The next day.
Inside his workshop, Noah was buried in his research, sketching out new technologies and cutting-edge weapon designs.
Suddenly, a human girl with short blue hair appeared at his open door.
She kept peering into the house from the entryway but hesitated to actually step inside.
Noticing the nervous girl, Haruhime took the initiative to approach.
"Um, excuse me," the fox girl asked, tilting her head politely. "Is there something I can help you with?"
The moment the blue-haired girl saw Haruhime, her eyes lit up like fireworks.
"Wow, a Renard!" she exclaimed in absolute wonder. "It's my first time seeing one in person!"
Beastmen were super common in Orario, but they were divided into dozens of sub-species.
Renards, at least within the walls of the labyrinth city, were definitely considered incredibly rare.
"And you are?" Seeing the girl's pure excitement, Haruhime didn't panic.
Having lived in Orario for a while now, she had seen this exact reaction more than once. It made her realize that Renards truly were a rare sight.
Among the people who stared at her, some were merely curious, but others hid dark, ugly greed in their eyes.
If she hadn't been rescued and taken in by Noah, she certainly wouldn't be able to live such a stable and peaceful life in this chaotic city.
More importantly, she wouldn't be as happy as she was now.
As someone well-versed in hero tales, Haruhime felt from the bottom of her heart that her meeting with that man was a fated encounter.
With his insane abilities, he would sooner or later become a figure the world called a true hero.
Even if he didn't, she was determined to become the woman who stayed by his side through it all, just like in the old stories.
Maris stared at Haruhime for a long moment.
Hearing the question, she quickly snapped out of her daze. "Ah, hello! I'm Maris Hakard. I'm an adventurer."
"An adventurer?" Haruhime looked at the girl before her, who seemed at most a year or two older than herself.
Her gaze swept over the girl's slender arms and thin waist.
Haruhime knew that an adventurer who possessed a Falna could not have their true strength measured by their physical build alone.
After all, the man sitting inside the workshop was the most classic example of that rule.
If a thug mistook him for a weak kid, they would quickly learn the true meaning of "monstrous strength."
"If you are an adventurer, are you here to purchase a weapon?" In Haruhime's eyes, this adventurer wasn't a personal acquaintance of Noah's—at least, she had never seen her around the shop before.
However, she had seen plenty of random adventurers come looking for him like this.
The title "Artisan Spirit" was currently blowing up in the city.
Many adventurers wanted to see the genius smith for themselves.
Even those without enough money to buy anything wanted to catch a glimpse of his work, much like broke window-shoppers staring at displayed goods through the glass of a high-end boutique.
By now, Haruhime could roughly guess an adventurer's status just by looking at them.
The human girl standing before her, wearing cheap beginner armor and carrying a low-quality longsword, was most likely a rookie.
"Y-yes, I want to buy a weapon..."
Noah heard the familiar voice at the door.
He looked up from his blueprints and saw the loud girl who had barged into the Guild office yesterday.
He didn't expect her to track him all the way here.
"Haruhime, let her in," Noah called out.
Hearing her master's voice, Haruhime smiled warmly and invited the girl inside.
After stepping into the workshop, Maris couldn't stop looking around.
There were dozens of complex, crazy blueprints pinned to the walls that she couldn't understand at all, alongside several beautifully crafted weapons resting on velvet stands.
Even a rookie like her could tell those display items were worth an immense fortune.
Aside from the fancy stuff, there was a large wooden barrel sitting near the forge, filled to the brim with what looked like cheap, "mass-produced" iron swords.
The only reason they "looked" cheap was because they were piled haphazardly in a barrel like trash.
In reality, those weapons were actually forged better than the high-end swords she saw in the shops outside.
In fact, those swords were all "fodder" produced during Noah's magical reinforcement process.
They could also be called "sacrificial pieces."
Most were low-cost +2 weapons.
He intended to intentionally "break" a few pieces of equipment, just like burning trash loot in an RPG, to magically increase the probability of a successful high-tier reinforcement later.
The biggest change after his Enhancement skill leveled up from 'I' to 'H' was that his success rate for a basic +1 had significantly increased.
It was no longer like before, where the magic would fail five times in a row and blow the sword up.
Now, out of five +1 reinforcement attempts, at least one was guaranteed to succeed—acting like a built-in pity system—and sometimes he could even hit two or three +1s in a row without a failure.
"Miss Maris Hakard, welcome to my workshop," Noah said, setting his pen down. "What brings you here today?"
"Huh?" Maris blinked.
She didn't expect the young man to know her name.
Yesterday was their first meeting, and they had barely spoken two words to each other.
Even Eina wouldn't call her by her full name.
Yet, how did he know her family name?
"Um, I... I want a weapon..." As she spoke, she unbuckled the sword at her waist and held it out to him with both hands.
Noah took the sheathed sword, unfastened the rusted buckle and drew the blade.
The feeling of drawing the weapon was absolutely terrible.
The interior of the cheap leather scabbard had already curled up and rotted, creating extreme friction that severely hindered the speed of drawing the blade.
The crossguard was loose and rattled, and the hilt wrap was fraying. It wouldn't be surprising if the entire sword fell apart mid-swing.
Then there was the blade itself.
Over a dozen deep nicks were scattered across the edge, with four separate areas where the steel had actually rolled over on itself.
The blade was visibly bent and lacked any structural spring, and the tip was missing a solid chunk of metal.
The balance of the entire sword was aggressively top-heavy.
To be honest, aside from having a vague edge, swinging this thing was not much different from swinging a blunt iron hammer.
He didn't even need to use his Truth Seeker skill to know this was a piece of junk used by apprentice blacksmiths for practice hammering.
In the recycling yards, this quality of item was usually called "scrap metal" or an "iron bar."
In short, calling this thing a "sword" was a direct insult to the blacksmithing profession.
"I see."
Clearly, this sword was no longer usable.
Taking a fragile weapon like this into the Dungeon was equivalent to committing suicide. If she was exploring in a party, it would be considered "murder" as well.
Her teammates would be risking their lives to dive into the Dungeon, and she was backing them up with this garbage?
This was exactly why "entry-level requirement parties" existed.
The signs outside the taverns in a game "Experienced party, +13 gear or higher only" really weren't a joke.
"So, do you want a custom weapon?" Noah asked casually.
Actually, he already knew the answer.
From the moment he saw her at the door, his skill told him exactly how much money she was carrying in her pouch.
130,000 Valis.
For a struggling rookie, this could be considered a huge, life-changing sum.
But compared to the price of a weapon he personally customized, it was a mere drop in the bucket.
Whether it was Bete's Moonlight Howl, the Amazon Hiryute sisters' Life Eater and Life Devourer, or the Cerberus greatsword he had just delivered—the average value of his custom equipment hovered around 200 million Valis.
The price tag was even more expensive than ordinary First-Tier equipment, but of course, the insane combat performance matched the price.
Noah could tell the girl's entire personality just from the ruined state of her weapon.
First, she was quite desperate and incredibly hardworking, not only that, she was also very thrifty.
Unfortunately, the latter trait wasn't exactly something to be praised in this line of work.
After all, being thrifty with your main weapon was equivalent to overdrawing your own lifespan.
When her luck finally ran out, the sword would snap, and she would die.
And there would be absolutely no warning when that time came.
If she was lucky, she might have a split second to regret her cheapness, if she wasn't, a monster would rip her throat out before she even realized the blade broke.
"Um... may I ask... how much does a custom weapon usually cost?" Maris kept calculating possible amounts in her head.
At first, she thought fifty thousand.
Then she pushed it to a hundred thousand.
Maybe two hundred thousand if she stretched it?
However, Noah's answer was simple.
He raised a single finger and used his elemental magic to leave a glowing trail of numbers floating in the air.
Looking at that incredibly long string of glowing zeros, Maris was completely stunned.
No, her brain straight-up short-circuited!
The color drained from her face, and her entire world seemed to turn gray.
'Eh? Ehhh? EHHHHH??'
'That expensive?! No, no, no, it's just a weapon! It actually costs ones, tens, hundreds, thousands... millions?! Hiss! You've got to be joking!'
Maris swallowed hard, nervously rubbing her sweaty hands together. "Then... what kind of weapon can I buy for a hundred thousand Valis?"
Clang.
Noah reached into the wooden barrel, pulled out a basic +1 iron sword, and held it out before her.
Maryse blankly took the iron sword and gripped the hilt.
This sword didn't seem to look any different from how her old junk sword looked when she first bought it.
"This... this basic sword costs a hundred thousand Valis?"
She felt like she was being treated like a total sucker.
If she were standing in any other shop in Orario, she would have flipped the table and started screaming at the owner. But standing in front of this handsome young man, she felt strangely timid.
She felt that although he was young, he possessed a strange heavy sense of authority that forced her to behave herself.
"Could it be... a bit cheaper...?"
If Eina were to see her loud, brash friend acting so submissively, her jaw would surely hit the floor.
Noah considered it for a moment.
Then he said, "How about this: if you pay another thirty thousand, I can give you this."
He reached into his pocket, took out a beautiful glowing magic crystal and placed it on the table.
Another thirty thousand? Wouldn't that leave her completely penniless?
Maris looked at the glowing crystal on the table.
It radiated a mysterious, heavy energy, but she had never seen anything like it before.
'Was it a super rare item?'
Seeing her utter confusion, Noah didn't intend to waste time explaining.
He just directly applied a buff to her.
Whoosh.
'What the heck!!'
Surrounded by a sudden vortex of wind elements, Maris felt her tired body and the iron weapon in her hand become incredibly light.
She suddenly felt a strange surge of power rushing through her veins!