25 days until the E grade advancement tournament.
Akira gently placed Juryoku onto her stand. He slotted his new, unnamed, sword slightly beneath it before bowing at both blades.
Three entire days of training with both swords and he still hadn’t familiarised himself with the new weapon, he still didn’t feel like it was his yet.
Juryoku had adapted to him instantly. She was his first big purchase on Arenara Fortunis. Although a better sword had landed directly on his lap, Akira still didn’t want to discard her.
He walked across his room, wondering why the new sword just didn’t feel the same.
Patience. It will come with time. You don’t even know her name yet.
Akira crossed his legs and closed his eyes as he sat, with his back perfectly straight, facing his blades.
One more time.
An object will remain at rest until an outside force acts upon it.
An object’s acceleration is dependent on its mass and the force applied.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I know the principles, so what went wrong?
He opened his eyes, breaking his meditation to gaze at the twin swords mounted perfectly in the centre of his apartment. He’d removed the ornamental weapons that’d sat there before. Now there were only the two of them.
The unnamed sword — Jishaku, Jiki maybe? — Extended far wider than Juryoku, almost scraping the walls either side of it. Its black blade seemed to warp the light around it, twisting the gentle dusklight into iridescent loops around itself.
Juryoku’s polished silver blade dragged Akira’s attention upwards, commanding him away from her new sister. Even in the dimly lit room, she still glistened in the light.
Gravity, and magnetism. I understand them, at least as well as I can. They resonate with me. I was not brought into this world for normalcy. That is not my path.
These two essences align with my own. They impart their will on the fabric of the universe, just as I wish to.
I know I am to be the bridge that binds them.
It is my will, just as it is my destiny.
…
“Who am I fricking kidding?”
Akira collapsed into a slouch on the wall behind him. He kicked his legs out and released a huge sigh. “Cause it certainly ain’t me.”
The samurai and stoics of old may have found purpose in debating the world’s mysteries through rhetoric and prophecy. Akira didn’t.
What am I even doing?
Akira felt the urge to rip both swords off the wall and never bother meditating again, but he held strong. He wasn’t that weak. If this method didn’t work, he’d have to adapt it.
If the adaptation didn’t work, he’d change it.
If the change didn’t work… He’d figure something out.
I have to.
I have to become stronger.
But how?
The best scientists on Earth haven’t figured out gravity, much less fusing it with magnetism. How am I supposed to do it alone?
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Although he’d been a gladiator for quite some time, Akira still attacked Harmony with the mind of a scientist. The methodical way of thinking had worked well for him, even if some scholars on Eterna considered it sub-optimal.
Science is never static. Every scientist stands on the shoulders of giants while grasping for the sky. What they see in the stars might one day bring humanity closer to reaching them.
But they can’t simply look up.
The giants may have helped humanity grow, but their wisdom isn’t absolute.
They may be tall, but so are the heavens. And it’s better to fall to the ground than be chained to the sky.
Akira, and every young scientist, knew this. After all, why simply follow the greats when you can join them?
But what if the scholars were right, and his science-based outlook limited him? To get around that he couldn’t simply abandon past precepts for newer ones.
He had to rethink his patterns of thought if he wanted to advance further. He had to rework his reality if he wanted to live a life beyond the Second Chance Coliseum.
And he wouldn’t let the real world get in the way of that.
Not again.
As Akira's eyes drifted onto his new sword’s handle, still wrapped in the ruby red of the Flaming Tomb Alliance, he thought about the way he’d won the sword.
About who’d won it for him.
Electricity is just as universally intrinsic as gravity, and even more so than magnetism. Jay can’t possibly understand his essence in the same way I do mine, but he wields it all the same.
I can’t copy his method; I wouldn’t even want to.
But what can I learn from it?
----------------------------------------
Two days later.
Stupid.
Frickin.
Bugs!
Akira sliced through the giant flying insect whizzing towards him. Its viscous brown blood swirled around Juryoku, clinging onto the metal for a few seconds before sloughing onto the forest grass by his feet.
Insect was one word for the dozen flying creatures hounding Akira. They reminded him somewhat of mosquitos.
Well, mosquitos that were cat sized and had four-inch-long blades on each leg. He’d converted hundreds of the creatures to a mushy mound beneath his feet. Every time he killed one, it felt like two more took its place
Verdant Frontier’s no joke.
Akira’s new sword, Jiki, sliced through a glistening wing. Under its previous wielder, that would’ve been a death sentence. Akira didn’t snatch the animal’s soul away, nor did he corrupt it into a shrivelled grey husk.
Blood spurted from the wound, following Jiki instead of falling to the floor. The creature’s body remained in flight, arcing through the air behind the sword.
Akira twisted his wrist, reversing his blade’s direction and instantly stopping his swing.
The insect kept going, soaring forward and bisecting itself with its own momentum.
Only eleven le-
Each mosquito stopped mid-air. After fighting against the swarm for almost an hour, Akira had grown accustomed to the shrill whine of their wings needling into his ears.
He’d almost forgotten what silence sounded like.
“What you’re trying to do isn’t easy.”
Akira heard a woman's voice call out from behind him.
He ducked underneath the unmoving insects, keeping half an eye on their bladed legs. His boots squelched into the mulchy corpses as he walked out of the stationary cloud of insects.
It didn’t take long to spot the woman speaking to him.
She sauntered out from the treeline. Her gold silk robes trailed behind her, sweeping the dew from the grass. She stopped just before the forest glade became a giant insect burial mound.
Golden freckles crossed the bridge of her hooked nose, standing out from her light brown skin and framing her high, jagged cheekbones. The woman surveyed the corpses before her, scanning the ground with her deep amber eyes before they made their way to Akira.
Two days ago, when Akira had left Arenara Fortunis, he’d paid a sailor to drop him off on an uninhabited island. Preferably one crawling with dangerous wildlife.
The woman before him seemed far more out of place than he was. She didn’t look like a hermit from a deserted island in the corner of the Verdant Frontier.
So how the hell did she get here?
“If it won’t be easy, why did you stop me from training?” Said Akira, he stared into the woman’s calculating eyes. Awaiting a response.
“You call this training?” she said, her lips curling into a coy smile. “Twenty-three days of this won’t get you anywhere. This isn’t training.”
“What is it then?”
“This? This is just masochism fooling you into thinking pain equals progress. You’re better than this Akira. We both know that. What could these creatures possibly teach you about your new sword?”
Who the hell is this?
Akira stayed stone faced as he mulled over the woman’s words and tried to guess her intentions. She didn’t seem hostile, and he didn’t recognise her from anywhere.
The Flaming Tomb? No way. Anyone strong enough to kill me surely had more important stuff to do.
So who is she?
What does she want?
“If you’re such an expert, have you got any better ideas?” said Akira.
The woman held her left hand out. Beads of liquid gold rolled down her arm, coagulating into an ornate rapier.
Akira’s eyes widened.
The woman raised her sword, aiming its point squarely at his face. The blade’s edge was razor thin, and looked like a swirling fusion of gold and steel beneath the rays of sunlight. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the barely visible blade, like a primal sense of danger refused to let him look away.
She brought its tip down, and Akira could finally look her in the eyes again. Her enigmatic smile returned, and the sword reformed into liquid gold that rolled back up her sleeve.
“Well, if you ask nicely…”