Douluo Dalu: A Great Big Brother - Chapter 87

When Shrek group reached Tang Sect, they saw the mood of the sect wasn’t as cheerful as it used to be. They then entered the sect and call a meeting with the elders, At the meeting hall, Tang San asked about the dull atmosphere at sect, to which elder Tai Tan replied that their raw materials for forging like metals, rare metals haven’t arrived yet, so the production of hidden weapons has stopped.

This was the matter of grave concern because the income of the sect is heavily dependent on forging and making hidden weapons, Tang San asked: “What happened? Why such an issue was caused now? We were getting a regular supply till last month, What has caused such a delay?”

Tai Tan replied: “I got a letter from blacksmith association in the Gengxin city that there has been an issue at the city which caused the cancellation of our orders. They didn’t specify the reason behind it. I have prepared to leave for Gengxin city tomorrow, I will personally go there so problems can be solved as quickly as possible.” Everybody nodded hearing that.

Tang Chen thought that this was an opportunity for Tang Brothers to go there and not only recruit last divine blacksmith to Tang Sect but also get the rare metals as Tang San has obtained in the original story. He stood up and said: “I think all of us Shrek Group should also go with elder Strength Douluo, I think we can use Ning Rongrong Spirits special abilities to detect treasures to see if we get lucky and cheaply buy some valuable metals or new stronger metals that we haven’t found yet.” He then looked towards Tang San who nodded catching the hidden message that his brother has passed, As both brothers still have not gotten metals to produce the top three hidden weapons, even with hundred and thousand refinings the common metals were not strong enough to make them.

The group discussed for a while, then Tang San said: “It is decided then we Shrek Eight students with Elder Tai Tan will leave tomorrow evening by carriages.” The meeting ended there.

Next-Day evening they all left to go to the capital of metals, Gengxin City in two carriages driven by Two members of strength clan. Gengxin City was within the borders of Star Luo City to the southwest, close to the interior region of the Star Luo Empire. This journey wasn’t short, traveling at top speed the whole way, they had used close to a month when they arrived at Gengxin City. Gengxin City was one of Star Luo Empire’s main cities, but it absolutely didn’t count as any famous place. The area belonging to the city only included a lower river. The Douluo Continent was a spirit master world. As a city of metal, it was normal that it wasn’t valued. There was also blacksmith association there and Tai Tan was its Vice President so they entered the city smoothly. As the status of the smith wasn’t well respected in the continent. The guards thought these two carriages comprise of ordinary merchants as they were led by Tai Tan.

When the carriages entered the city, all people can see that several soldiers were patrolling around the city, these soldiers were of spirit hall and not of Star Luo Empire. Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing knitted their brows seeing this. The carriages left the gates and quickly entered the Blacksmith Association. After arriving Tai Tan and others left the carriages The carriages had stopped in front of a tall building, if you raised your head to look, you could see that this building would be at least 30 meters high and spanned a wide area. For a building to occupy such a large space in the heart of the city district, you could tell it was of great importance to the city. On the upper region of the building hung a dark iron plaque with no words on it, only the convex pattern of a hammer and a chisel. Without even having to ask, others already knew where they were without a doubt. This was the blacksmith association’s headquarters.

Tai Tan said: “Gengxin City is the place with the most smith shops, only in this town will smiths be valued. It’s said that there are more than a thousand such shops in Gengxin City. smiths are even more numerous. A lot of smiths from other cities come here to take smith exams. If they can pass the high-level smith exams, they can stay in the city. One might say that this is the paradise of smiths. Even if smiths aren’t valued in the two great empires, the army’s weapons and equipment, farm tools, buildings, furniture, all require the participation of smiths. The higher level the smith, the more expensive his work.”

They all saw the endless stream of people coming and going to the building. Tai Tan introduced the placed to them: “This place is divided into five different levels, the first is where they do their general trading. Smiths proud of their work or people who found or are seeking some metal would come here, and of course there are specialized traders trafficking various metals as well. The second floor is for the trade of more precious goods or rare goods. The third floor is the blacksmith registration district, it is where they carry out the blacksmith rating assessment. The fourth floor is the VIP area and also the auction area, periodically some particularly rare and valuable items will be put up there for auction. Lastly the fifth floor is the blacksmith association’s work area. I don’t know, if there has been much change to what I just said right? I have not been back here in a long time after all.”

Tai Tan went to the reception desk where he gave his insignia to the male receptionist on the desk. Seeing the insignia the male was startled and propose to directly led the group to the fifth floor. Which the group agreed and then they went to the fifth floor while Tai Tan introduced several sections of Association to the rest of them. The group reached the fifth floor. There were two guards on the gates of the fifth floor, Tai Tan again showed hid insignia and the group entered the floor, and one of them gone inside to relay messages to someone. But all of Shrek students can fell the seventieth above rank fluctuations from them, so the 5th floor must have such items of importance. Tai Tan told them that those two were the disciples of Divine blacksmith king Luo Gao, and the 5th floor is precisely his abode and smithy. Speaking of, their own skills are only second to divine Blacksmiths. In total Lou Gao has 4 disciples who take turns to stand guard here. The one on the left was called Si Long, while the one on the right was called Si Yu.

They entered the room and saw a person coming with one of the guards at the door, The person who came was a fat old man about 1.6 meters in height. From the looks of it his waistline was probably also reaching 1.6 meters… protruding ears, small eyes, and an unkempt beard. He had loose and baggy clothes.

“Tai Tan, you old thing is still alive?” were the first words this fat old man said when the doors opened.

Tai Tan replied: “Haha, Lou Gao, if a fatty like you who is older than me is still alive, how can I possibly die?”

Sure enough, this fat old man must be the blacksmith association’s president. Divine Craftsman Lou Gao. In all honesty, from his looks he did not look anything like a divine craftsman, but rather more like an agreeable fat old man. Both of them then hugged each other. Luo Gao said something to Tai Tan ears and then Tai Tan started following him to his smithy, Curious Shrek Eight devils also followed them.