Seth sat on the ground surrounded by the discomfort of his own handiwork. The king spider corpses were beginning to smell and the stench was filling his nose.

He’d woken up about an hour ago healed from his ailments. He still bore his cuts and bruises, and his body still hurt if he moved around too much. But besides that, he was in good health. He breathed better and his muscles weren’t so stiff anymore, merely sore. Despite his questioning, Jabari refused to tell him if he’d helped or if his body had done the job itself.

He tried not to let the lack of information bother him as he sat before Jabari, listening to what the man had to say.

Jabari held out the tachi Seth had now come to know was called Masamune as he spoke. “This was crafted years back by a very skilled soulsmith. He forged it using ores known to reject reia, something capable of bringing most soul magi to their knees. It made him a lot of enemies, but as is expected from every soulsmith, he didn’t care.”

Seth raised his hand. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“It’s interesting to see you no longer fear me.”

Seth shrugged, it sparked a light pain in his shoulder. “I grew up.”

“Perhaps,” Jabari conceded before returning to his speech. “I tell you this so you understand something. All humans, all sentient life forms, are born with reia. All of life is reia, no matter how small. From the moment one takes their first breath they begin taking in external reia. They do not process it, but it is enough. So as they grow, they become an amalgamation of reia, conflicting and not. Soul fragments then give them the ability to process reia, to choose. The ones that are useless, the ones that are harmful, and the ones that are simply contrary, get expelled in the beginning. This gives the soul mage time to process the rest. The body, already instinctually designed to absorb reia, does it better. So all that’s left is for the mage to learn to filter it and pick only that which they need. But that comes at a higher authority. Till then, cycling helps the mage expel the unneeded reia.”

Seth raised his hand again. “So when does this great expulsion take place?”

“At Iron. But that is not what I am here to teach you. Your path is not that of the orthodox soul mage. Yours is different. I gave you Masamune as a child to help redesign your body. What I do not need from you is a body that draws in reia on instinct. I need one that does just the opposite.”

“So each time I held Masamune…” Seth began, slowly, words guided by realization.

“It rejected reia and your body was forced to expel reia from just touching it,” Jabari finished.

“That’s why it was always so tiring to hold it,” Seth mused.

“Yes. Because reia is, in its own way, the foundation of human strength. Even the unsouled require reia more than they know. But that is not to say they cannot do without it. They just spend so much of their lives depending on it subconsciously that their body becomes almost incapable of functioning without it. Imagine learning to talk without moving your lips.”

“That’s impo—”

“Ventriloquists do it with almost no lip movement at all. It is not impossible, simple too difficult and almost unnecessary. What I did during our travels was teach your body to reject reia, then function without it. The less reia you had in your system, the lighter Masamune became, till you were completely free of reia. You became quite literally, just flesh and blood.”

“So what? The reia meat and Guda snake poison made me start absorbing reia again?”

“No.” Jabari shook his head, still holding Masamune in one hand. “You still do not draw in external reia. What they did, however, was taint the one you already have. What I had intended for you—and still intend for you—is a core filled with reia uncorrupted by others. A reia without a path.”

“You mean without an affinity.” Seth balked at the thought of it. “That will render me useless. What is a mage without an affinity?”

Jabari made a dismissive gesture. “A soul mage with a pure core is stronger than most people think.”

Seth frowned at him. That was a lie. He knew a story of a Baron who had risen to the authority with nothing but a pure core. He’d faced another Baron in a duel for his territory and had lost without putting up a fight. He would not be the first soul mage without an affinity. The world already had a lot of those. But the two things they had in common was they had pure cores because they were unfortunate enough to have no affinity and they were always the weakest, weak enough to lose to authorities beneath them.

“You want to make me weak,” he said.

“Do you think I took you from that rune child and brought you here just to make you weak?” Jabari asked, calmly. “Do you think I put up with you for that?”

“Kidnapped,” Seth corrected. “You didn’t take me. You kidnapped me.”

Jabari looked at him with a touch of curiosity and Seth shrugged.

“I’m just saying. Let’s call a spade a spade.”

Jabari seemed to think on it for a moment before nodding. “Fair enough. Regardless, I did not kidnap you because I wanted to make you weak. You were already weak enough as you were. I took you for other reasons. That said, now that you’ve corrupted your core and you’re filled with a toxic soup of reia, I will have to go through a new process of cleaning your core out.”

There was something in the way he said the last words that had Seth dreading the answer to the question he was about to ask. Still, he asked it.

“And how do you intend to do that?”

“Forcefully.”

Jabari let Masamune fall to the ground, then reached behind him with both hands from below. The sound of metal hissing told Seth he was producing a pair of swords even before they came into view. But the sound it made, its hiss, was nothing like the sound he knew. It was less like hissing and more like metals grating against each other.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

When they came into view, Seth’s eyes widened in shock. What Jabari brought out were not swords, not by any right of the word. They were black, almost as much as the man’s cassock. and massive, as wide as a grown man’s two hands placed side by side. Their lengths were no longer than short swords, maybe even shorter. If he was to go for accuracy he would say they were overgrown daggers, slightly longer than they had any right to be. But what was truly terrifying about them was their thickness. With sharp edges and a tip that came to a fine point they held the girth of three swords.

They weren’t like any sword he had seen, and Reverend Gareth had quite the collection in the seminary’s armory. But if he was to describe them, they were what a dao would look like if it was too short, too fat, and one handed.

The one in his left hand bore a series of intricate veins spreading all over it the color of maroon. The other looked like the surface of one of the trees around them, rough. And when he twirled them, the one in his left hand left a trail of red streaks in its wake.

“This,” Jabari held up the one in his left hand with its red veins, “is Dainik. And this,” he held up the other, “is Varmei.”

“Let me guess,” Seth interrupted with a little mockery in his voice. “Made by famous soulsmiths.”

“Close,” Jabari said, face blank, uncaring. “But these are actually the famous soulsmiths Dairnk and Varmei.”

Seth paled.

“They were soulsmiths of questionably pure cores,” he went on, unbothered. “And these were their last works. They gave their very beings to the creation of these weapons. They entrusted its finishing to me before their passing.”

“You put them into their swords,” Seth gagged. “You killed them.

“They had a wish. I made it come true.” Jabari shrugged. “Contrary to the misconceptions of those that come in contact with them, these weapons are not soulbound.”

“They’re not?”

Seth had heard a thing or two about soulbound weapons. Apparently, they were difficult to come by and equally powerful. No matter how strong a soulsmith was, how masterful, his creation would always lose to a soulbound weapon.

“They’re not,” Jabari reaffirmed.

“Then what are they?”

“Empty.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a concept you are too young and not powerful enough to understand. All you need to know is that Dainik repels reia of any kind.”

“And Varmei?”

“Varmei feeds on reia of every kind. And for the next month you will be using the both of them.”

And Seth did.

Jabari took him deeper into the mist, led him like a farmer leads his sheep to slaughter. And like a sheep, powerless and stupid, Seth followed.

The journey was filled with outward silence and inner noise. His minds bickered all the way, complaining of discomfort and refusal. One suggested he use [Quick Step] to flee. Another demanded he end it like a man, take control of his faith and challenge Jabari to a duel. It made little sense until another pointed out it was suicide only for his mind to clarify that that was the exact plan.

There were also thoughts of poisoning and snitching and refusal. A bucket load of things that would not work. He let them have their bickering. In a way, it was their tantrum. In a way, it was his tantrum.

The first thing Jabari brought him to scared him shitless. The mist was clearer here so that he saw it well enough to know what it was. Where he looked the air was cracked like glass as tall as ten feet, levitating perhaps three feet off the ground. Around it, space shimmered like the effects of a heat wave.

He rounded on Jabari instantly. “You brought me to a fissure?!”

Jabari did not even deign to look at him when he answered. “It’s a rather small one.”

“It’s ten feet tall!”

“Small by its strength, child.”

How in the world was there an unclosed fissure in the seminary’s territory? Any sane soul mage would have closed it by now. And the idea that they did not know was ludicrous. History told that in earlier times it was impossible to tell, fissures only being found when the rate of beast infestation began growing too large. When that happened, hunters would be sent out to close it with a device invented after during the first crack. Now, Barons were how the world knew of fissures. Apparently, they could feel these cracks in the world from miles away.

And the seminary was chuck full of Barons.

“Why is this still open?” he found himself asking. “Why hasn’t the seminary closed it?”

“Because this is not their territory,” Jabari answered. “It belongs to someone else. Someone they would not dare anger.”

“Then why are we here?”

Jabari looked at him like he was stupid. “To close it, of course. Have they done nothing to train your brain as well in that school?”

“You just said the seminary wouldn’t dare anger the owner of this territory,” he scowled.

“Yes. But it won’t care one bit about what you do. Now take these.” He tossed Dainik and Varmei to the ground in front of him. Hidden away in their sheathes of deep brown they didn’t look so terrifying. Still, they hit the ground with a loud thuds. “They are your weapons of choice. For now, you can keep them strapped to your waist. That way you can more easily use your skills.”

Seth looked at them, then looked at him. “One of them repels reia while the other feeds on it.”

Jabari nodded slowly, waiting for his point.

“How do you expect me to use my skills with them.”

Jabari walked passed him. “I never said it was going to be easy. You best hurry now,” he added as he strode away. “You’ll be having guests very soon.”

The crack in front of him pulsed and Seth scrambled for the weapons. The moment he touched the handles, he felt the effect of them. Reia fled him like air from a gut punch. The air around him became thinner, too thin. The air tasted thin, like powdered milk left out in the open for too long. He did not like it.

Worse, while he could lift them, the swords weighed more than Masamune.

“Just place them against your waist,” Jabari called out from somewhere he could not see without even raising his voice.

“Darn Baron skill,” he muttered, turning the swords over and not seeing anything to indicate the presence of straps.

When the crack pulsed again, he discarded logic and placed them on both sides. True to Jabari’s words, they stayed.

Even attached on both sides, away from his grip, he felt their effect. His reia continued to flee him, drained like a cup with holes poked in it. The air around him somehow managed to grow thinner. It brought him discomfort. It was a discomfort he ignored. After all, he had more pressing problems to face. His life was on the line.

When the crack opened outward, he cussed under his breath.

A king spider pulled itself out of the crack and two more followed. They were taller than the ones he had faced, larger, and something told him they were stronger.

Can we win? A mind asked, doubtful.

Seth faced his three opponents, hands flexing at his side like a gunman in a game of quick draw. The irony.

When the first spider saw him, it roared. The power was strong enough to shake the air and make him tremble.

“Do we have a choice,” he answered, finally.

The king spider’s roar drew the attention of the other two and they turned to face Seth. Their combined roars put the first one to shame and Seth felt his legs threaten to give out under him.

Steeling his resolve, he reminded himself that he was a seminarian. A priest in the making. The rumors of priests were always ludicrous and their trainings have shown him why. So he would become a priest, and his stories would be ludicrous.

And to do that, he would have to first survive this.

He lowered his hand, hovered it over one of the hilts strapped to him and braced himself. The spiders charged him and he took a defiant breath.

“[Quick Draw]”

Reia exploded through his channels, filled him as much as it could, struggling even to accomplish that feat. He wondered just how much of the reia he’d managed to regain had been consumed in the brief moment he’d touched Varmei.

The moment his hand touched the hilt, pulling it in a single motion, he felt himself lose a chunk of his reia. It bottomed out immediately. He felt the skill tremble, threaten to fail, and he grit his teeth against it, pulled on whatever reia was left in him with all the willpower he could muster.

The short sword roared like a wild animal as it came free where all the swords he used tended to hiss into existence. It cut through the space in front of him and met the charging spider’s leg and hit it with a dull clang.

The spider froze at the impact, looked down at its leg barely even scratched, then back at him. If it had expressions he had no doubt he would’ve read shock.

Seth had only enough time to be shocked as well before he was sent flying.