Aalam
“So, a bastard sword. Why not a spear?”
Using one of his minds to enter the inheritance space of the 12 Elements Bastard Sword, Aalam’s senses for that mind had been transferred into a mental space which looked like a large futuristic city. It was about the size of Manhattan in New York, but with a technology level a couple hundred years more advanced, and it reminded Aalam of Coruscant, the galactic capital planet from Star Wars.
Mostly, however, Aalam was thinking about Star Wars because the man standing opposite him on the roof of a tall building looked like he could be the same race as the main villain from Episode I, Darth Maul. He had the same type of horns, the same yellow and red eyes, and the same tattooed-looking skin. Only, instead of red, the contrasting parts to the black sections of his skin were purple, and he looked more like Kumail Nanjiani than Ray Park.
“Um.” Aalam thought for a second, not having expected to be asked why he’d chosen the weapon type the inheritance was housed in. “Because I wanted to learn how to move with a weapon using telekinesis and various Laws, and this inheritance seemed to match me the best.”
“Oh.” The expression on the man’s face relaxed. “So you aren’t that attached to your weapon type.”
“No.” Aalam felt confused. “Not really.”
“Good.” The man, who was wearing a black gi and what looked like a spatial storage ring on his right hand, summoned a white bastard sword, seemingly made from bone, into his right hand. “What weapon do you prefer?”
Aalam felt a little embarrassed. “I don’t have enough experience to know.”
“Interesting.” The man attacked him, moving relatively slowly, like all his stats were at 144, and Aalam tried to defend himself using the copy of the 12 Elements Bastard Sword in his hand. He wasn’t able to, however, and he was stabbed right through the heart, though there was no damage as nothing was real. “And when you say you don’t have experience, you really mean you have no experience.
“What level are you?”
“5.”
The man frowned. “And how did you reach level 5 without knowing how to fight?”
“I set a trap with runes and killed a bunch of slaves.”
The man frowned further. “Well that’s rather dastardly.”
Aalam’s embarrassment deepened. “They’d been enemy combatants only a couple hours before.”
“So, you took prisoners and then killed them.” The man kept frowning. “You don’t learn from such actions. You should have at least tried fighting them one by one. Even if you’re weak, your attributes seem high.”
“Oh.” Aalam realized the man was disappointed in him not because of the moral implications, but because he seemed like he’d be a bad student. “I’m a crafter and I’ve been studying arrays for use in combat. The slaves didn’t see the attack coming and I killed 162 warriors all higher than level 5 in one go, leveling up to level 5 straight from level 1.”
The man’s face brightened slightly. “Ah, so you’re a noncombatant who wants to learn to defend himself. Why this legacy then? If your main goal is to defend yourself, you should choose a weapon with a better reach, like a spear. That way you can keep more distance.”
“Um.” Aalam was a bit nervous. Should he have chosen a spear legacy? But there hadn’t been one based around making use of telekinesis and infusing the power of all twelve elements. “I have the multi-mind skill and a skillset and artifact which allow me to create runes during combat. By holding a bastard sword, I can trick my enemies into thinking I’m a warrior and then destroy them with my runes, so the weapon seemed like a good choice. Finally, I have the Heroic grade Telekinesis skill and 36 peak grade Law Eggs, so this legacy seemed like a good fit.”
Aalam had completed upgrading all his Law Eggs to peak grade before deciding to try and learn how to better use them.
“Ah, using a bastard sword to disguise yourself as an idiot warrior. Good thought.” The man seemed happy. “What Law Eggs?”
It was then Aalam realized he was talking to a relatively advanced AI. Had he been dealing with a soul fragment, there would have been either doubts about his claims of having a Heroic grade skill at F rank and 36 peak grade Law Eggs or amazement at the same.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
But then what was up with the AI not liking swords and instead always praising spears?
Aalam decided to ignore the AI’s idiosyncrasies and just answered the question, listing out all his Law Eggs.
“Alright.” The AI nodded. “In that case, you meet the requirements for all twelve styles of 12 Elements Psychic Swordsmanship.
“Given you aren’t even holding your sword right, however, it seems we will have to start from the basics.”
* * *
Having arrived back via the teleportation platform, Mila came to the edge of the soul well, but didn’t actually step into the cave so as to not disturb the function of the series of basic runes Aalam had carved into the wall, which, after some experimentation, he’d found made the energy in the room a little easier to absorb. Then she tossed him a bag of holding containing her spoils from conquering the pillars of the last six invasion forces.
There were the five skills for merging Noble’s Senses (F-Legendary), which he would learn after merging his current skills and gaining back the needed skill slots. The three Epic grade skills were Knowledge of Watching Eyes, which allowed a cultivator to know when they were being observed; Noble’s Sight, which made it easier to see the karmic bonds between people if they were in close proximity; and Allegiance Tracking, which made it possible to know if someone was a servant or a master of someone else and of who if that person was close. Then the Rare grade skills were Lord’s Hearing, which made it possible to listen in on any conversation in a given range where your name was spoken, and Lord’s Binding, a noble category contract skill which strengthened bonds between masters and servants and masters and slaves.
Mila had also managed to gain three Legendary grade skills. They were Mana Domain and Qi Domain, the mana and qi equivalents of Psychic Domain, both of which allowed for much easier control of their respective resources within the range of a cultivator’s own aura, and Kinetic Senses, the sensing skill Isaiah Gale used.
Finally, the last skills Mila had chosen were Psyforce Construction (F-Epic), Psyforce Material Cleansing (F-Epic), and Psyforce Material Strengthening (F-Epic), which could all be merged into Psyforce Construction (F-Legendary), one of the component skills for the last Heroic grade skill Aalam wanted for his main class.
He couldn’t use them until after he merged the sensory skill he was going after, but it was nice to have them already.
Then, for the artifact rewards, the bag of holding held the remaining Contained Essences required for upgrading the Left Hand of the Runescribe, the essences of metal, fire, water, earth, and wind. Then there was a secondary material for creating a sword for Prince Roland to go with the Rare grade Rain-soaked Iron Mila had already chosen, the similarly Rare grade Essence of Raincloud, which looked a lot like the Epic grade elemental essences but wasn’t as powerful.
At Aalam’s insistence, Mila had also chosen materials from which he could make her a hopefully Legendary grade or higher artifact, the Legendary grade Midnight Leather, the leather of a rare and powerful E rank beast; 3 drops of Shadow Essence, an Epic grade material for strengthening Shadow path Law Effects in an artifact; and Shadow Thread, a Rare grade thread which, if used on the Midnight Leather, would not degrade the leather’s effects.
Finally, there were two Legendary grade books Nana Xara had insisted on.
First was Alashan’s Book of Runes I. The first volume of a set, it contained the entirety of a long dead yet powerful A rank’s knowledge of runes and arrays suitable for G, F, and E ranks, reportedly containing all theoretically possible low rank runes, even ones with no known uses in arrays. It was a legacy artifact on the same level as Mila’s tokens, even though it couldn’t upgrade an artifact, and Aalam was extremely, extremely excited about it.
So far, his knowledge of runes had come from books in the tutorial and Mila telling him things from Nana Xara. But Nana Xara wasn’t an expert on runes and, as a System-bound spirit, she was limited in what she could pass on without making it the reward for a quest.
Second then was Camoran’s 93rd Puzzle Book. Camoran the Spirit Smith had been an A rank crafter who’d died of old age like Nana Xara. In his day, even gods commissioned works from him, and he’d left behind 108 puzzle books as the keys to his legacy.
It was said that if the puzzles in all 108 books were solved, those who held the books would gain the right to teleport into the hidden demiplane where he’d left his inheritance and compete with each other to become his successor.
From Nana Xara’s knowledge, however, only 38 of the puzzle books had been completely solved as of two millennia ago, despite being created many, many years before, so the reason she recommended the book had nothing to do with Camoran’s legacy. The puzzles inside each book were just the best training tools for practicing the type of array carving necessary for creating truly impressive artifacts. And creating new arrays and forging high grade artifacts were the conditions for upgrading Aalam’s classes.
“Thank you, Mila,” Aalam told her. “You’ve done a lot of work.”
The only true reward Mila had gained from conquering the pillars had been +50 to all stats and +3 to all base stats, the rewards from capturing the pillar of the Kindar Raiders extremely low due to her low completion percentage, and she’d instead given pretty much everything else to Aalam. Granted, she could shadow his skills, so she would be able to use the skill he was trying to merge, and she had Nana Xara, so she had much less use for legacies. But still, she’d effectively stopped all twelve invasion forces by herself, yet all she’d received was a legendary grade skill, two tokens, and a Rare grade ring for herself. It didn’t seem fair.
“Yeah, yeah.” Mila waved any further praise or discussion of compensation away, an excited expression on her face. “Just upgrade the Left Hand of the Runescribe. I want to see its new effects.”
Aalam paused for a second, mind flowing back in time to the three different Dungeons and Dragons campaigns Mila had run, and he realized he’d forgotten for a bit she was almost as big of a nerd as he was. He’d kind of assumed that had all been fake, but he belatedly realized it probably hadn’t been. There’d been no need for her to go as far as she did unless she actually enjoyed it.
And what was more fun in a game than upgrading your favorite artifact while potentially being able to understand more of the universe through the process.