The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Skill Research Arc: Chapter 32 - Aftermath Upgrades

23 July 2023

Mishe, 35th Floor

"Been a month since we last met, huh, Z?"

Argo spotted me entering the tavern first. She might have been here for quite a while, expecting my presence as she helped herself to probably a beer (which doesn't get you drunk no matter how much you drink it).

I was trudging into the place with seemingly heavy feet. Having just learnt that navigating through the Wandering Mists Forest could be a pain, even with the map in my system menu at my side, I couldn't have complied with Argo's meeting time if not for the fact that the party I was travelling with decided to end their farming early.

The geography of the Wandering Mists Forest just couldn't be underestimated, for some goddamn reason.

As I strolled towards Argo, a weight of a different kind, having being carried on my back for the whole afternoon, surfaced in my awareness. My new spear, and probably my best one yet, named Binarium Edge, remained dull in its shades of blue in the semi-dim limelight of the tavern.

The spear really was quite special. Each of its two ends was attached with a slightly curved blade identical to each other, which gave its magnificent design when it was crafted. And the fact that it being a double-bladed spear gave the user flexibility in using either of its blades during combat and using weapon skills.

Honestly, I was amazed by how good Tekion was in his craftsmanship, and his never-ending research into the SAO weapon crafting system proved that. But crafting a double-bladed spear from using my old spear, Crystal Poleshard+10 and a bunch of adamantine ore from the 27th Floor was still out of pure luck.

Perhaps Tekion had found a way to optimize the stats of a crafted weapon by deciding the amount of adamantine ore to be used for the crafting, but luck was still a factor determining the usefulness of a weapon. A weapon's stats are always randomly generated upon being crafted, but they can be controlled through certain means.

Truth be told, a double-bladed spear was a rare occurrence in SAO, though it seemed no different than a normal one when being wielded. For now, at least. There was no telling what that kind of spear can do, since it has an extra blade.

I managed a decent reply the moment I sat in front of Argo.

"Yeah.......yeah, it has."

A month. A month after I finished the Kesoko campaign quest. A month after I last saw Argo on the 32nd Floor. Strangely enough, I didn't get to see her again right after I left Kesoko, but here we were, suddenly deciding to meet up as if we were old friends. I wasn't sure if our customer-seller relationship was still standing after so long.

Argo placed her beer on the table and looked at me intently. Assuming that she wasn't as drunk as she looked, I raised my hand to call the NPC bartender over to order drinks for myself.

"So, how's Kesoko?"

An expected question to be asked. It was the last quest I purchased information of from Argo after all. I decided to give her a summary of what happened, to save time on telling a story that would be a week long.

".....And the Armament Swap skill worked great, as expected." I finished off. "You did the Kesoko quest too right? I'm interested in how you did the quest."

Argo didn't respond at first. She grabbed the handle of the beer cup gently, her eyes being really empty. I still didn't believe that she was drunk, though.

"So you had different NPC companions than me, huh....."

"....Yep."

"And they lived through the last stage of the quest, right?"