"This? You made this?" a certain master raised his eyebrow.

"No, my pupil has. I just sharpened it," Thomas responded.

"Of course, such shabby craftsmanship couldn't possibly be yours. Must have been a pain to sharpen."

"Quite. But there's something that just feels... off about it. Can you sense it?"

The master furrowed his eyebrows, his intent focused on the sword.

"You can? I can't."

"What? I've been making weaponry for years on end, I don't know what, but there's certainly something about this!"

"Impatient as ever, I thought you grew up a bit. Still, better than my useless nephew. I said I can't sense anything because I really can't sense anything. There's no ki in it. It's like I'm staring at free air. No. Even air has more ki than this! Truly an anomaly!" The man's eyes lit up.

"I haven't seen you getting this riled up in years, old man."

The master laughed heartily. "Well, this is shaping up to be an interesting year for me. Between the paradoxical creation in the separation exam and this, I haven't seen such finds in ages. The advancements in technology are moving at a snail's pace thanks to those traditionalist fools. How are you supposed to further your knowledge if you stick to the same exact path for generations!"

"Ahem."

"Ah, got thrown into a bit of a tangent there, I apologize. Got into a dispute with the Divine Flame representatives recently, you know how the conformist faction is. Anyhow, I have to run some scans on this through the machines, find out its ranking."

Thomas nodded.

Sharpness. Durability, which doubled as toughness. Ki capacity. These three were the main characteristics after which the weapons were graded. The sum of the grades was translated into the cultivation system. There were other characteristics such as weight and length, but those were mostly up to preference, so they weren't considered. The only exception to this rule was blunt weapons, which ignored the sharpness aspect.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Thomas was quite curious about what the ki capacity stat would show. Sharpness would be decent since it was made by him, durability would get the lowest grade, but ki, it had so little that it felt like none. However, it couldn't be none. Everything had a sliver of ki in it. Everything.

As the sword passed through the scanner, the results started to show.

Sharpness: D

A decent grind, Thomas knew. An overall D class weapon would be on the upper half of the foundation realm.

Durability: F

Lowest of the rung, as expected.

Now for the Ki capacity: Error

"What?"

"What? An error? I've never seen an error show up before." Thomas's gaze turned towards the master, who grumbled something while staring at the display.

"It happens. Or, happened, to be exact. During the early stages of the equipment scanner. Nowadays, with a rich pool of data, you see it less and less."

"I guess it makes sense," Thomas scratched his head. "This is an unusual case, to the point where I thought it might display something lower than F, if that's even a thing."

"It is, but everything lower than F can't be considered a weapon."

"Does it mean that its rank is lower?"

"Could be, but I doubt it. True, we have less data on that sort of... junk, but it should still be enough to determine its rank."

Thomas furrowed his brows.

"So no answers after all..."

"You forget who taught you to better your forging, boy."

"Don't oversell it, old man. I taught you as much as you taught me, and we've been on this cultivation journey for roughly the same time," Thomas said.

"Ah, the times before... I can barely remember that distant dream. Still, don't underestimate your elders," the master said as he took the blade in his hands.

"There are other ways to measure it. For example, it is well known that ki reacts to ki. If I apply some of my ki to my finger and then push it against the blade, I should feel it pushing back against me. From that, we should be able to get a rou..." the master suddenly stopped as his finger touched the blade.

"Is there something wrong?" Thomas picked up on the change of tone.

"Nothing. There is nothing," the master said, clearly flustered.

Thomas put his hand on his face. "How's that possible? After all, do we really have no answers?"

"Leave the blade with me. I'll run some more tests on this and see what I can find out."

"And then you'll share the results with me?" Thomas inquired, uncertain of the master's intentions.

"Naturally, as long as you look closer into how that pupil of yours managed this."

"...I'll see what I can do."

"Great. Then we have our little mystery to solve together, just like old times."

"I'm afraid so," Thomas concluded, then turned towards the master with a short bow. "I will take my leave then, Master George."

----------------------------------------

William nodded as Thomas finally went out of view. He then redirected his attention to the sword and his finger that was still pressed against it. Usually, despite the sharpness of a weapon, if it had less ki than its target, it would have a hard time piercing it. This sword most definitely had less ki than his finger. Yet soon, a small red streak started flowing down the blade.

"I may not be able to share all my findings after all, Thomas."