Astonishing Weapon

"Hmm?" Zhang Ruofeng noticed Jiang frowning deeply and couldn't help but feel puzzled. "What did you discover?"

"Who gave you this weapon?" Jiang asked, his brow furrowed.

"Our Familia's goddess gave it to me," Zhang Ruofeng said, feeling that his recent worries were indeed not just in his head. "It's said to be a relic left behind by a member of the previous Familia who passed away last year."

"Died last year?" Jiang looked at Zhang Ruofeng, then fell into deep thought. "An adventurer from your Familia died last year? Why does that sound so familiar? No, wait—I have a feeling it's familiar because it was a beautiful woman."

"..." Zhang Ruofeng was left speechless by Jiang's muttering.

"People from your Familia, people from your Familia..." Jiang kept repeating, then his eyes suddenly lit up. "This is the weapon of that adventurer from your Familia who committed suicide at Babel Tower, isn't it?"

"Suicide?" Zhang Ruofeng had never heard of such a thing. After all, the goddess didn't like to dwell on those who had passed, so he had never heard the stories of the former Familia members from her.

"Yeah. It was said that a beautiful, tall Amazon walked through the plaza of Babel Tower covered in blood, then punched her own head until it exploded. It was a miserable sight; no one knew what had triggered her." Jiang described it so vividly that even Zhang Ruofeng felt a sense of doubt. The probability of an adventurer committing suicide was extremely low. Having lived since childhood in this complex era of monsters, war, famine, and descending gods, the people of this world had a much higher threshold for pain than those in Zhang Ruofeng's original world. He had basically never heard an adventurer talk about suicide.

"And then?" Zhang Ruofeng asked. He felt that things weren't that simple, but he still couldn't figure out why.

"Naturally, they hushed it up. Although many adventurers saw it, the suicide of an adventurer made others feel uneasy, so the Guild warned everyone not to spread it around, and there wasn't much resistance. A year has passed, and I had already forgotten I'd even heard the rumor." Jiang shrugged. After all, if Zhang Ruofeng didn't belong to the Familia of the Flower Goddess Flora, he really wouldn't have remembered.

"Let's put that aside for now. Are you sure your Familia can afford this weapon?" Jiang poked and prodded at it for a long time, examining it thoroughly before asking blankly. Zhang Ruofeng knew nothing about metalwork or craftsmanship. While he knew his bracers were masterpieces in both design and utility, he couldn't determine their value. Judging by Jiang's tone, this weapon seemed incredibly expensive.

"Setting everything else aside, this is forged using the Folded Steel method. Without a smith of at least Level 4, no one has the magic power or stamina to complete the blank for your weapon. Add in the complex finishing work, plus the fact that bracers covering the hands are rarely used, and the production cost is even higher." Zhang Ruofeng couldn't help but look at Jiang with new eyes. Although this guy was surrounded by an annoying aura and seemed frivolous and unreliable, he was surprisingly knowledgeable when it came to smithing. "And according to what you just told me, a white scratch you made on the outside disappeared while you were cleaning the weapon, right?" Jiang stared intently at the outer metal plate of the bracer, which was designed to deflect damage. There wasn't a single scratch on it.

"Yes." Zhang Ruofeng remembered it clearly, as that was the first time he had been seriously injured in this world. "And you should remember, it was the Great Barking Dog you summoned that caused it." Zhang Ruofeng deliberately curled his lip, staring at Jiang.

"Haha... haha..." Once Jiang realized it was trouble he had caused, he quickly laughed it off and said, "But as you can see for yourself, there isn't a single scratch on the surface of this weapon, which means it self-repaired." Jiang tapped the bracer with a hammer, listened carefully to the sound, and said to Zhang Ruofeng, "A weapon with self-repairing material is a property that only appears after adding the special metal Blue Silver. However, weapons or equipment containing Blue Silver are inevitably pale blue—that is a major hallmark of self-repair. But yours is so strange; it's bright red."

"It was dark red at first, but it's been getting brighter lately," Zhang Ruofeng added. He had come to find Jiang specifically to solve the mystery of this weapon.

"Let's put that aside for now," Jiang said, clearly not too concerned with that question. He looked at the bracers with a click of his tongue and said, "These bracers use the best technique for forging steel—Folded Steel. This is a skill that only a smith who has reached Level 4 or higher can use. Do you know how much this is worth?" Seeing Zhang Ruofeng shake his head, Jiang continued with satisfaction, "You might not believe it, but a pair of bracers like this is worth about 4 million Faris."

"What?!" Zhang Ruofeng thought he had misheard. 4 million? Are you kidding? If he won the lottery, he might be able to come up with that, but this world had neither sports betting nor lotteries. Even if he worked himself to death, he wouldn't have the ability to come up with that many Faris.

"Do you think the Folded Steel method is easy to pull off? As far as I know, there aren't even a hundred smiths in all of Orario who have reached Level 4 or higher. With a total population of over a million in Orario and the various fringe towns outside the city, do you still think 4 million is a high price?" Jiang mocked Zhang Ruofeng's stunned expression, though he was secretly clicking his tongue in his own heart. Even in his own Familia, one of the Three Dwarf Master Smiths, there were only five Level 4 smiths, and only one senior who took special care of him was a Level 5 smith. This weapon was definitely not something Zhang Ruofeng could fathom.

"Don't be surprised. If Blue Silver and Mithril were added, and the Folded Steel method was used to forge the final weapon, the price would double." Jiang felt a stomachache just saying it. Ten million Faris—that was ten million Faris. Just thinking about it made him envious. "Most weapons for adventurers above Level 5 are basically weapons with both 'Self-Repair' and 'Steel-Cutting' properties. Yours is quite special. If you added the Fire Spirit Ore Vein, it shouldn't have the ability to self-repair. Adding the Fire Spirit Ore Vein should be for the sake of the 'Indestructible' property, but in reality, your weapon did get scratched when attacked by the Great Barking Dog, which is very strange."

Zhang Ruofeng watched as Jiang held his head and shook it repeatedly. Zhang Ruofeng himself was also very puzzled. Why would his predecessor—a mere Level 1 adventurer—come to possess a weapon used by top-tier adventurers? Zhang Ruofeng couldn't help but feel there was some kind of conspiracy behind it.