Birth of the Demonic Sword

"Where is your bestiality?!" Sword Saint exclaimed as he curved his finger to launch a slash. Another slash was coming in his direction, and the two attacks clashed mid-air.

Noah saw his attack losing against the expert's copy. Sword Saint's slash crossed his ethereal figure without doing any harm before dispersing on his mental walls.

That was the training method decided by Sword Saint. Noah had to launch attacks that the expert copied in their purest form. He then also listed the weaknesses of Noah's slash to instruct him.

The idea behind that training was to force Noah to express every aspect of his individuality in his slashes. He had refused to abandon his other paths, so he needed to fuse all of them into his sword.

That was easier than done. Whenever Noah focused on his destruction, he failed to add his creation. Whenever he minded only his sharpness, he forgot about his bestiality.

Sword Saint's attacks couldn't copy Noah's individuality completely. There were some aspects that he could only try to imitate since he lacked understanding in those paths.

The issue was harsher when it came to Noah's beast side. Sword Saint could perform slashes that relied on brute strength, but they didn't come close to Noah's iconic attacks.

Still, Noah didn't have to imitate the expert's attacks. He only needed to learn and take inspiration from them. Everything else was up to him and his ability to push that path forward.

Noah called upon his pride and used all the physical strength that he could imagine to slash toward the immobile opponent. He didn't forget to follow the specific forms learnt during the enlightenments, so his blow had some grace too.

A thick slash flew out of his ethereal sword. Sharpness came out of its shape and broke the water inside the mental sea. Yet, small dark spots formed on its surface after that destruction.

"Better!" Sword Saint exclaimed before curving his forefinger again. A similar thick slash shot from his hand and clashed with the incoming attack before piercing it to fly toward Noah.

The expert's slash dispersed after it crossed Noah's ghostly figure. The same outcome had occurred, but Noah felt his excitement building up anyway.

Noah could feel his existence improving as that training continued. That process forced his individuality to converge into a slash, pushing his being together like never before.

His body had harmonized his many features before, but that process was different. It involved laws, and it was more connected to what Noah expressed rather than focusing on his species.

"What did I do wrong this time?" Noah asked. His slash had lost against an imitation, so he had to improve it.

"Intensity," Sword Saint answered. "You still think before attacking. This affects the power that you can express. Everything must come naturally. This slash must become your starting point once you manage to bring every aspect of your existence out."

Sword Saint meant that Noah needed more training. He had to turn his best slash in his weakest and start improving from that base. The path in front of him was still long, but he had a direction, and the guidance of a divine will now.

Luckily for Noah, the training sessions with the Divine Cut had become shorter after Sword Saint's will materialized. The battles inside his mental sphere lasted as if they were fights in the outside world, so he never spent more than a few days there.

Noah depleted almost all his mental energy in every session anyway, but he could spend more time on his traditional training and many projects after he rested.

There was one particular project that bugged him. No matter how hard he tried, he didn't manage to copy the light element with the dark matter.

It seemed that his higher energy was utterly incapable of reproducing that element. The more he tried to modify it to succeed in his task, the more the dark matter lost power.

Noah had begun to think that it was against his higher energy's nature to become that element. Still, he wasn't ready to give up on the project yet.

After all, he had already thought of a spell that made use of all his copied elements. In theory, its effects would make him ignore most of the limitations brought by his low level among the powerhouses.

Other projects proceeded well instead. Noah had to keep his diagrams in their original state while he focused on meditating next to the Divine Cut, but he had time for them now.

His new state as a rank 6 mage and his incredible body allowed him to go past his spells' original purposes. Noah didn't need to abide by the creators' initial intentions anymore and could push their core ideas on a path that suited him.

Noah could keep many old spells, and he could even recover some of those abandoned in the past. The limitations on their power didn't matter anymore since he rebuilt them in his mind.

That project led to many side projects since he had to treat every spell differently. There were cases where he could even fuse a few of them, but that led to difficulties.

It was hard to fuse two core ideas into a greater one without damaging their intensity. Noah had to test that process many times before understanding that he had to change his approach.

Noah had never learnt how to create diagrams from nothing because his expertise brought him on different paths. Yet, he could use wills to obtain similar effects.

Noah had already done something similar in the past. Translating diagrams into wills so that he could modify them had allowed him to improve many spells during his journey across the heroic ranks.

He didn't do the same when he became a rank 6 mage because of both worlds' many events, but nothing stopped him now.

Moreover, he wanted to improve that procedure too. Noah wasn't satisfied with wills that depleted themselves once "Breath" triggered their effects. He wanted something lasting.

The Will-devouring runes came in his help at that point. With a mixture of strong wills and his three energies, Noah could create runes that replicated spells once fueled with darkness.

They were different from the Kesier runes. Noah had to immerse them inside the mental sea because they needed constant contact with his mental energy.

Those runes were far from perfect, but Noah felt that he was finally learning something he had desired since he was a human cultivator. He was finalizing his method to create spells!

Many runes started to fill the mental sea. Noah added one spell after another to his arsenal. They couldn't express his full power since they didn't involve his body, but his battle style would gain some variety.

There were too many eyes on him now. Every powerhouse had developed countermeasures to his iconic attacks. Improving his abilities wasn't enough. Noah needed more of them to compete in that realm.

That eventually led to the biggest problem. One of Noah's strongest spells was the Demonic Form, but it seemed that all the world had developed countermeasures against its corrosive effects.

Night could exploit it to express its power, but that didn't make his corrosive smoke more useful. Noah had used the spell only to enhance his body and as a form of protection in the last battles.

The Demonic Form was peculiar among spells. It had a strange form that grew according to the number of Kesier runes inside a mental sphere.

That was one of the reasons why Noah had never attempted to modify it. It appeared too complicated for him, and he didn't want to risk ruining his greatest asset.

However, he was in the last stage of the heroic ranks now. His Divine Deduction technique had rank 6 mental energy as a fuel, and his dark star pushed his abilities far beyond their normal limits.

It was time to improve the Demonic Form, and the Black Mark spell seemed perfect for his needs.