The heavy double-reinforced oak and steel doors hissed open with a pressurized seal.

HSSSSSS!

Silas stepped through the threshold, leaving the industrial slaughterhouse stench of the appraisal basin entirely behind.

The environment changed instantly.

Unlike the greedy and commission-driven Weapon Exchange he had visited on his very first day in this world, this Association facility was absolutely pristine.

It didn’t look like a weapon shop. It looked like a high-end, untouchable metropolitan museum.

The air was heavily filtered and smelled of different kinds of alloy.

Sleek, perfectly spotless glass display cases lined the sprawling velvet-carpeted room, each holding weapons that glowed softly with stabilized elemental enchantments.

"Quite the upgrade from the public market, isn’t it?"

Silas glanced to his right.

The Receptionist was walking right beside him.

Her previous pants-wetting terror from the Gore-Fiend corpse had completely vanished, instantly replaced by the glowing hyper-attentive radiance of a woman who just realized she was guiding a walking gold mine.

"It’s quieter..." Silas grunted, his blue eyes sweeping over a rack of flaming broadswords.

"And much more exclusive," the Receptionist quipped, a bright, highly professional smile on her face. "My name is Chloe, by the way and since you just dropped a million-credit deposit into the Association’s ledgers, you are officially classified as a Priority VIP."

She stepped past him, walking backward in her sensible heels, gesturing grandly to the armory.

"That means no haggling with grifters, no waiting in line, and no buying defective trash and, as a token of the Association’s deep, undying gratitude for your business..."

Chloe snapped her fingers.

A sleek hovering display drone zipped over from a nearby counter, carrying a polished dark-gray weapon box.

She opened the lid and presented it to Silas with a flourish.

Inside rested a perfectly balanced razor-sharp longsword.

It wasn’t glowing, but the metal had a mesmerizing, folded pattern that caught the ambient light.

"A Tier 1 Aether-Steel Longsword," Chloe announced proudly. "It’s not Mythril, so it won’t conduct high-level elemental spells, but the alloy is hyper-dense. It will never notch against standard monster bone and this is a complimentary gift for our newest VIP."

Silas raised an eyebrow.

He reached into the box and gripped the leather-wrapped hilt. The balance was flawless. It had real weight to it.

’Free gear is free gear...’ Silas thought with a smirk touching his lips. ’They’re just greasing the wheels so I drop my entire payout here. Corporate tactics never change.’

"I’ll take it," Silas said, instantly tossing the sword into his Lord Interface storage. "But I’m not here to buy pre-enchanted, overpriced display pieces... I need functional, structurally sound baseline gear so show me your heavy armaments."

Chloe didn’t miss a beat. "Right this way, Lord Graves."

She led him past the flashy, gem-encrusted rapiers and straight into the heavy infantry quadrant.

Even though he wanted to buy clothes... Upon getting a million, Silas decided that he needed to spoil the girls some more like get good stuff for some of them.

’For now, I’ll get for some and get for the others later... Who knows? Maybe they’ll be motivated.’ Silas thought.

As of right now, Silas needed a weapon for Brida.

The Level 17 Shieldmaiden was a physical powerhouse and her current stuff was good as well but he wanted it to be a bit rarer.

’I also need to increase their ranks...’

When she hit things, the concussive force of her own massive Strength stat was literally rattling her weapons and soon enough she would be able to break them.

She needed something that could handle her output.

He scanned the heavy racks.

"There..." Silas pointed.

Resting on a reinforced steel bracket was a massive, brutal-looking battleaxe. It was entirely black, featuring a wide heavy beard on the blade and a thick, solid-steel haft wrapped in dark drake-leather grips.

Chloe checked the runic tablet in her hands.

"The [Titan’s Cleaver]," she read. "It’s Tier 2 and forged from compressed deep-iron. It’s incredibly heavy, Lord Graves. Most standard infantry can’t even lift it, let alone swing it in combat. It has a minor gravity enchantment applied to the head to increase downward momentum."

"Perfect," Silas stated.

It was exactly what Brida needed. The woman didn’t need flashy fire magic... she needed a weapon that hit like a falling freight train.

"How much?" Silas asked.

"Eighty thousand Spirit Credits," Chloe replied with her smile unwavering.

Silas didn’t flinch. "Box it."

He tapped his Spirit Phone against the terminal. The funds transferred instantly, and the massive axe vanished into his inventory.

"Next," Silas said, pivoting on his heel. "I have a rogue or you could say something like that... She specializes in high-velocity, close-quarters combat. Uses chained daggers. The problem is the recoil stress on her wrists when she rapidly redirects the chains so I need gauntlets that absorb shock and help her."

Chloe’s eyes lit up. She was dealing with a Lord who actually understood combat mechanics, not just a rich kid buying shiny toys.

’That’s so hot~’

"I know exactly what you need," she said, practically jogging toward the rogue’s equipment sector.

She stopped in front of a glass case holding a pair of sleek, dark, fingerless leather gloves.

The leather was heavily reinforced with thin, overlapping plates of matte-black metal running up the forearms.

" [Phantom-Weave Bracers]," Chloe introduced. "These are Tier 2 as well The metal plating is an alloy mixed with wind-slime residue. It’s highly shock-absorbent but the real selling point is the micro-friction runes etched into the palms."

She tapped the glass.

"If your rogue uses chained weapons, the runes completely negate the friction burn when pulling the chains back at high speed... It drastically reduces wrist fatigue and allows for instantaneous weapon recall."

Silas pulled up his internal mental blueprint of Tamsin.

The Huntress was fast, but her physical durability was low. If she could recall her daggers without stressing her tendons, her DPS would skyrocket.

"Price?" Silas demanded.

"Sixty-five thousand," Chloe answered.

"Done. Put them in the inventory."

Silas tapped his phone again. Two items down and a hundred and forty-five thousand spent immediately.

’Look at me spending money like a rich person... Next time I should buy more cores too.’

"Now for the casters," Silas ordered, his pragmatic focus completely dialed in. "Take me to the magical conduits."

Chloe led him to a quieter and more dimly lit section of the armory.

The air here was filled with ambient mana. Staves of twisted crystal and glowing wood lined the walls.

He needed a weapon for Rowena first.

The mage was the backbone of his backline artillery. She didn’t need raw destructive power... since she was a rune user, Rowena needed mana retention and casting speed.

’Besides having two weapons or more isn’t bad at all...’ He thought.

He walked down the aisle with his eyes scanning the stat sheets hovering above the weapons in his sovereign vision.

He stopped at a slender, elegant staff made of pale blue crystal, topped with a focusing ring.

"The [Azure Channeler]," Chloe chimed in from over his shoulder. "That’s Tier 2 as well and an excellent choice for a standard elementalist. It has a passive mana-retention loop and spells cast through it cost ten percent less mana."

"Box it," Silas said.

"That will be ninety thousand credits," Chloe smiled, holding out the terminal.

Silas paid it.

That left exactly one person... Eluned.

The SSS-Rank Goddess was a completely different problem.

She was a devastating walking natural disaster of raw nature magic as she didn’t need a staff that cast fireballs or reduced mana costs.

Her mana pool was practically infinite.

’Though Eluned has a bit of a problem directing it in one place...’ Silas thought. ’An also she talks in her sleep about wanting a World staff or something like that, I doubt there would be stuff like that on sale so I’ll buy the next best thing.’

What she needed was a physical conduit that wouldn’t instantly shatter into dust the second she channeled her divine energy through it.

He could go for a Tier 1 item and upgrade it before he went back to the territory.

He walked past the massive gem-encrusted expensive Tier 2 and Tier 3 staves and they were filled with complex elemental runes.

’If Eluned pumps her raw stats into those complex runes, the conflicting mana types will violently detonate in her hands,’ Silas analyzed critically. ’I need a blank slate.’

He walked all the way to the back of the section, ignoring the flashy displays, until he found a long unadorned staff resting on a simple velvet cushion.

[Item: Tier 1 Sylvan Staff]

It was forged entirely from pale sturdy Ironwood.

There were no flashy elemental gems on top and there were no glowing runes etched into the shaft.

It was a basic conduit designed entirely for one singular purpose: to withstand the violent flow of raw physical mana without physically shattering.

"Lord Graves?" Chloe asked, blinking in confusion. "That is a baseline Tier 1 training staff. It has literally zero offensive enchantments. For a man of your budget..."

"I don’t care about the tier." Silas interrupted, picking the heavy ironwood staff up.

It felt solid and the price tag on the velvet cushion read a measly ten thousand credits.

He bought it immediately.

Chloe looked bewildered, but Silas just smirked internally.

He didn’t need to blow three hundred thousand credits on a Tier 3 magic staff.

With his [Absolute Upgrade System], buying cheap structurally sound baseline items and forcing them to artificially evolve using Upgrade Points was infinitely more cost-effective.

He could mutate this cheap piece of wood into a divine artifact in his basement for free.

’Thinking about it... Maybe I should have bought Tier 1 items for the other girls and upgrade them to Tier 3.’

He tapped his phone and the staff vanished.

"Alright, that covers the girls..." Silas stated, cracking his neck. "Now take me to the raw materials quartermaster. I need to feed my blacksmith."

Chloe nodded, recovering her professional composure, and led him toward the heavy industrial counter at the very back of the armory.

Behind a thick metal grate stood a massive scarred quartermaster.

He wasn’t wearing a suit like she was... he was wearing a heavy leather apron, organizing crates of glowing monster cores.

"I need your densest, most refined forging alloys," Silas told the armored clerk, his voice cutting through the clinking of metal. "No standard iron and no cheap, mass-produced steel. I need deep-earth ingots and star-iron..."

’Isn’t that what Thora said it was called... Star Iron right?’

The quartermaster stopped what he was doing.

He raised a thick, bushy eyebrow, noting Silas’s completely plain, unarmored dark coat.

"Deep-earth and star-iron?" the quartermaster grunted, his voice thick and skeptical. "Kid, you’re looking at one of the heaviest most temperamental metals on the continent. You need a master-class dwarven forge just to heat them up without blowing up your workshop. Are you sure you didn’t wander into the wrong aisle?"

Silas didn’t argue and the clerk flinched visibly, his skepticism instantly evaporating into cold sweat.

He turned around without another word and quickly brought out two massive, heavy steel lockboxes from the secure back room, dropping them onto the metal counter with a heavy sound.

CLANG!

"Fifty pounds of unrefined star-iron," the quartermaster grunted nervously, popping the locks. "And fifty pounds of pure deep-earth alloy."

Inside the boxes, the raw ingots pulsed with a faint, heavy, gravitational energy.

"Two hundred thousand Spirit Credits for both." the quartermaster stated.

Silas didn’t try to haggle, he wasn’t sure haggling worked at this place.

The Dwarf back at the Blessed Land would literally weep with joy when Silas dropped these onto her anvil.

’She better kiss my feet too.. Two hundred thousand?!’ Silas thought with a sigh as he transferred the funds instantly.

"Thank you for your patronage, Boss."

He loaded the heavy metal boxes directly into his spatial storage.

He did quick mental math.

He had spent exactly four hundred and forty-five thousand credits...

His women was fully equipped, his forge was stocked, and he still had a lot of credits in the bank.

With his shopping list completed, Silas turned to the final, most crucial item on his agenda which was sold at the stall opposite the quartermaster’s one.

"I need a Hero Summoning Card," Silas stated coldly, leaning his weight against the cold metal counter.

The quartermaster and Chloe both froze.

He reached directly underneath his metal desk and pulled out a heavily encrypted multi-layered runic lockbox.

The man keyed in a complex sequence of mana signatures, and the box hissed open, revealing a single softly glowing metal card resting on a bed of black silk.

"Standard state mandate, my Lord..." the clerk said smoothly.

His eyes flashed with sudden greed.

"Because the ability to pull a Hero from the ether directly shifts the balance of military power in the region, the Lord Association strictly taxes the sale of these artifacts to independent factions. There are also limited Summoning cards, there are only five within the LA Building as of right now."

The clerk looked Silas dead in the eye.

"That will be five hundred thousand Spirit Credits."

Silas stared at the glowing silver card.

Five hundred thousand?! Half a million credits for a single pull?! Sure he would pull a divine being but still...

His jaw physically tightened.

Yes, he had the money. He couldn’t afford it right now without emptying his account though and he also had not bought the dresses he wanted to for the girls.

’Why is being a Lord so fucking expensive??!!!’