Leaving his tent Azreal walked over to Dustin's tent then pushed his hand inside and waved it around.
"Come on in"
Hearing it was safe and Dustin was decent Azreal went inside and sat on the ground while Dustin chuckled.
"Do you know how to enrage weapons with Divine Energy?"
Dustin had stopped chuckling but he was still smiling while nodding his head.
"Yea, but it’s not easy, are you planning on engraving your blade?"
"Yes and no, I want to engrave something but I don't want to use the blade because I don't think it gonna serve me for too long, so how do you engrave?"
Azreal completely ignored the ‘not easy’ part, Dustin couldn’t only force a smile while answering.
"Pretty much as long as you know what you're engraving. It's the same way how you write, just channel the Divine Energy into a finger then do what you want but you have to control the energy the output or it might just run right through your weapon and as for the blade just take it down to the blacksmith and have them melt it down and reforge it with some Divine Celestine crystal"
"Divine Celestine crystal?" [1]
"Yea it's just a common mineral that conducts Divine Energy to strengthen a weapon, so basically your weapon will be as strong as you are but there will be weapons way stronger than yours in the same class, Celestine is basically just a cheap fix until you can do better"
This really did sound like a pretty good idea but he didn't want to engrave something only to later discard it when something better came along beside he didn't even know if the spirits could be transferred to another weapon or if he would have to start over.
Something else Dustin said stuck with him but he didn’t say anything.
‘Weapons are divided into different classes?’
The Spell in the book was 'Eternal Damnation' if he were to complete the engravement for the spell it wouldn't be any different from gaining his own army.
What the spell did was to absorb all the negative emotions that a person was feeling throughout their lives up to the point of death, as well as, reap their souls and force them into a purgatory-like place, they'd basically suffer for every day —constantly amassing more negative emotions— until they are erased or release.
The only moment of peace the spirits would gain was when they were unleashed, in that state once they latch onto any living thing they would slowly eat away at the person until they were turned into a spirit just like them, during the process they would pass on all the pain and resentment that they were feeling onto the creature that they've latched onto in the form of illusions thus easing their own pain.
Just the aura that they’d release would slowly suck the life out of whatever it touched and the stronger he got, the stronger the spirits he could capture would get.
Thinking about the spell Azreal couldn't help but feel impatient waiting on a better weapon was probably a good idea but he didn't care he was feeling way too excited to wait that long.
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"Do you know where the blacksmith is?"
Dustin smile got even bigger he was really curious about what Azreal wanted to engrave all of a sudden so of course he'd tag along.
"Let's go we can just ask one of the soldiers I'll tag along so they won't try to swindle you, do you have any money?"
"Okay, I have some money on the card I got from the guild"
"Guess I'll have to lend you some, they won't take cards here"
After leaving the tent and walking for a while they met up on a soldier who gave them directions to the blacksmiths' workshop.
The directions they got were incredibly jumbled but still they managed to find it somehow, it was pretty spacious about ten persons could fit in there without it feeling cramp including all the tools and workbenches.
It looked nothing like Azreal expected it to, everything was clean and neatly arranged, all the workstations were clean and all the tools were placed on the wall in an an orderly fashion from largest to smallest, it wasn't until he saw the blacksmith that it ruined the clean look.
The blacksmith was a huge muscular man that looked to be over six feet and some inches but looked absolutely filthy like he hadn't showered in months, his skin was covered in patches of dirt, his hair was clumped and messy.
"What do you want?"
The blacksmith just cast them a glance while he asked so Dustin spoke up while taking the blade from Azreal.
"to reforge this with Celestine crystal"
The blacksmith merely grunted while gesturing Dustin to pass it to him, when he took hold of the blade he just looked at it a few time then threw it into the fire to heat it up.
"Can it be forged into a katana?"
Azreal wasn’t sure why but the idea of katana just kept calling him.
"Sure but that's going to cost you extra"
"how much?"
"Twelve gold"
Azreal just nodded because it didn't really sound like a lot to him after all he pays more to stay in a inn but that's because he's living in the capital so poverty doesn't really exist there an average soldier would make few gold a month and that was a lot.
"Aren't you just robbing us, twelve gold to reforge a weapon?"
The blacksmith looked just as disinterested as when they just arrive.
"You aren't in the army, so I can't charge you the army price, you aren’t just regular civilians your unknown civilians so you're going to get the unknown civilian price, If you don't like it find another smith"
Dustin really had no choice but to shut up because even if they were to go to another smith the fact that they all worked in the same shop he was certain that the prices wouldn't be any different, it might just go higher.
While waiting for the katana to be completed there was a period of awkward silence so Azreal went in a corner to sit down, taking out the book while Dustin walked around the store.
"How much for that!"
Dustins sudden shout made Azreal look up from the book to see where he was pointing.
Dustin was pointing at a red crystal.
When the Smith saw what it was he just shrugged.
"Twenty gold for the realgar crystal" [2]
Dustin knew that the man was obviously robbing them because he knew they had no other choice so he looked back at Azreal who intern nodded his head.
Since Azreal didn't mind and Azreal was going to be paying him back he didn't mind paying but it pissed him off knowing that he was being robbed and he couldn't do anything about it.
"Fine forge it with Realgar instead of the Celestine"
Hearing the conversation Azreal couldn't help but walk up to him and ask about it.
"What's the difference?"
"Celestine is just a common crystal that's used as a substitute while Realgar is a blood crystal its way stronger than Celestine, Even though both crystals will allow the weapon to grow with you but Realgar is so malleable if a few years down the line you decide that you want a different type of weapon you can change it yourself by pouring Divine Energy into it to change it shape and also in terms of its strength a Celestine weapon is basically shit compared to it."
While mentioning the part about changing the shape of the weapon Dustin stared at the blacksmith while stretching out every syllable of every word.
"Alight let's use the Realgar instead then"
Azreal couldn't suppress his smile because he was impatient and wanted to try out the new spell he'd rushed into creating a weapon at least now with the Realgar it won't be that much of a loss.
When Azreal was standing beside Dustin he had turned to look back at Smith after he finished telling Azreal about the crystals but when he was turning his eyes stopped when he glimpsed into the book Azreal was holding.
'Death...'