Numbers Are a Man's Romance

Era of Death, Year 19, Spring.

Nearly 70 years have passed since the Demon King was successfully subjugated.

Northern region of the Southern Nations, Lamir.

A room inside an inn.

The floor was cluttered with countless magical artifacts.

Standard-issue longswords, leather pauldrons, hardened leather greaves, steel rings... they were diverse in type and style, yet without exception, they were all covered in dust.

At a glance, it was clear that the magical formulas inscribed upon them—the so-called "enchantments"—had likely lost all utility.

In the eyes of an adventurer, this was nothing more than a pile of "useless junk."

But Shane sat right in the middle of this junk.

His eyes were gleaming.

He picked up a longsword from the pile, and lines of information, visible only to him, immediately surfaced before his eyes.

[Rusted One-Handed Sword]

Status: Nearly scrapped

Affixes:

[Fragile (Gray/Inferior)]: The metal is severely aged; physical attack power is reduced by 50%, and it is highly prone to snapping upon impact.

[Bleed (White/Common)]: The rusted, serrated blade makes it easier to inflict wounds that are difficult to heal; Bleed effect is increased by an additional 30%.

Evaluation: Gray-skinned Rats, Goblins, Bugbears, the cat-girl waitress at the tavern... Heh, it has certainly seen the world.

Setting down the well-traveled longsword, he picked up another somewhat tattered leather pauldron.

[Moth-eaten Leather Pauldron]

Status: Scrapped

Affixes:

[Perforated (White/Common)]: Densely packed with tiny moth holes, significantly improving breathability.

[Toughness (White/Common)]: High-quality deerskin crafted with a special tanning process; even after long exposure to the elements, it remains remarkably resilient.

Evaluation: It probably won't stop a blade, but it might be decent for boosting one's charm.

Seeing this.

Shane's gaze darkened, his mental energy highly concentrated, and the various affixes on the longsword and pauldron became tangible in his eyes, as if he could simply reach out and "tear them off."

"Strip."

Following his mental command, the three white affixes were easily peeled away, transforming into three small white motes of light that hovered before his eyes.

[Bleed (White/Common)]

[Perforated (White/Common)]

[Toughness (White/Common)]

Shane raised a hand to rub his temples; the swelling sensation brought on by the expenditure of mental energy was never particularly pleasant.

The moment the affixes were lost, the two pieces of worn-out equipment completely disintegrated and slowly vanished.

Just like the demonic creatures that died in this world, they dissolved into magical particles and disappeared without a trace.

Shane paid it no mind.

He focused on controlling the three affixes, causing them to converge in one spot.

"Affix Reforging."

Hum—

A low, faint buzzing sound emanated from the air in front of Shane.

The swelling in his temples struck again, and this time, the discomfort was even more intense.

Shane sighed.

"My current mental energy is still too low; I cannot manipulate affixes frequently, but... at least it wasn't a loss."

The original three affixes had vanished, replaced by a new one that radiated a faint blue light.

[Torment (Blue/Rare)]: Attacks inflict continuous damage, reducing the target's current HP by 1% per second.

To succeed on the first attempt.

And it was blue!

His luck was good.

Shane smiled faintly, then drew the sword at his waist.

"Affixing entry."

A new blue entry instantly surged into the longsword in his hand, a fleeting blue radiance flickering across the blade.

"With this, the odds of self-preservation have increased just a little more."

He let out a long sigh.

He couldn't help but rub his throbbing temples; he couldn't continue like this. If he exhausted his mental energy without restraint, he might just pass out right then and there.

Tsk.

That feeling was far from pleasant.

When he first discovered his cheat, he had been blinded by excitement and attempted too many things in a short period, resulting in a three-day-and-three-night coma that nearly led well-meaning citizens to drag him off to a graveyard to be buried.

Yes, Shane was not a local.

This was his third year since transmigrating into this world.

In his past life, Shane hadn't experienced any great storms; born into a middle-class family, he had relied on endless test prep to get into a decent university.

Graduating, working, and enjoying the "blessing" of a 996 schedule, he was struck two hundred meters away by the "love" of a speeding vehicle one morning while trying to maintain his perfect attendance record.

When he opened his eyes again, he had arrived in this fantasy world known as "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End," reborn as a fifteen-year-old novice adventurer.

At the beginning, he had been terrified.

After all, this was a fantasy world with tangible supernatural powers, filled with powerful monsters and beasts. Furthermore, according to the timeline, the remnants of the Demon King's generals and the Seven Sages of Destruction had not yet been completely wiped out and were still wreaking havoc on the world.

Ordinary people could become cannon fodder at any moment.

Fortunately, the mysterious force that brought him here had a shred of conscience, granting him the ability to "manually craft entries."

Regardless of the magical item, as long as he focused his mental energy, he could identify its specific entries; he could expend mental energy to strip and affix entries; and by collecting three entries of the same grade, he could reforge them to randomly generate a new entry of a higher grade.

Of course, reforging had a success rate.

Based on his past attempts, the success rate was about fifty-fifty. Getting an entry one or two levels higher was relatively common, but he had yet to produce anything of a higher quality.

Regardless, being able to grow stronger was always a good thing.

Over the past three years, he had followed many adventurer parties in and out of low-level dungeons that had already been swept countless times, picking up a pile of junk.

By picking and choosing through this trash and experimenting in various ways, he had barely managed to scrape together a few pieces of equipment that were worth looking at.

Sigh.

Who told him he was poor?

Without money to purchase powerful equipment, he had no choice but to create it himself.

Shane tightened the coarse hemp rope wrapped around the sword hilt, gripped it in his hand, swung it a few times, and carefully felt its weight.

[Ordinary Standard Longsword]

Status: Intact

Entries:

[Immortal (Blue Rare)]: Does not rust easily, cannot be destroyed by magic.

[Heavy Strike (Blue Rare)]: Your normal attacks become heavy slashes comparable to a great axe; every hit hurts.

[Sharp (Blue Rare)]: Normal attack damage is doubled.

[Suspicious Poison (Blue Rare)]: Attacks have a chance to poison the target, triggering a random toxin.

[Electro-Execution (Blue Rare)]: Attacks carry lightning effects, dealing additional shock damage and a 1s paralysis effect upon impact.

[Deflection Field (Blue Rare)]: Summons a chaotic field to block one long-range attack from an enemy.

[Blade Storm (Blue Rare)]: Creates a circle of spectral blades to instantly clear your surroundings.

[Flashbang (Blue Rare)]: Swing the blade to erupt with a powerful white light, blinding targets in range for 3s.

[Torment (Blue Rare)]: Attacks cause persistent damage, reducing the target's current HP by 1% per second.

Evaluation: An ordinary sword.

"Now, I should be able to take on some low-level quests like hunting slimes, right?"