Chapter 599 [Bloodstone Heavy Anchor]

Xia Nan got the distinct feeling that Celianne was glaring at him with a hint of resentment.

But considering the circumstances, it made perfect sense.

Putting himself in the half-elf's shoes, Celianne had spent a massive amount of time designing custom blueprints, measuring body proportions, and tweaking weight details to painstakingly forge this Fine-grade masterpiece.

Even if it couldn't become an Epic item that accompanied a legendary hero for a lifetime, it at least should have helped the adventurer who bought it survive a few more years of a dangerous career.

Yet only a few days after the finished product was delivered, it had been reduced to near-scrap.

Its destruction happened so quickly it was even more absurd than the wear and tear on the cheap light armor worn by ordinary adventurers.

Of course, the half-elf tailor might have genuinely harbored such complaints at first, perhaps even wondering if Xia Nan had treated his painstaking work with any care at all.

But as Xia Nan drew closer and the tailor examined the detailed damage across the armor—and recalled the rumors spreading through Barracuda Bay these past few days about what had happened on Stodd Island—most of that resentment faded.

As a master craftsman with unparalleled forging experience, Celianne could clearly discern the cause of the damage just by looking at the scars on the [Abyssal Current] armor.

He could even reconstruct Xia Nan's battle to some extent.

The shallow but highly varied surface marks—such as corrosion, lightning scorches, and frostbite—obviously pointed to a bitter struggle against a large number of spellcasting enemies.

The scorch marks were particularly prominent, covering almost every inch of the armor. The deepest burns had warped it so badly it could barely maintain its original structure, indicating a head-on collision with some high-powered fire spell.

As for the rest—the true cause that had pushed the [Abyssal Current] armor into a completely ruined state—that came from the impact of pure, unadulterated Strength.

It was hard to imagine just what level of power was required to twist his meticulously designed Fine armor—which was built to maximize impact dispersion and protect its wearer—into its current mangled state.

Thinking of this, Celianne shifted his gaze forward. He glanced at Xia Nan, who was currently standing by a clothing rack with his hands behind his back, admiring a newly finished custom hunting suit meant for a noblewoman in the bay with the enthusiasm of someone appreciating fine art.

The half-elf's expression turned thoroughly odd.

It was industry common sense that armor took damage only when it endured attacks exceeding its designed threshold.

Given his absolute confidence in the defensive capabilities of [Abyssal Current], if the armor itself was practically reduced to scrap, the adventurer wearing it shouldn't have been able to walk away unscathed.

Even if he didn't die on the spot, he should be clinging to life with critical injuries.

Yet right now, the black-haired young man staring at the noble hunting suit with great relish, nodding in approval every so often, didn't look injured in the slightest.

In that moment, Celianne didn't know whether to grieve for his ruined equipment or feel relieved that its wearer was perfectly intact.

His emotions were incredibly complicated.

As if noticing the half-elf's gaze, Xia Nan turned around, gave a slight nod to Celianne behind the counter, and asked, "How's the damage? Pretty severe?"

Nearly twenty minutes had passed since Xia Nan entered Pearl Spun Yarn.

He had already taken off the two pieces of gear that had suffered the worst damage in the battle—the [Abyssal Current] armor and the [Bone-Bound Iron Greaves]—and handed them over for a detailed inspection.

Judging by the half-elf's expression, the results didn't look optimistic.

However, Celianne's response to Xia Nan's question was somewhat unexpected.

"These greaves are completely useless now." Looking at the completely twisted and deformed [Bone-Bound Iron Greaves] on the counter, which had lost all their enchanted properties, Celianne's face showed a trace of pity unique to a blacksmith.

Perhaps the overall quality of this enchanted gear hadn't been that high due to the limitations of its materials, but the forging craftsmanship displayed by Barn of Rockhammer was something the half-elf admired.

It was like a delicate cake with a piece sliced out of it.

Even knowing this was its inevitable fate, he couldn't help but feel it was a shame.

"It's not totally beyond repair, but considering the materials required and the time and energy I would have to spend fixing it, it's obviously better to just forge a new piece of higher-quality gear."

"So, unless this equipment holds some deep sentimental value to you, I personally recommend scrapping it."

Celianne essentially passed a death sentence on the [Bone-Bound Iron Greaves].

Hearing this, the polite smile faded from Xia Nan's face. His eyes grew complicated as he looked at the greaves.

The [Bone-Bound Iron Greaves] were among the oldest pieces of equipment he currently possessed.

Perhaps because of their equipment type they didn't have much of a presence on a normal day, but they had genuinely absorbed a massive amount of damage for him, outlasting one set of more expensive, higher-quality armor after another.

He wouldn't say he had deep emotional attachments to them, but he had worn them for a long time.

Having them suddenly scrapped left Xia Nan feeling a bit down.

Celianne could understand Xia Nan's current mood. In fact, seeing the man's genuine reaction to his gear being scrapped actually improved his impression of the young adventurer known as Sea Fang.

Reaching out to gently touch the twisted bone-white surface of the [Bone-Bound Iron Greaves], the tailor offered a word of comfort. "These greaves were excellent pieces of equipment."

"While they might not meet the conditions to be worn anymore, the fact that you can stand here safe and sound proves they fulfilled their mission."

"Looking at the craftsmanship—they must have been forged by Barn of Rockhammer, right?"

"If possible, I'd like to recycle these greaves to refine my own forging techniques."

"The price will definitely be higher than the market average. Consider it my tuition fee to Barn."

As a renowned high-end custom gear shop in Barracuda Bay, Pearl Spun Yarn didn't actually handle the recycling of low-level equipment.

But much like with the [Purgatory Pulse] that Xia Nan had sold here before, as a fellow smith, Celianne highly appreciated Barn of Rockhammer in Rivervale Town. Even though the gear was already ruined, he was willing to pay for the lingering traces of its craftsmanship.

Sensing the half-elf's goodwill, Xia Nan gave a slight nod, his gaze shifting from the greaves to the [Abyssal Current] armor.

"What about this one? Is it scrapped too?"

During the battle, it had successively endured Fireball impacts and the brute force strikes of the Bloodskin Shark Beast, only to finally be scoured by the Ember of his [Ember Echoes] state.

Judging solely from the exterior damage, the state of the [Abyssal Current] armor was even worse than the greaves.

He had originally assumed it was completely ruined and would need to be re-commissioned entirely.

Surprisingly, facing Xia Nan's inquiry, Celianne gave an unexpected answer: "Hmm—I'd consider it half-destroyed. It's still within the realm of repair."

"Oh? How so?"

As the armor's creator, the half-elf clearly knew much more about the specific design details and structural integrity of [Abyssal Current] than Xia Nan did.

Since both of them had plenty of free time at the moment and were in no rush, he took the time to explain it to Xia Nan in detail.

The [Abyssal Current] armor wasn't the typical one-piece suit commonly found on the market.

Thanks to the abundant materials and ample funding Xia Nan had provided, combined with Celianne's exceptional forging skills, the equipment was given a comprehensive design from the very beginning that catered to his combat style and suited the local environment.

Its overall structure consisted of two parts.

These were the thick outer plating made from a special metal, and a close-fitting inner lining sewn with Shark Beast skin. The two sections were linked at the chest by a core material from the Shark Beast monster acting as an energy source.

In the battle on Stodd Island against the Sahuagin and the Bloodskin Shark Beast, the [Abyssal Current] armor appeared to have suffered catastrophic damage.

But in reality, only the outer metal armor bore the brunt of the impact. The inner lining actually remained in a relatively lightly damaged state and hadn't been fully destroyed.

"Which means, it can be fixed?"

"Theoretically, yes," the half-elf nodded. "If you have monster materials similar to the previous Shark Beast, repairing it won't be difficult."

Wasn't that a coincidence?

Xia Nan pointed to the wooden cart currently parked right outside Pearl Spun Yarn, which held the corpse of the Bloodskin Shark Beast.

"Want to go take a look?"

Compared to the ordinary Shark Beast monster used to craft the original [Abyssal Current] armor, the Bloodskin Shark Beast was clearly a comprehensive, superior replacement—both in terms of actual combat power and material quality.

The only pity was that due to Xia Nan's interference, it was already heavily injured and severely weakened when it was summoned to the Material Plane. Its skin was covered in wounds of all sizes, with only a very small portion remaining intact.

That was just enough to patch up the inner lining of the [Abyssal Current] armor.

"This swim bladder is fantastic!"

Having already processed Shark Beast materials for Xia Nan once before, Celianne carefully extracted a bizarre swim bladder from the corpse. It was roughly the size of two adult fists, possessing a translucent, crystalline body that emitted a bloody halo.

His face showed a hint of amazement.

The key to repairing the [Abyssal Current] armor lay in the energy source at the center of its chest, originally built around a Shark Beast's swim bladder.

Since he now had a higher-tier substitute, he naturally had to carefully inspect whether the Bloodskin Shark Beast's swim bladder was viable.

Thanks to Xia Nan's preference for targeting the head when finishing off enemies, this crucial piece of Shark Beast material was perfectly preserved.

Even though the monster itself had been dead for days, when the bladder was pulled from the flesh, it still pulsed with a rich, blood-red light in a rhythmic beat, just like a heart.

An overpowering stench of blood flooded his nostrils with every breath. The crimson glow made Xia Nan recall the explosive burst skill the Bloodskin Shark Beast had unleashed during their fight.

"We have the materials to repair the lining, and the core swim bladder is perfectly usable—better than before, even. The Shark Beast's bones and some of its tendons can also serve as excellent secondary materials."

"The only thing left is to find a suitable special metal."

He carefully placed the blood-red swim bladder into a small box made of an unknown black metal, meant for temporarily storing exotic materials.

The half-elf Celianne then turned to Xia Nan with a suggestion. "I still have plenty of the special metal we used to forge the [Abyssal Current] armor last time in my shop. Do you want to stick with it, or switch to something else?"

When they originally forged the armor, they had already thoroughly tested the compatibility between the special metal and the armor itself, and its defensive strength had been proven in actual combat. Xia Nan was perfectly fine with continuing to use that metal.

But suddenly, he remembered something.

"Wait a second. What do you think of this?"

Using one hand, he forcefully hoisted half of the Shark Beast's corpse up, reaching his other hand in to rummage around the cart.

Soon, a muffled grinding sound of heavy metal dragging against wood echoed out.

Xia Nan dragged a massive anchor out from under the corpse. Its surface was stained with blood, and a thick, sturdy chain trailed from its end.

It hit the ground with a heavy thud.

This anchor was naturally the weapon the Bloodskin Shark Beast had wielded during their battle.

It looked completely ordinary, as if its absurd destructive power in combat came solely from its immense weight and the Bloodskin Shark Beast's overwhelming strength.

However, after a careful inspection later on, Xia Nan discovered that the metal used to forge this anchor was far from ordinary. It might be slightly lacking in flexibility, but its defensive capability was downright outrageous.

After surviving such a high-intensity battle, its surface barely had a single scratch on it.

Taking mental note of this, he deliberately summoned its Attribute Panel.

[Bloodstone Heavy Anchor]

Type: Anchor. Description:

An abandoned anchor from the deep sea of Shellusk. It might have possessed unparalleled glory countless years ago, but now that its light has faded, it can only be driven by brute force as a weapon.

Note: "There's no time! Drop anchor! Drop the anchor now!"

—The dying words of "Bloodstone" Serhaug. Compared to proper equipment, ordinary items like this without a specified quality grade didn't reveal much information on the Attribute Panel.

The only two clues were the anchor's source, "Bloodstone" Serhaug, and the location provided in the description column, the "deep sea of Shellusk."

Regarding the former, Xia Nan had asked the adventurers for intelligence on the way back, but no one had ever heard the name "Bloodstone."

Combined with the words "countless years ago" in the description, he figured this wasn't a figure from the current era. If he wanted to find its specific origins, he'd likely have to spend dedicated time searching through documents in a library or a similar place.

As for the latter—that sounded incredibly familiar to Xia Nan.

Shellusk, the abyssal deep sea located between the ice mountain rifts of Stygia, the fifth layer of Baator Hell.

The nest of sharks.

The land of glory for the Sahuagin.

And the dwelling place of their god, the [Great Shark] Sekolah.

An anchor hailing from the divine kingdom of the Shark Beasts.

It seemed like the perfect main material to forge a suit of armor.