Chapter 11: Forged
The start of the day was a beautiful morning filled with blissful ambience and warmth, beside the barn Feld and Rei appears to be training.
Seeing Feld fight yesterday, Rei was eager to learn to manipulate mana into materializing; however this is a very high level skill, it takes even the most talented people years to even materialize a brittle weapon.
“You don’t have to rush it Rei, even I took two whole years to materialize my first weapon; and they called me a genius haha!” Feld said as if he was being conceited his expression wore a huge grin and it was as if he was trying not to laugh
“Ha, I’ll show you!” Rei replied not giving in to all the teasing
A small ball purple of color appeared as Rei cupped his hands to his chest, in a serious expression Feld was inwardly thinking “This kid, he’s really got some talent; I shouldn’t tell him, it might get into his head.”
Hours passed by and it was already noon, Rei without any breakfast or lunch sat by the barn’s shade focusing on making the ball of mana bigger and bigger.
After a few more hours the ball was a meter in diameter and it was glowing like the sun but was only purple in color.
The color of mana produced didn’t really mean much of anything; it was just the manifestation of the user’s favorite color in their subconscious. Purple was never Rei’s pick for a color, but deep inside his subconscious he yearns for that purple color. Seeing that his mana color was purple he then picked his hair color in Alctuz accordingly.
After a few more hours, Rei’s ball of energy started taking shape of a stick although it is shaped like a stick it looked more as purple smoke rotating and rotating into the shape of the stick.
Glace was by the window watching in awe as Rei practices; she couldn’t believe her eyes as Rei manifests a form of mana materialization. Even she herself tried to practice mana materialization but gave up after a year for lack of progress.
This skill was indeed very hard to master, but in Glace’s experience she determined that if you cannot master this skill there isn’t any real setbacks because materialized mana doesn’t have the same attributes and effects of weapons made from beast shards.
Beast shards are crystal like cores found in beasts in the land of Lhukresia; these shards are adequately tough and store the special abilities of the beast that it came from. Beast shards develop as the beast go into adulthood; once taken out of the beast, the beast won’t be able to use its special abilities contained in the shard.
Feld returned from his trip to the market with Louise and Louisa and saw Rei’s progress. He was dumbfounded by the scene that unraveled before him; Rei actually started real materialization of mana in less than a day! Rei’s progress is just too absurd, never have Feld seen talent like this; Rei was a genius among geniuses and Feld couldn’t believe that he underestimated Rei’s talent to this extent last time they trained in Ribas.
Having a genius student always makes a master more motivated to train him. Following that, Feld’s heart raced with excitement as he thought about what he could impart to Rei.
He didn’t dare distract Rei’s concentration, he calmed himself as fast as he could and hurriedly took the things they bought in the market to the house. After keeping the things in the house, he hastily went to watch Rei manifest his materialization.
As he noticed with the mana orb, Rei’s mana supply is close to his but Rei’s was larger; thinking about this, it would mean that if Rei fully controls his mana to an amazing extent comparable to how he can do it, Rei could surpass him within a few years at this rate of progress.
At first, Rei struck him as a country bumpkin; he only took him under his wing out of pity and boredom among other reasons. But after much thought, he is indeed the son of his rival Bistre.
Rei’s mind seemed like it was out of this world and was plunged into a spiraling dimension, however it did not affect him in any way like making him dizzy from all the spiraling and spinning. It was a dark world, a world filled with stars and smoke; it seemed that the horizon is limitless and the stars are countless.
Rei though of nothing but the mana ball and the shape of a stick, after much concentration he then changed its shape into a sword. As Rei thought of this, the stick of smoke-like mana in his hands turned into a sword.
Feld felt as if at his old age all of these surprises these few days will give him a bad heart. The smoke-like mana that is the shape of a stick suddenly turned into the shape of a sword right before his eyes; this level of progress is just too great, he almost fainted from think about how embarrassed he’ll be after teasing Rei earlier.
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Little by little the smoke-like structure of the sword hardened, Rei still hasn’t opened his eyes; it would seem that he is still not satisfied with the sword in his hands. After another hour has passed and it was nearing dinnertime Rei still hadn’t move from the spot he was sitting on.
Feld and the rest had their dinner; Louise thought of getting Rei to eat but was prevented by Feld from doing so.
It became hard for them to sleep because of Rei’s glowing figure that was almost as bright as sunlight especially in the night time.
The neighbors whispered and whispered about their suspicion of Rei being a descendant of demons, due to the rarity of warriors coming to the farm lands they aren’t used to seeing mana in its visual form.
Even the town guards are amazed to how much glow the mana of Rei was; although mana isn’t something extraordinary for them, it was the sheer luminosity of Rei’s mana that captivated their attention.
After the commotion died down, everyone in the surroundings had gone home and slept. The next morning, Feld found Rei still sitting at the same spot but to his surprise the sword he had in his hand was crystalized!
Feld face was so surprised that it was indescribable, he was so shocked that his mind went blank; this was the first time Feld has seen mana this pure and this solid his entire life.
After Feld arrived, Rei started to open his eyes; he held the mana sword and swung it.
“This is really light!” Rei said in his surprise
“Well of course, mana is as weightless as air.” Feld replied in a voice that seemed hoarse as he gulps his saliva down his throat
“This took me a lot of time. Master Feld, let’s try out its durability” Rei said with a slight grin as he obviously wants to boast against Feld
“Sure kid, but don’t cry after I break your little toy.” Feld said as he tries to regain his dominance towards the issue
Feld created a sword almost exactly the same length Rei made his sword to be, he wanted to try and copy the sword’s appearance and structure. In the end, Feld end up with a sword with a silver glow while Rei’s sword is a purple crystal that is quite transparent.
Even though Rei didn’t inject any more mana towards his sword, Feld still felt the enormous pressure the sword emits; he concluded that the sword Rei materialized is definitely not anything he’s seen before.
“Here we go Rei, try to block this with that sword” Feld said as he lifted his sword up then slashed downwards towards Rei’s sword.
Rei then quickly used his sword to block using both his hands he positioned the sword horizontally.
The slash Feld made was strong; it definitely isn’t something an ordinary mana sword user can block.
Rei closed his eyes as he saw the strength of Feld’s slash and hoped that he won’t get too hurt by it.
The two swords collide and one sword vanished; the collision created a massive wave of air as if trying to blow them away.
Rei opened his eyes to see if he received any injuries from the clash, his eyes widened his mouth opened as he looks at his sword being without a single scratch.
Feld’s eyes widened in surprised, he couldn’t believe his sword was the one the lost; even though he only used about 30% of his total power, to not even be able to get scratch it felt very disheartening.
“Even if I used a 100% for my power, I don’t think my mana sword will win” Feld though internally
Feld could not make any excuses, he then said to Rei “Rei, that sword is terrifying; can you create another one?”
“I’ll try” Rei replied with much confidence if he can or not
After that exchange, Rei dropped the sword and proceeded to sit in the same manner as before; he sat there for about an hour and was able to replicate the mana sword.
Feld had enough of surprises, but the surprises aren’t enough of Feld. Rei actually manifested another sword of the same quality; and what’s more, Rei’s first sword hasn’t disappeared! Mana swords usually disappear a few seconds after the creator lets go of it or it leaves the creator’s person.
“Rei hand me the first sword” Feld ordered
“Okay” said Rei as he hands over the first sword
“$#@^!!! How can I hold another person’s mana sword?!” Feld inwardly shouted as he held Rei’s sword
Mana swords should only belong to the person who made them, this shocked Feld because he actually wielded Rei’s mana sword.
Feld filled it with mana then swung a Mana Slicer in the air.
“The Slicer was smooth as if I used a high quality sword.” Murmured Feld
He tried doing a bunch of stuff like using various skills, and directly injecting his mana into the sword everything was as if it was done with a high quality sword!
As he injected his mana, the purple transparent figure of the sword began to fill with silver ones as if he was pouring milk into a purple glass.
“Rei, we should test how long this sword will stay” Feld said to Rei to determine the sword’s duration
After three days Rei continued to create more and more weapons of different kinds, and each time he became after in making them; currently his average speed was about 10 minutes to create a sword.
Rei also made armor parts and other stuff.
Feld continued to test the sword tirelessly and it never gave any hint of disappearing.
The fourth day, Feld determined that the sword will not disappear; his conclusion was based off a skill he used to stress the sword. Feld used a wind technique called
Feld created Air Cushions then used the mana sword to stab the Air Cushion causing the sword to be stressed out via vibrations; after doing this for the whole day Feld determined that the sword is indeed high quality and will not disappear under normal circumstances.
What amazed Feld even more was after countless trials, he noticed that the mana that makes up the sword is the purest he’s seen in his lifetime. A pure mana can create a high grade mana essence; a mana essence is used similar to a mana potion (to recover from mana fatigue) and also as a crafting material to forge a Beast Weapon; it looks like a small crystal stone that brims with magical power.
Feld saw Rei as a moneybag, his mana was the purest he’s seen his entire life; his mana would make Flawless or even Superior grade mana essence and he even has a vast amount of mana to boot! If he teaches Rei how to create a mana essence he could sell it and make thousands of gold!