Ingeit worked as quickly as promised, and less than an hour later Mud was presented with a now sheathed Ego. The scabbard was made of smooth red leather with trim of a highly reflective silver metal. Studded along the length were reflective diamond shapes of the same metal.

Ultimately, the smith had talked down some of Ego's requests, pointing out how hard it would be to clean gore off of sequins. As a result, the final product was rather more subdued than the sword wanted, but it was willing to compromise. For the final modification, Ingeit had attached three streaming red ribbons from the base of Ego's handle, each as long as the handle itself.

Mud accepted its sister and strapped her to its back. Over their bond, Mud felt she was much more pleased with this arrangement than being bundled in fabric. Even when selecting the fabric to wrap her in, Mud had difficulties as the sword expressed strong disgust at being wrapped in simple burlap, not being mollified until a more vibrant fabric was used.

The strength of personality on the sword was rather confusing to Mud. Ostensibly it was constructed in the same way, so Mud had assumed the sword would have similar thought patterns. Instead, the sword seemed to have an obsession with appearance, having a strong desire to be seen and appreciated.

Heading out of the store door as the dwarf waved its metallic arm in farewell, Mud thought back to the quirks in its own personality. Over its short life, the only times when it had taken proactive action outside of the realm of its orders was when it cleaned. Even now, looking at the small bits of trash and dirt on the city streets, Mud had to repress his desire to halt all its tasks to tidy up the entire city.

The thought had occurred to the golem before; perhaps The Master had subconsciously imbued Mud with a desire to clean during construction. And, likewise, perhaps The Master's vision of a great weapon was that it should be seen and adored.

Realizing he had forgotten something rather important, Mud asked its sibling a question.

"Ego, what are your prime directives from The Master?"

"I must not be unsafe to use. I must perform my function efficiently unless it would harm the user. I must remain intact during use unless my destruction is required for safe use. When I have chosen an owner, I must follow all of the owner's orders. I may not take any action not in the best interest of a living owner. Those are the directives father gave me." After a pause, Ego added "father also told me that someone would come soon and say they were my master, and I should accept them as my first owner. That was the last time I saw him, aside from when you dragged him downstairs."

Unexpectedly, the directives were extremely different from Mud's own. It did explain some peculiarities of Ego's actions, however. While being stored on a shelf, Ego never made any actions. That was why the sword still had no unique skills after so long. None of the orders seemed like they would inhibit function or cause issues, and it appeared the sword even valued its own safety. Just to be sure, however, Mud decided to add another order.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Ego, if you are ever stolen or separated from me, do your best to return to my side. Someone who steals you is not your owner."

"Of course! That much is obvious. But, I'll keep that in mind."

Satisfied, Mud moved quickly to leave the city. While all of this was necessary, it had wasted precious time. The tournament was starting tomorrow morning, and it was already near midnight. Considering travel time, there would only be four hours for level grinding Ego. Not nearly enough.

Reaching the edge of town a few minutes later, Mud immediately took to the treetops. As it traveled rapidly northeast it kept on the lookout for any prey. On the way to the slime clearing, Mud managed to ambush three wolves and a deer, killing them in coordination with Ego. Due to time concerns, Mud simply wielded the sword as before.

Finally arriving at the river, it was time to see if the improvements to Ego would be enough. Releasing the sword over the river, Mud simply waited.

While the movements of the sword were now noticeably smoother, there was still the occasional wobble as she slowly lowered herself to the forest floor. Hovering above a slime, Ego took a moment to balance herself. With a sudden smooth sweeping motion, Ego spun around like a wheel and cut a long gash along the magical beast.

Reacting to the foreign sensation, sticky tentacles of slime reached up towards the sword. Ego reacted smoothly by swaying to the side, dodging the gooey whips. With another spin a new gash appeared along the slime. Again the beast grasped, and again it was cut. This dance continued, but at the fifth cut the slime finally lost cohesion and died.

After the kill, Ego performed a flourishing spin and pointed her blade to the sky triumphantly.

"Don't waste time, continue slaying slimes. I will collect more to reduce travel time."

Ego felt upset, but did as instructed. The sword floated towards a new target, and Mud set off to lure another slime closer to her position.

Like this, the pair continued killing monsters at a rapid pace for several hours. As Ego gained three more levels in her class the movements were refined further. By then, she could kill a slime in a single slice. Such growth could not last forever, though.

"There are no more slimes in the field. Let's return to the estate and collect the demon. It's time to return to town."

As they returned to the mansion, Mud focused a bit of attention on cleaning the slime off of Ego. While it was unable to corrode the high-quality material she was made of, it was still unsettling to have The Master's property so filthy. Ego, for her part, was delighted to have such direct attention, divided as it was.

By the time they arrived at the Domain Ego was spotless. Proceeding into the basement, Mud found the demon putting away some tools.

"Oh, Mud. It's time to go soon, right? I just finished up with my side project, so I'm ready... What's that on your back?" Jabrax pointed at the high-quality blade on the golem's back.

"This is the Ego Sword The Master constructed. I will use it in the tournament."

Jabrax rubbed the side of her head with one clawed hand. "This is going to be a real disaster if we don't win that contest. Well, it would have been anyway, so might as well use every advantage..."

"Jabrax, I believe the Delver's Association clerks are aware I am a golem and that I am using an ego sword, should I be concerned?"

Walking towards the exit, Jabrax waved an arm dismissively. "No, I'm pretty sure they know I'm a demon too. The clerks have a lot of... rules they need to follow." After wiping the blood from her hands with a towel, the demon walked up the stone stairs from the basement, Mud close behind. "Unless we cause a problem for the Association, they won't act."

"That said," Jabrax pointed a claw at Ego. "If the Leader needs to present an ego sword to the prince and one doesn't exist, it would be pretty embarrassing for the Association. At that time they'll probably rat you out. Letting you know they know was probably a warning."

Mud wasn't too concerned. Losing the competition was never an option in the first place.