SOUL WEAPON

Lynne, Anna and Elynal flew for good two hours before they came to a stop. They landed on a rather high mountain peak, its tip like an iceberg, covered in deep frost to its depths. From Lynne’s conservative estimates, the peak of the mountain skyrocketed all the way to almost ten thousand meters! He actually had to form barrier of Mana around himself as snowstorm atop was too harsh.

Because they obtained great harvest, the trio decided to train and understand for the following two weeks, after which they’d continue towards the Ancient City. Ice Phoenix himself was rather happy, as the peak of the mountain was practically made for him. He screeched a few times, jolting about happily, before landing in the corner, letting sharp winds howl against his body. Lynne felt slightly envious, but it lasted for but a moment.

The trio dispersed down the mountain until they reached the part that wasn’t frozen; each blew a hole in the side, creating a cave, and closing it afterwards. Monkey followed Lynne, as he was too interested in the pills and potions Lynne obtained.

The first thing Lynne did was sit down cross-legged and meditate for half an hour, calming his mind as much as possible. Afterwards, he gently traced his finger across the Pocket Ring, infusing a strand of Mana, looking through it. To start with, the space within the Pocket Ring wasn’t much, and it was truly cramped to boot. With a flash, Lynne took out all the books he ‘borrowed’ from the tomb, wanting to go over them first.

Due to the last fight he witnessed, Lynne had obtained a certain understanding about himself and others. Most – if not all – of his strength came from the Spell Arts of others. This was inherently weaker than creating his own, but it was also much easier. The difference was, though, that most others his age studied – at most – 3-4 Spell Arts, discarding all others, and filling the gaps within the heat of the battle on their own intuition.

Lynne, on the other hand, had already learned 7 Spell Arts. Outside of his Infinite Faces, as well as Elemental Blades, all of his other Spell Arts were stuck at the bottom of basic understanding. In layman’s terms, at the moment, they were practically useless. This could be seen from Lynne’s fight against the ten black-clad figures shortly after he left the sect; casting a few Spell Arts – despite their inherent lower usage of Mana – had drained half of his supplies. This was partially due to his low Mana reserves, but also partially due to his lack of understanding of these abilities.

The reason Lynne dreaded using Starcarrier wasn’t because the Spell Art was weak, but because of its nature. With basic infusion into another Spell Art, Mana cost was relatively low, but the increase in strength was almost negligible, especially at this conjuncture. The further increases in strength equaled increases in Mana spent; however, with his basic understanding of the Spell Art, the ratio was simply insane, and Lynne calculated that it bordered between 1:20 and 1:30. It was simply wasting Mana!

However, with each progress in understanding of the Spell Art, that ratio would lower, all the way down to 1:1 with the profound understanding. While this sounded tempting, even Headmaster wasn’t able to reach 1:1 ratio, and he had created this Spell Art himself. That is to say, if Lynne wanted to reach 1:1 ratio in the future, he’d have to evolve the Spell Art even further on his own, creating the final layers.

There was another matter of simply conflicting Spell Arts, such as Fiery Sweeps and Emerald Gale. Both are movement-based Spell Arts, but their natures were different. Lynne, at first, thought he’d be able to focus on both, but that was simply impossible – at least for the time being. As such, he finally began shifting through his Spell Arts. He completely discarded Emerald Gale for the time being, deciding he wouldn’t train in it any longer. Fiery Sweeps was simply more versatile, which is exactly what his battling style would be.

He also decided to completely discard and remove Earthen Shell from his memory. It was simply a waste for him to train defensive Spell Art; if he was ever struck, with or without it, he’d die, so he didn’t want to waste his time on it. Then, there was the issue of Elemental Blade versus Aqua Blade. Lynne had already decided that he’d use Elemental Blade differently than it was intended, while Aqua Blade would become his primary attacking spell.

He can, at the moment, summon 120 Elemental Blades at the same time – that was his absolute limit. Each blade could either have the same element, or he could vary them to greater degree. This would become his long-range probing and bombardment, and supporting offensive spell. On the other hand, Aqua Blade – while only having a nature of Water – was much more versatile in its usage. Its name was solely because the first condensation would be a blade, but that blade could become virtually anything. It could expand, separate, narrow, etc., which was perfect for his battle style.

As all these thoughts were put in order, Lynne slowly gained relative understanding of how he would fight. Fiery Sweeps would be his only movement ability for the time being; it would be used both for engagement and disengagement, as well as shifty movements during the battle. Elemental Blades would be used as primary engagement and probing tool, while he would change his style to Aqua Blade usage once things turned to close ranged combat. However, Lynne wasn’t that excited in having to engage in close quarters combat, as he never believed it to be his strong suite. He’d rather maintain slight distance, and be mid-ranged fighter.

With those thoughts, the only thing that was left to decide was his primary weapon. Nearly every Magus uses weapons. There are exceedingly low number of sub-paths where weapon isn’t required – something like Anna’s Blood Fiend sub-path. Blood Fiends were mid to long ranged offensive supporting type, but none of the weapons could truly exemplify their style, so nearly all Blood Fiends simply used blood as main weapon.

As his thoughts reached here, he quickly took out the round weapon he ‘borrowed’ from the tomb, as well as the white stone. Circular weapon had a rather simple design, with its blade bending in a crescent shape to nearly full 360 degrees; only a small portion was condensed down to a primitive cloth-wrapped handle. Lynne recognized the weapon: it was a Chakram.

Usage of this weapon was extremely rare due to sheer difficulty of control. It can be said that it was both the most restricting and the most versatile weapon out there. It was seemingly perfect for Lynne, but he still hesitated; he knew very well the difficulty of learning the Chakram style. It revolved around speed and short-distance skirmishes, whereas one’s strength grew more in relation to the number of Chakrams currently employed. One was worthless, two were standard, three were principle, four were boundary and five were summit – that was the golden rule. Anything above five – even if achievable – was simply a waste, and led to a natural collapse of a style.

In the end, Lynne bit his lip and made the decision: he’s going to follow the path of Chakrams, for as long as it would take him. There were simply no other weapons that interested him; he had slight love for chain-sickles, but it simply conflicted with the style he wished to pursue.

“He he,” the monkey suddenly laughed as he noticed Lynne’s contorted face. “You really want to go down this path?”

“Do I really have a choice?” Lynne grunted, obviously displeased. “Even though I’m following two Origin Paths, I’m leaning much more towards the Spellweaver, and this round block of steel was practically forged for it. I’ll probably use Skyfire path as the supportive one, rather than the main one. So…”

“Ha ha,” the monkey laughed lightly. “True, it’s better that way. Besides, you’re in luck.”

“Luck?” Lynne creased his brows.

“Look at this book,” the monkey suddenly fished out a rather thin, black-leather book from the pile and handed it over to Lynne. There were only two words inscribed on the cover: Soul Weapons. “With your comprehension, you should probably be able to forge a Soul Weapon or two. Especially if you’re going down the path of the round blades.”

“What are Soul Weapons?” Lynne asked, confused.

“… you truly don’t know jack shit,” the monkey sighed lowly as he shook his head. Did anyone teach this kid anything? “As their name implies, they are weapons tied to one’s soul. Do you remember that guy that took out the diamond spear? That was a Soul Weapon. Although its grade is low, it is still hundred times better than weapons forged from ordinary materials.”

“In essence, soul weapons are part of one’s self,” the monkey continued explaining while Lynne listened attentively. “You don’t need to split your attention towards them to control them, as they are a part of you. Even if destroyed, they can slowly regenerate through you, so, in essence, they are indestructible. Their strength grows in relation to you, so they don’t need to be exchanged. They can also further be reforged later on if you ever find better Soul Materials.”

“However, the requirements for it are simply too much… perhaps, even that girl Anna and that boy wouldn’t be able to do it, at least not right now. Not only is there a high requirement of innate talent, but one also needs to have a strong soul. Soul’s strength, though, is rather ambiguous… take the Mind element you people practice. Even you, regardless of your talent, would still struggle trying to make even tiniest of breakthroughs in terms of understanding. This is because human’s souls are, inherently, amongst weakest out there. The only way to strengthen them is either through comprehension or some divine pills and materials.”

“… didn’t you say I can probably do it though?”

“Yes, but not because you are some exception of the human race,” the monkey sneered as he spoke. “It’s because of that white stone.”

“White stone?” Lynne gently picked up wholly white, rectangular stone. It was rather light, roughly half meter long and half of that in width. Outside of its appearance, it didn’t seem all that remarkable.

“Yes!” the monkey confirmed. “If I’m not mistaken, that should be Divine Silverstone, a material specifically used in constructing Soul Weapons. Not only can you create two from this block, it will also strengthen your soul in the process. I have no idea how that dead dude came across it, but this stone is perhaps worth more than that book you picked up…” at the mention of the ‘book’ Lynne lightly shook, but as he understood monkey’s sentence, he was deeply shocked. Worth more than Origin Path manual?!!!

“Don’t be so surprised,” the monkey chuckled. “Although rare, manuals for Origin Paths can be copied, and there’s probably hundreds of each scattered across the worlds. As for the Divine Silverstone, chances of it forming are extremely low. Perhaps only one stone of this size would be formed every one hundred thousand years.”

“That low?!” Lynne was utterly stunned at this point.

“Indeed,” the monkey nodded. “Any material with ‘Divine’ in its name is simply defiance of Natural Laws. They are extremely rare, but when used… their benefits are immense.”

“So I can use this stone to construct two Soul Weapons?”

“Hm,” the monkey nodded again, smiling. “Read through that book and dwell on the process. Two weeks should be enough. However, beware: constructing Soul Weapons, in the end, is tinkering with your own soul. The pain will be great. While not on the level of when you comprehended two Origin Paths, it will still be immense. The stone simply offers you the opportunity, but it’s up to you to take it.”

Huuu. Lynne sucked a breadth of cold air, looking deeply at the white stone in front of him. He simply lacked far too much knowledge about the things in this world. Aside from Soul Weapons, what else could there be? What other mysteries could he explore? For the time being though, he discarded those thoughts as he picked up the black-leather book and flipped it open. He decided he’d use the two weeks to construct two Soul Weapons – both of which will be Chakrams.