Even for an apex first-rate guild like Duskwatch, the entirety of its liquid funds rarely exceeded twenty to thirty Gold. By contrast, Selvera alone now held over a hundred Gold in her possession—a fact that had already stirred the jealousy of several guild elders.
After tasting her first windfall from dealing with Kaito, she found herself eagerly anticipating the next surprise he might bring.
"Forty-three Gold?" Kaito blinked at the transaction list in mild shock.
He hadn't expected Selvera to be so resourceful. The list was impressive—rare forging materials for crafting Mysterious-Iron and Silver-ranked equipment, and even a few extremely scarce Gold-ranked materials. At this stage of the game, such items were impossible to obtain anywhere in the Solaris Kingdom. Selvera had also fulfilled his special request for Flinsteel Cores, amassing nearly a thousand stacks—enough to completely fill her ore bags. Truly, the Ore Country lived up to its name.
Ore bags differed from ordinary storage. Crafted specifically for forging materials, they held immense capacity—often several, even dozens, of times larger than standard bags. In Selvera's case, her main bag held 100 slots, while her six ore bags each boasted 350 slots, every one now filled to the brim.
The Tharolas Empire, her homeland, had no shortage of ore, which allowed her to sell each stack of Flinsteel Cores at just 80 Copper Coins—likely less than what she had paid herself. In the Solaris Kingdom, the same stack fetched 3 Silver Coins. Kaito could resell them for several times the cost and still have players fighting over the stock.
But he wasn't about to spend his gold recklessly. With his credits already running low, he needed to conserve coins for his upcoming trip to Astralis City.
Fortunately, he had prepared another form of payment. From his inventory, Kaito produced a pile of Level 10 and 11 Bronze equipment, along with a significant amount of Mysterious-Iron gear—most of which he had forged himself. The rest came from loot drops during the Genesis team's recent run through the Echoing Deep dungeon.
The real prize, however, was the batch of Level 10 Silver-ranked one-handed swords—the Shadow Fangs—crafted by Kaito's own hands.
Even among first-rate guilds, Silver weapons were exceedingly rare. Core upper-echelon members might own two or three such items between them, while elite members could only dream of possessing one.
In moments, the private room was filled with the gleam of polished metal. Equipment lay stacked in neat rows, their quality impossible to miss. Selvera's breath caught in her throat. A quick count revealed over five hundred pieces in total.
It took her several seconds to collect herself, her gaze filled with disbelief. This amount of gear could fully outfit a large elite team, and the fact that Kaito had forged most of it defied all logic. She had seen forgers at work before—crafting such high-quality Bronze and Mysterious-Iron items was a slow, failure-prone process. Yet it had been barely three days since they last met. Even working without sleep, no ordinary craftsman could have produced so much.
"Miss Selvera," Kaito said with a calm smile, "I've brought the equipment. Name your price."
In that moment, Selvera felt as though the tables had turned. She had planned to make a tidy profit off Kaito—but with five hundred pieces of high-level gear spread out before her, she couldn't shake the feeling that even if she sold herself to him, it still might not be enough to balance the scales.
The private room of the restaurant was spacious by any standard, yet it still felt far too small to contain the sheer volume of weapons and equipment Kaito had produced. In moments, every table, chair, and empty stretch of floor had been claimed by neatly arranged gear, leaving the room so crowded that even moving around required careful steps.
Selvera spent a long while tallying the inventory, her fingers gliding over hilts and armor plates as she double-checked her count. When she finally finished, the scope of Kaito's stock left her quietly stunned.
There were more than 200 Level 10-and-above Bronze weapons, over 300 pieces of Level 11-and-above Bronze equipment, 70 Level 10-and-above Mysterious-Iron weapons, and 80 pieces of Level 11-and-above Mysterious-Iron equipment. And as if that weren't enough, twenty pristine Level 10 Shadow Fangs—Silver-ranked one-handed swords—rested in a separate, gleaming stack, each one exuding a sharp, lethal presence that drew the eye immediately.
The Shadow Fangs in particular were staggering in their attributes, their sharpness and precision far surpassing standard Silver-ranked gear. For comparison, Duskwatch—one of the apex first-rate guilds—had once sacrificed a significant portion of its elite force just to acquire a single Level 11 Silver-ranked war axe, the Stormcleaver.
That acquisition had come at a steep cost. Taking down the Chieftain-ranked field boss guarding it had claimed the lives of more than twenty of their best players. Such encounters were rare in Glory, hinging entirely on luck to even find the monster in the first place. And once found, bringing it down required blood and sacrifice—trading the lives of a guild's most valuable elites for a single piece of high-grade equipment.
For most guilds, it was a costly gamble. For Kaito, however, it seemed as though such treasures were simply another day's work.
Here, Kaito had casually placed twenty Silver weapons on display, as if they were nothing more than common wares.
Selvera was at a loss for words. His combat strength was already beyond measure, but his skill as a forger was equally unmatched. She had yet to hear a single report of any player forging a Silver-ranked item—let alone twenty. Kaito's very existence was enough to make others despair.
In that moment, Selvera truly grasped just how terrifying the presence of a master forger could be.
If any guild possessed someone like Kaito, they would never have to worry about acquiring equipment again. With the right forging designs, such a guild could produce whatever gear they desired, whenever they needed it—bypassing the exhausting grind of hunting down rare bosses. Even the most formidable boss fights, which claimed elite lives for the sake of a mere handful of drops, would become irrelevant.
A forger of Kaito's caliber needed only materials to arm an entire force. Where others relied on luck, sacrifice, and opportunity, he could create abundance with speed and precision. It was not just efficient—it was absolute power.
"Miss Selvera, you look a little pale. Are you alright?" Kaito asked, noting the distant look in her eyes.
"Me?" Selvera blinked, snapping back to the present. She instinctively brushed a bead of sweat from her forehead and forced a faint smile. "I'm fine. Why would there be a problem?"
"Could it be that Miss Selvera can't afford this many weapons and pieces of equipment?" Kaito's tone carried a trace of understanding. "If that's the case, just take as many as you can manage. I know even a first-rate guild would struggle to buy all of this at once—let alone you alone."
"Mr. Raen, it's not that I don't want them," Selvera said with a wry smile. "I want every single piece. But… could we carry out the transaction in Credits instead? If I handed over all my Gold Coins to you right now, I'd be left starving."
There were so many exceptional items laid out before her that it felt almost sinful not to seize them all on the spot.
What did the major guilds covet most? The answer was obvious—high-level weapons and equipment. And right now, Level 10-and-above gear was in the shortest supply.
A single piece of Level 10 Bronze equipment currently fetched over 20 Silver on the open market. Level 11 Bronze weapons sold for 30 Silver or more. Level 10 Mysterious-Iron equipment commanded at least 50 Silver, while Level 11 Mysterious-Iron weapons reached prices of 80 Silver and above.
Then there were the Level 10 Silver weapons—Shadow Fangs. These were priceless treasures that no sane owner would ever willingly part with. If one were ever put up for sale, the bidding war would be fierce.
Based on their attributes alone, each Shadow Fang could easily command a price of 2 Gold Coins or more. Twenty of them would be worth at least 40 Gold—a sum equal to nearly half of Selvera's entire fortune in game currency. And that was merely the lowest estimate of their value.