Attunement

"I only have one such sword, it's quite rare to see a weapon with this quality from the monsters. If you really like this, then I can sell it to you for ten gold coins," The shop clerk told him.

"Ten gold coins? Isn't that too much? A normal iron sword is sold for 30 silver coins and this sword is not that much better than an iron sword," Char grimaced.

The only reason he was interested in the sword was because of its material. It synergized well with his skeleton. For other people, the sword is only a little better than a normal iron sword.

Ten gold coins were comparable to one mana crystal, while one gold coin equal to a hundred silver coins. Which means the sword was over 30 times the price of a normal sword.

"If it was before then it would never dream of buying this sword," Char thought.

Common families only make one silver coin a day, to buy the sword then they will need to save up for three years before they can afford the sword!

"This sword might not be that strong, but its rarity means I can sell it to some collectors at a higher price. I only offer it to you because you seem to like it," the man explained.

"It indeed expensive, but now I'm not that poor anymore, I can afford one or two expensive weapons," he thought.

"Alright, I will take this sword. Do you have another sword made from bones?" he asked.

Char planned to give the sword to the skeleton, while he uses another sword. The bone has a holy attribute that might cause some rejection to the skeleton, but if it can wield it, then it would be able to use the sword to defend against holy magic.

That way, it would not be so vulnerable in a fight against an enemy with holy elements. Of course, that does not mean that it will be immune, but it will at least have a fighting chance.

"No, it's rare to find weapons with such material intact since most of them get destroyed when the hunters fight the creatures. How about this sword? I think you will like it," the man pulled out a black sword from under his counter.

"Black steel sword? how much for one?" Char asked with interest.

Black steel was a knock-off orichalcum invented by an alchemist before the first soul container was invented.

It's stronger than common iron and has slight magic attunement, of course, its magic attunement was incomparable to orichalcum, but having even just a little attunement helps with channeling magic to the weapon.

Iron, gold, and silver don't have any attunement toward magic, while bronze has a slight bit. It was only a fraction of what the black steel could offer.

"I will sell this to you only for 5 gold coins, will you take it?" the man rubbed his hand.

Char was not happy about it. He became a bit suspicious about the sword, "Can I try the sword?" he asked.

"Ah... Sure," the man reluctantly agreed with his request.

Char tried to activate his physical boost with the sword, mana drained from his body, it took less mana to use the magic on the sword.

But to his surprise, it was different than the black steel he had read in books; they were supposed to help him economize his mana expenditure by 15 to 20 percent, but it only saved roughly 7 percent of his mana.

"This sword is defective, that's why he is selling it for so cheap," he grimaced.

"I will only buy it for 3 gold coins, this sword is defective so 5 coins are still too much," he told the clerk.

"No, you don't understand, this sword uses adamantine as well, it makes it way harder than a normal black steel sword. You actually get this sword very cheap since it contains adamantine!" the man told him.

"Damn it! That's why its magic consumption is worse than normal! The blacksmith is an idiot, he combined magic attuned metal with adamantine, that will obviously result in failure just like this sword," Char lamented.

Adamantine was the hardest metal known, but its attribute made it reject magic, it caused the metal unsuitable to be mixed with orichalcum or other magic attuned metal.

"That's the more reason not to pay 5 coins for this sword, I bet it only uses a little adamantine so its strength is not that great while its magic attunement drops considerably," he told the shop clerk.

The man did not expect the young boy to actually know about such a thing. He thought Char would be impressed when he said adamantine, as it was even more expensive than orichalcum.

"Alright then, three gold coins. Is there anything else you need?" the man asked.

"Do you have bones of knight-tier creatures? How much for them?" he asked.

"Sure, I have troll bones, you can buy one bone for two gold coins. How much do you want?" he asked.

Troll bones are one of the main ingredients for healing potions. Most shops were selling them because the demand never ran out.

"I will take 33 bones then, I want the complete set of its backbone," Char told the man.

With that, Char almost ran out of money. He paid the man with his mana crystals, before going back to the academy.

He could not wait to train the skeleton and tell it to absorb the bones to be its body. Trolls were known for their regeneration, if his guess was correct, then the skeleton's regeneration ability would be improved by the bones.

"With this, it should be close to evolving, but I still haven't perfected the magic tattoo. I need to spend more time researching runes," he thought while going back.

He returned to the academy and there were a lot of other students returning to the academy from meeting their parents.

"Maybe I should visit my family when I have the time, it's been two weeks since the academy started," he thought.