There was a saying that went, 'acting tough is for those who are prepared.'
Therefore, Xu Que had a habit of preparing himself, paying attention to details all the time and subsequently grasping every opportunity to act tough.
Just now as he moved closer to the cave, he had already carefully inspected the ancient swords and noticed that the majority of them were rusted; obviously they were made of metal elements.
This was very different from the weapons of the Fire Nation, where they were mostly made of ore and minerals.
This was the Metal Nation after all—the cultivators cultivated and progressed using the Metal Spirit Qi and hence their weapons naturally had more metal elements within them so that greater prowess could be shown.
So to deal with items that possessed high metallic content—the perfect item would be magnets!
