However, even if she hasn't completed her weapon, her experience in the wilds likely makes her superior to Kolbert. However, it is still possible that Ione hasn't had that much experience.
On the other hand, kolb remains holed up in villagetown, his best weapon being a diamond greatsword (the actual relevance of diamond in aetheria is sorely disappointing. its like netherite was introduced except 100x the impact)
If you remember what i said before, "We can take from context what kolb has done, as noted by runt, compared to how ione has progressed, as noted by runt", that is a pretty obvious indicator that its taken from the books (as runt writes them)