“We did it!” Alysia cried out.

“Yeah… we did!” I chuckled as I stumbled into the safe room and put her down.

As soon as I lost contact with her, I collapsed to the ground. Having the feel of your soul being chopped in two, and then multiply it by five, and that’s exactly what I felt. Just to keep from passing out, I cast refresh several times. It kept my mind lucid, but the pain lingered for some time.

Thankfully, Alysia was too excited to realize what was going on. She spoke excitedly about all of the things she could do now that she was a blade. I had to admit that if she could do even half of the things she claimed, she’d be seriously powerful. I was even tempted to go through with the whole thing and turn her into a sword, rather than return her to a physical body. However, ultimately, if I had the choice, I would bring her back as an Osterian, which is what she was supposed to be.

It took nearly a day for me to recover from the pain all of the way. I claimed I wanted to let Alysia grow a better understanding of her newfound ability, and also ponder on what the final two trials of the dungeon would be. That last part was at least a little true. I checked out the mural. It didn’t really show me anything. It showed the man happy in a village with his daughter. Meanwhile, there was a dark threat growing in the distance. If I was ordering the murals, this probably should have been the first one. That threat was the dungeon, which ultimately killed his daughter and led him on his dark path.

When the pair of us were back in top condition, we prepared for the 8th and possibly hardest trial yet. Unlike the previous 7, I had no clue what this one would even ask me to do. That was why I was only further confused when I walked into the room to see a similar coliseum, but it was different because there was a massive hot forge at the end.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“This trial is about sealing your sword.” The little girl guide appeared just as suddenly as she always did.

“Seal?”

“Mm… the sword has been forged in blood, now, it must be forged in fire. You will have to place it in the forge and stick it there. It will likely try to escape, but you must place your personal sigil on it.”

“My sigil? I don’t have a sigil.” I admitted.

“You are not a lord?”

“I am, it just…never came up.”

“That’s fine. You will need your sigil.” She waved her hand, and a table appeared on the side, filled with dozens of tokens. “Choose the sigil you want.”

“Do you have a sigil?” I whispered to Alysia as I began to walk over to the edge.

“My family does. We don’t have last names like the human nobles, but our family crest is a Banewolf. I supposed that makes my family the Banewolf family. Well, there is no one from our family left.”

“I think I recall seeing that sigil on some livery at the wedding.”

“The humans are more interested in their sigils. I’m surprised you don’t have one.”

“Ah! Maybe I do!”

I suddenly recalled that I had been handed a token of nobility by Aberis. It had been to designate me as a noble to anyone if I ever needed to ask. Perhaps, that was my sigil. Well, it was fine to come up with a new one and make it mine. I scanned the table filled with sigils. I wasn’t sure where she had gotten these from.

That was when my eyes fell on a certain sigil, and it immediately called to me. It showed two circles superimposed, kind of like a Venn diagram. In front of it was a doorway, which appeared to be the doorway to a dungeon. I realized the circles behind it were actually worlds. Dungeons are a doorway between worlds. This sigil seemed to represent that union.

I picked it up. “This… this is my sigil.”