Logan looked back on his past month, almost every hunt involving Crystalback Lightning Lizards had been a life and death situation. Although the lightning accelerator had reduced the danger, he still had to be on guard at all times fighting the weasels.

Even the lizards were a danger as the pack would attack together when they noticed an enemy. It was very hard and even then, the weasel would appear during that pack attack to attack both him and the lizards.

Still, with many hardships, blood, sweat and tears, he finally reached the final step the old elf Elas Grefir had told him of.

That step was probably the dumbest thing a human could think of and that was to undergo a baptism of lightning.

The sword had been born from lightning but before it was born, that is the birth of the infant spirit of lightning that inhabited the sword, the sword had been mostly ruined. It actually had very little stored lightning and power. The spirit could almost be called premature and only instinct driven.

The materials were likely to make up for the damage because the cracks were mostly sealed but they were clearly visible. However, the energy was probably needed to complete the spirit’s development.

Still, any living being that wasn’t a lightning based monster would be fearful of taking a full force lightning strike.

This wasn’t just placing the sword where it could attract it, he knew the sword was only active in his hand. It was a mutual bond so he knew that it was like that.

However, he wasn’t in a hurry. Many people might have been excited to try and get a true legend sword if they knew what it was beyond the ancient demon lord and hero story but when put on the seat where the condition was to be struck by the full force of natural lightning, there would be some wryness.

As such, he chartered a trip back to the capital. He was planning on going to visit Elas and then his father. It had been month's so he planned to go home for a while. Adventurers travelled but at the end of the day, they still felt homesick and would return for a time to a place where they wouldn’t be always in a tense mindset.

Logan was still starting so he wasn’t someone who liked or had felt year round tension.

When the ship docked at the capital, he knew he wouldn’t find his sister because her mission was likely finished faster than his and she would have gone on to do something else. He didn’t look for her either because that was just dumb.

Instead, he headed to the old elf’s smithy.

When he walked near, the elder opened his eyes and smiled.

“Oh, did you complete the conditions already?” he asked.

With a shake of his head, Logan sat down, “No, taking a bolt of lightning at my current strength level still needs mental preparations.” he said.

The elf laughed and waved his hand.

Logan pulled out the wooden sheathed sword and handed it to the elder who pulled out the sword. He lightly passed his finger and the sword hummed a beautiful note.

“It has grown well. Even if the sword is hit along the cracks it wouldn’t break unless it was a D rank attack. It seems you hunted a good number of lightning weasels as well.” He said.

“Yeah… it was a big event that I could do that.” he said and went on to explain what happened on his first hunt.

The elder suddenly started to laugh when he finished, “Truly the chosen of a legend sword. Your affinity for lightning magic is already pretty high. Probably about 20% which is very high while your resistance is probably 35 or 40%. These are things you cultivated when using the sword. It has constantly been giving feedback which helped your resistance reach this level. Don’t think this is the only one you will have though. This is simply preparing your body. The constant use of self inflicting lightning buff magic is naturally training your body to resist lightning magic just so you will be ready for when you take a dangerous attack like nature's lightning.” He said.

“Is my resistance that high?!” He said, shocked.

“Yes, but realize that this resistance focuses on your nerves, heart and brain, the places the skill affects. Your other organs, muscles and skin have about the same resistance as your affinity which is 20%.” he explained.

“Is that enough to survive?” he asked serious

“Yes, naturally. Though some suggestions to survive better. Don’t use that armor since the steel draws more lightning than it would otherwise. Remain barefoot so that the excess both you and this sword can’t absorb is channeled into the ground. Avoid trees, this is mainly for the environment since forest fires aren’t the best thing. Lastly, prepare a lot of healing pills. Your first time doing this isn’t going to be peaceful and you will need extra healing aid.” he said

Logan took all the advice to heart.

Sheathing the sword, Elas looked momentarily at the other one but didn’t say much. A single glance he could see there was no change.

That said Logan did notice it.

Looking down at the sword next to the thunder sword he thought a while. “Is killing a dragon or placing it at the center of a wind type mana well the only option to birth the basic legend sword spirit?” Logan asked.

“Well, they are the easiest for sure. Or should I say the quickest. The other option is for you to hunt ten thousand wind type monsters and bring me their blood and bodies in stages for me to slowly forge it in stages.” he said.

“Forge in stages… how does that work?” he asked.

“Well, originally the demon lord's sword was made directly with Demonic Soul Steel, a metal only demon kind can make by making a special demon alloy before mixing this alloy in liquid state with the blood of very powerful demons. The demon lord himself was powerful and when he made his sword he had already been the lord of demon kind and possessed an unsurpassable legend to himself. His blood was simply the catalyst for the sword and needed a single stage of forging. Your sword and likewise the hero's sword are different. They start as normal swords that were made with strong material and survived a powerful confrontation and achieved minor conditions and became legend swords of the lowest category. Well, yours is still unforged but once the baptism is done, it will become a white sword, also called a Named Sword. Named swords are not like masterpieces made by master smiths. Instead they are swords the world names and whose legend is being engraved into the annals of history.” He said.

“That doesn’t explain much how this sword will be made in stages to become a named sword.” Logan said.

“Impatience is youth’s quality. Patience comes with experience, please listen.” Elas said, “Now, where was I. Ah yes, the ancient hero was not the only one to get a legend sword. He was but the one that history remembers. During the old age, many swords, now stored or used by legendary figures of the world, use them as rulers of their kingdoms and more. Naturally there were people who weren’t looking for legend swords and instead magic swords. The difference is the lack of a spirit. These were much simpler to make but many people do not realize that this is actually the first step to make a legend sword.” He said.

He called Logan inside and they went up a stairway to the side instead of to the back and reached his home upstairs.

After making some tea, he continued.

“Magic swords are the base for every legend sword. It is quite simple as to why that is so since magic swords are so much stronger than normal swords. However, few know the costs that such swords incur. That sword of yours is a powerful close range wind type katana but it simply helps channel wind magic enhancing the effect. Magic swords actually possess the ability to take inserted mana and make it into wind mana and attack or return it to the wielder for a magic spell. Wind mana inserted into a wind type magic sword will compress and become purer and more destructive. The difference is clear. The conditions to make it a magic sword, the corpses of 100 E rank wind element monsters, a fist sized piece of high quality wind mana crystal and the blood of 10 D rank wind element monsters.” He said, finally listing the materials.

Logan’s mouth dropped open at the amazing cost to transform a sword into a magic sword.

“There are other ways to make it of course. One C rank monster corpse with a different C rank monster's blood with a high quality wind mana crystal would instantly make it a magic sword.” he said.

“Yeah… higher quality gives higher results.” Logan replied. This was basically what happened to his sword.

“Yes, as you likely guessed, the katana your grandfather forged the dragon bone with was a magic sword. A B rank thunder dragon doesn’t even need blood quenching.” Elas said.

A nod basically revealed Logan understood after all was said and done.

"I do wonder though, why did the sword eat the bones from the weasels but not the lizards?” Logan asked.

“Because lightning weasel bone is needed to heal the dragon bone core in the sword. When I forge it, realize that I am reforging it into an ingot and then forging it into a new sword. The dragon bone was injured by the lightning so it needed that to repair it. The blood was the same however the Crystalback lizard bones are simply too undeveloped. If you had met and E rank one, you would have seen the sword swallow all the bone, blood and even the crystal with all the energy inside.” He said.

Logan sighed and nodded.

“Guess I just have to wait then. I have my entire life to try and prepare this sword.” He said.

“When you do, I can make it quite special. If you want, when the sword is ready I can make them twin swords.” Elas said.

“Nah, katana are two handed weapons. It feels strange walking with two already and I do that only so that I don't have to explain why I use a ruined sword.” He said.

"I honestly would suggest you study the wind magic. Lightning is advanced wind magic but I don't think separate branches can’t merge.” he said. “Also, there are more ways than one to make ‘twin swords’. You have talked about your father’s Nodachi legacy that you trained and learned as well.” He said.

“You are talking about making two legend swords and merging them into a bigger weapon?” Logan frowned.

“Yes, that is correct. Don’t think it hasn’t happened before. After all, Legend swords are still simply metal. Despite being able to last hundreds of years, they will eventually rust, their legends forgotten should the sword not find a suitable user and maybe even break. A spirit would die if the sword breaks but the legend sword itself still exists. Those broken swords are very sought after to create new swords with your own legend. However, another secret technique is merging two living swords into one body. Their powers and abilities would expand. The price of course is that you will have to satisfy both swords conditions to advance the next step.” He said.

Logan looked at both of the swords seriously, "I will see in the future. Right now I need to get the first sword to even think about making a second.” he said.

Elas smiled widely when he heard that, “Good, I did not make a mistake with you child. Be it another man in your place, greed was the likely reaction and death was their result.” He said.

“What?! Why?” he asked, shocked.

“One man cannot be bound to two unawakened legend swords. The swords would fight over ownership of you as to who you are the master of. It is instinctive and territorial behavior. It would not happen if one sword is a legend one and the other is a newly born one. It is like a young brother fighting with an older one. Naturally the older and stronger one would not mind or care about the crying of the other.” He said.

Logan finally understood but instantly felt a wave of relief as he realized he passed some kind of test.

Taking the sheath of Weifang out he looked at it for some time. “Is it better to change the sheath and guard to hide it’s fancy appearance?” he asked.

“No, that is not needed. Adventurers know of eastern swords but just rare individuals actually use it properly. Many actually like the less gaudy ones because such swords are more likely to be frauds and fake weapons, poorly made and made to be decorations.” He said.

“Oh… I see.” He said.

Elas chuckled and reached into his pocket and placed a hand sized chest in front of him.

“What is this? A music box?”

“No, this is a stasis inventory. Us smiths, the ones who know how to forge legend swords, we provide these to the young heroes who possess the swords of legends. The space is about the size of a small castle and freezes time. In the future, you can store corpses for the swords forging in this.” he said.

“What! T-that is too big of a gift!” he said.

“Take it child, these are easy to make. The material is cheap. Of course, if you can get the hide of any dragon, I can upgrade this and show you what a truly expensive inventory box looks like. If you get the hide of dragons from all the basic elements, wind, water, earth, fire, light and dark along with the advanced elements, lightning, ice and metal, I can show you the most powerful inventory, capable of holding living breathing things in a small world of its own.” Elas said seriously.

Logan swallowed hard but knew the prospect was minimal. Beat a dragon of each type? His grandfather had fought 1 dragon at B rank and retired. He was also quite clear that Elas wasn’t talking about B rank dragons but A or even S rank. Realize that S rank was once SS until the ranking was revised.

What is SS in old ranking? They are walking calamities, titans in other terms, demonic beings to others. They are unmatched and unmatchable.

The old Demon lord was a step beyond being SSS in the original ranking only beatable by the hero himself at the sacrifice of his own life and sword.

There has never been another SSS because if such a being truly existed, he would surpass the demon lord and there would be no way to deal with him.

"I will keep that in mind then.” He said as he carefully picked up the tiny box and put it in his pocket.

A personal inventory is very hard to get at his current level, to get it free made him feel bad.

Elas smiled upon seeing that and looked at his face, “Don’t worry about repaying me. I am an elf at the end of his life. I have lived for 700 years and have seen many hardships and simply live to aid the young legends of the future.”

“I’ve heard that elves live up to nearly 1500 years.” he said.

“That is royalty, we elves are not so biologically locked as humans. In recorded history, only the hero has actually evolved just before killing himself and the demon lord. Elves possess a known evolution called the high elf. The few high elves in existence are all royalty but they are rare. The actual common elf, no matter the tribe, lives between 600 to 800 years.” he said.

“Alright… well within my lifetime, we will still see each other and probably die together.” he said and raised his cup of tea before drinking.

Elas began to laugh when he heard that as he liked the boy more for it.

“What do you plan?” he asked.

"I will go see my father, I have been out for nearly 2 months. I feel like I need some time to relax and get tips from my father to adapt my innate skill to my fighting style. A lot of the moves don’t actually feel like they work with the legacy my father taught me. Maybe it is just because I haven't adapted to my speed.” he said.

“Good, as a wise man once said, ‘haste makes waste’ the birth of a legacy sword doesn’t need to be done instantly.” he said.

“Of course.”

“Also, do remember to not tell your father… well, you wouldn’t be able to anyways.” he said.

"I have wondered about that, why is it that we are unable to speak of legacy swords to those who don’t find out on their own or possess such a weapon themselves?” he asked.

“That was a law changed after the hero and demon lord’s death. The gods gathered their power to engrave their story in history but they also imposed the law that we smiths cannot speak of it to none but those with the swords and a disciple we take. As for you wielders, you equally cannot speak of it unless you have at least a yellow sword. The colors are White, Grey and then yellow each respectively called the named sword, the flamed sword and the awakened flame. Once you have reached the yellow stage, your chain of speaking of it is gone as you need to spread the name of the sword far and wide.” he said.

Logan nodded understanding these things.

“Alright… I think I can leave learning about things related to the for after I complete my own.” he said.

“Good.” Elas nodded.

From there they had some small talk until Logan packed up and went to commission a ticket home. Like before he had to take 4 ships but he didn’t mind.

Half a day later he arrived at the port city that had appeared from that small port village ten years ago.

“The smell of home is nice.” he muttered as he disembarked and headed out of the city.

“Now lets see endurance.” he muttered about the one thing he never tested and activated Lightning Accelerator and took off down the road aiming for one of the small scale towns his home was in.

It didn’t last long as he stopped not five minutes later.

Huffing from exhausting and muscle pain, he sat down on the side of the road. “Short distance running…” he simply muttered very easily figuring out the kind of enhancement it was. It wasn’t able to help him endurance wise because only his nerves, brain and heart were enhanced.

Although the blood transfers oxygen to his muscles fasters, his muscles weren’t made or enhanced to run long distances. He would need to figure out a spell to buff his muscles at the very least to enhance his endurance or he wouldn’t be able to achieve long durations using the skill.

After resting, he continued on and in six hours he reached his home town. The island was big but not so big that it would take days to cross. Still it possessed four towns, one of which was rapidly becoming the trade center of the island and that one was the closest one to the original port village.

Although there were other ports, they were more fishermen run and small scale while the original was large and could receive large passenger and cargo ships.

In the town he walked around until he reached one of the largest dojos in that town. The Crossblade dojo, this was his family's dojo which trained children under the age of 18 how to wield and use swords properly. As an ex mercenary, and a leader as well, he knew how to train people with bladed weapons despite never using half of them. He knew the basics and that was enough for a lot of people. More advanced methods came from teaching archives or even scrolls containing techniques and styles of battle.

It is actually an amazing money making business. What is better is that Maxwell has a special magic skill known he calls King’s eye. It was a unique eye magic that could help see and identify body constitutions. Maxwell is rarely wrong about what weapon each student had most talent using. He even found a shocking one that made the boy be fought over by several captains who wanted to teach the boy how to be a powerful seafarer.

This magic wasn’t taught to either of the children. The basic requirements were said though. They need to be at least C rank to be able to achieve the mana density and would also need to train many support magic to train their eyes so that they would be able to handle the eye magic.

Walking inside, he found the training yard full with many young children in rows with many advanced students that were over 13 who had been with the dojo for a long while and helped teach the children for pay.

HA!

They all swing together.

He smiled when he remembered himself doing that but the shouting was quickly beaten out of him and reduced to just a small exhaul so that he would not alert the entire world to his attack.

Some of them looked at him and their eyes shined but this made them receive a resounding flick of a wooden sword on their butt with just enough strength to be called a slap.

“Don’t get distracted! Your enemies won’t let you explore the environment when you are fighting!” one of the elder students exclaimed.

The kid rubbed the hit spot and quickly focused.

The rest quickly fell into line while one of the students ran over.

“Hey, where is father?” Logan asked.

“The master is out dealing with a newly raised B rank monster that ransacked dozens of farms.” one of them said.

“There are still B ranks on the island?” he asked.

“It is an avian.” He said.

He quickly understood and nodded. “Okay, I just came for a visit and to relax so I will be around. Tell father I returned when he appears.” he said.

“Yes sir!” they said and went back to doing their jobs.

Half a day later, Maxwell returned and was happy to see Logan but he arrived at Logan’s room already throwing a wooden katana.

Logan caught it despite the strength of the throw and turning to his father he swung as the man was already near him.

PA!

“You haven’t improved.” he said with a grin.

Logan turned serious as lightning pumped through his body and his body rapidly accelerated.

The sudden increase in speed caught his father off guard and he had to dodge three attacks but after that he fell into a grove as he sped up more and more.

The sound of wood smacking could be heard downstairs and the students stopped and looked up at the main building until a wall burst and Logan came flying out before Maxwell appeared coming down on his own son and the two ensued in battle.

Everyone quickly turned pale and ran to the walls opening a big space for the two as they only used their bodies but after five minutes, magic wind and lightning came from Logan’s swings while a red aura covered the wooden Nodachi in Maxwell’s hand.

The fight was hair raising for the children and they could barely follow it with their eyes but their bodies felt the prickling from the constant waves of mana dispersing from the two.

Only after half an hour Logan dropped down exhausted.

“Ahaha! Good, you got much better than I thought you would!” he said and picked the boy by the back of the shirt and took him inside but stopped and looked back at the children. “You kids can go home already. It is near dinner time, why are all of you still here!?” he said.

Everyone just twitched in fear and awe but after they vanished, they all looked at one another before boys went to the boy’s washroom and girls to their own and one by one they came out dressed in their normal clothing and left.

Upstairs, Logan recounted what happened and Maxwell was stunned to discover he had an Innate skill.

“Kid, you sure are one lucky brat but the skill is clearly either incomplete or just part of a group of skills. I know many people who have skills that are connected. Yours lack muscle and organ buff.” he said.

“Are there spells that do that?” Logan asked.

“Don’t bother with those kinds of things, they can’t compare to innate skills. Skills are learnable and train your body, magic just temporarily enhances it but quickly runs out.” he said.

Logan understood.

Maxwell told him about his sister who had come back a week ago and had left a day before. The two laughed when they talked about her sea sickness and how she arrived pale because she couldn’t make the remedies that Logan knew worked on her.

“Isn’t there a way to fix that? What if she jumps on the back of monsters, wouldn’t that cause motion sickness?” Logan asked.

“Well, it is a challenge she needs to surpass.” he said with no intent to help her with the problem as he always did. “So what are you going to do after this?” he asked.

“Hmm… Well I have plans, I am going to go train in the wild to enhance my survival abilities as well as physical power. For that though I need to find the right herbs for the F rank training medication.” he said.

Training medication is a special blend of potions that are drunk like sports drinks which help rapidly grow. That said, it is only useful for F and E ranks. These medicines also cannot be taken consecutively as it could poison the drinker but it needs a lot to achieve that. The effect is best when the body is under extreme stress.

“Good, training is the key to survival but don’t go to some place you can’t survive. Also don’t focus just on lightning affinity because you have resistance. All advancement tests involve all types of monsters so don’t think that you will be able to advance just by learning the hunting pattern of lightning type monsters.” he said.

"I know, sadly the nation doesn’t have many different habits anymore with so much destroyed.” He said.

This was true, the ones that were first affected actually destroyed some magical effects over some territories.

“It will eventually get back to normal. Alright, tomorrow I will kick your ass again, while you are here, don’t think you can relax.” he said and laughed before going out to grab a large container of ale.

Logan laughed with him. Despite wanting to relax he was put under tension but for him, this was relaxing because he knew he was safe and the fights were never in his sleep. That skill was taught years ago and he was already a light sleeper to start with.

For a week he stayed and every day the kids saw him fight and he was able to get some hits on his father who moved at his speed and fought at an E rank level leaving openings for him to catch but also faked a lot of them to teach him when he should or shouldn’t attack.

He was taught when he shouldn’t through harsh beatings.

After the week he got on the boat and returned to the capital and stepped down serious. “Now let's get this done.”