Leon sunk his mind into the new puzzle door. It appeared the same as the first, an endless space of darkness filled with winding pathways. It took him a moment to realise, but this was the same puzzle he had already done. Unless the next set of puzzles required him to redo the first set of five before moving on to the next. Maybe the first five puzzles were in place to ensure that the person who opened the first door was the same as the one attempting the second, or at least had the qualifications to-

His vision swimming, Leon fell onto his backside as he was forcefully shunted out of the puzzle.

“Are you okay?” Claire said, kneeling beside him.

“Yeah, nothing I haven’t experienced a thousand times before.”

“What happened? You were only in there for like fifteen seconds.”

“I didn’t mess up, if that’s what you’re asking me. It kicked me out. I think we need to do the same puzzles all over again, only now we have to do it within a time limit.”

Claire groaned while Sophia beamed over on the other side of the room. Leon offered to take care of Pete the Panther if she wanted to have a go, but she refused after thinking about it for a few seconds. She decided to wait until later that night since she was still tired from opening the first room just ten minutes ago.

Leaving her to cuddle Pete, Leon walked over to the weapon rack. There was a spear, sword, and the aforementioned bow. Each of them appeared relatively normal in their design. Of course, the bow was purple and the spear shaft was gold, but that was the only thing that stood out.

The blades were regular grey metal and there were no flourishes or engravings. The handles were wrapped in brown leather, too. Leon picked up the spear and didn’t hear any grandpas offer him great power or demons whisper words of temptation. They were regular, if not slightly superior in quality, weapons.

Even the System agreed through True Sight.

Iron Spear (Common)

Although of inferior quality, the iron used in this spear has been refined by a novice alchemist, allowing it to remain in one piece when the head was cast. Quenched in Qi-infused water, this mortal weapon is capable of conducting Qi of the same grade with minimal flow dispersion.

Leon stroked his chin, reading over the part about the iron ore being refined. Why was it not transmuted instead? He didn’t even think refining anything other than plants was possible. The idea just seemed ridiculous with his little black pot, but when he recalled that furnaces existed, it didn’t seem so crazy. Who said that everything related to alchemy or refinement had to be done in a cauldron?

What was he missing? While his attempt at melting down the golden rock had been a complete failure, it merely made him wonder if the missing component he needed was a hotter flame. A better cauldron and flame-controlling technique would help, but if he could get his hands on a spiritual flame, Leon was almost certain that he could do something with the stupid squirrel rock.

Or maybe he already had a spiritual flame thanks to Flame Control?

Leon also noted the part about Qi-infused water. He would have to try and make a batch later tonight, a few ideas springing to mind on how he could trap his Qi inside the water. It would require some experimentation, but he felt that he could figure it out pretty quickly. The reason he thought that was because he had tried to make Qi-infused water already. Of course, none of his attempts had worked besides making the water boil a little.

Storing those ideas away, Leon began to push his Qi into the handle of the spear. The notification also mentioned something about being able to conduct Qi. If his guess was correct, flow dispersion was likely a type of wear put on the weapon. Many items, such as batteries and tyres, inevitably wore away with use. The idea of Qi wearing away the inside of a material was not unusual or odd.

It would be much stranger if it didn’t.

Focusing on his Qi, Leon became absorbed into the weapon. His power flowed down the wooden stick with ease, but once the speed increased, his Qi began to bump into things inside. Flaws were obstructing the flow, ranging from little bumps to a full-on blockage in part of the grain. Upon further investigation, the surface of the spear had an obvious mark on the wood, showing that it had been damaged at some point.

Maybe even while the tree was still growing.

Finally, his Qi made it to the head of the spear. His power slowed down but conversely, the stream also flowed a little easier, the pathways inside the metal far more orderly and refined. If his Qi brushed past a flaw, Leon simply ignored it as they were much smaller and less obstructive than the wooden handle.

That made for an interesting comparison. The wooden handle conducted his Qi with ease but was riddled with flaws in the grain. On the other side, the iron spearhead was less receptive to his power while also being more refined, the tiny flaws almost unnoticeable compared to the massive clogs in the wood.

In the end, his Qi flowed at about the same speed regardless of whether it was flowing through the head or body. Leon knew nothing about weapons so he couldn’t claim it was well made. The workmanship had no obvious flaws, nicks, or scratches, making him lean on the side of it being a solid creation. Then again, it also appeared to be a new and unused weapon, untested by an able hand.

Only time would be able to tell if it was a worthy tool.

Leon recounted his findings to Claire, who seemed to be entranced by the uncut gems. She held a purple amethyst in her palm, its surface unmarred by any kind of marking. At least it looked like an amethyst. It could’ve been regular quartz for all Leon knew, which would make sense as it was around the size of Sophia’s fist.

When he finished discussing the weapons, he was surprised to find that the gems weren’t just pretty minerals.

“This is a storage crystal! It holds three skills and a few ways to cycle Qi. It even has a guide on how to become an archer.”

“What kind of skills? Are they a high rarity?”

“Yes! Every skill is epic in rarity,” Claire said, looking pensive. “However, it seems there’s a problem.”

“We can’t use any of them?”

“How did you know? Actually, never mind. Your answer will probably just annoy me,” Claire said, waving her hand. “Anyway, we need dream-aspected Qi and a compatible Dao for the skills to work. The good news is that there are lower-rarity versions of every skill. The other bad news is that there is only one bow, and all of the skills are unusable without arrows.”

“But aren’t there two other crystals?”

“There are, but both of them only hold common skills. They also have fighting styles in them, but the instructions aren’t at the same quality as the purple crystal.”

Claire handed him the amethyst and told him to push some of his Qi in. The next second, mountains of information were made available inside his brain, each page waiting to be read. Leon skimmed over the pages and found that there were common, uncommon, and rare versions of all three skills, almost as if the creator intended them to learn the basics and then work their way up to the epic version. Thinking of Claire’s struggle to learn his rare skill, Leon found that to make sense. It was easier to learn how to crawl before trying to teach someone to ride a bike.

After the first section on skills, Leon came across a manual of sorts. It explained how to do a bunch of different cycling techniques. They were ingenious and extremely interesting but he soon realised that all of them were based on the premise that his dantian was full of dream Qi. He skimmed over the descriptions and diagrams, filing the ideas away for later.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Finally, he reached the section about archery. He was curious about the delivery method. The previous knowledge about the skills was like a textbook. Everything was written down and described along with diagrams and instructions, but that would be a terrible way to teach someone how to shoot a bow. Leon expected to be shown a video, but in true cultivator fashion, he was instead pulled into a vision.

Leon merged into the body of a woman. She moved her hands over the surface of a bow, and Leon felt the grain of the wood just as she did. He could feel the pressure of her fingers wrapping around the purple bow, the wood cool and refreshing to the touch. She raised the bow and nocked a regular arrow, her thoughts full of minor corrections and adjustments she could make to improve her shot. Finally, she released the arrow, its tip stabbing into a target on the other end of the golden field.

It was a bullseye.

From there, it went on to display hundreds of different scenes. The wind howled in his ears as she loosed arrow after arrow, each one striking exactly where she desired. And then she was training in the middle of the night, her aim never erring despite there being no light at all. Every time the scenario changed, she displayed every skill in the crystal, working up from the common to the epic version before everything would buzz and flicker, transferring Leon to the next scenario.

It was all very interesting, especially seeing what epic skills could do, but Leon couldn’t help thinking that this would be perfect for Sophia. The woman in the vision thought deeply about how important the user’s mental abilities were, even believing that normal people would never be able to learn her skills. When he came out of the dream, Leon wasn’t sure if he could believe her narration.

Maybe it was very hard, but for all he knew, all three of them could learn those skills with a bit of effort. At the same time, there was only one bow, and Sophia was by far the first choice to learn mentally demanding skills.

She was a literal genius, after all.

Leon used True Sight on the bow in the weapon rack, the very same one from the visions.

Bow of Untold Dreams (Epic)

The bow of Untold Dreams is a mortal weapon forged from a millennia-old tree. Planted at the heart of a village, this tree spent its life being worshipped as a deity, the prayers of the villagers slowly transforming it into something infinitely close to their god: Aratamun, the Tree of Paths Unfollowed.

Its wood was refined three times by a novice alchemist and soaked in dream essence for nine days. The string was made from the sinew of an adolescent Sanguine Panther. While typically unfit for a bow, the sinews were soaked in dream Qi-infused water for nine days and refined three times, allowing it to become elastic yet firm.

All dream-aspected arrows shot with this bow will become twice as potent.

As Leon expected, the bow was the highest quality of all the weapons. It didn’t really matter right now since no one was skilled enough to use any of them properly, but he definitely wanted to upgrade his weapon in the future.

Speaking of, he still needed to pick which one he was-.

Claire swung the spear around, trying to figure out how to grip the thing when she noticed Leon staring. “What? I told you I had the first pick of the loot.”

“I was just wondering why you picked the spear so quickly.”

“The spear is the king of the battlefield, dummy,” She said, playfully winking. “If I can’t beat you in a fair fight I’ll just have to even the odds by cheating.”

Smiling, he wondered if Claire would be interested in having a little spar later to see how that would work out for her.

***

Leon sat in front of a tree, an unsheathed blade across his lap. Sweat dripped off his forehead as he examined the weapon. It was something he would expect a knight to wield in service of their Lord. A bit less than a metre long, it was a common short sword like any other he’d seen online, the double-edged blade straight and unadorned.

There was nothing wrong with the weapon.

In fact, everything was perfect, and therein lay the problem.

Half an hour ago, Leon picked up the blue crystal and looked over the sword style within. He started off with a simple slash, waiting to start until he found a sapling that could serve as a training dummy. It took him a few minutes to find one that was small enough to bend but large enough that it wouldn’t get lopped in half after the first slash. He aimed for a leaf and swung with the same grip depicted in the crystal… and then he missed, the sword going a bit too high as it flew straight over the top of the sapling.

That ignited something in Leon, and half an hour later, he was dripping with sweat as he finished going through the moves. With every swing, he got a little better at controlling the blade. With every step, his grip became more natural, the minor details fading into the background of his mind as conscious thought became muscle memory.

And yet he still couldn’t hit a leaf every time he aimed for one.

It would take him months to get the basics down, and even then he would still be an amateur. Learning the sword appeared to be easy, but every slash, hack, and thrust held an infinite depth of knowledge hidden just beneath the surface. There was so much potential contained within such a simple weapon, and that was how he felt after training with such a mediocre resource.

What if he had a crystal made by a swordmaster?

What if he became the student of a living swordmaster?

The crystal wasn’t made by some sword genius or an ancient master. Whoever the creator was, they had middling expertise at best. Leon could tell that each move required great focus for them to pull off without messing up. It was extremely obvious by how much effort they put in, their moves containing none of the grace and effortlessness of a true master.

Even with all of that, Leon had only intended to skim over the crystal and try out the different moves once or twice. There was nothing crazy in there. If given a few months, Leon would be able to figure out all of the skills by himself. But once he started waving the sword around, it was the only thing he could think about, his mind consumed by how to improve.

It was all just so… fun, his lips curling up into an unwitting smile.

And there was the problem.

He had fun. For the first time in years, Leon was enjoying himself while he trained. And the worst part was that he didn’t even realise how miserable he had been until now. When he was a small child, learning martial arts was an enjoyable process. He grew stronger every week and made lots of friends, and as he got a handle on things, the feeling of improving after putting in hard work felt incredible. The mix of pride and satisfaction, followed by the understanding that he was only getting stronger helped to fuel his dedication.

But at some point, that all changed. He enjoyed fighting. That was incredibly obvious, even over the last few weeks. Almost being slaughtered by demons wasn’t fun and neither were the severe injuries, but if Leon had a choice of never fighting again or continuing to risk his life, he would choose the latter.

The thrill of battle was something he didn’t want to live without. The adrenaline made him feel alive, and when he faced a real challenge that forced him to improve to the next level, he couldn’t help but smile. But that didn’t mean he loved martial arts. No, that wasn’t the case at all. Life would never be the same once he left this place. The world had been irrevocably changed by the chaos outside, and as he thought about never entering a dojo again, Leon realised that he felt nothing at all.

No, he actually felt a slight sense of relief.

He didn’t like martial arts. Maybe he did at some point, that time lost in his memories, but he did love to fight. And as he looked down at the sword on his knees, Leon realised that he also quite liked the sword. It was elegant, powerful, and complex to the point of appearing simple. The sword was a challenge to overcome, and judging by how much he had improved in the last half hour, it was something he was quite good at.

Without giving it a thought, Leon had abandoned the path of a martial artist and subconsciously chosen to learn the sword.

Or maybe he’d given up on his martial arts years ago.