Wolfram
Wolfram lowered his spear and shield as he looked down at the large gut wound from Isaiah’s weapon. Yet again it seemed he’d have to lessen the soul shackles placed on himself while in the training hall, and this meant he’d practically be fighting as if he was a new D rank instead of an E rank like his apprentice.
And this was with Isaiah not even fully mastering his skills, merging a skill with his cultivation technique, or wearing armor of any kind, his clothes all completely torn up.
Feeling a bit down, Wolfram apparently missed the fact someone had entered into the training room with them, only noticing when the man started clapping.
The room they were in was large, a six kilometer cube made out of high grade wood, and the entrance was in one corner while he and Isaiah had ended up on the opposite end, so it wasn’t that odd that he’d missed the new man entering.
He’d been completely focused on Isaiah and he hadn’t expected someone to enter as he’d locked the room, meaning normally only the Alchemist of the Deep Woods, who was currently participating in the Universal Auction, or one of the Forest Cauldron’s five elders could enter without his permission.
The man clapping, however, was someone he didn’t recognize. As the man teleported next to them and Wolfram got a better look at his ridiculously handsome face, however, Wolfram grew pretty sure the E rank youth was the shopkeeper of the Universe’s Best E Rank Processed Materials who’d gone missing four months before, causing a slight commotion among the Forest Cauldron’s younger female population.
“That was quite impressive.” The young man’s voice was deep, not quite to the same extent as Isaiah or Wolfram himself, but somehow clearer and more authoritative. “I’ve been fighting in the soul net’s Universal Arena all the time over the last six and a half years, but I don’t think I’ve faced anyone as strong as you, Isaiah. You’re probably tier 9 or 10 already.”
“Do you need something, Mr. Guardian?” Isaiah asked, pausing slightly before saying the name, like he had to think to remember it.
“Is it safe to talk around him?” The handsome shopkeeper pointed at Wolfram without looking at him and Wolfram got the distinct impression he was being looked down on, or at least not seen as important.
“This is Wolfram Gan, my master.” At these words from Isaiah, the newcomer finally looked at him, actually bowing slightly, and Wolfram felt a bit better. But then Isaiah continued talking and Wolfram’s mood rose even more. “Your master formed a contract with him forcing him to hide all information about me, so your identity would be included in that.”
“Okay.” The man, who Wolfram now remembered was named World Guardian, ignored him again. But, as he was apparently a secret apprentice to the Alchemist of the Deep Woods herself, and Wolfram wasn’t stupid enough to not understand the implications of that combined with his apprentice having an E rank lord with seemingly infinite energy, Wolfram didn’t really mind. “I’ve been doing too much alchemy over the last four months and haven’t gotten a chance to really test out my stats, so I was hoping for a duel.”
“Sure.” Isaiah looked excited as he turned to Wolfram again. “Master, will you be the judge?”
“Of course.” Wolfram took a few steps back and found himself growing excited.
His apprentice was an absolute talent, yet he trained like a madman just to try and keep up with his lord, and now Wolfram would finally get a chance to see just why this blue-haired youth gave his apprentice so much pressure.
“Alright. Just give me a second.” World Guardian reached out both his hands and a green life energy filled runic script appeared in front of him which Wolfram recognized as the settings page of the training room. How the youth had access to it, however, Wolfram didn’t know. Some of the mages of the Forest Cauldron had created the main settings for the room, and only about five cultivators in the entire force could modify them, but Wolfram had seen it done in the past and each time anything was modified several passcodes had to be entered, yet Isaiah’s lord was seemingly bypassing those security checks completely as he made what looked to be some major modifications to the room’s settings.
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“Good.” As World Guardian finished, the runes faded and the youth looked back to Isaiah. “I changed the settings of the room to greatly boost the amount of power in the healing formations. So long as we don’t injure each other’s souls, it will be pretty much impossible to die here given our level of power. But the healing will only trigger if we would die, so being healed by the room can be considered a loss.”
The young man then summoned three objects out of the spatial storage ring he was wearing on his right hand, a green crystalline orb, a gray metallic spear seemingly all made from one piece of metal almost exactly the right size for Isaiah, and a gray shield in the round style Isaiah preferred. “We can also use this chance to test out the new artifacts I made for you.”
The youth controlled the three artifacts with telekinesis and passed the spear and shield over to Isaiah, who immediately dropped the spear and shield he had been using before.
“The spear and shield are both rather simple. The spear is designed to channel and enhance your Blazing Destruction Law along with your Advanced Power Attack skill while the shield is designed to channel and enhance your Iron Defense Law and your Advanced Guardian skill.” The blue-haired youth smiled. “They also, however, can temporarily absorb spirits to enhance their power. And this is the prototype for what I’m thinking of making for you in the War of the Chosen.
“Do they need any adjustments?”
Isaiah practiced some basic stabs and sweeps with the spear and several defensive moves and a bash with the shield. “The shield is perfect, but could you adjust the spear to be three millimeters longer and a half millimeter less thick?”
“Sure.” World Guardian took back the spear with telekinesis and Wolfram watched in amazement as the dimensions of the spear changed in just a few seconds. There was no heating, no forging techniques. Isaiah’s lord just sent in a bit of qi and mana and the material of the weapon conformed to his will.
Wolfram had heard of techniques that allowed for direct control over materials before, but they were at least Epic grade, and to do so without damaging the formations built into the weapon would require a Heroic grade skill at the very least, along with a high level of control.
World Guardian then passed the spear back to Isaiah and Isaiah swung it a few times, looking very excited, but Wolfram noticed his apprentice’s attention was more on the orb still floating in the air than the weapons in his hands. “But what is that orb?”
“Ooh, this is something special.” The grin on World Guardian’s face became bigger. “This is an artifact which was shown on the main stage near the beginning of the Universal Auction about three months ago, and my sister’s teacher bought it for you.
“It’s called a Bloodforged Living Armor and normally it’s just a growth artifact armor with transformation capabilities, so it wasn’t too expensive. But then it spent two months bathing in crystal water quintessence followed by my master and I performing some alchemy on it for another month, so it’s completely different than its original form, no longer just for defense.”
World Guardian pushed the green crystalline orb over to Isaiah with telekinesis. “Bind it with some blood. I want you to test it out.”
“Are you sure it’s not too expensive?” At hearing how much money and effort had been put into the artifact, Isaiah looked less sure of himself, not taking the orb which was held in front of him, but World Guardian just shook his head and pointed at the azure-scaled fingerless glove he was wearing on his left hand.
“Isaiah, for making my personal artifact, my sister’s master gave me something called an Orb of Devouring. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a unique treasure forged from the life core of a god ranked monster from another universe, completely unique and worth about a dozen times more than your modified living armor. Let the dead woman use her money as she likes, and, if you want to repay her, follow in her footsteps and kill some gods in the future. As for my master, don’t worry about it. She’s going to make far more money out of us than her time has been worth.”
Wolfram almost stopped breathing, but Isaiah seemed comforted, and he used his new spear to cut a wound on his wrist and let the blood drop down onto the green crystalline orb. The mana in the room became thinner as the orb absorbed about three fourths of it in a matter of seconds, and then World Guardian used telekinesis to push the orb through Isaiah’s tattered shirt and onto his chest.
The orb became like liquid and started to flow all over Isaiah’s body, forcing off all the torn clothes he’d previously been wearing, and then it transformed into green pants, brown boots, and a dark green battle robe, complete with a fitted hood and a brown crystalline dragon-like mask which covered Isaiah’s face.
“It has a soulshape of its own, into which I’ll be able to carve temporary skills, but we’ll wait on that.” World Guardian summoned out a large purple sword from the glove artifact on his left hand and held it in his right, but he didn’t change out of the non-artifact orange robe he was wearing. “What we want to test now is its defense, its built in berserking function, and whether it can truly act as a second skin, not affecting your sense of touch even when it entirely covers your body.”