"So impressive."
In the shadow of a massive ice spike, a girl of about fifteen or sixteen, dressed in linen cotton clothes, watched the fall of the Western Mountain's overlord and uttered a sigh of admiration.
Yusei and Shiro picked up the spoils of war, then turned to look at the girl in the shadow and said with a laugh.
"Serena, your father is very worried about you. Let's head back now."
"Okay, but please wait a moment." Serena seemed quite well-behaved. She first ran to the edge of the dragon's nest and picked up a large, ice-crystal-like object, then ran back to Yusei's side.
"Mr. Hero, shall we go now?"
Yusei nodded, but looked curiously at the ice crystal in the girl's hand.
"What is this?"
"This is the material I ventured to the Western Mountain to find for my father, to forge a divine weapon."
Serena smiled, seeming to notice the desire in Yusei's eyes, and gently shook her head.
"But no matter how good the Dragon Crystal is, it's not as good as the Dragon Tooth and Dragon Scale you obtained, Hero. Those are the best materials for forging weapons and armor."
Yusei nodded, agreeing.
However, he first had Shiro stay put while he ran back to the dragon's nest area to dig up those Dragon Crystals.
This scene made Serena very curious, and she couldn't help but look at Shiro, who was quite a bit shorter than her.
"Hero... little sister, do you know what Mr. Hero is doing?"
Shiro's adorable little face remained unruffled, and she just uttered a few words flatly.
"Digging. To sell."
"…"
Roughly by sunset, Yusei and Shiro, along with Serena, finally returned to the blacksmith shop on the first floor of Aincrad.
The blacksmith shop owner looked at his unharmed daughter and burst into loud sobs.
"Thank you, Mr. Hero. If it weren't for you, if it weren't for you..."
Serena also had tears in her eyes, seemingly affected by her father. She bowed deeply to Yusei and Shiro.
"Thank you so very much."
The blacksmith shop owner wiped his tears, turned and went inside, brought out a large box, opened it, and placed it in front of Yusei and Shiro.
"Mr. Heroes, this is the reward for saving my daughter. Each of you may choose one item as you please."
Yusei looked inside the ordinary-looking wooden box, and his eyes immediately lit up.
Inside were weapons, accessories, and armor, all uniformly of the Artifact grade in terms of stats.
Let's briefly explain the item tier classification in SAO.
Broadly categorized, they are: Common (White), High-Grade (Blue), Rare (Purple), Artifact (Pink), and Legendary (Gold). (A/N: Borrowing from DnF a bit here.)
For example, the two swords of the original protagonist, Kirito were Artifact grade, while the Midnight Coat dropped by the first-floor boss was a Rare item.
Now, in this ordinary blacksmith's wooden box, they were all Artifacts? This was truly unimaginable.
The owner gave an embarrassed smile, "Actually, I was a powerful adventurer in my youth. But I got injured later, my strength greatly diminished, I met my beloved wife, and settled down to live peacefully here."
"These are all things I collected during my adventures back then. Warriors, please choose one."
Yusei nodded, not saying anything more.
After browsing through them, he finally selected a ring. Its effect was to remove the post-skill delay for the user, allowing sword skills to be used fluidly.
For him, it was redundant, but for Kaguya, it was a godly item. This was precisely prepared for her. Regardless, she was the granddaughter of Koken, so he ought to look out for her a bit.
Shiro chose a bracelet. It was one that enhanced the Strength attribute and had a Deadly Blow effect, triggering random 3x, 5x, or 10x critical hits.
For someone agile like Shiro, such a finishing move was indeed very important.
Every time she and Yusei switched during battle, the final blow was always dealt by Yusei, precisely because she lacked sufficient power for that last strike.
After selecting their equipment, Linchen placed the Dragon Heart, Dragon Tooth, Dragon Scale, and Dragon Claw with the blacksmith shop owner, commissioning the forging of one Katana, one longsword suitable for Shiro, and two sets of armor.
The total required time was half a month.
Based on Yusei's estimation of the current average leveling speed of players, it would take about half a month for them to just barely find the Boss's room.
In other words, his and Shiro's equipment would be ready just in time for the first-floor boss's raid battle.