Grandmaster-level blacksmith.
The words sat at the very top of the scroll, etched in bold, unyielding strokes that seemed to carry a quiet arrogance of their own.
Wang Chen's eyes lingered on that single line.
For a moment, he didn't move.
Then his eyelids lowered slightly, his gaze turning flat.
A faint silence settled around him.
The scroll in his hand, which had felt promising just a second ago, suddenly lost most of its appeal.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
Grandmaster-level refinement.
Not intermediate.
Not advanced.
Straight to grandmaster.
His fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the scroll before loosening again.
There wasn't even a hint of hesitation in his mind.
He didn't know how to refine.
Not even the basics.
Forget grandmaster-level—he couldn't even identify half the tools required for forging, let alone control them. The entire field of blacksmithing might as well have been an alien language to him.
