For all that FoD technically belongs to the xianxia genre, I wouldn't actually expect it to have the same tropes as a typical xianxia, because a typical xianxia is garbage, and FoD is very much not so.
Many of the tropes are part of the aesthetic though and, while normal xianxia makes use of overpowered weapons to pile them on its protagonists and encourage general murderhoboness from everyone, that doesn't mean you cannot get worthwhile stuff out of the same trappings.
For one, it means specific and special equipment becomes narratively relevant instead of simply being one of fifty +5 factors in the backend math.
Normal talismans may be a thing to keep in mind for now, but especially as we move away from a mechanical combat resolution and towards a narrative one, they're likely to fall away more or less completely or be reduced to a boolean of "Have you dropped cash on talismans recently?"
A specific type of gear potent enough to remain narratively relevant being introduced right about now is pretty appropriate then.
For another, if taken out of the hands of hacks, the societal effect stops being limited to "it justifies and encourages murderhobo behaviour".
You get considerations like the fact that having enough high grade weapons would serve to insulate a given clan against the unreliability of talent and not having a high replacement rate for the geniuses that got them where they are.
Or the fact that the mere ability to stockpile weapons like these for ages enables older and established clans to throw much more weight around, even if they for varying reasons don't have a corresponding number of top tier people for now.
And extended to the high-end, it's this foundation that enables absurd and fun things like the Bai's super fishing spear.
If you don't start having gear be frighteningly relevant early, it'd be really jarring for it to spontaneously pop into a (close to) peer level combatant the moment it develops a spirit, especially since you have nearly no incentive to
really care about your basic gear until it hits that threshold.
And if you try to avoid that by having them start as lower tier spirits, then you have one of your combat tools suddenly turn into something really squishy at the level you operate at, which is a bit...