Chapter 79 Truth.
Lenna held her arm out to the side with the hilt of a sword in her hand. The sword, so far, was missing its blade. “Ready when you are.” Clayton said from a half a dozen feet away. He had his notebook out and a fountain pen in his hand.
Lenna focused her mana into the blade. At first nothing happened as the blade greedily drank in her power. Once it reached a certain threshold the blade suddenly appeared. In a blink where there was once air there was instead a blazing inferno in the shape of a longsword blade. It was the perfect length for Lenna and was entirely weightless, at least it was at first. “It feels od-” Lenna cut herself off as she tried to swing the sword. She felt herself overcoming inertia to move the conjured compressed blade of raw flames laced with reality magic. “What?”
“It is made to simulate the weight of a weapon of similar specification as what you’ve turned it into. This works both ways. It will give you follow-through as if it was a solid steel blade but it will also not be affected by gravity.” Clayton explained. “What do you think?”
“Try to dispel it.” She told the wizard.
Clayton looked hesitant for a moment and then nodded. He reached into his robe and pulled out a small wooden wand that was capped with a simple quartz crystal. He pointed it at Lenna’s new sword and chanted: “Command: Negation.” The crystal on his wand flared in a soft white glow and Lenna’s sword flickered.
“The blade didn’t vanish at least.” Isaac commented.
“That was as powerful of a dispel as I am able to cast.” Clayton explained. “Our mana quality is very similar though fundamentally different.” He told Lenna. “It should at least hold up against any wizard of gold tier or below.”
Lenna nodded. “We just fought a lich. This would have been utterly useless.” She replied and stopped feeding power to the weapon. The blade went out with a woosh as the magic holding the fire in place faded before the flames themselves.
“Just until we can get an enchanted steel or adamantine sword for you.” Isaac told her. “I hesitate to say this, but we can trade if it would make you feel better.”
Lenna eyed her mate up and down as if she was looking for something wrong with him. “Are you feeling alright?” She asked. “I know how much you like that sword.”
Isaac sighed. “The sword is fine. If I am being honest with myself, the reason I like it is mostly because it is mine, not because it is amazing in any way. It is reliable and I am used to using it but it’s not like it’s some legendary sword or anything.” He explained. “So, we can switch if you want.”
“That… I will think about it.” Lenna told him. “Do you want to try it?”
Isaac shrugged. “We’ll have to wait a bit for it to attune to me but sure.” With that the trio settled in to wait. While they waited, Clayton had Lenna and Isaac both push mana into a mana stone for future study. With that out of the way and the necessary time passed, it was time for Isaac to test out the paradoxical blade. “Actually, before I begin, what is this thing called anyway?”
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“Environmentally Adapting Blade.” Clayton replied. “It is a mouthful, do you have a better name for it?”
“For those of us with real power,” Isaac began. “power that has changed us in our very cores. This blade represents what is in our hearts, our souls, our cores. It expresses what is inside of us for all to see. It is our souls personified irrefutably. It is, in a way, an absolute Truth.” As Isaac said the final word he dumped his entire regeneration rate into the sword in as compressed a manner as he could. If he had tried to create a sword made of shadows with so much mana it would have been at least as big as he was and hard enough to stop a runaway wagon full of bricks.
More power than Clayton had ever seen blazed through the sword that was meant for archmages. It was a weapon with no practical limit to how much mana it could take. Practical being the operative word. The platinum runes themselves cost twenty thousand gold to inlay and had been done by one of the greatest artificers in the world. As Clayton watched with magic flowing through his glasses to allow him to witness everything that was happening magically as well as physically, he realized that practical and actual were very far apart.
A black void so pure that it brightened the area around it by virtue of its very existence formed in a perfect imitation of Isaac’s steel blade. The reality magic that was supposed to hold everything together was struggling to simply exist under the pressure that was Isaac’s mana. The shadows, death, and darkness that was held in the shape of a sword drank in the light around it. As it devoured the light it pulled in more. This caused the area around it to be brighter than it usually would be but it also visually distorted everything around it.
“It’ll break!” Clayton exclaimed once he realized exactly how close Isaac was to overloading the enchantments.
Isaac stopped feeding as much mana into the sword as he had originally. “Is this alright?” He asked the wizard.
“I, uh, I’m not sure. All I know is that you were very close to causing a catastrophic failure in the guiding and limiting enchantments.” Clayton explained.
Isaac nodded. “That was my full regeneration rate.” Isaac told the wizard. “I am actually surprised it survived. I figured that someone like Eliza would have built in some kind of limiter to keep an overload from happening.”
Clayton shook his head. “It is meant for archmages and grandmasters not demigods.” He said with a sigh as he confirmed that the sword was not about to blast apart into a thousand pieces and concuss the entire area with a demigod’s amount of mana all at once. He had no doubt that the mana shock alone would knock him unconscious, at least until he hit the floor.
“I might have to commission a sword like this from Eliza in the future. One capable of handling me at full power. I think it should be able to handle twice as much power as this one just to be safe. Actually, three times as much, just in case I have to cut something that is uncuttable or block a meteor or something.” Isaac told Clayton while looking over the blade.
“If you fed any more power into a similar weapon it might get hard to see while fighting with it.” Clayton warned.
“That’s fine.” Isaac said and his eyes turned into black orbs of death flames. “I can see entirely with mana if I need to.” He said and turned his eyes back to their unnatural silver color.
Clayton nodded and gulped at the sudden transformation. It was when Isaac did stunts like that, and almost overloading a magical item meant to be able to handle a maximum level wizards worth of mana output, that Clayton was truly reminded that Isaac was not a normal human. “I’ll add that to the list of things to bring up with my master.” Clayton replied. “Now, you might not want to maintain such high output into the weapon. You are still degrading the enchantments but at a rate of about triple their natural rate.”
Isaac cut the power flowing to the blade and the area around him suddenly plunged into darkness. Once the dark mana, shadows, and death flames dissipated completely, Isaac was nowhere to be found. “That worked decently well.” Isaac said from behind Clayton and Lenna. Lenna casually turned around but Clayton almost dropped his notebook when he jumped in fright.
“Indeed.” Lenna replied. “Though, I feel like that ‘feature’ might cause issues under certain circumstances.”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah. If there was a normal human next to me when I did that they might end up dusted by accident.” He agreed and looked at Clayton. “Add that to your notes on the weapon. The flare at the end is ill advised.”
Clayton nodded and jotted it down. “Excellent observation.” Clayton praised them. “I imagine that some might want to keep it as a feature but in most cases it would be more of a detriment.”
“Now that we have a new super magical sword, you don’t have any normal magic swords do you?” Isaac questioned the wizard.
“No.” Clayton replied. “We do not.”
Lenna sighed. “Of course not.” She said and looked at Isaac with a look that absolutely screamed-
“I know, I know, you told me so.” Isaac said with raised hands. “But you have to admit, the sword is pretty awesome.”