Looking at his phone, three places claim to have swords. He was now in front of the first place, and the one that seemed most prestigious out of the three. Looking at the front, it was a decorated place that read "Wapen Smederij." It was located in a small alley, which made it all the more mysterious. He saw a display in the window that had a set of knights' armor with a steel sword in the mannequin's hand. "This is not gonna be cheap." Taking a deep breath, he walked in.
At his first sight glance inside, he was stunned. The walls were all lined with different weapons, ranging from swords to spears, to hammers. "Dang, those are a lot of weapons." Jake guessed there had to be at least 50 on the walls. There were even more within the display cases in the middle.
In the corner of his eye, he saw a short black man at the cash register. Jake couldn't tell what he was doing, but he looked to be twiddling his thumbs. Not caring though, he went to the wall for a better look. "Let's see these prices, if I can find a sword that can do damage, it will be worth it." He hoped to find a sword to use when executing the Gale Storm Sword. "Holy shit!" Taking a peek at the tag, Jake's mouth went a little dry, "450 dollars!" And the blade didn't even look too sharp. If he wanted it sharpened enough to scare people, it would be quite a bit more.
He had the money to afford it, but he was hoping to use the money in his account for a car. Glancing at the other things on display, he saw a katana for close to a thousand, a longsword for six hundred, a mace for three hundred, and a lot of swords. "Sure I can find a sword here, but if I can't even use the technique properly is it even worth it?" After a while of looking, Jake finally gave up and left the store. This next place gave him a little higher hope as it was more broad in its selection.
The next place was called "Medival Armory" And had stuff ranging from weapons to armor, to even regular peasants' clothing. It looked like the perfect place for LARP'ers. As Jake went in, it felt like he had walked into the past, with mannequins having all kinds of different outfits and armor sets. The weapons on the other hand were in a corner on display. After walking around for a little bit, an employee wanted to help, "Excuse me, sir, can I help you with anything?" She was a regular girl who was dressed in old medieval clothing making her blend in with the rest of the store.
"Oh, uh I wanna try my hand at practicing the art of the sword, and was wondering if you have some good practice swords to start with." Jake's ideal would be a real sword that weighed the same without the sharpness. Thus he could smash it around on the ground with no fear of it dulling.
"Hmmm, let's check the sword area." Following her lead, Jake ended up back at the weapons corner. Taking a key she unlocked the display. "Which one would you wanna try?" Jake saw a sword that looked like the old man's and quickly grabbed it. Slowly picking it up with two hands, he was glad to see that the blade was quite dull. The weight also felt good. With two hands it was pretty easy, and when he switched to one-handed, it was only slightly strenuous to hold.
He didn't wanna swing here in case of hitting something or someone, so he only moved it slightly.
"How much is this?" Jake looked back at the woman who was still standing near the display. She looked down at the display and got the price, "It will be one hundred twenty dollars, sir." Hearing the price, he was shocked. 'It's still that expensive??' With a sigh, he gritted his teeth and spoke, "Ok, I'll take this one."
With him having to buy groceries, and now the loss of another one hundred twenty, his money savings were starting to take a hit. 'I need to figure out a way to make money through the system!' With that thought, Jake vowed to exploit the system as much as possible so he could live a carefree life.
After Jake bought it, the woman brought over a scabbard, and it even came with a handle to hold it. Apparently according to the lady, that scabbard was made specifically for that sword, thus why it was given with the selling of the sword and not sold separately. Jake instantly had a positive opinion of the store. They could've easily bitten out more money from him but they chose not to which made Jake happy.
With that, he had a practice sword. "Is this practical to bring into the gym though?" He was scared that he might get rejected, or directly thrown out if he brought such a sword anywhere. With that thought, he decided not to go to the last place because it seemed more of a joke store with only wooden or plastic swords.
…
In his backyard, Jake had some athletic clothes on and had the scabbard on his side. "I'll have to adjust the handle so it can be made into a belt for easier access." Right now, the scabbard could only be hung around his shoulders like a handbag, but in a fight that was much harder to pull from. Thus, the idea of making a custom belt for the scabbard came to mind.
It gave him a little excitement to do some arts and crafts since he was definitely bored with no special quest. All he would have to do is cut some things and do a little bit of sewing and then he would have a pretty suitable scabbard.
With those thoughts slowly fading, his mind went back to the sword. Pulling it out, it made a slight scratching noise as it slid out of the scabbard. It felt awkward as this was the first time Jake had done such a move. However, he soon held it in front of him and admired the sword. It was dull but still had a unique charm to it. Closing his eyes, he recalled the memory and took a deep breath. "Let's test this out."