Smiling for the First Time

A long period of silence passed by while both of them was having some kind of staring contest. Neither of them moved nor spoke, which somehow put a seriousness feeling in the air. Lloyd then sighed and broke the disconcerting silence.

"Even though I have ranked up, I still won't be able to use the soul orbs from the gravebound ghoul as it is one rank higher than me."

"I see." She pondered for a bit and continued. "Then, how about you use this?"

She fished out two glistening orbs, which were shining brighter than the common soul orbs from grunts but was not much more potent than the gravebound ghoul soul orbs, from her shining ring. Lloyd assumed that this must be a soul orb from a champion hellspawn. He wouldn't be surprised by now if she would suddenly take more higher ranked items as they were descendants from great clans like the four great families. Even though her whole clan was already annihilated, she probably still inherited most of their assets. A slight greedy look formed in the corners of his eyes, but he dismissed the feeling and thought that it would be too hasty to agree to her requests. He had to confirm something.

"Hold on. Don't you already have a good weapon with you?"

She shook her head as she took out the weapon hanging on her waste which was just a common type of sword that looked like a broadsword.

"This is just a common broadsword infused with a grunt soul orb. It has no special properties. If I want to make it out of here alive, I would need something stronger." She said emotionlessly.

"What is driving you to go so far? I need to know if I can trust you. Who knows when you'll suddenly stab my back?" He eyed her cautiously but still she wasn't the least bit annoyed.

"For the sake of revenge."

"That's it? And why should I believe you?" He frowned as he doubted her even more.

"It's up to you whether you believe it or not. As long as you don't stand in the way of me getting revenge to those tyrants, then I won't do anything to you."

He looked at her and tried to search even the thinnest fabric of lies being hidden in her eyes, but unfortunately, he could tell that she was really serious. He sighed as he raised his hand in defeat.

'Ahh, this girl isn't trying to be a cool and indifferent at all or try hiding her intentions. She's just being… her. She's the type of person who doesn't know how to communicate with others well.' He thought as he kept on shaking his head.

"So, are you going to do it? Our deal in teaching you how to fight is still on, of course." She asked again and patiently waited for him to answer. 

"Alright. It's not like I'll lose anything. In fact, it would be to my benefit if you get a lot stronger so I will have more chances of surviving. Just to be clear, this is just both of us using each other for own benefit, okay?"

"Fine." She nodded and gave the two champion soul orbs. Since his mana pool was increased by quite a large amount after ranking up, he would be able to craft at least two more times before finally exhausting his resources so he can still use Materia Generator and Materia Refinement in order, one more time.

Luna didn't have any good material with her, so he had to produce something else. The sun stone and adamantine were great choices as base materials since they could even create something special like the Dawnbringer's Radiant Cloak. He also considered using the Neptune Steel so his choices were a little bit larger compared to last time. The bone scythes from the sentinels were too weak to be made into a champion weapon and it would only cause a waste of materials.

"I have decided. I will have to use the same sun stone material and another random base material. I can't guarantee it will have good results since my skill produces equipment with random properties. Do you agree with it? You can decline if you want to." Lloyd said to her.

"It's fine. I'll leave it up to you to decide."

They have both reached an agreement so it was time for him to use his skill. Lights flashed another sun stone popped out together with another unknown metallic ore which he hadn't seen yet. He picked up the new material which had a reddish-gold color and a luminous, clear texture and inspected its properties.

************************************************************

Name: Orichalcum Ore

Description: A mystical metal found in deepest regions of hell. It is said that it is infused with crimson flames that can cause so much destruction after consistently burning for thousands of years.

************************************************************

Lloyd was able to generate another rare type of material. This would definitely be in sync with the sun stone since both have affinity to fire. It would be a pity to give this to someone but he had already agreed to Luna's request and backing out all of a sudden would probably brand him as a scumbag and a dreadful liar, even though he was a big liar in truth. Anyway, he wanted to treat his deals seriously so he could have more trusting customers in the near future if ever he planned to build his own shop and become rich.

He put the two champion orbs together with the sunstone and the orichalcum ore and casted Materia Refinement. He thought of an image of a sword since Luna was proficient in using a sword. His mana was fully consumed by the successive usage of his skill but it was okay. Lights flashed out and then it slowly became dimmer and a double-edged one-handed sword with a slender blade glowing in an ominous red light popped out. It had a longer hilt which allowed the user to be able to use this weapon as a two-handed sword. He picked it up and it felt quite heavier than it looked. A status screen popped out as he tapped on it.

************************************************************

Name: Dawnbringer's Cinderblade

Rank: II

Soul: Champion

Ability: Emberstrike, Incorporeal

Description: A blade of a fallen champion of the human race who was once the light of hope of the world that led thousands of soldiers to rebel against the God of Flames when he planned to unleash his wrathful flames upon the lands of Vyris. However, he and his people fell, cursed to suffer forever in the burning flames of hell and the weapon was destroyed. Now once again forged by a master artificer with magical hands, this blade which can incinerate anything it touches as well as being able to hurt astral beings, is now in the artificer's collection.

************************************************************

'Okay, that looked quite awesome. So, this barren wasteland was once known as Vyris.'

Lloyd said in his mind as he read the description of the weapon called Dawnbringer's Cinderblade. It shared the same name 'Dawnbringer' as his cloak so both must be related to the champion of the human race of Vyris and was once the equipment used by the mentioned champion.

He read the two skills embedded in the weapon. The former was called Emberstrike which allowed the weapon to produce an incinerating glow that cuts through almost any kind of objects as long as its rank was equal or lower than the weapon. The latter skill was even more interesting. Incorporeal was an active skill that allowed the blade to consume mana in order to damage enemies that had incorporeal bodies such as ghosts, wraiths and other astral-like hellspawns.

He could feel the intense stare of Luna which was full of glittering sparks of interest in her eyes. He offered the blade to her but was reluctant to part with it which made him unconsciously gripped on it hard as Luna was about to take it.

"Oh, sorry. It's just a habit of mine." He apologized as he retracted his hands.

Luna just slightly made a 'hmm' sound and then walked a little bit farther to test the weapon. She swung it hard several times and even tried to use a bone scythe to test its endurance. Fortunately, the weapon was also quite durable and it also had effortlessly cut through the bone scythe like it was paper.

After testing it, she eventually returned to where Lloyd was and then stored the blade in the spatial ring since it couldn't be put inside a sheath like the common broadsword she had on her waist as it would just slice through the sheath. Pulling it out from the spatial ring also only takes around three seconds, so it wouldn't be a problem for her.

"This weapon is good."

"Do you like it?" Lloyd asked.

"Yes. Thank you. I'll make sure to repay you well." She bowed as she thanked him.

"Well, if you ever feel like ordering something again, maybe you could come to my shop soon when we get back to real world and make some orders." He said softly.

He turned around to hide his face from her out of embarrassment. What was he even thinking? He was shamelessly asking her to make more orders and fork out more money for him to become rich. He didn't even have a shop yet and he was already trying to haggle her.

After a short silence, he was shocked to hear a slight chuckle and turned to look at her smiling for the first time.

'Pretty…' That was the word that came into his mind as he looked at the beautiful girl with jet-black hair smiling, even though if it was just a little bit. He could hear his heart beating fast and a slight blush had made its way to his cheeks.

"Then, I should gladly accept your offer."

"O-okay."

At one point, this girl doesn't know how to properly socialize and then suddenly, she would throw him in a roller-coaster ride of feelings that burned deep down inside him. No wonder he was curious at this girl ever since meeting her. It was not that he was smitten with her, but he felt that they were the same.

Both of them had no more parents and they could only rely on themselves to survive. While he didn't face constant assassination, his life was like a living hell on the outer district where he constantly begged and worked like a slave just so he could eat once a day, while she had to worry about her life getting snapped easily just like a thread. It wasn't that hard for her enemies to kill her. However, they had to maintain secrecy in order for things to not get out of hand and smear their reputation. Thus, Lloyd shared some pity with her as he could also see his poor self in her eyes.

"We should get back on track now. It would be bad if we're still here when morning comes." Luna then spoke seriously. There goes her short-lived smile. She was once again back to her aloof expression and Lloyd felt that it was such a waste. He would love to see her smile more often so that he would not think that she was always in a bad mood.

"I agree. Let's go tell them."

They returned to where the others were currently resting and informed them that they were about to move out. They nodded and the whole cohort was once again travelling towards the south into the deepest parts of the Vyris Deadlands, the name of this forsaken barren wasteland.

More hours have passed and the bloody moon was finally gone from the sky while the sun was slowly rising up in the horizon. Another day has passed. Then the cohort stopped in their tracks as they saw something that stood out in the middle of the vast plains of the Vyris Deadlands. A huge chasm was standing in their way, which goes around 200 meters deep.

"Now what?" Lloyd asked them in an exasperated voice.