"Hello, dear customers...Wait, what the hell are you doing here?!? You should still be asleep!" Rusty yelled with wide-opened eyes as he watched Glenn enter the store, searching for signs of the Smith. The young man smiled wryly, scratching the back of his head innocently.

"Well, I did sleep, even though it wasn't the most comfortable place to. Anyway, I'd gladly continue to forge the Soul Weapon — that's the name of the thing, right?" He confirmed, his eyebrows creased, grinning when Rusty wordlessly nodded at him. Glenn glanced at himself and his not-so-clean clothes, before pointing at the Smithery across the hallway.

"Uhh, do you think I need to change maybe, or...?"

Rusty shook his head before gesturing at the back of his shop, not even bothering to look at him.

"Just...Just go in the testing room, I'll call the Smith for you," The dwarf muttered almost inaudibly before exiting the shop and entering the Smithery, leaving Glenn alone in the Armory. The young man hesitantly looked around before shrugging, passing the counter, and entering the back store. Even though he had come many times in the shop to maintain his long-lost sword as well as his Soulbound suit, he had never been invited there.

"I'd never have guessed I'd find out about Rusty's secret rooms this way, all by myself, though..." He grinned nefariously as he took in the sight of the dozens of doors only waiting for him to open them.

'This might not be the greatest idea—'

Diamanes was too late in trying to warn his host as Glenn grabbed one of the door's handles, the metal sign encased on it reading "Living Creatures". With a name like that, Glenn's curiosity was bound to be aroused, and he didn't even hesitate for a second as he tried to open the door. The metal handle vibrated slightly, sending a wave of Mana through him. Glenn hurriedly pulled his hand back, feeling as if he had just been scanned by...something. A second later, the seemingly simple wooden door winced a crack opening from the bottom to its top. The young man took a step back, Mana twirling around his right hand as he carefully watched the crack tremble.

Suddenly, the crack widened, revealing a massive black eye with a shattered iris, like a sea of darkness with fragments of white floating aimlessly around. The white shards were suddenly pulled into the eye's center, forming a cross glowing with a somehow unholy light. Glenn smacked his lips, smiling innocently as he slowly took a step to the side, the black eye containing a white cross following him without a word. It was only when he was completely outside the eye perimeter that the crack in the wooden door closed down, the mysterious cross hidden away.

The young man scratched his chin and looked at the other doors, before nodding slowly at himself.

"Alright, let's, uh, not touch those anymore."

'Excellent resolution, maybe you'll live another day if you keep on swearing those,' Diamanes mockingly commented, his voice ringing inside his host's mind like a painful reminder of how curiosity can and will kill the cat. Glenn reined in his feelings as he walked into the corridor, ignoring all the doors that didn't contain "testing" in their names.

"If I have to die, I'd rather it not be by a fucking door..." He muttered, his face brightening up when he found the said "testing room". The now-not-so-curious man hesitantly grabbed the handle, waiting for a wave of Mana or some kind of strange stuff to happen, but he could open the door without anything happening. He entered a brightly lit room that seemed to be made entirely of metal, with dummies of different kinds placed chaotically in the room. One side would only have one in perfect condition, while the other would have a literal crowd of them waiting to be beaten up.

'...Great, it seems normal, just messy. Alright, let's wait for the Smith, then, I suppose,' Glenn thought as he explored the room more thoroughly. The metal walls were all scratched, with some being deeper than others, all witnesses to the terrible strength that exploded in the room. Glenn lightly tapped his fingers on his chin before casting a Carbon Blade and aiming it at the wall.

"...Do you think it'll go through?" He asked Diamanes aloud, the entity not bothering to reply.

"This is a testing room, it's supposed to be meant for holding against this kind of stuff...right?" Glenn mumbled hesitantly, before shooting the Carbon Blade against the wall. He had specifically invested a bit more Mana than needed to make the blade thicker and see the damages more clearly. The blade of energy flew through the air and collided with the metal silently. A massive rip in the metal just appeared out of nowhere, stopping at a few dozen centimeters deep. Glenn passed his tongue over his teeth as he looked at the destruction he just caused, his eyes darting around the room to find something to hide the mess he had just made.

The testing room's door suddenly cracked open, forcing Glenn to act in precipitation. A second later, Smith entered the room, eyes hidden beneath his long hair, carrying under his arm a package far too long and far too thin for Glenn's liking, the mysterious item wrapped in dirty rags. He didn't spare a glance at the wall Glenn tried his attack on, but the dwarf coming in behind him did check it. He frowned, scratching the top of his head with confusion.

"...I don't remember pinning dummies to the wall?" He muttered, looking at Glenn suspiciously. The young man made a surprised face and raised his hands innocently as he hoped Rusty wouldn't try and unpin them since that would reveal both the fact that he kept them up with his Gravity Manipulation and the rip in the wall.

"It already was like that when I came in," He shook his head, doing his best to try and look as least suspicious as he could. Rusty chewed on his lips, before shrugging dismissively. Glenn secretly breathed out in relief before bringing his attention back to the Smith who was carefully unwrapping the long and thin package. Rusty looked from the side, his hands in his pockets.

"Hrm, I thought you were more of a slash-type rather than a stab one..." He grumbled some nonsense, confusing Glenn to no end as he anxiously waited for the weapon's reveal. After the Smith pulled the last piece of clothes, Glenn was left with no other feeling but confusion.

"...The hell is that?" He blurted out, before reflexively apologizing, "...Sorry, it's just not really what I, hrm, expected, I suppose?" He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure out what exactly he was looking at. The Smith lifted the item, the bright light of the room shining their lights upon it. It was a thin, long pole, too short to be a spear but too long to be some kind of stabbing sword. There was no handle on it, and the "blade" was only a round but thin tube, making it impossible to cut anything. At least, the tip seemed expertly made for piercing, but it was much too weird of a weapon for Glenn's liking.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

The Smith didn't say anything as he held out the weapon at Glenn, who grabbed it with a puzzled expression, the cold metal feeling as foreign and weird as something possibly could. Rusty rubbed his chin before pointing at the weapon.

"Alright, now is the important part, the Balancing. Listen well, Glenn," Rusty approached him with nifty steps before pointing at the weapon, a concerning seriousness drawn on his face, "...For the Balancing, you need to put Mana in the weapon. Just run it like you would a normal weapon, but expect a connection. Even though it feels foreign for now, once the weapon recognizes you, that foreignness will disappear. When that happens, and I'm being very serious about that, you need to go all out and input all the Mana you have and don't have, alright?" The dwarf gravely explained, Glenn hurriedly nodding in reply.

"Even the Mana I don't have, huh..." Glenn muttered, before turning toward the tiny shopkeeper.

"Do you think you could bring a healer, one that specializes in treating damaged Mana Hearts?" He asked as a particularly dangerous idea sprang to the back of his mind.

'Okay, uhm, do you perhaps not remember what I told you not so long ago? About using Overload?' Diamanes slowly asked, doubting his host's thoughts. Glenn slowly nodded, a voracious curiosity burning in his heart. Rusty had sold him Soul-Smithing as a way to make custom-made legendary weapons, but it was made using his soul and Mana.

'Hey, what do you think if I infuse more Mana than what I'm supposed to hold...?' Glenn mentally asked, completely unconcerned with the entity's worries. Rusty scratched his ginger beard, before shrugging and shooting a strand of Mana randomly. It had been shot extremely fast, but Glenn had been able to somehow see it, no, feeling it might be a more correct way to express it. Before he could ponder on this newfound sensitivity, a green smudge slipped under the testing room's door, more and more of it sipping in as it shaped into a colossal figure that reached the ceiling of the room. Glenn hadn't realized how high it was until he saw the creature touch it, a grumbling sounding like a mix between a broken xylophone and a snake's hissing escaping out of...somewhere, the young man unable to find the monster's mouth anywhere.

Made entirely of dark green fibers that had an algae feeling to them, the monster stood like a mountain on top of a forest of thick massive limbs, some retracting inside the creature's body and some getting out depending on its movements. Its main body was riddled with massive holes containing a moving green liquid that seemed to work the same way eyes would. Its body was constantly changing, but keeping the same massive size and this fibrous matter that made it, as if it was all made of strands of vegetation only growing into the abysses of the ocean.

'...At least this doesn't look humanoid the slightest,' Glenn thought as he looked up at the creature, wondering where the hell Rusty found this hell-spawn. The dwarf walked up to the creature with a happy smile, patting a fibrous leg with friendliness. The creature hissed in reply, a strand detaching from its body and rolling itself affectionately around Rusty's arm.

"Allow me to introduce one of my best buddies: Bob!" Rusty grinned as he looked at the creature, one of the monster's eyes sliding downward through the fibers to stare at Glenn. The young man hesitantly smiled as he waved slowly at the creature — no — at Bob.

"Don't ask any questions, I probably don't know the answers to half of them. Just know that you don't risk anything with Bob standing right here, so try whatever you're going to try!" Rusty shot him a thumbs-up, Bob trying to mimic his dwarf friend's gesture by shaping his fibers into a seven-fingered hand with two thumbs, sending down Glenn's back a cold shiver as he understood the creature was smart enough to understand what Rusty was saying.

'Any idea what that is, Diamanes?' Glenn demanded while he prepared to shoot as much Mana as he could into the Soul Weapon. Diamanes blew raspberries with puzzlement, as much at a loss as his host.

'Nope, no idea. I've never been fond of the ocean's abyss, but that's exactly what I think things that lived down there would look like,' Diamanes laughed, not helping Glenn whatsoever. The young man sighed, steeling himself for whatever was to come, before shooting his Mana through the weapon. The metal pole began to glow blue, first faintly, then more and more intensely. The young man felt a thick string of Mana slowly go inside the weapon as his soul recognized the parts he had infused into it during the Infusion. Exactly as Rusty described it, the weapon that first felt the strangest thing he had ever held began to feel increasingly familiar, connecting with him to a deep level.

Glenn gasped, feeling the weapon somehow do something similar, a foreign sound that wasn't Diamanes or his mind playing a trick echoing in his head. It felt as if he had just...just touched a consciousness, something eerily similar yet so different.

'Did it gasp? What the fuck? Am I making myself a living weapon? What the hell?' Glenn's mind raced as he pondered whether he should put a stop to whatever weirdness was going on, before shooting even more Mana through the rod.

'If I'm going to get screwed, I might as well go all the way!' The young man clenched his teeth, feeling his usually quite large Mana reserve empty at an alarming rate as his output increased. He had never practiced trying to shoot all of his Mana at once, and it left him quite surprised to see how fast emptying his Mana pool was once he put his mind to it. The weapon glowed harder and harder, the metal squirming in his mind as loud creaking came from it. The Smith pulled his hair back as he leaned forward to observe the process, his face hidden from Glenn by the blinding light the weapon emitted. Rusty was standing right next to his giant fibrous buddy, worriedness filling his eyes as he prepared to ask Bob to go and save Glenn.

"FUCK!!" Glenn shouted as the pole began to heat up to an unbearable level, burning his hands to a crisp. He refused to let go of the pole, a hint of madness in his eyes as he kept on emptying his Mana into the weapon. Once again he felt that strange consciousness, but instead of pulling back because of how surprised he was, Glenn forced himself to try and push forward, the connection between him and the weapon growing deeper and deeper.

His Mana reacted with the weapon, resonating with it as he felt the hilt in his hand shift, the searing metal molding into something that felt natural for him to hold. The metal stopped glowing, instead becoming as dark as the void, swallowing the light of the room like a black hole. Glenn's eyes flinched, a terrible pain seizing his heart as he reached the bottom of his Mana reserve. Blood trickled down his eyes, his nose, and his lips as he grinned wickedly, both of his hands clenched on the weapon as he forced more Mana out of his body.

"When there is no more..." Glenn clenched his teeth and activated Overload, his eyes widening crazily as he smiled madly, "...THERE IS STILL SOME LEFT!"

The weapon that seemed ready to stop its transformation swallowed all light greedily, plunging the whole room into darkness as the only light present was the one it emitted. Glenn felt his mind fill with otherworldly roars as he absorbed more and more Mana, letting it fuel the sword's hunger. The young man felt his Mana resonate once more with the weapon when he felt something different.

Something was storing his Mana inside the weapon, something that seemed to grow more and more powerful as more Mana went into it, expanding and contracting. Glenn's consciousness was instinctively pulled into his Mana Heart, where he witnessed his three Circles shake under the effort, Mana passing through it violently. The Magellanic Clouds swelled out of the Circle perimeter, each bit that managed to escape detaching themselves and leaving into the void, to find...

'What's that? What the fuck is that?' Glenn couldn't help but question, staring at an object glowing into the darkness that was the expanse of his mind. It swallowed all leftovers of his Mana Heart voraciously, its power echoing with his own.

Glenn finally realized what the familiar feeling was. The foreign object in the middle of its genesis wasn't something unknown to him, no.

After all, it was a Mana Heart.

The same Mana Heart Glenn's chest contained, and yet, it couldn't be more different.

Glenn didn't get another second to be astounded as he reached his breaking point, unable to pull even another drop of Mana in with Overload.

Time came to a freeze as Glenn's heart stopped.

And there, he died.