Looking around the woods, he soon reached a familiar rocky outcrop. This strangely clear space filled with rocks and next to no trees was actually the first area he had gone to so that he could hunt for Crystalback Lightning Lizards.

Standing in the opening however, he felt it was different compared to the woods surrounding it.

Recounting all their eating zones, he soon realized that they looked alike and his eyes turned to the ground. “What is so special about this area.” he muttered.

The outcrop was not large stone floors but a cleared area of wood with about 20 meters of clearing with many small pebbles all over the place.

He crouched and touched the ground but felt nothing and began to move the pebbles and finally found something. Tiny crystal scales he was familiar with were under the pebbles but very quickly something came to mind.

He grabbed the pebbles and compared it and soon realized.

“No wonder… the rocks here are lizard scales charred by the lightning but they also shed their crystals and regrow new ones that are longer.” he muttered.

He began to uncover and dig a bit and he actually found a lot of crystal scales. Many of them had begun to grow and combine.

“Amazing, the energy in them is so much higher than lizards! Wait, they are said to release nearly 90% of it into the ground. Are the scales turning into lightning mana crystals?!” he muttered.

He looked at the crystal in his hand and took out some devices and scanned it.

“This is barely Low grade.” he muttered and dropped it and began to dig until he found a fist sized stone and scanned it. “Still low grade but much better than the other.” he said.

He only found low grade but he soon realized why that was when he encountered an egg 15 cm in length and 10 in width at the widest point.

“Eggs?” He muttered and scanned it. “Hmm… these are crystalback lightning lizard eggs but the readings say that the amount of energy in this is nearly five times the normal amount? Could it be that they are trying to evolve or breed an alpha?” he silently asked himself.

He checked different places but there was just that egg there. He was very confused about what to do but the device said the egg was ready to hatch but the hatchling wasn’t hatching and instead absorbing all the excess mana and growing it’s potential.

Logan frowned at this and knew this was very important. He started up taking pictures of the dug holes he had made and the huge number of scales that were combining and then took pictures of the egg and scans of it.

After some doing that, he took out the egg from the ground. Although he never trained it, there are tamers who would pay a premium for extremely rare or special monsters eggs grown extremely well in unique conditions. He was also curious about what it was like and the potential.

That said, he didn’t want it to die before getting to the base but he didn’t know when a thunderstorm would appear.

It was very contrary but after filling the holes again he decided that he needed to deal with the egg and returned to the base and at the adventurers guild he went to the information counter and submitted his information.

He was actually invited to talk with the vice who talked to him about this.

“Is this important?” Logan asked.

“Of course, what you likely discovered is monsters' instinctive behavior to balance nature. An example is when a forest is devastated, the animals vanish but when it is replanted, creatures return. The current condition is an overabundance of food for the lower chain. There have been theories that magical creatures actually possess innate traits that help maintain and balance nature to provide themselves with conditions to live. The fact that you can bring back an egg like this is also amazing. What do you plan to do with it?” he asked.

"I was hoping to see the potential that had become of it after incubating in such conditions.” Logan said.

“Well, that is easy but it depends on your wants. Do you want a battle beast or do you want to sell this?” he asked.

“Depends really, what is the base potential?” he asked.

He was clear that the guild had methods to grade potential just like his father had done to himself and his adoptive sister.

The vice guild master looked at it and eventually handed it back. “From what I can understand, this is an egg that can achieve the rare E rank Crystalback Lightning Lizard. Their bodies are born with greater resistance and affinity after living in a forming lightning mana crystal vein. Honestly, the fact that the F rank lizards scales could become mana crystals is the biggest discovery in all this.” he said.

“If I make this a battle beast, how would I raise it?” Logan asked.

“That much is easy, lizards eat lightning and they grow the more they get. Common ones can barely absorb more than 5% but these E rank ones are said to be able to absorb nearly 10% alone. If it can somehow get some kind of special bloodline then it might upgrade to D rank.” he said.

Logan frowned and in deep thought. “Upgrading monsters in rank usually depends on their mana quantity right?” he asked.

“More or less, yes.” the vice said.

“Great, then I will make it a battle beast.” he said.

“Alright, there is a fee for the materials.” he said.

The cost is 2000 tip and it was paid upfront and a special high quality monster seal, a type of taming magic, was drawn on the egg. One material was his own blood making him the beasts master.

This was basically a type of slavery magic but it worked on monsters making them think the owner of the seal was their parent and ingrained an instinctive protective feeling for them.

It helped if races lived in packs.

“How many can people have?” he asked.

“Tamers can have upwards of 20 at a time but they have magic that can store and deactive seals in their stored condition. Normal people can have at most three individual creatures. Anyone who actually favors the use of battle beasts would have ones that make their lives easier.” he said.

“Basically mounts?” Logan said.

“Exactly. Land, sea, sky.” the vice replied.

Logan nodded understanding and thanked the vice guildmaster for his instructions and the help.

Logan knew that the future of these veins would not be well but as with everything, there will be a limit. The reason was simple, mana crystal veins still needed a lot of time to form and it would greatly help if these monsters were helping nature return to balance while creating such a valuable resource.

With the egg in his arms he went to the inn and waited for it to hatch. E rank Lizards are far less known but unlike the bug eaters, they are able to hunt and have better control of lightning magic compared to its weaker kin.

The mana fluxuations in the egg was getting stronger as the infant tried to get more lightning mana but it likely understood that there was none left and the egg began to wiggle and crack.

After almost two hours the lizard finally got out and it looked weakly around and hissed.

Logan watched it and he knew this was an important moment for them.

PA!

The lightning sparked from it and the shell was charred and smelled bad but to the hungry infant he turned and sniffed until it began to eat the shell. Monsters have many unique habits and the strange one of eating their shells has kept them alive after birth for a long time.

After it finished, he began the truly important imprinting process and with a plate of meat, he put a small piece near the lizard and it sniffed and quickly attacked.

This continued for a little bit until it was full.

“Good, it seems it worked.” he muttered as she saw the glowing dot on its chest that was the seal taking effect alongside the natural imprinting that animals have.

The next morning, he fed it again to reinforce that but then placed it on his bag as he packed up and left.

Battle beast possesses something unique and that is a telepathic link to their masters so on his back, Logan told him to just rest.

He travelled back to the outcrop. Before anything happens, they need to gather people, examine the outcrops used by the lizards and more.

However, the lizard did react to this place. He dug under the scales into the crystal scales and he could feel it began to feed on the lightning mana there like all of its kind.

He built a clearing with a tent and more for himself nearby without hiding. Lighting a fire made monsters easily avoid the presence of humans, as fire is usually attributed to humans.

Naturally the lizards, that could feel when a storm was coming, were scared away by his presence there but their appearance also told him the storm was coming.

With weather related applications, he could see the forecast throughout the nation.

As mentioned, the development of this world is not unlike earth and that includes space travel and establishment of satellites in the upper atmosphere. Both mapping and weather forecasting was made tens of times easier.

He looked at the incoming weather patterns. Looking at the sky, small amounts of clouds were visible against the blue sky but he knew today it would change.

This was proven true after his lunch. The sky quickly started getting covered so he smiled and walked to the outcrop.

“Storm, come out!” he shouted.

He looked at a small opening and soon a small head popped out. It hissed but the link between then sent a feeling of confusion.

“Lightning is going to fall, you are too young so go to my camp.” he said, also sending images of lightning falling.

It hissed in fear and rapidly cleared the area but it skillfully climbed on his tent and could see to the clearing.

With a nod, Logan nodded and walked to the center of the clearing. The feeling was already very different and the sword on his side was humming.

Weifang was inside the tent so that it would not be damaged and he wasn’t wearing the armor and was using casual clothing after seeing the weather forecast.

He took out the sword and it was vibrating like a child about to get his favorite treat. Logan sat down at the center with the sword on his lap and he watched the sky. Slowly the clouds gathered and became thicker. At first it was still bright but slowly it grew thicker and thicker until the rumbling of thunder could be heard.

The bright sky was reduced to a dark grey and an early evening was left.

BOOM!

The cold indifferent roars of thunder could be heard from the sky and every so often a piercing sound came throughout the woods as lightning fell upon different outcrops. He already knew that the hunt for the Lizards had begun but he was not going to give way.

The space above him began to get active and the sword instantly became excited. Standing up he took a deep breath.

“Guess it’s our turn. Hope we both make it buddy.” he said and raised his sword just like how the invader had held it when he was hit and he only had time to look up to see five whole bolts of lightning gather into one and shoot down like it would smite him before the world was turned white.

The impact was abrupt and his consciousness almost instantly faded but his body remained standing. The first bolt didn’t have time to even reach him as it was sucked up by the sword but the excitement of the sword was enhanced as the bolt was absorbed and actually shot back up to the clouds like a cable and instantly a bolt twice as thick fell down.

This time Logan was struck completely.

His body began to crack as lines and cracks formed on his skin and his body began to slowly turn black. Smoke started to come from his clothing while his skin cracked.

After the skin was the muscles, organs and even brain. That said, when the lightning charged into his nerves and brain, it faced a higher amount of resistance compared to the rest of the body.

The destructive nature of lightning was after his very soul and as it approached, it was about to snuff Logan’s life when the glowing brand on his hand shined and became pure white.

A small but extremely pure gentle energy that was as tens of times more corrosive than natural lightning entered his body from the sword at this moment and like a whale, the small energy instantly began to absorb all the lightning energy. The advance at his soul was stopped as it was all pulled back and the energy grew and broke up, spreading through his body.

That said, the sword was not full, far from it. It had achieved just the basic requirements but it was far from satisfied. Lightning kept falling and each wave released more of this unknown energy into his body.

Logan soon woke up when several strands protected his brain and constantly mixed into his brain’s electric flow.

This woke up for a moment as the lightning weakened and had to actually gather coming from a distance and also be generated from high up in the sky.

He looked up at the sword whose cracks were glowing and bathed under lightning and only a single word filled his mind.

He lightly muttered the name just as the mother of all lightning bolts formed in the sky and turned the world white. A moment later, his body collapsed.

The lightning in the surroundings finally scattered but the event scared every last creature away. Only the infant lizard looked at its ‘alpha’ in awe and quickly hopped down and climbed out into the outcrop. Touching the ground, it felt extreme joy but the intensity of lightning in the ground but he could feel something extremely attractive about the alpha and it ran over and jumped onto his chest.

The instant it did, however, it was taken by surprise as an extreme amount of excess lightning came off his body into it like an outlet but along with it, close to a dozen small green bolts shot into its body as the link between it and Logan drew the mana to protect it.

The little lizard was instantly charred black but the lightning eventually reached an end as it was consumed in both of them and what was left was the green mana that began to flow through them and heal them.

When it settled down, energy from the sword also invaded the ground and all that thunder mana under it began to steadily flow into the sword and it would constantly produce more of that green mana.

They were both unconscious for two days but the sword kept away everything as it would attack with the lightning mana in the ground.

When Logan finally woke up, his charred skin had begun to flake and he only felt pain. Any breath taken and any movement made pain but he slowly got up and felt the lizard slide down to this lap.

He didn’t know what had happened but it didn’t matter. He used the sword to help get up and like someone just electrocuted, he barely walked to his camp after nearly ten minutes.

With poor control of his hand, he placed the lizard down and found healing pills and stuffed it in the lizard and then swallowed one for himself.

His other hand was frozen clenched on the sword like he had once been when he had first obtained it.

He didn’t know if he could protect himself like this but he knew he could barely move as it was. Packing was even worse.

He first tried to remove the dry black skin and although parts came off, others revealed bleeding scars where the lightning had openly trailed along his body leaving deep scars.

He didn’t really care as he kept removing piece by piece but became bloodied in the process.

“This… this is far from a quick fix.” he muttered exhausted before drinking stamina boosting pills, aka stamina potion, and the much more expensive mana pills.

With remedial first aid magic he helped the medicine first close the deepest wounds and then used the same magic to cause his blood to dry over other ‘cracks’ in his skin.

This helped stop the bleeding, he was thankful the lizard didn’t need it but its top skin was coming off like how reptiles mold their hides.

He did his best to remove that and when it came off, he was surprised to see that a few scales on its back had already crystallized. What was strange however was that it wasn’t the common purple that lightning magic had. It was a greenish color.

“Is this a mutation? Maybe a variation.” he muttered.

He didn’t know and honestly didn’t care, he was just tired. Lighting the fire up he drank almost half a gallon of water, since a lot of it had actually evaporated from his body while the rest bled out. Fluids are important for healing so he didn’t flinch in drinking that much.

Finally he ate some rations and collapsed in the tent to finally get rest to be able to heal.

3 days later

In the capital, looking extremely ragged, Logan walked with a limp and lots of bandages on his body. He walked through the city with a limp while holding the sword and the wooden sheath, burned due to the lightning, while the lizard was healthy on his back.

This was the first time he had taken such heavy damage that he hadn’t healed within two days.

Eventually taking a side road, he returned to Elas’ smithy and the old man saw him and quickly got up and helped him up. Placing his hand over his shoulders, warm green light entered his body and went directly for his nerves and climbed to his spine and eventually the brain.

From the nerves it spread through the body but they were the first to heal so that there would not be any lasting effects.

“Good, you didn’t have lasting damage from the start. That is good.” he said before finally using whatever magic he used to examine Logan. The same chill ran through him like he always got when being examined.

“It seems your sword is even more special than I expected. Even before being forged into a legend sword it already formed a remedial healing ability.” he said.

“Is that why I always heal fast?” he asked.

“Yes, I believe so. Previously it might have been too small to notice it doing that but it clearly has released some peculiar type of mana into your body. It is clearly lightning mana but of opposite nature. Well, you will learn about it in time as you grow with it. Now…” he said.

Logan held out both the sword and sheath. The elder pulled out a black glove and took the sword. Even if it didn’t plan to attack, small sparks of electricity came sparking against the elf’s hand. Taking the sheath was safer but he sighed.

“Even such a resistant wood was reduced into simple thunderstruck wood. The baptism must have been quite intense.” he said.

Logan remembered little about the event but he nodded.

“Is it still usable?” he asked.

“No, well not as a sheath. If you sold this though, it would sell for a rather hefty price. Thunderstruck wood is known to contain a very powerful life force and can be used by alchemists to make elixirs.” he said.

Logan swallowed hard when hearing that.

“Good, the healing should have helped a bit, do remember to get a good rest. Don’t fight for at least another month, even with your sword healing you.” he said.

“That long?” He asked, surprised.

“Yes, your nerves took damage from overloading them. I might have healed the damage but they are sensitive after being regrown.” he said.

“Um…” Logan weakly scratched his head and explained about how his father viewed ‘relaxing’ at home.

The elf sighed and took out a piece of decorated paper and wrote on it with pure magic and handed it to Logan.

He looked at it and read it out loud, “By order of Master Physician Drew Juniper, the patient, Logan Holt Mcwell is not to fight or experience any sort of physical combat or training for one month's time.” he read.

“Isn’t Drew Juniper a royal physician from like 80 years ago? His name is in history books as an elf… ah” he muttered.

“Elves go by many names, don’t worry.” he said. “Now come.”

Taking the sword, they walked into the back that Logan had never seen before and his jaw dropped and he looked at Elas with shock.

"I knew you knew how to make legend swords since you said it and you mentioned passing your knowledge only to the next generation but you never said that you were from ‘the’ Order of legend smiths!” Logan said.

“Did you expect anyone else to be able to forge legend swords?” he said simply.

Logan smiled, “People who can kill smiths like you and steal your knowledge.” He said.

“Even such people would be tied by the heaven laws. If every last one is dead, the god of fire and craft himself will pick up orphans and teach them the art so that the world never goes without legend swords.” He said simply as he prepared the forge, lighting it up.

With the fire lit, he began to shovel coal before pumping the bellows, rapidly heating up the ancient magic forge usable only by the legendary smiths like the elf before him.

The heating lasted an hour and the last ten minutes was the most intense as the forge hit the requirements and fully turned on the magical power and the red flames instantly turned blue while the bellowing heat suddenly started to vanish as the forge isolated everything inside with a magic barrier.

The forge bellows began to work on their own while Elas turned to the sword and quickly removed the pin holding the handle and striking the side to make it come off.

With a tang holding the blade, he finally tossed the blade into the fire.

“Be warned, this is a painful process for you as much as the sword. The lightning had destroyed its internal structure so it needs to be reforged with a lot of mana.” he said.

At that moment the brand on his hand suddenly turned bright blue and burned Logan.

He wanted to scream but his mana channels lit up blue and instantly his entire body began to glow and he collapsed in pain.

That was before intense lightning energy came out from the brand mixing in but in the mix of all that, Elas’ constant healing magic, that had been constant slow heal magic and the green mana from the sword, constantly healed him up. Two clashing forces in his body and in the forge.

The elf looked and ran over before casting dozens of different healing spells to affect specific areas of his body, most of all protecting his organs. He then took out a small pill and shoved it down his throat.

“That is a water pill, a special pill made from water type herbs that is made to constantly maintain water levels in your body. This is a long process and you will lose a lot of water otherwise.” he said and put in another one, “This is a food pill.”

Without explaining he returned to the forge.

Inside, a drastic change had happened as all the intense lightning force gathered by the sword was bursting out and mixing with the fire and striking both the forge and the sword.

“Lightning, such an unruly force.” the elf commented unsatisfied at the dispersing mana and quickly began to work the magical contraption.

Instantly all the loose lightning mana was forced back into the sword and the escaping lightning began to arc around the blade while he drove the blue fires and surrounded the sword.

Dragon bone is something hard to melt which is why special smiths are needed to make legend swords from the get go.

Soon the inner core and outer shell of the blade separated.

He focused on the core made of dragon bone and rapidly it turned from rusted red to heated red and finally blinding white.

At this time, Logan was suffering as the fire mana was focused on burning his bones. The food pill was something that filled in all requirements for nutrients across the board of all minerals the body needs. The bone was burning down to the marrow and his body was absorbing the pill like crazy to replace the lost minerals and rebuild his bones.

Elas pulled the bone core out while it was coated in blue fire.

Putting it on the anvil he struck down and Logan instantly coughed blood.

His entire skeleton was rocked and he felt many of them shatter but this time the fire mana joined the healing magic and melted and mended.

Elas constantly banged the sword and then finally folded the core three times into an ingot before putting it back to heat. Then took the outer shell that formed the wedge.

This time, all the rest of his body was being burned more strongly and the beating caused immense damage from bursting veins to injured muscles. Weak and old cells all over his body died and got reduced to ash and his body was forced to rapidly regrow the cells.

This fit together perfectly as the oxidized steel, aka rust, was melted, had the oxygen removed and then finally mixed half the bone and blood matter the sword gained with it to enhance the metal.

When he was done, he had folded it three times into an ingot and put it back.

He turned to Logan and quickly ran over, examined him and supplied the needed care to let him heal before he continued.

He took the outer piece first and continued folding them so that the muscles would strengthen again and did the same for the core piece.

This followed three phases of three folds each and each break he would check Logan.

Finally the immensely powerful internal structure of a katana had been reforged and he finally began to lengthen the pieces again. With all the monster material used up, the metal was harder than ever making it a lengthy and difficult process.

Finally he beat the wedge space between the outer shell and finally put the core back in and forged the pieces back together and forged the opened wedge closed merging the pieces back together.

Then came the lengthy process of making the katana again until it was perfect.

Logan was barely conscious when the nearly finished blade was complete and sent to the fire again.

Elas pulled a huge tank and began to dump a dark liquid inside.

“W-what… is… that?” he asked through a dried throat, his voice filled with pain.

Elas noticed and gave him another water pill while explaining. “Since I met you, I have been gathering materials needed to finish the forging. This is blood of lightning type monsters mixed with many different magic materials and the most important one, magic oil. Only this blend can be used to properly quench a newborn legend blade with lightning affinity. Smiths of the order only do this for the birthing of swords. Any secondary forging needs the wielder to gather the needed blood, which is why we give the inventory box to you all.” he said.

After the tank was filled, he turned to the forge and manipulated the fire until the sword reached the required glow and pulled it out before finally dunking it.

The reaction was immense.

Fire and lightning burst out from the tank while the same happened to Logan as he felt himself get electrocuted and the lightning burst from his body. He almost blacked out but the healing magic kept him awake.

Finally as the fire and lightning calmed down, Elas pulled the tang out with the sword and from the blood liquid, a perfect white sword appeared. Not a blemish could be seen upon it.

Elas carefully took the sword to the table and grabbed some wood. “This wood should satisfy the requirement of a thunder blade.” he muttered and touched it against the wood and was happy as the lightning ran unimpeded through the wood but had no reaction. “This wood is called Lightning Rod Wood. A special wood born only in extreme places of lightning. During storms, the trees made of this wood will attract immense amounts of discharge making it both the most dangerous as well as safest place to be around as the energy is safely sent to the ground.” He said informing Logan of the material qualities. “It transmits lightning mana and lightning itself without hindrance and it is never damaged by it unless the lightning is at the peak of A rank or higher.”

Logan just listened as his body finally calmed down. The brightly glowing brand slowly dulled to a grey like it had been when it first appeared.

He made the handle and sheath fully of the wood and finally delivered it to Logan. When the sword came in contact with his hand a gentle and abundant energy flowed into him and he began to heal rapidly. The glow of healing magic became really strong for about a minute and the damage from the forging was healed enough for him to stand.

“Why did I get hurt so bad?” he asked as he slowly sat up.

Elas helped up and took him upstairs. “The fate of wielders of your kind of sword is rather ironic. Normally one would think the sentient life form to possess the safeguard against death but not in this case. Damage to the sword will lead to damage on your body. Of course, a legend sword is not easily broken or damaged so it is rare. But destruction of the sword means you die but your death does not affect the sword beyond losing its mobility.” He explained.

Logan became solemn about it but nodded slowly as he understood. “So… is that why the hero and demon lord died? They clashed once and their swords broke so they died?” he asked.

“Exactly.” Elas said, putting down a cup of herbal tea for Logan.

"I heard the hero’s sword was the bane of demons, is it because of the legend attached to it?” he asked.

“Yes, as for the legend of your sword, from what you told me about your blood family's history, the sword was used to kill a thunder dragon. That said, it was one dragon, it definitely acted as the bases. Likely, it can cause more damage to draconic beasts, or maybe the magic affects them more. To make it a dragon’s bane sword, you have to hunt them focused on that type of monster. It isn’t worth it because it limits your targets to dragons.” he said.

"I understand.” He said.

A small hiss came from the bag as the lizard climbed up his body.

“Hmm, did you get a Crystalback Lightning Lizard battle beast?” Elas asked.

Logan nodded slowly and drank the tea before explaining how he found the egg to this one.

Elas walked over and stared at it making it uncomfortable and hiss at him.

“This is a lucky one. It has absorbed a bit of the unique mana from your sword through you and enhanced its mana purity by a level. Hmm, its potential probably increased a small bit to upper E rank. If you continue to feed it the green lightning mana your sword produces, it might gain the potential of D rank in the future.” he said.

“Really? That is good. Still, this forging caused a lot of damage? Is a month enough to heal?” Logan asked.

"I gave it a month to be safe to train once more, you will still be sore after a month because your entire body underwent something akin to what the sword went through. That said, there is one thing you can train and that is your bond with it. Learn its name, call it and you will meet the spirit and learn its abilities. From there you learn what it likes, dislikes, talk with it to develop its personality and more. That is a living sword now and developing its spirit and intelligence is never a bad thing.” he said.

“Okay, so what are the conditions for going up to grey sword?” Logan asked.

“Before that can even happen you need to go up the stages.” Elas smiled

Logan sighed and knew he was in for a long lecture as Elas began to explain the in depth information from start to finish for a legend sword.