“Hello to you too, Methild.”

I crossed my arms on my chest as I addressed her.

“Were you able to finish checking up the barriers?”

While Lily and I were able to bathe, eat, and sleep after our battle, the same couldn’t be said for Elandris and Methild. Elandris went on to organize other elven warriors to check ant farms to see if parasitic creatures invaded them. Thankfully, it seemed like the damage they caused was minimal and he was able to rest and join our training. Methild on the other hand wasn’t that lucky. Fallens were able to deceive her magical barriers due to originally being elves so she had to take down and reapply the magical barriers surrounding the area differently. I didn’t know much about magic but I was sure that it wasn’t easy to set up permanent barriers and her absence from our training told me that she was busy.

Methild nodded, her expression weary but determined.

"Yes, I've managed to reinforce the barriers around the perimeter. It took longer than expected, but I believe they're secure now."

I nodded in approval.

“Nice job. But shouldn’t you be resting after all that? Not that I am the one to talk but…”

She waved her hand to dismiss my worries.

“I am fine. It is nothing I can handle. Plus, I am too curious about how your weapon summoning works.”

I spun my spear as I tilted my head.

“What do you mean?”

Methild's eyes sparkled with interest as she explained.

“At first I thought you were just summoning empty weapons with no special properties but that wasn’t it!

Weapons you summoned had options and everything! So, I considered that you had some kind of dimensional storage to pull weapons from. But you went and summoned more copies!”

She held my hand and I could see her excitement. Was it because she was a mage? Though Ama never showed this kind of interest in my skills before.

“Methild, you can’t just ask people to reveal their skills like that.”

Elandris came to my help but it wasn’t that needed.

“It is okay. It is not like I understand it fully myself so conversing with a mage may give more insight.”

I gripped my spear tightly, allowing it to turn to shadows before summoning another one.

"My skill, the Armory of the Fallen, operates in three distinct stages. First, I must achieve a complete understanding of the weapon I wish to absorb. This involves grasping its weight, balance, and intricacies, as well as any unique options it may possess. Once I have comprehended the weapon in its entirety, I absorb it into myself, causing it to disappear. However, it has become part of me. Finally, when I channel my mana and focus my thoughts, I can manifest the absorbed weapon, reconstructing it from memory with precision and accuracy."

I demanifested my spear before moving on to other weapons I had in my arsenal, swinging them several times before moving to others. When I finished I turned to my companions who looked at me with their mouths agape.

“Wait. Are you constructing your weapons mid-combat with their every detail mid-combat?”

Lily asked. I shrugged.

“Basically.”

“What the fuck, Poyraz.”

Methild's eyes widened with fascination as she listened to my explanation, her excitement palpable. "That's incredible," she breathed, her voice filled with admiration. "To think you can manifest weapons with such precision and detail in the heat of battle... It's unlike anything I've ever heard of. Can I touch them?”

I hesitated. Skill description clearly stated that others couldn’t use weapons but it didn’t detail why and how they couldn’t use them. Did it work like Caliburn, the famous sword in stone? Or perhaps it was something more aggressive? Hmm. Despite my hesitation, I manifested a dagger and extended it to Methild. If it was dangerous skill description would have said something about it, right?

Methild reached out tentatively, her fingers brushing against the hilt of the manifested dagger. She paused for a moment as if sensing something, before gingerly wrapping her hand around it. It all seemed fine until I pulled my hand back, not touching the dagger anymore. The second that happened the dagger slipped off Methild’s hand, briefly dematerializing and falling to the ground. She shook her hand.

“Aww. I see.”

She grunted as I picked up the dagger from the ground. So that’s how it worked.

“Are you hurt?”

While she didn’t seem hurt I wanted to make sure.

“Nope, I am okay. I think I understood how your skill works so I can actually help you to understand it better.”

The cross-shaped mark on her eyes let out a brief light.

“First things first: The weapons you summon and weapons you absorbed aren’t the same.”

Hmm. That was something I already guessed since I could summon multiple copies or degraded copies. But I didn’t interrupt Methild’s explanation as she clearly had more to explain.

“Honestly, I don’t think I can even call the things you manifest as weapons. They are more like thoughts given physical form.”

Methild's insights were intriguing, and I listened intently as she continued to elaborate on the nature of your skill.

"Thoughts given physical form?" I echoed, pondering her words. It was an interesting concept, one that resonated with my own experiences but had never been articulated quite like this before.

“Basically you are bringing them to reality from your mind. Honestly, I only heard this kind of stuff in old books. It is amazing!”

I narrowed my eyes.

“But doesn’t this mean I don’t need to absorb weapons to project them? If I am just bringing them to the real world, then shouldn’t their memories be enough?”

Methild nearly jumped in the air.

“Excellent question! Its answer is quite simple and something mages use most of the time: Cheating!”

I waited for her to continue but she stared at me as if she was expecting something.

“Man, you are no fun. Shouldn’t you be surprised about mages cheating all the time?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know enough about magecraft to be surprised.”

Methild chuckled at my response, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Do you remember the tracking spell I used against Spider Fallen? You asked me if I could use it to find Nidhogg and I answered by saying I need a body part or have to see it? Technically, it was a lie. Tracking spells can be cast without those. However, it is hard, impossibly hard. Having a body part of a target or seeing them makes it easier. It is just a guess but if you wanted to manifest a weapon without absorbing you would have to know everything about that weapon. By absorbing it you gain an outline that passes most of the difficult stuff. It also probably helps with the mana consumption too.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I held my head as I tried to digest that info dump.

"So, essentially, by absorbing a weapon, I gain a sort of template or blueprint that makes it easier to manifest in the future."

I mused, trying to wrap my head around the concept. Technically, it was something I already knew worded differently. But how did it help me?

“Wait. Does this mean that I don’t have to maintain the exact shape?”

I spoke up to myself. Methild said something but I was too busy focusing. For my experiment, I picked the Cruel King’s Longsword, the first weapon I absorbed. I visualized the outline but this time I made it bigger. I summoned it, realizing the mana consumption was higher but not enough to make me wince. However, I wasn’t able to get a good grip on it with its increased size and it fell on the ground.

(Armory of Fallen ranked up to D rank. The number of weapons you can absorb increases to 20. You can manipulate the size of weapons you summon. You can now absorb accessories.)

I inspected the weapon on the ground. Its Power ranking was higher by 1 point. I grabbed its hilt and felt its increased weight as I threw it on my shoulder. It looked like a greatsword instead of a longsword right now.

“Nice Guts cosplay.”

I ignored Lily speaking nonsense.

“Thanks, Methild. My skill ranked up thanks to you.”

I finally absorbed Ring of Forest and Wolf King’s Fang and read the notifications with a smirk on my face. I no longer had to worry about worrying about using their durability since I could just summon them again.

Methild smiled warmly in return, her eyes sparkling with pride. "I'm glad I could help. Plus, I also gained some insights.”

I couldn’t tell if she was sincere or if she was saying that to make me feel better I watched her cross-shaped mark shine.

After training to get used to my new abilities, I took a bath and ate together with others. Elandris offered me to play a game similar to chess but I declined after he spoke about rules and how long the game could last. Apparently, a short game could last 3 to 4 days. Seriously, elves and their stupid time perception.

I went to the room given to me and lay on the bed surrounded by flowers. Each one of them was given to me by elves who wanted to thank me for killing the Nidhogg. I picked up a flower crown and put it on my head with a stupid smile on my mouth. Heh. Sleep came easily that night.

I opened my eyes several hours later. I lifted my body.

“Damn. Guess fast recovery also causes this.”

Thanks to my high recovery capabilities, three or four hours of sleep was enough. At first, I welcomed this as it gave me more time to do stuff, I quickly realized I had nothing to do at night when everyone was asleep. Of course, I could train but even for me training more than 5 to 6 hours a day was too much. I could read books if I had any.

I sighed and stood up, leaving the sleeping Gökbörü in bed. Maybe it was because he was still a baby, he didn’t have the same problem as me. I left the room and navigated in the weird space that’s in the Mother Tree. Thanks to her roots inside me and learning about how to navigate from the elves I was able to get a better understanding of where I went now though it still felt weird to open a door and find myself on another floor. In practice it was simple: One needed to communicate with Mother Tree with their mana and ask her to move them to where they wanted to go.

I opened a door and stepped outside, into an upper branch. The cold night air hit my face as I looked at the stars and the Moon. I wasn’t alone here as I noticed Methild looking down with a bottle in her hand. She seemed lost in thought, her gaze fixed on the landscape bathed in moonlight.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked, approaching her quietly.

Methild glanced up, a faint smile playing on her lips. "Not at all. It's nice to have company."

I sat down beside her and she offered me the bottle she was holding. I took a sip before handing it back to her. Lily blabbered about how good the elven wine was but I knew jackshit about wine.

“You don’t look that impressed.”

Methild said as she looked down. I too looked down. We were very high up and everything looked like ants.

“Guess your world had this kind of place too?”

I paused and looked at her face. She smiled with her head on her knee.

“You knew.”

I said.

“I knew that you were an outworlder, had a divinity within you, and carried one of Mother’s blessings when I first saw you.”

She pointed to cross cross-shaped marking.

“It allows me to see a lot of things even if I don’t want to. Sorry if I overstepped some boundaries.”

I shook my head.

“Not really. I am pretty sure Lily would have spoken about it sooner or later.”

She offered the bottle once against after she took a sip herself. I also took a sip.

“It must be a long story.”

I chuckled at her response.

“Not to you probably. But, yeah. It is somewhat of a long story.”

I waited for her to ask me about it but she didn’t. She kept looking at me with a warm smile. Her hair fluttered with the wind as the moonlight reflected from her perfect skin.

“Is this why you are not honest with your desires? The things you held dear are out of your reach?”

Oh, she was talking about our first conversation and put her hand on my shoulder before moving to my chest. I felt a tingling sensation. Her hands were soft.

“Things I held dear were out of my reach even before coming to this world.”

My voice exited my mouth harsher than I expected. She leaned forward to me putting her weight to my chest. I could smell the flowery scent coming from her.

“Then why do you deny your desires? Why do you carry those burdens?”

Shame, guilt, pain, and hate. I knew why I felt them. I tried to ignore them, bury them, or conciliate with them but no matter what I did they kept coming back. I knew why. It was because I was the same teenager who lost his family and blamed himself for it. I believed that I deserved this pain, this suffering.

But did I really?

Couldn’t I just stop?

I wanted to stop, even if it was just for this night.

I leaned forward to Methild, our lips nearly touching.

Just as I was about to ask for her consent, I felt a demonic force coming from Whifur. Both of us turned to that direction at the same time.