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"Where did you get these?"

Malcolm asked Eren as he inspected the axes. They were placed on the table by Eren for him to inspect.

"I… let\'s say… found an Awakened ranker\'s body at some place. Figured a dead man wouldn\'t need them with him."

Eren replied nonchalantly. Malcolm looked at Eren suspiciously before trying to lift one of the axes with his hand. His eyebrows furrowed when he only barely managed to move them from the table. He had to channel his mana through his arm to lift the ax.

"Son of a… who was using this pair of Behemoths? Feels like I should know that person\'s name before I buy something like this from you."

Malom said this as he had stress lines across his forehead. The bald merchant looked a bit funny to Eren as he tried to swing the ax with both his arms from the other side of the table.

Boom!

The table on which the two axes were kept was rune-strengthened. But it broke immediately when Malcolm\'s swing landed on the table inadvertently.

"Who said I was selling them? Make them compatible for my use."

Eren said and looked at the ruined table.

"And I\'m not paying for that table," he added.

Malcolm cursed under his breath when he saw that his table was ruined. He operated the shop\'s array and made a new table appear. He put both axes over it and studied the runes engraved on it carefully before commenting.

"You are not rank-2 yet."

"But I will be. This is me preparing in advance."

Malcolm looked at Eren and scratched his bald head. For some reason, Malcolm always looked lowkey angry at Eren. But he couldn\'t pinpoint the reason for it. Or that\'s how it looked to Eren at least.

"So you want the wind-element runes removed? We can do that. I know a guy…"

Eren shook his head and interrupted Malcolm right away.

"No. I want a multi-elemental weapon. Don\'t remove the wind-element runes. Add fire and lightning elemental runes over these weapons."

Malcolm slapped his hands on the table before commenting.

"Do you know how much it would cost for you to…"

"Money is not an issue."

Malcolm grits his teeth. "You always say that. But then you give me the stare like I\'m robbing you when I come up with my price."

Eren shrugs his shoulders. "Then come up with a reasonable price. Money is not an issue for a reasonable price."

Malcolm and Eren have their usual stare-down for a while before the former sighs.

"Sometimes I feel like I\'m talking to a wall when I\'m talking with you. I told you that some prices are not in my hands. The rankers I hire to do the job you asked for are not always ready to listen to your absurd demands."

Eren scratches under his right earlobe before finally giving an inch to Malcolm.

"Alright. Alright. I know it\'s an Awakened ranked weapon set so naturally, its price would be higher. I also know that the multi-elemental weapon set won\'t come cheap. Just give me a number beforehand and we can work it out.

All I\'m asking is the artifact-forging fee for the rune engravings. I\'ll provide him with the raw ingredients. And I\'ll need them to record the entire procedure using the array disk."

Eren sees that Malcolm was about to say something in his response. But he raises his hand to shush him before continuing.

"I know. The artifact forger will charge differently for recording the session. But I\'m ready to sign a binding contract with them that says it would strictly be for my use."

Malcolm looked at Eren and then at his hands before asking him in an inquisitive tone.

"Did you make significant progress in the field of forging?"

Eren smiled when he saw how perceptive Malcolm could be. He nodded at him before commenting.

"Kinda. I\'m trying my luck with Meta-ranked artifacts. The study material I received from my guild as well as from you helped a bit. I don\'t have time to pursue the field full-time these days. But I think I have brushed up on my basics.

That being said, I\'m not naive enough to think that I\'d be able to engrave multi-elemental runes on any weapon. And since both the weapons I have to belong to the Awakened rank, that\'s downright impossible for me."

Malcolm smirked before adding.

"Plus, you don\'t want a half-assed weapon for yourself. You don\'t count on your own forging skills yet."

Eren pursed his lips before agreeing with him with a bit of hesitation.

***

Eren had been practicing artifact forging in his free time ever since he decided that it was the path he\'d walk on. The time he spent in Gilahaan was never wasted or spent idle. He made full use of the fact that there was a time delusion between the two worlds.

Eren had forged a bunch of weapons and armor using the resources he had "borrowed" from his opponents. But their quality left much to be desired for him.

Eren had his fundamentals on point regarding the subject for the most part. He had already started collecting various books and manuals regarding artifact forging. And he would read them whenever he was on his way to get to the mission sites. Or when he took breaks from practicing his martial arts.

At first, the artifacts he produced just by referring to the study materials turned out to be complete failures. Slowly but surely, however, he started making improvements.

Eren already had a profound epiphany regarding the forging of artifacts. And the knowledge he had gained during that time was imprinted in his brain forever. However, it had a lot of blank spaces when it came to the basics of the craft. Hence, he had to struggle a bit at the beginning.

Eren came to realize that he learned a lot more by watching the workings of forgers stored on array disks. The real-life forging was a bit different than the textbook ways of doing things after all.

Thus, Eren started preferring the recordings of forging procedures instead of merely sticking to the study material. This was the reason he had asked for the recordings from Malcolm.

After watching the recordings and reading up on the study material related to the subject, Eren came to realize that there was a way he could use all his elemental spells if he made his weapons compatible with all his elements. He hadn\'t seen anyone with multi-elemental weapons because rankers with solid multi-element affinities were rare. And the weapons that supported the multi-element affinities were rarer.

These weapons were expensive to make because they required a complicated rune system engraved on them that supported multi-element compatibility. Not something an average forger could pull off.

Using Hex gear sets had inspired him a lot. However, they were not his end goal. The artifacts that he\'d craft for himself would be the true expression of his path as a battlemage.

However, Eren knew that the weapons he was making were not the same as the ones he was using. Quality-wise, they were a class apart. He didn\'t want to compromise his own safety and battle style by using the weapons he had created. Especially when he had money and resources to equip better weapons for himself.

***

"That\'s… also one way to look at it. I want them to work like my current axes. Something I tried and failed to achieve by engraving normal axes.

But just because I can\'t make my own weapons now doesn\'t mean I won\'t be able to in the future. That\'s why I\'m asking the forger to record their sessions. I could always learn a thing or two regarding multi-elemental forging.

Also, tell them to add Hex runes but not make them an integral part of the weapon set. I need them to use them with or without my Hex gear set."

Eren said this while lifting the axes. These were the same axes that Behlam had on him. And he had decided to use them as his own when he broke into the Awakened rank.

Eren lifted the weapons by channeling his mana through his arms. Compared to Malcolm, the battlemage was much more comfortable handling weapons than Malcolm was. This was even though Eren was still a Meta ranker.

Eren operated on the two weapons and the gusts of wind were generated from every angle around him. The more he used these weapons, the more he felt that they were going to be a better match for him than his current axes.

Eren stopped using the axes and kept them on the table.

"Behemoths indeed. I guess I\'ll just call them that from now on."

Eren said and chuckled. The weight of each ax was nothing to scoff at even by rank-2 standards. He knew that his martial arts and his weapon arts would have to be changed a bit to use the upgraded axes when he breaks into the Awakened rank. But that was going to be a problem for him in the future. He wouldn\'t worry about them today.

Eren then started taking out the things he wanted to sell to Malcolm one by one from his storage. Malcolm\'s empty room no longer looked empty. All kinds of stuff and artifacts filled the space.

Malcolm didn\'t want to get surprised by anything Eren wanted to sell to him. He had come to terms with the fact that the battlemage would always be up to no good. He would always be targeting or being targeted by prominent rankers. As such, the less he asked Eren the questions, the better it would be for him for plausible deniability.

"Let me guess. The dead body of an Awakened ranker you found had all those things on him. And you weren\'t aware of that fact until you… let\'s say… "found" him dead."

Eren nodded before adding further. "It\'s like you were there with me."