Chapter 323 [Ember Fall]

'I shouldn't have asked.'

Xia Nan walked down the street, his expression as calm and unruffled as usual.

A torn, bloodstained shirt; an arm shield and greaves obviously of Fine grade; a bare sword hilt hanging on his back; and the intense, focused aura he exuded.

Anyone with half an eye could tell he was a powerful, veteran Adventurer fresh from a quest.

The chilling aura lingering around him meant that even without any extra movements or expressions, oncoming pedestrians unconsciously quickened their pace, parting like water to make way.

His deep, pitch-black eyes were shadowed by the slightly disheveled hair falling over his forehead.

No one knew what this black-haired youth, who gave off such a cold and dangerous feeling, was thinking right now.

Xia Nan only felt his heart bleeding.

Physical attributes far surpassing those of ordinary Class Holders, along with his outstanding Perception, allowed him to recall the exact moment he swung that blade with absolute clarity, like a playback.

The sharp, cold-gleaming blade, wrapped in explosive ocher force-field energy, sliced through the wound on the Armored Lurker's chest.

Wherever the blade reached, the dense muscle fibers and diaphragm offered no resistance and were easily torn apart.

The force-field energy drove deep inside, crushing the monster's internal organs.

Xia Nan could even remember the slight resistance the moment his longsword entered the Armored Lurker's body, and the distinctly crisper, more tender sensation—compared to muscle—when its feather gill burst. That was the sound of gold coins that should have been his vanishing into nothingness in an instant.

For the first time since transmigrating, he felt the heavy weight of "knowledge."

If he had known beforehand that the Armored Lurker Feather Gill was worth so much money, he definitely would have chosen a more agile combat style against the heavily injured, severely weakened Armored Lurker, avoiding damage to its internal organs as much as possible.

If he had known the feather gill's value, he would have angled his swing a bit lower to spare that crucial part.

'If only...'

At this point, all the regret in the world was meaningless.

Xia Nan decided that while resting in town, the extra time he spent crash-coursing this world's various fields of knowledge—aside from his daily training—would be doubled, extending from an hour and a half to three hours.

He would also increase the proportion of time spent studying the anatomy of various monsters and high-value materials.

The Aifala Continent was boundless, and the number of monsters living on it was impossible to count.

Even the most experienced Adventurer wouldn't dare claim to know the material value of every single monster.

For Xia Nan, this was undoubtedly a long journey with no end in sight.

Even if he studied like this for years, incidents like the Armored Lurker Feather Gill might still happen frequently.

But he wasn't the type to just give up and rot just because the chances of perfect success were slim.

Taking action versus doing nothing were two completely different concepts.

Right now, all the materials collected from this quest had already been processed at the Verdant Crucible. The Spined Devil parts sold for 60 gold coins. The Armored Lurker's nerve fibers, partial carapace, and eyes added up to a higher price, and Edwina rounded it up to a neat 100 gold coins for him.

Added together, his total profit was 160 gold coins.

'If I had managed to bring back that feather gill, I would have made an extra three hundred gold coins. That would have directly covered the deficit for reforging the longsword.'

Regret lingered in his heart.

Xia Nan gently shook his head, putting it out of his mind.

Even after offloading those materials, he still had some loot left.

He had a few weapons from the Imps and the Barbed Devil. He planned to take them to the Rockhammer Smithy to see if they could fetch a good price while he inspected his reforged longsword.

He had walked this familiar path countless times.

When Xia Nan arrived at the Rockhammer Smithy carrying the bag of devil weapons, that tall, burly figure was standing behind the counter as usual, attentively polishing a metal device with a cloth.

Xia Nan called out a greeting from afar, and the man looked up.

As he replied, his gaze swept over Xia Nan's shirt—which lacked any armor protection on the upper body—and flicked toward the lone sword hilt left hanging on his back.

This renowned blacksmith of Rivervale Town revealed a look of accustomed, almost resigned amusement.

"I recall you just bought that suit of Plate-Chain Composite Armor not long ago, didn't you?" Barn asked.

"It hasn't been many days," Xia Nan gave a slight nod. "I haven't even opened the maintenance kit you threw in."

"And what about that transitional longsword? I remember telling you that if you took good care of it, I'd buy it back at a high price once your new sword was finished, right?" Barn pressed, harboring one last shred of hope.

"Bad luck. This quest was a bit dangerous, and I slipped up for a moment..." Xia Nan gave a helpless shrug.

Although this exact scenario had repeated many times and the other party should be used to it by now, this time it wasn't just the armor—even the longsword had been scrapped alongside it.

Worried Barn might overthink it, Xia Nan weighed his words and added, "Don't worry, it wasn't an issue with the quality. It was purely because the intensity of the battle was too high, plus a few unforeseen circumstances."

He had used this exact same excuse more than once.

Barn, of course, understood what Xia Nan was trying to say.

But as an artisan who had left his clan to open a smithy on the dangerous frontlines—a responsible craftsman with true aspirations in the path of forging...

...facing this young man's absurd armor scrappage rate of nearly one suit per quest still unconsciously disheartened him.

His spirit as a craftsman was on the verge of shattering.

Because of this, for the armor he had forged recently, Barn had even added several extra procedures to test strength and toughness after completion, all to minimize the possibility of any defective products slipping through.

Though he hadn't mentioned it, the Plate-Chain Composite Armor he sold to Xia Nan that day was actually a special piece he had specifically prepared in advance. It had undergone incredibly detailed testing and inspections, and had even been extra reinforced in certain areas.

Yet it was scrapped even faster than the ones before.

Along with the specially made two-handed longsword, both were reduced to junk.

"Did you bring back their remains? Can you let me take a look?" Barn looked earnest. "I don't mean anything by it; I just want to know where they failed so I can improve them next time."

Xia Nan's mind involuntarily recalled the battle. The Plate-Chain Composite Armor had been grazed by a devil Spellcaster's Lightning Bolt, melting into a heavy puddle of scrap iron that hit the ground. And during his [Ember Echoes] state, the two-handed longsword had been melted and pitted by the Ember's scorching heat until it was only fit to be used as a crab-cracker.

Xia Nan was momentarily speechless.

After a moment of silence, he slowly spoke in a relatively sincere tone, "They were too heavily damaged with no chance of salvage. Plus, I had a lot of loot and materials to haul back from this quest, so I didn't bring them."

Hearing this, Barn's gaze subconsciously swept over the sack Xia Nan was carrying.

He sighed. "We'll talk about it next time, then."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the expression on the rugged, braided-bearded burly man shifted from its previous melancholy and helplessness to obvious excitement.

He placed the iron piece in his hands under the counter, casually tossed the cloth toward a scrap pile, and beckoned as he turned and strode briskly toward the back room. "Your Decapitating Longsword has finished reforging."

"It was a complete success! You're going to be absolutely satisfied!"

"Follow me!"

Harboring an intense wave of anticipation, Xia Nan quickly followed him.

The layout of the smithy's back room was basically unchanged, except the thick wooden table—which had previously been piled high with blueprints, measuring tools, and forging equipment—was now completely cleared off.

Only a long oak box sat in the center of the table.

Barn stopped at the doorway, not taking another step forward.

With his arms crossed over his chest and his head held slightly high, he wore a rather smug expression and gestured for Xia Nan to go up and open it himself.

'He even set up a sense of ceremony,' he muttered in his heart. He didn't dislike it; in fact, his anticipation only grew.

Come to think of it, the three thousand gold coins spent to reforge the longsword—roughly converted by purchasing power—would likely be enough to buy a house in a top-tier city in his past life.

It was only normal for the unveiling ceremony to be a bit grand.

Stepping up to the edge of the table, Xia Nan took a deep breath.

Then, reaching out with both hands, he gently lifted the lid of the wooden box.

Hum—a sharp, cold gleam flashed momentarily across his pitch-black eyes. Greeting his sight was a slender, entirely dark-gray straight sword.

The blade featured a crisp diamond cross-section, tapering smoothly and uniformly from the crossguard to the tip in one breath. The edge lines on both sides were straight as a ruler, like two deep, dark lines holding back their sharpness. Only when the sunlight from the window occasionally caught on the metal did its deeply hidden edge reveal itself.

The hilt was crafted from the shaft of the [Ember Training Cane]. Hailing from a foreign Secret Realm, this dense, tough dark wood shared the same color palette as the blade, looking as if the metal simply extended downward. Its surface had been sanded and processed in a minimalist style without any excess decoration. One could faintly see the wood grain, which had been treated along its natural dense pattern to enhance grip friction.

Between the two, a dark-gray crossguard forged from the same material as the blade extended smoothly to both sides. It protruded only slightly before cutting off cleanly, without any extra ornamental branches, bearing a highly practical design.

Compared to the previous Decapitating Longsword, this straight sword's color was noticeably darker.

If, before reforging, it had been a faintly gleaming metallic iron-gray...

Now, it looked more like the twilight dark-gray of the sky just as the sun sank at dusk.

Its length had been reduced, changing from the original four chi to just under three chi, placing it somewhere between a two-handed longsword and a one-handed sword. Its width had also narrowed slightly, measuring just shy of three fingers pressed together.

The straight sword simply lay quietly in the wooden box, yet it inexplicably gave off a profound sense of highly concentrated power. It was like a physical shadow snapped off from the night curtain—slender, silent, and forming a unique aesthetic of cold, ruthless efficiency.

Xia Nan reached out with his right hand and gently grasped the hilt.

A mild coolness unique to wood transmitted into his palm, guided by the swirling grain of the handle.

The moment he gripped it, before he could even exert any strength, Xia Nan suddenly felt a wisp of scorching heat—almost like an illusion—surge up from his fingertips and seep into his body.

The Ember energy of [Afterglow Echoes] seemed to be stimulated by it, beginning to circulate faintly.

As if possessing some sort of sentience that detected the ashen Ember within Xia Nan's body, the straight sword that had been lying dormant in the box suddenly trembled slightly, emitting a light hum into the air.

Faintly, Xia Nan felt an invisible, ephemeral connection form between himself and the straight sword in the unseen void.

While inwardly amazed, he formed a vague guess.

He tightened his five fingers and flexed his arm.

The hum vanished in a flash, and a streak of black light sliced through the air.

In the next blink, the straight sword had already been drawn from the wooden box by Xia Nan.

The material was clearly much denser. Even though its length and width were smaller than before the reforging, its weight had increased by almost half.

Even with Xia Nan's current physical attributes, holding it in his hand felt distinctly heavy and solid.

It was exactly to his liking!

As a cold weapon that required forceful swings in combat, lightness was certainly an advantage. But often, if a weapon was too light, swinging it lacked tangible feedback, giving a hollow, floating sensation as if no force was being applied.

The straight sword's current weight was perfect. It wasn't so light that it would hinder his combat performance, nor was it so heavy that he needed to strain himself just to use it. It sat right in that sweet spot where he had leeway to adjust his power.

Xia Nan felt incredibly comfortable and satisfied with this, though he wasn't particularly surprised.

As the client, he had been deeply involved in the entire reforging process.

It could truly be called custom-tailored.

Not just the weight of the finished product, but the blade's length, the crossguard's shape, and even the sanded texture on the hilt—Barn had detailedly sought his input and discussed everything with him.

Xia Nan clearly remembered that to find his most comfortable weapon weight, the dwarven craftsman had directly forged five dedicated mockup swords. They had spent three whole days running simulations for various scenarios and recording a massive amount of data before finally finding the number that suited him best.

The final result of the blood, sweat, and effort they both poured in was the straight sword itself, possessing an unprecedented, peerless, and wonderful feel in Xia Nan's grip.

It was as if even his palm lines meshed perfectly with the wood grain on the hilt.

Even though this was his first time holding it, it gave him the familiar sensation that they had already fought countless battles together.

His muscles bulged slightly with exertion, and the deep dark-gray blade gently sliced through the air.

That subtle feeling of absolute control made the straight sword feel like an extension of his own arm at that moment.

It made swinging the sword as simple as eating or drinking, akin to a natural instinct.

Examining it closely, Xia Nan focused his attention and stared intently at the blade.

Immediately, translucent characters slowly surfaced in the empty void.

[Blazing Fall]

Type: Straight Sword | Grade: Rare (Blue) / Unique (Purple)

Effects:

1. +100% Durability;

2. +15% Decapitation Damage;

3. +5% Slashing Damage;

4. +10% Special Damage (Mental);

5. +33% Damage to Wandering Soul type creatures;

6. [Molten Flow Reshaping]: The ashen Ember flowing over the blade will automatically restore the sword's durability and slightly increase the Ember bonus damage;

7. While in the Ember state, enemies killed with this sword will slightly reduce the cooldown time of [Ember Echoes];

Description:

A relic from a dead world, an extinguished tinder. You know how you should use it, right?

Note:

"Burn—if only for the sake of 'existence' itself—"