Logan was breathing faintly, Maxwell looked worried as he finished being cut to pieces and charred to ash.
Taking Weifang’s forging, he felt his body nearly collapsing as if he was in a storm of blades. Elas had prepared very specific healing for wind mana. It quickly healed the cuts and prevented intense bleeding but that didn’t stop him from being ripped apart while healed quickly.
He even felt his bones being cut like an army of ants biting it. He was only thankful that his body was much stronger than before and the impact wasn’t as intense as the time Raitoningu was initially forged.
As for the name, it had been Weifang actually. Gentle breeze had remained the name because it lacked a different legend. It was purely a sword forged by a legendary smith with a great many wind based materials with the sword’s origins and having divine metal combined.
It was a very weak legend but the original name contained the meaning it was meant to have as a wind magic blade.
After getting expert healing, he meditated with Weifang a bit to consolidate the bond before it was finally time.
The two similar katana were placed into the forge and their bodies separated.
This meant two sources of fire attacking him but as the metals reached white hot, the two cores pushed against each other and taking them, Elas pounded them and forge welded them without folding.
The same for the main bodies. It was side by side and this caused a change in the seals that seemed to form chains.
They slowly rose to his chest and began to combine there as they moved from his hand to his chest.
After letting the swords adapt and letting the seals slowly mature, as well as letting Logan heal with the help of the green lightning, he finally took the primary sword cores and started to fold them.
Of course, he felt his muscles being crushed again and folding to become denser.
The materials of the wind monster bones and the thunder dragons blended in layers.
He moved to the body and folded and stretched. The stretching lasted much longer as the combined materials made it double the length.
Like before, three folds switch and repeat.
By the sixth fold, the materials were blended and the seals had merged and even the spirits had merged.
The two names appeared in Logan’s head and as the last three parts were forged and combined, the names seemed to be forged along with it and their meanings combined and formed a new name.
When it finally finished being reforged, while reheating, the blood of C rank wind monsters and equal ranked lightning monsters that Elas had, were put into a quenching tank and finally dunked.
The burst was many times greater and needed careful control to not burst until it finally calmed down.
Elas whipped off the sweat that had accumulated, “Combining is always the hardest. At least one sword had a weak legend making it easier.” he said, smiling.
The result was an impressive blade, 120 cm of length and a perfect beautiful arc. The hilt and sheath was made to support the lightning’s destruction because the breath of the wind was very gentle despite the hidden storm behind it.
When it was done, they finally took Logan upstairs where he held the sword and felt the gentle breath run through his body while green lightning healed his wounds.
The seal on his chest began to move as it returned to his right arm and spread the chains that it had before and perfectly settled down on his right hand again.
Olivia was already there and when she saw the guardless nodachi, she was curious.
“Hey, between our blades, which is stronger?” she asked out of curiosity.
Elas looked and smiled, “That is hard to say as all newborn white blades are similar but if we were to speak of the legend behind them, yours would have an edge. Your father is a famous B rank and there are several B rank materials within your swords. On the other hand, Logan’s grandfather only succeeded in getting a thunder dragon bone for that sword and immediately retired due to his injuries. If he had met me, my forging might have even healed him but fate has its ways of working.” He said.
“Hehe, so I am stronger off the top!” She laughed.
“Possibly but because the new blade is a combined one, if the legend of it’s forging is strong, it could have blended or even enhanced Logan’s original legend. It is very difficult to say.” he said and looked at Logan whose eyes were unfocused from the pain he underwent, “Also, your brother has passed through three forging while you have one. Even if his legend is weaker, he personally is stronger.” He said.
Olivia didn’t like that but after a while, Logan sat up and looked at the blade and spoke only the name “Arashi.”
His mind was pulled in and the world of wind that Weifang possessed and the world of lightning that Raitoningu had were combined. Before him, he stood upon a platform that was surrounded by black clouds, black winds and purple lightning surged through the land below carving the land.
Arashi’s spirit appeared and looked more like Raitoningu but two wings gathered lightning and two gathered wind. It still possessed a dragon like form but it had blended into a combined element.
He smiled and she smiled back and revealed that the legend had not changed but the force behind it was stronger.
It also began to finally reveal that it understood the nodachi legacy and was happy. Even the katana method he knew were more developed due to the fights but it now focused on the greatsword.
Wind and lightning rushed at him and he could feel small changes in his body and he knew that she was starting to make minor changes to his body constitution that would enhance his ability and talent with her new form.
Had felt the same warmth throughout the 10 years and now that she was already awakened, it was only getting stronger.
He soon woke up and smiled.
“Arashi, a good name.” Elas said. “Tempest, the storm winds that crash down, lightning that erases life.” He said.
"I feel so tired.” Logan said.
"I would assume so, you had best get some quality rest, I won’t be forging you again for the next 6 months. The girl as well. Although she underwent less forging, she had to suffer every kind of elemental attack. Her overall magical talent for all elements should have risen.” He said.
She grinned but his next words made her feel depressed, “To reforge it, there is going to be quite a big list to fill. Materials of all elemental creatures, mana stored from all elemental forces and so on. It is a great and powerful blade but the price to reforge it constantly is equally as big. Don’t worry because your sword will eat what it feels it requires.” He said.
“What is the name?” Logan asked.
“It’s called Hydra. Each element encompasses an element and as a result, each element composes one segment of the spirit each conscious but part of one sword spirit. It seems that each element is trying to form a specific elemental based sword art of their own but can’t since they are so young and don’t know how to properly fight.” She said.
“Ah, egoistic spirits are difficult to deal with.” Elas said laughing, “The legend it possesses likely acts upon the spirit to elevate the sword art and produce separate methods like schools but also to enhance the core of the art. It is likely that they will try to make their own but when it matures alongside you, the true core of the art will expand after making a school of arts for each of them. The core can then be taught to all while the element produces specific teachings.” Elas said.
“That is amazing.” Maxwell said. “It will be difficult to inherit if you don’t have even basic affinity for all basic elements then. The core is just common mana but each art will be its own element and maybe at the end, combining everything to form a pure balance of element and elevate it even further.” Maxwell said dreaming of the legend behind this sword.
He was very happy that his life's work would not vanish and instead could be written into the history books.
“You should all go home and rest, one month of rest for each of you. Don’t even try warm ups for at least two weeks. After that do some warm ups and muscle therapy and if you still feel pain at the end of the month, don’t you dare try to force yourself. If moving mana feels stressful, don’t do it.” He said serious.
“Yes sir.” they said.
“Good, if you need help on the advancement conditions, come to me and I will see if I can't help. For now, you each had best just rest and grow your bonds.”
Like that, the family left the elf and returned home. Maxwell was extremely happy to the point of actually tutoring the students of the dojo directly and with a smile on his face.
Even when he went with other B and C ranks to crush the flock of birds after they found the islands he was in high spirits. He didn't hand feed them though and left the two of them to grow their own legends and swords after getting them to the starting line.
During that time, they spent just going over the entire legacy and gently training their forces like they did as children. Logan needed more reinforcement as it had never been his original weapon of choice but it was slowly getting there.
As Elas had said, they needed an extra week for their mana channels to fully heal but when it did they could finally start to train.
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During the down time, they had learned the innate skills and had tested mostly through meditation, now they were free with next to no discomfort and facing their father, they began to train.
When they finally gathered to train with Maxwell, the students were already in training and they had to clear out. Even some parents were there and they began.
Everyone was shocked because not even half a year had passed since the two had left to become adventurers and Logan was known to have been stuck indoors for over two months already.
Of course, where Logan had strength, his Nodachi skill was much lower and it showed as he left openings and didn’t properly attack due to the heavier weight and length. Olivia was the true star as she was the true inheritor of Maxwell’s legacy in sword arts.
Still, it was scary to the children and shocking to the adults because despite seeing all the faults in both their methods, Maxwell matched them fighting, pressing and letting up to let them attack and the battle went on for nearly half an hour as they saw rapid improvements that came with the use in live combat.
After that Maxwell began to press them and they finally began to use infused mana. Eventually they finally used elemental magic. Olivia was the one who changed elements the most because she was just not used to the affinities. It hadn’t raised much, she wasn’t a talent for it originally either and had been her weak point. Using element infused sword skills was her only option and Logan did something similar for wind magic but he already had some devised katana sword strikes that he put into practice with the Nodachi where it had been referenced from and he instantly showed his shine.
The ground began to tremble and wind and thunder began to rumble as he fought his father but using magic was exhausting when moving and soon the two finally collapsed.
Instantly the crowd burst into applause in awe. The children sent childish praises while the adults congratulated Maxwell for his eye for talent.
Despite losing, something they were used to when facing their father, the fight was refreshing. Especially for Logan who had been stuck for so long indoors thanks to his father making him undergo two more forgings.
Working his muscles was very relaxing and he could feel Arashi excited.
After resting and eating, the two took some time to meditate.
Arashi was flying around excited and formed a nodachi at her size and showed the same movements as Logan.
They trained a little but he quickly picked up some things she did better. It eventually tied in with her second innate skill obtained from Weifang, wind manipulation.
Producing air slashes is a rather primitive method to use it as it just gathered wind mana and shot it alongside the sword slash. What she did actually was much harder to do and combined the usage of both skills at the same time.
Using wind manipulation, she made the wind bend out of the way reducing drag while her clad sharpened the edge to cut faster and sharper.
This was actually hard to do. Also he noticed a few differences between his and her form and as he slowly matched up, his strength and force improved as did control.
It was clear that Arashi had learned from both Olivia and Maxwell and compared it to himself and found the faults and was teaching him what she knew.
As for flows in mana, that was entirely a different story, she made small flow changes that caused bigger effects down the line but most of it was to reduce stress on his body when using lightning clad.
"I know you want to reduce the burden but at this time, I want to use lightning to train my body. Only when I do that will my resistance increase, eventually making me immune to it like you.” He told her.
When he said that, she split her thinking and made one that reduced stress so he could fight in a prolonged fight while using clad while another actually focused differently and specifically targeted to train his body under the pressure of lightning and wind.
They were all basic and needed testing, everything he learned needed testing but he liked the instinct driven spirit who followed feelings while still having some thought of her own.
After resting, the siblings turned to each other and within the dojo where others couldn’t watch, they began to spar.
What they didn’t know is that their names actually quickly spread throughout the island because of the fight against Maxwell as geniuses for rapidly growing to E rank within half a year of leaving home.
This was a tiny bit of fame but it did a lot as their legend ties to the legend of their swords and this was each of their own contribution to the growth of the sword’s legend.
***
Nearly a month later, Logan was smiling as he opened his eyes after meditating. He slowly got up and whistled.
A scraping came from under the dojo and soon a lizard poked its head out before climbing onto the floor.
This was Storm, the Crystalback Lizard. Living off hunting rodents and small birds, it had grown quite a bit from the tiny lizard. It was now 30 cm long and most of the back scales had become crystal.
This came from a small infusion of lightning from Arashi.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked.
It tilted it’s head in confusion but he casually picked it up and it climbed up his arm and circled his neck.
His sister had left to adventure a day earlier while he had stayed because he was still working out the final changes. A month had been the time the two had stayed to train themselves to adapt to their strength and absorb the feedback from the spirits. It was a lot and fighting nearly every hour, they acted like chistles for one another as they slowly figured out how to fight.
To an extent, neither of them knew advanced level magic and all techniques were purely based on infused elemental magic. There was actual sword magic which was many times more efficient than what they did but Maxwell had never learned them, he had a low overall affinity and he used his magic sword to enhance that power and it had been what he had lived by.
Even so, he forced the core forms of his own fighting style and he passed this on and the children were now in charge of their own fates and the next step of advancing was getting sword magic and growing from there.
The problem came in obtaining it.
As you can guess, swords are the most famous weapon in this world and naturally magic related to it is equally precious. Even the weakest spells and techniques were treasured because no one knew if their family could obtain a contract with a legend sword somewhere in the world.
It was very hard to obtain sword magic and places that sold them charged inexorable prices.
That said, Maxwell wasn’t a fool and actually knew the creation process but never had the talent for it. The process was basically transforming an existing spell into a sword cast spell.
For instance, a simple spell like fireball when cast from the sword would be flame slash. That said, getting this basic combination was the first step and what followed was enhancing the strength, stability and most of all, compression.
Sword magic was strongest because all the mana and the spell is compressed into the edge enhancing the power without losing that much mana. It also reduced the cost of mana enhancing endurance allowing for longer fights.
It was easy to see that because when he fights using magic, he runs out quickly despite having E rank mana capacity now.
As such, he picked up the lizard and headed to eastern Eshen.
After reaching the port he went to magic stores and slowly studied magic, the first things he got were life spells, these are vital adventurer magic meant to facilitate their lives. Convenient spells like ember and wash were creative spells using water and fire magic respectively, especially wash as it helped clean grime and dirt off not only the body but armor.
They were cheap though, most cost between 5,000 and 10,000 tips and it was a pain. He only got wash and dry before going to wind and lightning.
He smiled as he got the spell Wind slash. It was basically the first wind spell anyone learns but ironically, it was perfect for sword magic. For lightning magic it was harder, lightning is advanced magic after all.
The price was also very high making him sigh at the cost and decided not to get anything yet.
He had a lot of time and decided that he would work with wind magic while using innate skills for lightning as it was very powerful in its own respect. It might be possible to change wind for lightning anyways so he didn’t worry.
Going to the adventurers guild, he rented a training room and spent about a day learning the spell cast in the normal method before using it through Arashi. The effect, without saying anything else, was in another league.
As previously stated, magic swords had the capacity of enhancing the power of elemental magic but also purify and compress it. This was the natural ability of magic swords, without saying anything more, Legend swords were advanced magic swords and the wind slash cast from it was nearly ten times bigger and sharper.
“Ahaha, this is great. The cutting power is quite intense and is a great first spell. Lets see if I add in a few sword forms.” he said and began to use the spell while combining it with his sword art and as expected, the special movement of mana when using the sword art alongside the spell enhanced the power even more but he did notice a lot of problems in using both and it was this that separated a sword spell and a magic spell. Being able to use both without conflict is the mark of a sword spell.
Knowing where to work from he left and finally headed to the adventurers guild to update his rank.
F rank is easy to register, as long as the magic tool scanned your body and clearly saw the power level was equal to a certain requirement, you could join, the problem is that above that, each rank required tests.
Most tests were fighting and they required the adventurer to prove their strength that wasn’t as easily scanned the higher the level went.
The E rank creature he faced was a Hobgoblin warrior, raised and trained by monster tamers for this. He wanted to easily advance so he used accelerator and clad and thanks to his training he knew how to control his speed. He enhanced his brain to the point that time seemed to slow down but his body suddenly moved at normal speeds within this kinetic vision.
This is how he learned control, only combined together like this can his body and mind properly control this intense speed.
He ran forward simply, it was already a pressure to use both innate skills so he couldn’t increase it further with air manipulation but the wasn’t required as he passed the hobgoblin and without resistance, he neck was cleaved and he stopped himself behind it and letting the lightning mana disperse and release a breath.
The people watching were slackjaw as the head of the hobgoblin rolled and the corpse dropped in a matter of a few seconds that it took to close the distance.
Logan clenched his trembling hands because he knew his body wasn’t completely ready for those speeds for long durations. Arashi actually needed recharging so it was a burden all around.
“How did you do that?!” The tester asked.
“Ah… ahaha, I have a high lightning affinity and actually awakened an innate skill when I was in a do or die moment in the wild. My body is still not completely able to catch up to the effects though.” He said showing his slightly trembling hands.
“Impressive… it is rare for humans to have innate skills.” She said nodding with a smile. “You passed with flying colors. It will be hard for other monsters without quick minds and fast reflexes to match your speed at this rate.” She said and took his adventurer ID and put it under a new machine. It began to glow and the F grew a third leg and upgraded to E rank.
“Congratulations, you can now access E rank missions in the Nexus.” she said. As she turned, she noticed the lizard and pointed, “Is that a pet or battle beast?” She asked.
“Battle beast but it is just 2 months old, it hasn’t even reached F rank yet so don’t worry.” He said.
She nodded and left after that.
Storm really wasn’t F rank yet, she was still newborn but the presence of the crystal threw people off because only after at least 3 years of age a crystalback lightning lizard had the physical preparation for it but it was obvious that she didn’t need that since he just had to feed Storm himself.
Unlike lizards who ate only 5% of the lightning, Arashi is likely to eat 80% and let him get shocked by the rest.
He took the lizard and headed to the nexus to pick out a new mission. He now required wind and lightning creatures to feed the material requirements and likely E rank was the requirement and in very high quantities as the quality he used for Weifang was already C rank near the end.
That said, for the lightning side, he was sure that he still needed to climb up the ranks to fill in the balance between wind and lightning. Weasels made the base but they weren’t the only E ranks and he could now actively hunt those down. He also had to recharge the sword with not only lightning but wind mana and he honestly feared the moment because Elas said that it was likely that Arashi would draw down a cloud vortex rich with lightning to absorb both which were very present in storms.
That was a scary thought but he had to do it.
With nothing else to do, he picked hunting missions for E rank lightning creatures in thunder forest so that he could go. He was also curious about the current state of the outcrops.
With a smile, he chartered a ride and headed off to Storm’s birthplace.