pretty absurd otherwise, Yi Qiang reasoned.

When he fully entered, the whole floor was eerily silent. Yi Qiang stood there for a second, his ears straining to pick up any traces of sound coming from the forge, or just any signs of activity. However, this was to no avail - he heard only dead silence as if the building was uninhabited.

It was only when the door shut that Yi Qiang's muscles tensed up in surprise, his eyes momentarily narrowing before he recognized the now-familiar sound of ironworking. The marksman didn't fail to notice that, inexplicably, the banging only filled the floor the moment the door shut.

Now assured of signs of life, Yi Qiang wandered further into the shop, walking through the familiar hallway to the right and stopping at the door that led to the forge. Inwardly, the marksman debated whether to knock, to wait until the sounds stopped, or to open the door. He didn't want a repeat of yesterday where Ororil was jolted out of his work, resulting in a few choice words, but at the same time, he didn't want to startle the blacksmith by just opening the door. Waiting wasn't that valid an option, as Yi Qiang knew Ororil's methods - when blacksmithing, the elf didn't just stop to rest. That relentlessness was what Yi Qiang attributed to the blacksmith's burly physique - compared to the slender, wiry elves, Ororil was a veritable titan.

After a moment of hesitation, Yi Qiang decided to use the skill levels he had in Stealth for something that didn't involve killing. Gingerly, he opened the heavy wooden door, taking note of the tiny inscriptions on the wood. They were so small that the tiny lettering was almost invisible, but Yi Qiang picked up on it. The archer had actually noticed the improvement of his physical stats had enhanced his sight and other senses, but the progress was so smooth he only barely realized it.

Regardless, Yi Qiang's footsteps were almost feline in their unobtrusiveness as he crouched down slightly, slipping through the doorway and into the forge.

Almost instantaneously, the archer furrowed his eyebrows slightly as the sound of metalworking was suddenly amplified in his ears several times. Or, more accurately, the loud clangs of metal against metal were no longer dampened, and Yi Qiang's untrained ears couldn't handle the rapid transition; he distinctly felt a piercing pain from his eardrums.

Responding as quickly as he could, while inwardly cursing at the annoyance, Yi Qiang brought his Qi up to his ears, coating the eardrums in the energy. Thankfully, the hasty reaction seemed to be effective, as the piercing pain no longer exponentially increased with every clang and instead gradually fade away.

Yi Qiang's eyes widened. Shenyu!

Indeed, the dragon was writhing in his arms, fully awake and bombarding Yi Qiang's consciousness with sensations of unbearable pain.

A sinking feeling in his heart, Yi Qiang used his Qi the same way he just did with himself, hurriedly coating the hatchling's eardrums with Qi to protect the fragile structures.

Hopefully, his draconic constitution will help him recover.

This hope seemed not to be entirely unfounded, as Shenyu quickly recovered. His unintelligible mental roars slowly calmed down, as did the young dragon's thrashing, as the pain swiftly departed, to Yi Qiang's relief.

He grimaced, though, upon hearing Shenyu's complaints. Understandably, the dragon was not terribly enthused with being jarred awake by such a sudden and painful sound. This incident was also likely the most pain the hatchling had ever experienced, so the situation was... less than perfect.

"Brother! What! Why!?"

I'm so sorry, Shenyu. I didn't want to wake you, so I just picked you up, and we left to go here, Ororil's shop. I had no idea the forge would be so loud. Are you all right?

Shenyu responded with a sort of mental huff. The dragon respected and loved Yi Qiang too much to voice all the irritation he felt. Still, it was impossible to build an emotional dam airtight enough not to let any anger through at that age. Especially when the person in question was linked to his consciousness.

Still conversing with Shenyu, Yi Qiang watched Ororil work.

He wore a leather apron, presumably worked to stop him from being singed by the flames while he hammered on metal, but beyond that, there wasn't much more protection. He was sleeveless and gloveless, putting his strenuous efforts on full display as the blacksmith, with a face red from exertion, banged on the metal with unmatched ferocity.

The archer was sure that if he was a blacksmith or knowledgeable about the trade at all, he could have seen signs of skill. Still, as it was, all Yi Qiang could perceive in the elf's movements were strength and stability - he saw no signs of finesse, of skill honed through years of practice, of delicate, precise movements perfectly aimed. It was humbling, truly, to see something Yi Qiang was so inept in performed in front of his eyes. After all, though Yi Qiang couldn't determine the man's skill level, he could see the intimacy and familiarity Ororil had with the craft.

Anyway, Yi Qiang could see the structure of metal at which Ororil was pounding away. Looking at it, Yi Qiang was now fine with waiting until the blacksmith finished his work. The archer had no qualms about it because whatever it was that Ororil was working on(Yi Qiang couldn't tell very well), as there were very few rough patches or irregularities in the form.

Yi Qiang assumed that to be a sign of near-completion, so he was glad to wait it out for the few minutes it would take.

He had underestimated the work of blacksmiths.

Since Yi Qiang had decided to wait, it had been an hour. And, to Yi Qiang's untrained eye, nothing had changed. He saw, quite literally, no difference.

Thankfully, it wasn't a complete waste of time. At some point soon after Yi Qiang had resolved to wait, he had just decided to spend the time honing his Qi Manipulation. That was likely the skill easiest to train for the archer, as it was unobtrusive, and there was always room to grow. For example, all Yi Qiang had to do in the forge to train it effectively was multitask - he sat down in a chair of golden Qi, conjured a golden scepter as well as a golden crown, and tried to maintain an orbit of swords formed from that same Qi around him. Each task, individually, was easy, but maintaining everything together was strenuous, to say the least. That, combined with the ear protection Yi Qiang kept on himself and Shenyu, was quite the challenging task.

Shenyu had also fallen asleep at some point, making it so that Yi Qiang didn't have to worry about keeping him entertained, nor did he have to worry about the dragon's growth.

This continued for two more hours before Ororil finally put down his hammer, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and looked up for the first time since Yi Qiang's arrival.

The first thing he saw, naturally, was the ostentatious scene of Yi Qiang on his throne of Qi, sporting his scepter and crown of Qi, surrounded by rotating swords of Qi.

As any sane person would react to spotting a previously unseen intruder, Ororil jumped, hefting his hammer and preparing to throw it at whoever had snuck in before the fact that it was Yi Qiang sunk in.

He relaxed, putting the hammer back down on the anvil of his forge.

"Yi Qiang! What are you going here! How long have you been here!?"

The marksman, finally glad to be going somewhere, said, "I'm just here to receive what you were going to make. I must admit, I'm somewhat interested to see what it is."

Ororil's eyes widened, and a grin surfaced on his face.

"Oh, that? Well," he gestured at the door. "That'll be right this way. Follow me!"

Yi Qiang assented, heading out the door as well. While they walked through the building, walking to a room Yi Qiang had yet to visit so far, the marksman voiced a question he had ever since he noticed the strange behavior of the sounds of Ororil's work.

"I noticed a weird thing with the way the sounds of your blacksmithing worked," Yi Qiang began. "When I was outside your shop, I couldn't hear anything at all. However, the moment I opened the door, headed inside, and the door closed, I could hear the sound of your hammer. Then, when I opened the door, the sound came at me full-force. How exactly does that work? How did you do that?"

Ororil's shoulders shook as he laughed.

"Oh, you Chosen!" The elven blacksmith roared with laughter. "You've never seen a sound enchantment before?! You were in my forge, and what confused you was... the sound!?"

Yi Qiang didn't know what to say, so he just kept quiet until Ororil answered his question.

"Whew. Well, I couldn't keep the whole area up with my smithing this early, right? So, it's pretty standard practice for a blacksmith in the city to enchant his forge with three separate enchantments. The first is a sound-muffling enchantment. It's pretty simple - the enchantment makes it so that no sound escapes the walls of the building, and it's inscribed onto the walls and door. The second is a conditional barrier enchantment. This is probably the most complex of the three, but that's just in the way it works. What it does is actually rather simple. Essentially, it makes it so that when you open the door, the sound still doesn't escape the building through the open space now where the door would usually be. It does this by sealing all the vibrations in the vicinity so that it's impossible for anything to escape out the door. When the door is closed, however, that enchantment deactivates so that you can hear everything, but no one else outside the building can. The third and final enchantment is on the door to the forge, wherever that is. It doesn't block the sound completely since those are expensive enough to make them impractical unless they're completely necessary, but just muffles it. So, that's everything. Usually, I only have that system of enchantments activated when it's early in the morning or late at night because they're expensive to keep running. So, does that answer your question?"

Yi Qiang nodded, taking a moment to absorb all the new information. It looked like enchantments were extremely versatile things.

By the time Ororil had finished explaining everything, he had already opened the door with his key. Yi Qiang didn't fail to notice that the key was incredibly intricate, covered with minute scripts, and crafted with an extreme eye to detail.

As for why the room was so carefully sealed, Yi Qiang found out the moment Ororil opened the door.

Gleaming, masterful works cluttered the space. Shining swords, intricate armors, and many other beautiful pieces just lay on the ground. Grinning at Yi Qiang's reaction, Ororil explained.

"This is where I keep all my better works. If I have a good customer, with a lot of money, I take them here, but otherwise, I sell them my worse products. What I made you is here."

Visibly impatient, Ororil headed toward a corner. Bending down, he picked up a metal case. It was a sleek thing, completely undecorated, with a handle on the top for easy carrying.

His muscles straining slightly at the weight of whatever was in the case, Ororil walked back to Yi Qiang and stopped for a moment, saying, "Let's head back to the forge, I'll show you what's in here there."

Yi Qiang, noticing that the burly blacksmith's steps were slightly heavier than before, shrugged and followed him again to the forge.

When they finally reached their destination in the building, Ororil hefted the case up and placed it onto the anvil, or tried to - the immense mass of what the elf had created made it seem more like a slam of rage.

With surprisingly deft hands, Ororil quickly opened the case, maneuvering the metal clasps on the case. Filled with anticipation, Yi Qiang watched the blacksmith open the container of what he had created.

"Ororil, it's perfect!"

Filling the case was expertly-made training gear.

Wrist weights, leg weights, shoulder weights; it was a complete set of gear for training.

While this may not seem like that useful a gift initially, Yi Qiang instantly understood the value of it.

At the level of Yi Qiang's stats, the increase of his physical abilities was extremely time-consuming and tiring to achieve. This was not only because of the way training worked - the higher one's stats were, the hard it was to increase them - but also because of the nature of practice. Generally speaking, the more one exhausted his or her muscles, the higher the effects reaped from training. Unfortunately, that meant that with higher stats, it was harder to drain them - things just weren't as tiring the fitter and stronger one was. Thus, during training, it took longer to get to the same level of exhaustion the stronger one was, resulting in more time-consuming physical exercise.

All of this meant that at Yi Qiang's level of fitness, he could only consistently improve his stats through combat, and even then, only against formidable opponents.

But this gift changed that. Now, the efficiency of Yi Qiang's training could rise several folds, as he could tire his muscles far faster and thus train quicker.

Ororil grinned, clearly happy to see the recipient of his gift so glad. The smile only grew wider as he spoke, "Don't get too happy just yet - there's more."

With that, he lifted the layer of metal that held the training gear and revealed strangely-shaped, strangely-size objects that looked like weights as well. Peering down at it, Yi Qiang realized what it was after a second of confusion and even more joy appeared on his face, this time with a sadistic hint to it.

"For Shenyu too! Ororil, thank you so much."

Well, I guess it's time for me to try out the gear. Yi Qiang thought to himself, back in his inn room. Ororil was nothing but pleasant, and after ten minutes of chatting, the marksman bid goodbye to him, excited to test the training gear. After all, as per his own rules, the moment a stat hit 250 through pure training, he could invest as many stat points as he saw fit into it.

First, Yi Qiang wanted to work on his strength. This was easy, considering that the point of weights was to build the power of one's muscles. So, he fastened all the masses to his body - they all had clasps on him that maintained a tight grip onto his skin; this was convenient because it meant he didn't have to worry about any weights falling off no matter the kind of training he did.

He started by propping his feet up onto the wall of the room, dropping into some handstand pushups.

As expected, the exercise that was previously a breeze had the marksman sweating in minutes. This dramatic increase in difficulty was because, according to Ororil, they were created using specific techniques to make them incredibly dense.

Quickly, Yi Qiang got into a training groove. He had two days left before the tournament, and the archer didn't intend to waste one second of it.