Each forging room had only a simple number outside. From the outermost to the innermost, there were thirty-six rooms in total.
This meant that, at the height of its prosperity, the Blacksmith Association Headquarters had once had thirty-six Grandmaster Blacksmiths.
Grandmaster Blacksmiths ranked just below Divine Craftsmen, equivalent to Soul Douluos among Spirit Masters. Every Grandmaster Blacksmith could create powerful weapons and equipment that could transform an ordinary army as completely as if it had shed its old flesh and bones.
Yet now, the sounds of hammering came from only five forging rooms.
Clearly, as the ranks of Spirit Masters continued to grow, ordinary armies had become less important. Life had grown difficult for these Grandmaster Blacksmiths as well, bringing them down from their former peak to their current plight.
If this trend continued for several more decades, or close to a century, the Blacksmith Association Headquarters might have only one or two Grandmaster Blacksmiths left. After several centuries, these once-flourishing masters would likely become yesterday's withered flowers, vanishing entirely into the long river of history and surviving only in history books for later generations to consult.
In fact, after another thousand years of development on the Douluo Continent—in other words, by the second installment—blacksmiths barely appeared at all, replaced by the widespread use of Soul Tools.
Filled with curiosity, Yang Ming stood outside a forging room, quietly studying the equipment a Grandmaster Blacksmith inside was making.
This Grandmaster Blacksmith was over sixty, with close-cropped white hair and a bare torso that exposed solid muscle. His arms were as thick as an ordinary person's thighs, and his right hand held an oversized, heavy iron hammer weighing at least six hundred kilograms. Yet in his hands, it seemed as light as a feather, whistling fiercely through the air with every swing.