We entered the shop. It was a decent-looking shop, almost as big as the weapons shop I got in last time. Weapons were displayed all over, ranging from swords, greatswords, spears, as well as shields and different kinds of armors. Looking around, I didn’t see any katana. It would seem they were specially made for high-ranking people. Oh well, not like I was too interested in those.

There was no one at the counter, but there was a passage frame behind it. The owner must be inside.

Hartwin whistled. “Nice.” He grabbed a sword, looking closely at it. “Looks decent for being made in a land like this. Oh, wait, could these be imported as well?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. But I heard from Taneva that Shinoroa has a lot of minerals they exchange for foreign goods. So we shouldn’t underestimate their blacksmiths.”

If you’re rich in metal and such, you would definitely find use to it. Plus, this was a land full of monsters, it would be pathetic if they couldn’t craft excellently made weapons. I doubt even this shithole of a city would be that incompetent.

“You’re right. But this is impressive, though. The way the hilt curves, the blade is so neat. Whoever made this is an impressive craftsman.”

I looked around for things that were just for me. While doing so, I saw Velar looking closely at a greatsword. Could it be that he used a huge sword when he was still working as a soldier? Well, given his physique’s size, a greatsword would certainly fit him as a weapon.

I continued looking around until I found a table where some daggers were placed. With slightly narrowed eyes, I picked up a small dagger. These were finely made, a bit better than the ones I currently had. The switch from the hilt to the blade was smooth. The central broad of the blade had a nice transition coming to the side. I was quite impressed that someone could make very fine daggers in this size.

I could see a hint of talent and high skill. But I wondered about durability. Some products look good, but actually shit and quite easy to break. All appearances, as they say.

And then, suddenly, an adult man walked in at the opening behind the counter. The three of us turned to look towards him. The man stared at us for a moment before turning in another direction.

“Esagi! We have customers. Talk to them, will ya?!”

Then there was a shout from within the room ahead. “Dammit pops! I’m working here!” It was a young female voice.

“Get out here, now!”

A moment later, an irritated girl came out, frowning at her father. She was surprisingly young, around mid-teens. A bit thin, but her appearance must be likely because of her age. She was also a bit short, a foot shorter than me. She was wearing a somewhat baggy shirt and pants, and they had some dirty and black spots — must be from working on their forgery. She had dark orange hair, a bit of light brown skin, and sharp dark green eyes.

She patted her hands before scowling at her father. “Why can’t you just talk to them? You’re already here!”

“You’re a better talker. Now then, I’m going to the forge.” The older guy began walking away.

“Don’t tamper with my work, okay?!”

“We’ll see.”

“Dammit it, pops! I’m serious!”

Okay… Quite a straightforward father and daughter.

The girl sighed for a moment before approaching the counter and facing us.

“Sup?” she curtly said. “I’m Esagi. The second best blacksmith in the city of Mahana. What’cha you wanna buy?” She formed a small but proud smile.

“Second?” Hartwin asked. “Then who’s the first?”

She frowned. “That be my pops. Don’t worry, I’m already better than him. He’s just the senior.”

“Huh.”

She seemed to take great pride in her skills. I mean, if you’re actually good, then you should be proud. It inspires the confidence that you need in life. But damn, to be honest, I found it a little doubtful she was better than her father. I mean, she was young. So young.

“You’re not from around here, are you? Never saw you here before.”

“Does it matter?” I asked as I returned the dagger.

It would be annoying if it would be like in the bar again. The part where we were refused service to have fancy liquors.

The girl puckered her lips with a nod. “It doesn't matter, really. I was just curious. Are you anywhere from Shinoroa? Don’t look like it.”

“No, we’re not.”

“I see. Well, as long as you’re decent customers, there’ll be no trouble. People always make a fuss when buying here.”

“A fuss?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen how people are here. Barbaric and savages. Now imagine if they go shopping for weapons.” She crossed her arms with an annoyed expression. “Looking for the best, but can’t even fucking pay for it.”

There would surely be a rowdy bunch. But I wondered how they even go about handling that? Barbarians and savages would be difficult to reason with words. Only by force. This girl, Esagi, didn’t seem to be a fighter. Her father, though, seemed to be the fighter.

“I understand. Don’t worry,” I said. “We don’t intend to cause trouble, just looking around.”

“Good. Now then, anything you want? I made most of the displays, so you can ask me anything.” Esagi scrutinized me before glancing at the daggers I was next to. “Let me guess, you want daggers?” She got out of the counter and approached me.

There was no reason for being so on guard in this enclosed establishment. I lowered my hood. Upon seeing me, the girl froze in place with eyes wide in astonishment. There was a slight hint of blush on her cheeks.

“W-Woah. You’re definitely not from around these lands. Good choice covering yourself when out there.”

Yeah, I knew how bad people can be.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Ahem, anyway, you want daggers?”

I nodded. “These daggers look well made.”

“Yeah, I made those.”

“Oh.”

She picked up one of the smaller daggers. “Aside from the function, I also wanted to add a bit of form factor. Meaning to at least look good. But it doesn’t sacrifice the balance.”

“How durable is this?”

“These are the cheaper ones. Should easily take care of bandits or smaller monsters. It’s just steel with no special techniques put into it, so you might find it difficult to use against monsters with harder skins.”

“Monsters with harder skins…?” I was a bit surprised to hear that.

“... You don’t know? Oh yeah, you’re tourists. If you’re not going inland, I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

My crew and I stared at each other before I faced Esagi again. “We are going inland.”

“Oh. How far?”

I slightly tilted my head. “Deep into it, I suppose.”

She nodded. “Then you’ll likely face powerful monsters the further you go within the lands. These daggers could do well if you add magic into it. But, you might face harder enemies. And inland, you need to preserve mana as much as possible. Constantly using magic to coat your blade could become a problem.”

True, if the inlands were filled with monsters, you cannot afford to run out of mana. Otherwise, you’ll be in a tight spot. If I could avoid using too much mana for my weapons, that would be nice.

“Is that so?”

“Just so you know, monsters could be lurking anywhere. So you can’t lower your guard. Conserve as much mana as possible until you’re absolutely safe. By the way, what daggers do you use? Can you show me?”

I had no problem showing an excellent blacksmith my gear, so I nodded and walked over to the desk. I pulled out a couple of small daggers, my medium daggers, and finally my fancy, special dagger.

“Woah!” Esagi’s eyes widened and promptly grabbed the fancy dagger. “Cool, ornamental dagger.” She seemed to like it very much. “So fine!” She caressed the dagger from the hilt to the blade. “So smooth and flawless. Where did you get this?”

“From a smith in my homeland.”

“Ooooh. What a fine smith then. Impressive. Any special attributes to this?”

“Special attributes…? I don’t think so. It’s just a plain dagger.”

“Oh… You don’t have to worry about any powerful monsters where you came from?”

“... There are, but they’re not that big of a deal.” We had the knights or adventurers to take care of those. And not like the monsters swarmed the land.

“I see, I see.” She looked closely at the blade. “Yeah, it’s just a normal blade. Steel, gold and silver, and maybe some other special materials. Fit for decorative display, but would work as a weapon too. Not much sign of wear and tear. You only use this to stab into soft spots?”

Woah, she realized that? Impressive.

I rarely used it, and it was for killing my targets. So I guess that dagger of mine didn’t encounter a tough surface except for flesh.

“Yes.”

“You’re taking good care of this indeed. However, it would be difficult to use this against monsters. If you fail to apply enough magic and strike at a monster with hard skin, it’ll get nicked or snapped in half.”

Now that would be incredibly bad.

“The same applies to the rest here.” She picked up the other daggers. “You might have to spend more mana than necessary. Efficiency is key to survival in these lands.”

“So my weapons wouldn’t do then…” I sighed.

“Yeah.” She put the weapons down. “Here, let me show you a good, proper dagger.”

She excitedly grabbed the daggers placed in the nearby corner. I saw them before, but I just approached the closest. She picked up three daggers and placed them in front of me. I noticed something in the daggers. The blade had faintly glittering dots on it, like dust. Move it around under a direct light and you would see the countless dust glitter ever so slightly. Otherwise, in an ambient light, they were not, or mostly not noticeable.

It was almost like someone sprinkled glitter dust on the blade, but of course not as colorful as those.

“These are blades made not only with steel, but with other minerals as well.” She presented one dagger. “This is half more durable than any steel weapon. And the weight is not more than normally expected from a normal dagger.”

I received the dagger she gave me. And she was right, the weight of the dagger was just right. I caressed the blade, they were smooth. The glittering dust was embedded into the metal.

“And the best feature about these daggers?” she continued. “Its efficiency in magic.”

“Efficiency?”

“Have you heard of Nulecerite?”

“No.”

She pointed at the blade. “See these shining dust?” She tilted the dagger around, showing the shining dust. “It’s Nulecerite, sprinkled all over the blade. It makes the mana cast on the blade efficient. In short, it reduces the mana you would have normally spent.”

That really caught my attention. “How does it work?”

“To put it simply, if you imbue your mana into the blade, your mana touches the dust. The mana goes through the dust and it does not change your magic, more like redistributes and emanates it by itself. You don’t need to distribute the mana yourself, and so you use less effort and reduce the wasted mana.”

Could it be like reducing the leakage and wasted energy like in electricity? And since it's automated, I don’t need to sweat more to control my magic. The dust does all the work in distributing my power across the blade.

“Give it a try,” she said. “Do it like how you would coat your blade with Armament Magic. But this time, cast it closer to the metal and let the dust take the magic in.”

I stared at the dagger in my hands as Velar and Hartwin approached closer in curiosity. Taking a breath in, I cast my Armament Magic. The mana moved from my hand, to the handle, to the hilt, then to the blade. It was there that I felt a different sensation.

It felt lighter and more relaxed. My mana was being absorbed, but I didn’t resist it. Instantly, I could feel my mana being spread all over the blade, before I knew it the blade was glowing.

Woah.

The blade was successfully coated with magic. I was astonished. How come we didn’t have these back home?

“Oh nice, you did it! So, what’cha think?”

I nodded with a smile. “It’s wonderful. It’s so easy. I didn’t need to cast a whole lot to spread it all over the blade.”

“Yeah, as the dust is sprinkled all around it, you don’t need to coat the entire thing. The dust already distributes and emanates the magic you cast.”

I didn’t apply my whole mana to the metal, but to the dust — as they automatically absorbed and distributed the mana, I didn’t have to do much. And given that the dust was pretty much all over the blade, and emanating my magic, my magic still touched the metal and molded around it. Almost the same principle as the normal magical coating to enhance the weapon. Although in fact, the way it coated the blade felt a bit better and fit.

I imagined the way it works was like my mana was being distributed among the other countless dust like a network of veins. Their channels and flow were more concentrated, thus it reduced the cost of mana when casting or maintaining the magic. And it felt like the amount of mana on the blade was more equal across it. In other words, it felt like the flow of mana was more optimized and stable.

“I like this,” I said.

“Of course you would. It saves like a quarter of mana.”

Nice. Putting it in numbers, if the magic costs 10 points, with this I would need to only spend 7.5 points. Efficient indeed.

“But, well, not everyone wants to buy these kinds of weapons,” Esagi said. “It’s pricey, and others would rather save money and work together with others. Or others are just strong enough to be so confident. Still, I would advise using these. Even high-ranking soldiers use these kinds of weapons.”

You just can’t miss on the benefits after all.

“I see. Can you apply it to my daggers?”

“... For increasing durability, I’m afraid I can’t. It would need to be remade, so technically I can but it’s like starting from scratch. For increasing efficiency, I can apply it, but I think it would be best to just get a new set so you’ll also have the increased durability.”

Of course.

Not to mention the cost. Better to buy new ones then. However, there was one I couldn’t let go. No, one I would never let go.

“What about this one?” I pointed at my fancy dagger. “What can you do to improve it?”

“Like the rest, I can only apply the efficiency materials. But this is a very ornamental dagger. I would need to be extremely careful not to ruin it. It is risky, there’s a chance of damaging the designs on the blade.” She was clearly hesitant.

“What? I thought you’re so supposed to be the best? Surely you can do it.”

Her eye twitched. “... O-Of course I can do it. But durability I can’t change without tampering with the blade as a whole. You’ll pretty much lose all the pretty designs.”

“Then just add the efficiency.”

I’m sure my magic can pretty much protect the blade. I just need efficiency. Besides, I only use the fancy blade to execute my targets.

“Alright.”

“Good! Thank you very much, Miss Esagi!” I shook her hand with a wide grin. “Looks like I’ll also be buying a new set from you.”

Alright people! Looks like my main dagger is getting an upgrade! No, I’m getting an upgrade to all my weapons. Upgrades, people, upgrades! It’s important! It’s like how you must get a new set of higher-level weapons when going to a higher stage. And I’d be putting in an investment now.