Talented Sword Boy

"So what are these called?" At last, Ciemnosc asked the question that Elder Apegos didn't want to be asked. It wasn't that there was some kind of confidentiality, and if there was, fuck that. It had to do with the fact that this damned boy, no matter how many retries and hopes he had that it'll dismantle or break itself, the circular gear, which seemed like just a gear with a few silly additions here and there, Ciemnosc asking him this is the same as accepting his capabilities.

“Ugh… It is called the Synergized Equatrend Mobilizer…” With his pride, heart, and bleeding out from his orifices, Elder Apegos said, and he could already see Ciemnosc’s face becoming more, more, more and more ecstatic as he finally exclaimed. “Cool! How much are these worth? Maybe 10 Supreme Powerful Stones, hmmm?”

“Nonsense. Even if the price was to be for Supreme Powerful Stones, it’ll be in the equivalent to Inferior Powerful Stones and not Supreme grade ones. They are far too few and uniquely important. But, the only reason they are not sold in Supreme grade ones is because their sellers cannot be cheated that much.” Elder Apegos looked at Ciemnosc the moment he finished saying that, his wheelchair and the whole atmosphere becoming still.

“Oh, but cheating someone of their money doesn’t seem that helpful, isn’t it?” Ciemnosc spoke after blinking for the 8th time in silence. Elder Apegos became intrigued by his words besides also mentally sighing in relief. Hence he asked in return. “How would you sell it, boy?”

“Well…” Ciemnosc seemed to be asked the millionth Supreme Powerful Stone question. He stretched his body, cracked every single bone in his powerful body, and began saying with a casual, firm tone. “First of all, I’d first sell it at a very low price, lower than even the most desperate ones around. Then, once an upgraded version appears in my hands, I’ll sell it higher than the greediest person around who sells the basic one.”

“Hmm…where did you learn that?” Elder Apegos looked at him after scratching his right eyepatch, his left eye seemingly not in disagreement with him. But all Ciemnosc did was support his forearms on the large desk with his bent back and say nothing, his gaze low for the first time to which Elder Apegos changed his subject for some reason he also didn’t comprehend. “Furthermore, what are you talking about improvements? This is the most advanced technology we have, and it came from a powerful cultivator from the outside!”

“What, could it be that you’ve devised something in your own little, inexpert mind?” Elder Apegos asked one more time, this time ruthlessly as the boy could be seen going back to what he was and looked at the old man; offended. “These are worth 12,000 Inferior Powerful Stones. Now pass me the inscriber. I bet you haven’t seen arrays in the making yet, right?”

“!” Ciemnosc’s eyes shone delightedly, and he hurriedly went towards the nearest worktable and picked up a pen-like thingie that was 2 and a half times the size of his thumb. He then went back up to Elder Apegos and passed it to him. While Elder Apegos was checking the state of the inscriber with satisfied nods of his head, Ciemnosc innocently spoke…

“I haven’t seen any array, so I can only do some baby changes to these things, and at most, I just need to see the teacher here demonstrating to me before I can fully change it however I wa-” Ciemnosc was interrupted immediately by Elder Apegos when the latter couldn’t take it anymore. “Silence! I need to concentrate. Making arrays isn’t an easy thing, kid. It’s the hardest vocation along with alchemy at all of its stages!”

“...” The grumpy old man made Ciemnosc quiet indeed, as the poor boy could only let his pout and a wronged face speak of his brain’s current thoughts and wishes.

Elder Apegos made sure that he saw a quiet Ciemnosc before finally looking at the gear in his hands, of top notch quality, and that was already making his eyes praise it for every little step needed and every single little detail as well as uniquely special engraving here and there that didn’t affect any most minuscule property of the Synergized Equatrend Mobilizer.

His right hand held the gear while his left hand the pen-like inscriber. It had a fatty body from the tip of the ‘pen’ to the middle of it, and in the back was a kind of engraving that began turning blue the moment Elder Apegos switched a button on the middle of the pen inscriber. Then, with his Spirit Sense guiding and his head and whole face fully concentrated on the gear as if his left hand didn’t exist in the first place, he began moving his left hand like a crazed painter’s moment.

Swish- crrr, fyyyyii fyyyyyii~.

Ciemnosc watched as the blue from the back transmitted to the tip via even more, previously hidden engravings; he couldn’t understand anything of what any of these were doing, but he felt that they made sense. Except for a few parts that made him look at them for more than 1 or 2 seconds, and even without him wanting to, it was a marvelous sight nevertheless.

But looking at the other end of the pen inscriber, Ciemnosc saw what was basically a futuristic scene with the pen drawing in the air and space itself, as if a spell was being told to the world and it was in the making of something beautiful, intelligent, and clever.

There were traces that at first, for anybody looking at them, they wouldn’t make sense. Just as much as certain portrait drawing techniques would look like they had nothing to do with their end result, from just lines and shapes to a whole, authentic, and living image of someone or something - it was that precious to witness.

By the time a minute passed, the long, quaky, and edgy lines that were all around the place with the old man having spent quite some Spirit Sense and beginning to sweat just a tiny bit, he finally began to do what Ciemnosc could only intuitively believe to be the creation of an array’s soon to be finished - steps.

Elder Apegos’s left hand went all around the gear, inscribing even the tiniest bit of glowing blue onto the black metal and seemingly being capable of forming a dozen words in just 1 square centimeter so to speak.

Ciemnosc looked on with even more rapt attention, closing in his head and almost invading with his face- Elder Apegos looked at him for an instant and noticed the clearly stupefied facial expression on his face and became smug. Before long, he added a few last touches to the gear, finishing it up by making a few random-like and useless dots in a blatant demeanor.

Tu to tu to- fwuoooosh~~!

Every single trace of glowing blue around that was in the air and space around them went directly unto the gear’s whole structure while the ones on the gear moved on and about like chains that were pulling a mechanism; the traces of glowing blue in the air began decorating the whole gear with themselves in a miniature fashion as if they were entering a brand new world, becoming one with the entire structure of the gear at every corner - inside out.

In the end, the traces that Ciemnosc could tell were from the ones directly inscribed on the gear stationed at the center of the gear, seemingly crossing through the middle of it as it appeared on both sides of its structure. When Elder Apegos silently gave it back to him to see it, Ciemnosc was amazed at how it had become a few tens of kilograms higher with just that array, for it had finally been finished.

“What was that for?” The moment he spent almost an hour checking the entire gear, Elder Apegos was also constantly looking at the time when Ciemnosc suddenly asked, and Elder Apegos took a few moments to realize what he was talking about. “Ah, just my signature. Everyone has it.”

“Mmm…” Ciemnosc pouted and hummed, his face seemingly troubled as he narrowed his eyes a tiny wee bit. Elder Apegos saw it and, with a knowing smile, he spoke to Ciemnosc with an easing bro to bro smile, “It takes a long time to have one, a Craftspeople usually takes hundreds of years before forming their own signature.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“How long did old m- Elder Apegos take to find his own signature?” Ciemnosc said a bit fidgety. Elder Apegos shook his head at this ‘dumb’ boy and said without seeming to care one bit about it. “It took me 400 years, I started trying to gain my own in my 200’s and…have been using it since 30 years ago. I am- I am 630 years old already.”

For a cultivator with a lifespan of 800 years and being more than half the remaining stages to reach the next realm, it seemed like Elder Apegos himself didn’t have any more hope about his future for there wouldn’t even be one.

“Ah… No, no no no, no! That’s too long…” Ciemnosc exclaimed, turning the old man back to life and out of his state of being lost in thoughts. But while Ciemnosc was all too light and content with today’s learning, he suddenly looked at Elder Apegos as if Apegos had something to say, and he nailed it.

“Since you like array formations so much. Then I’ll be teaching you exactly that next time. You will come to know what the meaning of difficult learning means. It won’t be my fault if you take decades to even become an apprentice of sorts and lose time in anything else. Now go. It’s getting really late and whoever brought you here must be getting anxious not seeing you come out like others always do. I’m not a kidnapper of good talent, so leave. While you can.”

Step, hop hop hop, step step~.

Failing to scare Ciemnosc off, the boy hopped around a bit and mixed steps in as he walked to where his sword was, and picked it up, looked back at the old man who was moving away with his chair, and waved a polite goodbye. Elder Apegos uncaringly returned with his back towards Ciemnosc.

Creak~ thud.

The door to the mountain-rock place was opened and then closed, the lights from within wholly illuminating the ground outside for 2 seconds before going back to being almost pitch - deep blue and obscured.

Within the mountain rock, Elder Apegos was looking a bit towards the ceiling with his head slightly inclined backwards on his wheelchair’s backrest. He sighed almost inaudibly before turning his wheelchair and walking up to the end behind his large desk, where a large trap door opened to reveal a ‘staircase’ suddenly showed up.

However, just as he was going to move right down towards it, a voice came from the outside of the mountain rock. It came from a female, “Is Elder Apegos not going to greet me? I have just arrived, so I hope I’m not being too inconvenient for you?”

“...Sigh.” Elder Apegos got the trap door to close and then turned around. He moved his wheelchair with his Spirit Sense working the gears of the wheels down his back. He opened the door and revealed the beauty of blonde hair. Elder Apegos bowed his head and shoulders a bit before turning around and going over behind his large desk to take out a nice bottle of some sort of liquid before starting to pour it into a couple of normal-sized cups.

“I heard that there was a new boy around - here? Hmm, he stayed for so long in here. How good is he, really now?” The beautiful blondie said with her elbows landing on the other end of the desk. This beauty always has coldness though, which made her smiling right now so charming and even priceless to a certain degree…

Her azure-white eyes gave out a very enchanting sensation, despite her coldness and despite her status. Elder Apegos gulped down and said after he passed one of the cups towards her, “Ancestor Pu, the boy right now…yes, that homeless little thing of an outer disciple is really good in the use of his cognitive capabilities. His talent for any kind of vocation…is bound to be good.”

“Aaah~~!” Pu Lianter, Ancestor Pu Lianter exclaimed almost high pitched, her mouth opened, and she lifted the cup with her right hand to her face while her eyes looked as if gladly surprised at Elder Apegos’s words right now. She then slowly placed it back down on the desk while lightly ‘probing’, “Mister Apegos, it seems that child is really, really something. Then how about I bring to you my greatest weapon? He is also a bit talented, I hope he won’t be too lowly compared to the wandering rat from just now you like to praise~?”

“Agh, ah… No, of course not! As long as your disciple shows me talent for anything, I won’t let him run back with a wronged face. Ancestor Pu, you be at ease, the sect’s most important disciples, like yours, cannot be compared to a brand new outer sect disciple like the likes of ‘him’.” Elder Apegos said with his face all up, the corners of his eyes glad that he stored the book with decrepit, brown hide.

“Mhee, GULP~...” Ancestor Pu Lianter was content, so pleased with herself, she gave Elder Apegos one last, long glance, and before leaving, she dumped the entire cup into her stomach, leaving not even a remaining odor of the fine liquor from the cup.

Slide- thud!

“...” Elder Apegos closed his eye for a few seconds, opening them only when he downed that whole cup of liquor down his throat. Without even looking around one bit, he poured cup after cup of liquor down to his stomach, in silence; as he reckoned, his life would be a bit moved from now on.

. . .

Back at the Outer Sect Disciple’s enclave, 3 km away from its entrance.

“Phew ~!” Ciemnosc was patting his pants all over from where the half-Giant bus driver dropped him off towards the enclave. A big anaconda hiding between that was already getting used to weird gravities relaxed after a few more tugs, and right before the enclave’s entrance was before the boy.

It was already pretty much night. Ciemnosc was worried that he was too late to not be fined and listed on a certain ‘list’ for being so unruly in this not sophisticated new place at all.

“Hey boy, who are you?” Ciemnosc barely got close to the entrance when, on his right on his way towards the ‘striped’ metallic gate, from a casement came the image of a fatso man whose big eyes looked at him through the dark. Ciemnosc thought, ‘Another guard at the Link Consolidation Realm, this time at the 8th stage.’

“Hello, sir, I’m an outer se-” Ciemnosc was suddenly rudely interrupted by the fatso man, “I know you are one! You are coming here for a reason! And only little shits like you so weak you could barely hear from, even when breaking the bones from tearing your sweet life apart in the first place!!”

“Now, fee.” Ciemnosc chose to remain silent, his gaze turning indifferent but also calm and serene. As a result, the fatso in the casement grinned unrestrainedly at the little shit of a boy, before extending his hand outside the casement’s lower aperture and saying with a flat tone.

“Excuse me, sir, there is no need to pay a fee. I can see that clock, it says the time, and I know how to read the time, sir.” Ciemnosc was polite. Alright, but his next set of words was spoken with a softness that was even almost just a very weak and soft tone. “I don’t need to pay any fees.”

“What clock?!” The fatso became flustered, his fatty cheeks bobbling about as he aimed at the clock from his casement while the clock was outside the building to clearly show he knew what Ciemnosc was talking about. “The time will be what I say the time is! You will pay a fee if I say that you will - pay - a - fee!”

“I don’t think so,” the weak and soft tone from before prevailed from Ciemnosc’s mouth. He looked into the fatso’s eyes and remained inert. The fatso didn’t even care. He directly got his fat body all too close to the window and slowly, word by word, uttered out in a frisky and predatory manner. “You aren’t entering in time then, and even refuse to pay the fee. Those are 2 ‘crimes’, now-”

PWUUUM~~... CLASSSHH~!! Ruuugh- thud~!

All the fatso man could see was a hand already appearing before him just as he was finished writing a few lines in a notebook, having remained standing up and still close to the glass. The next thing he knew of was the sound of the whole window breaking, and for a long time somehow, before his body was pulled out of the casement, and the sounds of shattered glass overwhelmed his senses.

His body was unceremoniously dragged through the lower bottom of the window, pieces of glass penetrating his unprepared body despite having the strength of 1,000 kg. And when he fell on the floor, it was yet at least 10 times more painful than the glass moving about its fat and grease in his stomach.

“I don’t think so.” The fatso heard the very same weak and soft tone. But besides that now, he could also feel an ever so cold blade, one that wasn’t of ordinary materials…a cultivator’s, Mortal grade, weapon that not even the richest kids of the upper echelons of the Self-Mutilating Sect can even get with just money!

“I-if you kill me, you’d be betraying t-th- the sect! Euuyuhh~!!” The fatso trembled, bemoaning in terror a bit, and below Ciemnosc’s tip of his blade, the coldness was too much despite the blade being too thin. But instead of seeing hesitation and hearing nice words that claimed his survival, Ciemnosc simply uttered out.

“Between you, an old fatass, and me, a young and promising child barely beginning his cultivation to make the sect grow stronger… Which would you kill to appease the other?”

“!!!”

…