“What about the Cleaver?” For the first time since Leo’s arrival, Kevin spoke.
“Cleaver?” Master Zaraki was confused, but not Kevin’s father.
“The Cleaver!” He exclaimed with a wide smile, “Genius! I should’ve thought of that. Although that thing is technically yours.”
Seeing the confusion on Leo’s face, Kevin explained, “It’s a weapon made of redsand iron. It doesn’t conduct lightning or Qi and is very heavy. Should be suited for you well – I’d like to exchange it for your longsword.”
Leo didn’t manage to blink when he was brought to another room, except this one was more like a large hall. Swords of different types and sizes were put on display everywhere both on the walls and weapon stands around the room.
“So this is your little collection.” Master Zaraki nodded in satisfaction. Sword was his life and he could appreciate someone having a hobby of collecting them.
“Here, this is my first sword.” Kevin explained to Leo, pointing at a weapon that resembled a one foot long dagger, “From the day I picked it up I decided to become a sword master. Of course, for a sword master one of the basic prerequisites is to understand what type of sword they intend to wield and in order to find the answer I started this collection. Currently it has nine hundred and ninety nine different types of swords – basically I’ve already gathered all there is to gather and it might be considered complete, but for some time I felt I needed a special final piece.”
Leo involuntarily touched the sword on his back and noticing that Kevin nodded, “Indeed, the crude and plain sword on your back is exactly what I need. Being crafted by an inexperienced blacksmith in a mortal realm it represents the very basic principle every sword and its wielder should follow – simplicity! That is why I want it – it’ll symbolize the end of the hard road I’ve walked in order to choose my weapon.”
Leo stared back at the youth not that much older than him, but even though he understood the words, it seemed they spoke two different languages. This was the prized sword he dreamed off! Beautiful and elegant! What was all that ‘crude and plain’ about?!
“Obviously according to the rules of the Golden city one should exchange items of similar value and technically Cleaver is countless times more expensive. But to me the symbolic value of your crude longsword is worth no less therefore I propose this exchange.” Kevin explained, but then realized something and added, “Although I’m not sure how you’ll be able to bring it away. It’s really heavy.”
“One must exchange goods of a similar value.” Master Zaraki snickered and said to the host, “Didn’t the boy give you some stuff earlier?”
“It’s good that you mention this, Zari. The wine you got to taste is basically priceless and you drank over dozen bottles of it. Looks like Kevin is getting private lessons for half a month.” Master Shaw grinned back and suddenly vanished.
The three left in the hall looked at each other in an awkward silence, but then Kevin said, “Alright, I’ll show it to you.”
They went to the far side of the room and there, in the corner was a stand with only one weapon on it. It was unclear why it was here, since it definitely was not a sword. The weapon of dark purple color looked like a butcher’s knife and it’s blade was over four feet long and one and a half feet wide at both ends. Its handle was made of the same material and from the looks of it was forged in one piece with the blade.
“Perfect!” Master Zaraki said after quickly evaluating the weapon. He was holding it in hone hand as if it was as light as a spoon, “With this you’ll be able to wield a weapon without any need to use Qi techniques. Obviously the wielding part will be difficult at first and I doubt you’ll ever use it against human experts, but it’s hard to imagine something better to chop up beasts.”
It sounded like the sword master tried to persuade him, but it was unnecessary. From the moment Leo saw the weapon he was mesmerized by both – the color and the shape. Yes, it wasn’t an elegant sword, but if he could lift this, he could easily cut in halves the huge water lizards that tried to eat him! In addition, if a sword immortal said he had no talent for the sword no matter how bitter it sounds it was probably so. Who else could be a higher authority on the subject?
With a loud bang master Zaraki put the Cleaver’s top on the floor and passed the handle to Leo. The boy had to stretch his hands up to reach it, but the moment he grabbed it, the weapon lost its balance and almost fell on him.
“Ye, this is what I was afraid of.” Master Zaraki said with a sigh after grabbing the weapon’s handle again saving the kid, “It’ll take some training for you to be able to lift it.”
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“He’ll be fine.” The host appeared as suddenly as he vanished earlier. In one of master Shaw’s hands was a bundle of worn looking leather strips and in the other – few pieces of similar leather, but with strange runic symbols carved of them.
He took the weapon from master Zaraki, quickly wrapped it in leather strips while hiding the pieces with symbols at different spots underneath. Then he wrapped the handle in a similar fashion and passed the strange looking package to Leo who carefully took it and after a split moment with shock written all over his face looked back at master Shaw.
“I hid five simple rune formations under the wrapping that will reduce it’s weight, but with time they will start to loose effectiveness one after another. I strongly advise you to only unwrap the Cleaver after all five formations had lost their power.” Master Shaw said, “The long loose strap is for you to be able to carry the weapon on your back.”
“Thank you, Sir! I … I don’t …” Leo was trying to politely thank the immortal, but he really had no clue what to say.
“No need – this was a simple transaction. And I mean both – my guidance and the Cleaver. I’ll have one condition though. Promise me that if you ever manage to step into the Nascent … no if you manage to step into the Core foundation stage you’ll find me and share your experiences in detail!” Master Shaw said and seeing Leo’s excited nod, continued, “Now off with you. We’ve spent too much time chatting already.”
Then he turned towards master Zaraki and said, “Now about that wine …”
“I’m not going to teach your son for half a month. There were only twelve bottles and you also drank part of it!” The sword master angrily said.
“Come!” Kevin beckoned and Leo threw the Cleaver over his shoulder and followed while the two immortals continued to nitpick how much who owed whom.
Only after taking few steps Leo realized he was actually carrying an item that almost crushed him to death earlier. It was still extremely heavy, but at least he was able to walk while carrying it.
The abilities and knowledge of immortals was terrifying. Leo was worried though – master Shaw didn’t say how long the rune formations would last and it meant he needed to hurry up and become stronger, purely physically of course, otherwise one day he might die under the weight of that strange weapon.
When Kevin escorted Leo from the residence, the sun had long set and Fan Lia was already waiting outside. At first she wanted to scold the kid, but seeing who was with him forced a smile to blossom on her face.
“Young master Kevin, thank you for taking care of him. I hope he wasn’t a burden.” She politely said.
“Not at all!” Kevin seriously said, “In fact, he was the one who helped me out. Leo, I need to ask you a favor.”
Not only Leo, even Fan Lia was surprised by Kevin’s attitude. Normally aristocratic youths never behaved so amicably and naturally towards the common folk, and even Fan Lia had to admit she herself had been an arrogant snob few years ago. Obviously for a genius of Kevin’s level to speak to someone random from a mortal realm as if they were equals was unimaginable, but at the same time the youth wasn’t overly friendly – just polite.
“Regarding the last thing my father said – I’d like to ask you to take it seriously.” Kevin said, “I’ve had tens of siblings and some have even become immortals. There were also many whom I was not destined to ever meet, but there was none in our family who never reached at least the Nascent soul stage, except for Connor, even though he was very talented. To not be able to help him drove my father crazy back then and even after my brother was gone, the great Theodore Shaw spent several centuries researching the lightning mutation without any significant result. If you follow my dad’s advice, not only it could help you – with your experience father could develop techniques to help the other cultivators who suffer from a similar curse.”
“I … I don’t get it … why do you guys think I have a chance.” Leo honestly said, “I’m nothing special. Even master Zaraki said I have no talent.”
“You misunderstood something.” Kevin punched his shoulder in a friendly manner and turned to leave, “I don’t think anything, but if the most talented immortal of the Golden city who has lived for over fifty thousand years has a gut feeling you have a shot at something, I’ll bet everything he might be right.”
“What was that about?” Fan Lia asked when Kevin went back inside.
“Honestly?” Leo looked at her and said, “I have no clue. I’m even not sure anything that has happened today is real.”
“Ye. The first few times I interacted with the immortals of the Golden city I also got a similar feeling.” She honestly said, “Trust me, this is the only place in the world where they behave like regular humans while actually being gods. The traditions of the Golden city are a bit peculiar.”
Only when Fan Lia dropped Leo off at the George’s doorstep, he understood he had been handed over again in the strange game of tag the two played. It was already late, thus they didn’t talk much, but in the morning after George heard Leo’s summary of the last night’s events, he made the boy memorize the Golden city’s coordinates before he was allowed to have breakfast during which George continued to instruct Leo how to properly behave after his return to the Aurora realm.
When they met up with Fan Lia, the two Nascent soul stage runemasters for half a day continued to teach him how to properly use the teleportation platform and only then sent him off. Till the very last moment neither Leo nor George and Fan Lin guessed where the feeling of the mutual familiarity came from and that they’ve already met before.
Leo was not the plump little kid anymore – he had grown taller and more athletic. Even George and Fan Lin had matured during the last couple of years after officially becoming runemasters.
The last few months and especially last day for some reason changed George’s perception of life.
As the result when Leo’s figure disappeared from the teleportation platform, he turned to Fan Lia and said in full seriousness, but with a smile on his face, “Would you like a towel, miss?”
Her first reaction was to flare up as she usually did, but after quickly realizing what he actually meant, she slightly blushed and then whispered, “Yes, please.”
Strangely enough meeting the weird kid turned out to be the turning point in their lives.