Chapter 77: An Expensive Recovery

Lin Yan opened the weapons category. Blades, swords, axes, hammers, spears—every kind of weapon filled the page, each marked with a Federation-certified grade and a price.

[F-Grade — Alloy Combat Saber]

[Price: 1,200 Credits.]

[F+-Grade — Nodachi]

[Price: 10,000 Credits.]

The picture of the nodachi caught his attention.

A black scabbard, a long grip, and a slender blade with a slight curve. He had always wanted a katana. Before, it would have been nothing more than a display piece. Now he finally had a use for one.

"Ten thousand?"

Roughly a million dollars for an F+ weapon?

Lin Yan opened the certification guidelines. Weapon ratings accounted for material properties, manufacturing quality, and practical performance. F-Grade already represented the top tier of conventional weapons. Some weapons made from supernatural materials but lacking special effects could receive an F+ rating based on their performance.

E-Grade required the weapon itself to possess verified supernatural properties.

He switched to E-Grade. The sparse listings fit on a single page, fewer than thirty in total.

[E−-Grade — Enchanted Longsword]

[Price: 50,000 Credits.]

[E-Grade — Sacred Warblade]

[Price: 100,000 Credits.]

"Have they lost their fucking minds?"

Even the cheapest E− weapon cost twice his entire balance.

Lin Yan also searched the market for anything that could damage a soul. After Zeta, he wanted a way to fight back if something like that happened again.

The only result was an E-Grade weapon.

[E-Grade — Soulwound Dagger]

[Verified Property: Inflicts damage on the target’s soul.]

[Price: 100,000 Credits.]

Four times his balance. He saved the listing and returned to the weapons page. That would have to wait.

Most listings had only one unit in stock, and some accepted only specific items in exchange. Sales records for weapons of the same grade were few and far between, with wildly different prices.

Convergences had only just started appearing. There were few recovered samples, fewer available for sale, and no stable market yet. It was just like a game at launch: everything was scarce, and everything was expensive.

Lin Yan returned to the nodachi’s page and opened its test video.

A mechanical arm gripped the hilt and brought the blade down on a steel breastplate secured to a frame. The breastplate caved in as the edge tore a long gash through it, curling the metal along the cut and buckling the armor out of shape.

The arm withdrew the nodachi, and the camera zoomed in. The edge wasn’t chipped, the blade remained straight, and he couldn’t even see a noticeable scratch.

Lin Yan opened the full specifications.

[F+-Grade — Nodachi]

[Overall Length: 200 cm.]

[Blade Length: 150 cm.]

[Grip Length: 50 cm.]

[Weight: 108 kg.]

[Material: Otherworld Metal — Supernatural Origin.]

[Verified Supernatural Properties: None.]

[Source: Tengu Mountain — E-Grade Convergence.]

[Price: 10,000 Credits.]

"A hundred and eight kilograms?"

No wonder it had done that to the breastplate.

The weight alone could bludgeon someone to death, never mind the cutting edge. The material came from a supernatural world, with density, hardness, and toughness far beyond ordinary steel. But the finished weapon had no enchantments or other special effects, which left it at F+.

It suited Lin Yan just fine.

At two meters overall, it was a good fit for his current two-meter-ten frame, and the fifty-centimeter grip had plenty of room for both hands. With his strength, swinging it wouldn’t be a problem.

Add Blade Arts II to that, and the damage... Jesus.

An incident report was linked beside the source name. Lin Yan tapped it.

[Tengu Mountain — E-Grade Convergence.]

[Full Report: Paid Access.]

[A-Grade Account Privilege Applied.]

[Access Fee Waived.]

So an A-Grade account came with that perk too.

According to the report, the Convergence zone had been a stretch of mountain forest. The main enemies were otherworld warriors armed with blades, while the central threat was a tengu dwelling in the mountains.

One photograph showed the creature standing before a wooden shrine, wings on its back and a long blade in its hand. In the next, nothing remained of the shrine but a charred frame.

The report’s conclusion was brief: the tengu had been killed by a white phosphorus strike. The remaining hostiles were cleared out, and the Convergence ended.

Lin Yan scrolled through a few more pages. No second phase. No sudden appearance of an even stronger enemy.

That was it?

His E-Grade had included rotters, corpse giants, Church knights, and finally a Black Dragon and Zeta. They had nearly torn him to pieces. This one was also E-Grade, and burning the tengu to death had been enough?

A comparison of same-grade incidents appeared below the report. Sacred Incarnation was at the top.

[Sacred Incarnation — E-Grade Convergence.]

[Federation Assessment: Highest Recorded Difficulty Among E-Grade Convergences.]

A note explained that enemy numbers, combinations of abilities, and clearance conditions could vary enormously within the same grade.

"So I got stuck with the hardest one."

Lin Yan closed the report and added the nodachi to his cart.

It was long enough, tough enough, and over a hundred kilograms coming down on armor would hit plenty hard. This one would do.

Now to see what he could do about his injuries.

The medical category had far fewer products than the weapons section. Most were disinfectants, hemostatic supplies, and painkillers. Filtering for bone repair and tissue regeneration left only a handful of items, half of them out of stock.

[F-Grade — Regenerative Repair Agent]

[Accelerates bone and soft-tissue repair.]

[Supports the regeneration of missing tissue.]

[Price: 3,000 Credits / Dose.]

Three thousand a dose. Six times the price of the strength enhancer.

The instructions were clear: it promoted fracture healing and the repair of missing tissue, with results depending on the injury and the user’s natural regenerative ability. The process required substantial nutritional intake, and a single dose was not guaranteed to restore an entire limb.

Both his skull and his fingers qualified.

Lin Yan checked the price history. This batch had been listed at two thousand when it first went on sale. The last purchase had been for twenty-six hundred. Now it was three thousand, with only two doses left.

"Fuck."

He added it to his cart.

Getting his skull and fingers healed sooner was worth more than keeping those three thousand Credits. He had already bought the blade. He wasn’t going to leave it sitting at home forever.

The checkout page listed two items.

[F+-Grade Nodachi — 10,000 Credits.]

[F-Grade Regenerative Repair Agent ×1 — 3,000 Credits.]

[Total: 13,000 Credits.]

Lin Yan confirmed the payment.

[Payment Successful.]

[Current Credits: 12,000.]

He hadn’t even finished his meal, and more than half his new twenty-five thousand was gone. He entered the apartment address, and the order moved to dispatch.

That afternoon, the delivery staff arrived with a long weapon case on a trolley and a cooling box.

Inside the case, the nodachi was secured in fitted padding. It looked even longer than it had in the pictures. Leaving it in the case, Lin Yan used his uninjured fingers to ease the hilt out a little, exposing a length of gleaming steel.

He wanted to try it.

But the two reattached fingers on his right hand couldn’t take any strain, and his left had only a thumb. He slid the blade back in and opened the cooling box first.

There was only one small dose inside. Lin Yan used it as directed. Before long, the throbbing in his head began to ease, replaced by a fine itching beneath the bandages. Warmth spread around the reattached joints on his right hand, while the stumps on his left began to tingle and itch.

Hunger hit right after.

It was as though that whole table of meat at lunch had never happened. His stomach felt painfully empty. Lin Yan opened the delivery app and reordered his earlier meal five times, maxing out the extra delivery payment on every order.