When you begin the game you will start out with the dagger. This weapon was blessed by the fairy king and can not be broken. This has some advantages, and that is basically that it can not be broken, beyond that it is still a regular weapon. When it takes to much damage it will break and you will lose all of your attachments and work that you put into it. When you first venture into the dungeons this is the weapon you will use. Go through the dungeon and kill monsters till you get the weapon to a +1 status. This will help you start out with a better weapon. When going through the dungeons try to get any attachments and put them on if they can benifit you in that area. So if you are still on Basement Floor 1, then you will want to put on a "Anti-Beast" attachment. Continue leveling up your sword and adding attachments until you come to a better sword, say the Gladius, Shasmir, Bone Rapier, or Butchers Knife. When you come across these weapons look at their stats and see if you want to transfer over to that weapon. But, before you can do that you have to get your current weapon to at least +5 status. Once you do that make sure you want to turn it into a synthosphere. When you actually decided then do the status-break option to seal 60% of the weapons stats. Now take this sphere and attach it to the weapon you want. After doing this level your new weapon with the sphere attachment to at least a new level. This will make the weapon absorb it so it is permanently on. After this you basically repeat the process. Kill more monster, add more attachments, and so on. Also, If you come upon a second Bandit Sling-shot when playing as Xiao, then try to get it to +5 and status-break it and stick it on your current weapon. Also, It is a good idea to also try to get a sphere from the Butcher's Knife and add it to your current weapon also. Doing this will make you have a good sword with 2 abilites: Quench, and Steal. This will help you out to a better start with Toan.

I found Xiao a little easier to build up than Toan. And for the first two towns she was MORE POWERFUL than Toan. She is a good character over all. She has a long reach with her sling-shot to make dispaching enemies that fly easy. Basically what I did with her was level up the sling-shot you start out with, with her. I keep on building it up till it got to +5. Don't put this on another weapon till you find the Bandit Sling-shot. When you find the Bandit Sling-shot status-break your Wooden Sling-shot and attach it to the Bandit Sling-shot. Then level it up so the Bandit Sling-shot absorbs it. After this, I went back to Toan and leveled up his Dagger to +5 and then I status-broke it. After I had a sphere from that weapon I attached it to the Bandit Sling-Shot. I again leveled up the sling-shot so that it absorbed it. After this I got the Butchers Knife weapon from Toan and got it to +5. I then attached it and leveled the sling-shot up once again so it abosorbed it. After you do this just continue to add attachments and level you sling-shot up. This should start you with a good weapon for Xiao.