The villain daughter did all kinds of things

There are certainly artificial alloys with both good performance, but these usually require the addition of various rare materials, making them ridiculously expensive—this is the main reason why high-end magical artifacts are hundreds or even thousands of times more expensive than ordinary magical artifacts.

The reason why Emerald's deceased fiancé, Connor, was chosen by the Melson family and even got engaged was because the alloy formula he unintentionally developed was very cost-effective, and could even be said to have promoted a small progress in the entire Federation's materials science.

Of course, high-end materials won't be used in this forging competition. This retired and obsolete "crab" sword is an old model from almost a hundred years ago. The alloy formulas back then were much worse than they are now, and it was a mass-produced model, so it wouldn't use overly expensive materials.

In other words, the steel obtained by the contestants can only be superior in one of the following aspects: physical properties or magical properties, while the other is inferior.

However, this was not a choice at all, because the theme of the competition was sword-type melee magical artifacts, so physical strength was definitely more important. Therefore, all the contestants, including Yulia, chose to use the alloy from the legs of a giant crab to forge their sword blanks.

This alloy has excellent physical properties. Even without magical enhancements, ordinary people with professional training can easily kill lions and tigers when it is made into cold weapons.

However, good physical properties mean poor magic conductivity, so what kind of magic circuits to carve on the blade or sword blank, and how many sets to carve, becomes the key to winning this competition.

The other contestants temporarily stopped what they were doing, either pacing back and forth with their chins in their hands, thinking as they went, or writing and drawing with pen and paper to complete their ideal design.

Yulia, on the other hand, didn't need to. She was the kind of person who received all the exam questions before the exam and had practiced them beforehand. She had already figured out how to do it, and the person who helped her design the answers was actually the one who set the exam questions.

So while the other contestants were thinking about solutions, Yulia was already skillfully carving magical circuits on the sword blank with professional carving tools.

The host and audience were speechless at the sight.

We know you're a specially invited contestant, and even the prize for winning this competition was tailor-made for you, but could you please tone it down a bit? Your cheating is so blatant, what will the other contestants think?

In fact, the other contestants didn't really have any ideas. Everyone wasn't stupid; who couldn't see that the champion had already been decided? So the other contestants' goal from the beginning wasn't the championship. The trophy and certificate didn't mean much to them. They wanted the high prize money for second to fifth place and the opportunity to work at the Melson Magic Workshop.

Therefore, the other players chose to ignore Yulia's situation.

The beautiful host even had to rack her brains to rationalize Yulia's obvious cheating behavior... Whether the audience believed her explanation was another matter; her job was to explain.

"Done!"

Those who know the exam questions and answers in advance can write the paper quickly. Before most of the contestants had even finished their designs, Yulia had already completed the inscription of the magic circuit.

This time, Yulia still didn't rush to the next step. Instead, she went to the stage to ask Emery for some snacks, and then went to sign autographs and take photos with lucky audience members.

The female host then took the opportunity to walk to the vicinity of the sword blank made by Yulia, and took a high-definition close-up of the sword blank, especially the magic circuit on the sword blank, and projected the magic circuit into the sky above the arena after magnifying it countless times.

Many audience members were knowledgeable in the field, and they immediately recognized that Yulia had inscribed a magic circuit that accumulated magic power before releasing it all at once. The entire magic circuit was not particularly outstanding, but it was also free of errors, falling into a standard, unremarkable category.

However, people were still curious because this kind of magical circuit is usually used in wands and other long-range magical devices, but Yulia engraved it on the sword blank... So what kind of sword does Yulia intend to forge, and how will she forge it?

The audience didn't find out the answer until the penultimate step before the forging was complete.

After Yulia interacted with the fans for about 40 minutes, the other contestants finally finished engraving their magic circuits and were back on the same starting line in terms of progress.

The next three steps—hardening the blade blank, assembling the handle, and grinding and finishing—were all carried out smoothly, with everyone, including Yulia, performing normally without any fancy tricks.

At this point, the melee magical artifacts, such as swords, are practically complete.

Apart from Yulia, the other contestants all forged single-edged machetes, and their designs incorporated strong personal styles, making many of their knives look quite cool.

Yulia, on the other hand, crafted a standard one-handed longsword with a classic cross-shaped hilt and guard, featuring a groove at the intersection.

Generally speaking, magical devices have two power supply methods: one is that the mage directly uses his own magic power to drive the magical device, and the other is that the magical device has its own built-in magic power source, which is usually made of magic crystals and magical materials.

Most combat mages prefer the first power supply method because the power of this type of magical device increases as they increase their own magical power output.

As for the second type of magical artifact, most of them are used by ordinary people who don't have much magic power. The magical thermal cutting tools used by the contestants at the beginning of this forging competition were all of this type.

As a type of combat magic device, sword-type melee magical devices should, in principle, also use the first power supply method.

However, in order to ensure the fairness of the competition, or rather, because the forging competition focuses more on the quality of the weapon itself than the person using it during testing, the testers are usually ordinary people who have received professional training and do not have much magic power to cast spells. Therefore, the magical device must adopt a second power supply method.

However, in previous competitions, various magic sources were added to the material library at the beginning, allowing players to choose for themselves before forging.

In this competition, the choice of magic source was left until the very end. Therefore, the contestants could only rely on their intuition to leave a position for installing magic source on their magic devices in advance, and they also had to rely on luck to find a suitable magic source in the material library. Otherwise, they would have to overhaul their magic devices.

Finally, the magic source provided by the competition organizers was delivered into the arena. It was an ordinary-looking handcart, but the cart was filled with a large number of magic crystals and crystal core-type monster materials. Each piece had different attributes, shapes, and strengths, allowing the contestants to choose for themselves.

The contestants immediately crowded around, eager to choose the magic source that best suited them, lest someone else snatch it up and leave them heartbroken.

However, just as the fastest contestant, number 4, reached out to grab a magic crystal, a beam of light, light blue, suddenly shot out of the cart and flew into the sky, trying to escape. The intensity of that magic was definitely not comparable to any other magic source, and was even stronger than all the other magic sources combined.

The craftsmen were just ordinary people who could only watch as the magical light soared into the sky, but Julia was different.

She clearly knew this would happen, so she flew up even faster and caught the light blue glow in her hand before she could react. It was a crystal core-type magical material, and a high-level one at that, even among dragons.

click!

After taking the azure crystal core in her hand, Yulia did not hesitate for a second and directly installed the crystal core into the groove of her cross-handled longsword.

The shape and size are just right, what a coincidence!

Then, the azure magic quickly flowed like water on the blade, transforming the originally ordinary longsword into something incredibly beautiful.

Chapter 201 An eventful night

Yulia showed no remorse for cheating. After completing the crystal core inlay, she landed in the center of the arena with a light blue cross-handled longsword, proudly announcing that she had finished her work and naming the longsword "Tide Knight".

Upon seeing this, the female host quickly ran over to interview Yulia, asking her about the performance of the [Tide Knight] weapon.

Yulia was prepared for this; she casually swung her longsword, unleashing a wide-ranging water blade, before explaining into the host's microphone:

"The reason I named this [Tide Knight] after the tide is because it can launch powerful slashes rhythmically like the tide—it can unleash an attack like mine after about 4 seconds of automatic mana recharge."

After examining the [Tide Knight] sword closely, the female host seemed to recognize the crystal core embedded in the center of the hilt, and said with some surprise:

"This is actually a high-level water elemental core... Although most high-level water elements are not yet at the level of ancient dragons, they are creatures of the elemental realm and rarely appear in the mortal world, so related materials have always been very rare. A high-level water elemental core like this can often sell for more than ten million rons at some auctions, which is almost 10 times the price of other materials of the same level."

"Hehe... I'm not too sure about that."

Yulia touched her head and gave a simple, honest smile:

"All I knew was that Emery had one of these cores, and I had already decided to put it into the competition's resource library. So from the very beginning, my design was based on this core, because I was confident that I could win it."

"I see……"

The female host nodded, and the other audience members also looked enlightened.

Indeed, during the competition, the contestants need to retrieve materials from the resource library themselves. Given Yulia's combat power, even the other 10 contestants combined wouldn't be enough to defeat her with a single finger. No one can steal the materials she sets her sights on, so it's quite normal to formulate tactics based on this.

Thinking about this, many viewers changed their opinion of Yulia. They believed that Yulia's previous actions were not cheating, but rather reasonable tactics devised after obtaining inside information.

Meanwhile, the official contestants were browsing through the Magic Source Material Library and soon completed the final step of their own works.

Three contestants were lucky enough to find monster cores that matched their creations perfectly in both size and shape. They simply inlaid them, made minor adjustments, and that was it.

The remaining contestants weren't so lucky, but they all found suitable sources of magic power in turn. After making some modifications to their works based on the sources of magic power, they also completed their forging.

At this point, all 11 entries from the contestants have been completed. The most eye-catching one is undoubtedly the [Tide Knight], which uses a high-level water element core as its magic source. However, the remaining swords are also unique in their design and deserve to be called cool swords.

However, swords are not judged by their appearance; their performance in actual combat is the most crucial factor. Therefore, the competition entered the practical combat testing phase, which is also the part that the audience loves to watch the most in previous competitions.

To ensure fairness, the practical test will not be conducted by the blacksmiths themselves, but by professional testers from the organizers.

Today's competition can be described as the largest in the history of the sword forging competition. The testers dispatched are, of course, the organizer's ace, or even those trained by the organizer from childhood.

They were a brother and sister, both in their early twenties, with the brother appearing to be about two or three years older than his sister.

My younger sister was wearing a tank top and hot pants, and her pair of big, white, fleshy legs were very eye-catching. She had a cheerful smile and was the kind of energetic and beautiful girl you would expect.

The older brother has a handsome face with a cute, puppy-like appearance, but his t-shirt and beach shorts can't hide his well-built muscles, which also caused many female viewers to scream.

These brother and sister are talents specially trained by the organizers. They are both good-looking and capable. Although they are not even awakened mages, they are proficient in the use of various melee weapons. Few people can defeat them in close combat without using magic. On Earth, they would definitely be top-tier soldiers.

The test is divided into two parts: testing combat ability against groups of weak enemies and testing combat ability against a single strong enemy. Simply put, it is the ability to crush weak opponents and the ability to overcome strong ones.

First up is the tester, a younger sister, who will use the 11 swords forged by the contestants to conduct a "smashing" test. She will continuously defeat a weak monster placed by the organizers in the arena, and the sword's score in this event will be determined by the number of kills within the time limit.

The weak monster we're testing today is called the Gray Ratman. As the name suggests, it's a large, humanoid rat that can walk upright. Each one is about 80 centimeters tall, doesn't use magic, and has no special talents, but its nimble hands allow it to use weapons in combat like a human.

The individual combat strength of the gray ratmen is very weak; an ordinary farmer with a hoe can easily beat them up. However, they have a strong reproductive capacity and are social creatures. When they go out, there are at least hundreds of them, which have caused a lot of trouble for human farmland in the past.

The current practical test is similar. The organizers used a huge iron cage to directly throw more than 200 gray ratmen into the arena, and each gray ratman also had a wooden stick in its hand.

These gray ratmen were specially bred by the organizers to test the swords. They no longer possessed the ferocity of wild gray ratmen. Therefore, in order to make them combat-ready, the organizers also cast a group fear spell and a group bloodlust spell on the gray ratmen after they were released.

Immediately, these gray rats perked up, brandishing wooden sticks and howling as they surrounded the tester sister.

The tester sister was not afraid at all. Her first entry was the cross-handled longsword [Tide Knight], which was crafted by Yulia.

"It can launch a powerful attack approximately every four seconds..."

With a soft murmur, the tester sister quickly completed the first charge of her longsword, and then casually slashed it with a graceful, almost dance-like movement.

brush!

Like a real tide crashing onto the beach, the enormous water blade swept across with overwhelming force, instantly splitting hundreds of gray ratmen in two, even sweeping away their corpses.

With just this one strike, the remaining gray ratmen, despite having two buffs on them, trembled all over and dared not step forward in fear.

"Haha, cool!"

The tester's sister laughed heartily, then brandished her longsword and launched an attack, beginning a one-sided massacre.

Relying on her superb swordsmanship, even while [Tide Knight] was charging, the tester could still go on a rampage among the Gray Ratmen, not to mention her powerful attacks every 4 seconds or so. In just one minute, she killed more than 600 Gray Ratmen, breaking and far exceeding previous competition records.

"What a fine sword! What a fine sword!"

When the [Tide Knight] was returned, the tester was generous with her praise, and even seemed a little reluctant to part with it:

"This is the first time I've used such a good sword, and it's been so satisfying to kill with it."

Her bloodthirsty remarks, coupled with her innocent and energetic face and a pair of chubby legs, instantly increased the charm of the tester sister, eliciting shouts from many viewers.

After testing [Tide Knight], the tester sister started testing other works.

The swords forged by other players don't have a high-level water elemental core as their magic source, so their power is definitely no match for the [Tide Knight].

However, the serious contestants were all veteran craftsmen, and they were far superior to Yulia in pure sword-forging skills. The swords they forged had a fantastic feel, and almost every swing could deliver a critical hit.

So even though the magic engraved on these swords wasn't particularly powerful, the tester sister could still easily go on a rampage among the gray ratmen, slaughtering multiple gray ratmen per second.

The tests for contestants 1 through 8 were completed quickly, with the best-performing machete scoring over 240 points. This machete used a fire-attribute crystal core as its magic source, and combined with the blasting circuit engraved on the blade, it would unleash an explosive attack every ten or so cuts, making it quite powerful. Without Yulia's [Tide Knight], it might have won first place in this test.

The other seven entries only scored a little over 170 points, a huge gap compared to those scoring over 240 points, not to mention compared to Yulia's score of over 600 points.

Just when most viewers, including the organizers, thought the test was over, contestant number 9 surprised everyone with his work right from the start.

It was a single-edged machete with a thick back, nothing particularly special in its design, and it was easy to use when wielding it.

The tester didn't think much of it; she had used too many similar swords before. After a couple of tries to get a feel for them, she decided to start fighting right away.

The first few gray ratmen were killed easily; the tester sister used her superb swordsmanship to cut them down before they could even react.

Finally, one of the gray ratmen reacted and raised its wooden stick to block.

The tester sister still didn't pay attention. The swords and blades forged by the contestants in the sword-forging competition were generally very sharp, and this wooden stick could be easily cut through. This had been the case in previous tests when the same situation occurred.

But this time, something unexpected happened. When the knife struck the wooden stick, it not only failed to cut the stick in half, but instead shattered on its own with a snap, the blade breaking into dozens of pieces that were scattered all over the ground.

After shattering the blade, the ratman's wooden stick struck the tester's sister's leg with a loud crack, turning a large patch of her fair skin red.

A chorus of boos erupted from the audience, followed by a burst of excitement.

What will happen next? The beautiful girl suffers a crushing defeat and is brutally bullied by the gray ratmen?

Seeing this, the other gray ratmen became even more excited, waving their wooden sticks and howling as they rushed forward, trying to chase after the tester's sister.

However, the tester sister had received professional training. She was hit by the wooden stick because she was too surprised at that moment. After she came to her senses, she immediately jumped back to create distance and easily repelled several pursuing gray ratmen with just the hilt of a knife.

Normally, at this point, the test could end early, since what's the point of testing if the artwork is broken?

The host had already picked up the microphone, ready to announce that contestant number 9 was eliminated early.

Unexpectedly, the tester made a gesture at this moment, stopping the host from making the announcement, while holding the knife handle in her hand thoughtfully.

A few seconds later, the tester seemed to have finally figured something out or found inspiration, and she swung the knife handle forcefully into the air.

hum!

Instantly, all the blade fragments that had fallen when the blade shattered emitted a trembling sound, and then, as if controlled by invisible threads, they floated into the air.

"So that's how it's used!"

The tester's eyes lit up, and she continued to swing the knife handle in her hand.

Brush brush brush brush!

Puff puff puff!

The blade fragments flew up and flew through the air at high speed, easily piercing the throats and hearts of the gray rat people, killing a large number of them with each attack.

"Haha, cool!"

The tester's sister burst into laughter again, the redness and swelling on her fleshy legs no longer hurting, and she remotely controlled dozens of blade fragments through the hilt of the knife to wreak havoc.

Even though the tester had wasted some time earlier, contestant number 9's work still scored over 300 points after the timer ended, securing second place.