I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated

It's been one hour since Fran's sparring match and defeat with Amanda.

After waking up, Fran took a seat face-to-face with Amanda. As Amanda was feeling apologetic for letting the battle escalate so far, it was decided that she would teach us some of the information we wanted to know.

As Fran was able to learn a lot through the battle, I don't really think that there was a need take over Fran's watch and personally guard her while she slept as well as grant us this, but… Since it's already like this, we've might as well accept it, right?

「Then, first I'll explain fighting Skills.」

「Please.」

「However, I'm not too strong when it comes to theories, so I won't be able to explain everything. Is that alright?」

「That's fine.」

To us who know near-nothing, any information is precious.

「Then, Combat Arts are things like Sword Arts, which allow one to improve their handling with a respective weapon; these improvements can also be seen with Techniques. Combat Techniques like Sword Techniques, Pugilist Techniques, and my preferred Whip Techniques all hold special moves that consume one's magical power. Did you know of that?」

「Nn. I know.」

Sword Arts is required to learn Sword Techniques, and Bow Arts is required to learn Bow Techniques. Furthermore, it's impossible to learn Combat Techniques at a higher level than their respective Combat Arts, making the two a pair. In other words, one must bear in mind that if their Sword Arts is only Lv5, they can only level Sword Techniques up to Lv5.

「After that is only a matter of learning how to use Combat Techniques themselves, but……」

「Nn.」

「Well, I'm not really clear on the details surrounding that.」

「Eh?」

「No, well, the methods to learn can be grasped through training, but… I don't really know the detailed theory around it. If you ask someone researching the subject, you might be able to understand it a bit better.」

「Just training method is fine.」

「That's usually how it is for Adventurers. Anyways, I suppose for that I should talk about the prerequisites of Vigor Manipulation and Magic Manipulation? As for the reason for needing them…… To be frank, I don't know why either. As a Half-Elf, I gained both of them before I could remember. Well, it seems that Fran didn't have any problems with them either, so shall I simply omit it?」

「Nn. Don't mind.」

「Then, moving onto the training method for Combat Techniques, just envision yourself pouring your magic into the weapon as well as your body. Then, like a flash, Combat Techniques arrive. The Techniques themselves are activated when you don't go against that flash. After the first use, the Technique is acquired in the form of a Skill of sorts, so there's no problem using it from that point on. Fran can use Combat Techniques too, so do you remember acquiring them?」

「?」

「Well, Fran is still small, so you probably learned your Combat Techniques when you were even younger, right? It's possible that you've forgotten. Still, to be able to use Combat Techniques at such a young age, you're pretty prodigious, huh.」

Dangerous. We were saved by the fact that Fran's a child. Anyways, in regards to the method of obtaining Combat Techniques, I have a rough idea of how it works. With this, not only Sword Arts, but Sword Techniques should also be able to be trained manually.

「Once a Combat Technique has been learned, you should continuously use it to raise the Skill's level. The reason being each time a level goes up in a form of Combat Techniques, a new Technique is learned.」

Lv1 must be the most difficult to raise, then.

「Next, shall I move onto the description of Magic?」

「Nn.」

「In Magic, the basic attributes are Soil, Water, Fire, and Wind. Their superior versions are Ground, Ocean, Flame, and Storm respectively.」

All four of the basic attributes can be used already.

「After those are what are called 'composite attributes'. Those are Lightning, Ice, Nature, Lava, Sandstorm, and Life: those 6.」

「Composite?」

「Yes. You can acquire those attributes after improving two of the basic attributes. For example, Nature Magic requires Water and Soil Magic.」

「Possible to learn? Or not?」

「Well, I'll get to that.」

To learn Magic, one can either become a pupil of an experienced magician, or learn it through means of memorization, or… Well, there're various methods.

Amanda seemed to have learned how to use magic through memorization and training. However, the training method is quite terrific. What makes it terrific is the fact that the method itself closely resembles the practices of a certain Hunter×Hunter[1].

For Water Magic, one has to touch water every day, drink it, soak in it, and hammer the essence of water into one's mind and body. When water flows even in one's dreams, then it becomes possible to learn Water Magic.

If it's Wind Magic, then running about naked in strong gales would work. For Soil, you'd just need to be buried under the ground, or take bites out of stones. Well, such training might be a bit excessive, so only some magicians do such things… Was it my imagination that Amanda's eyes swam for a moment? She would have trained for the Wind, so……

Anyways, unlike Sword Arts, there seems to be no guarantee that magic can be learned, the reason being 'The Wall of Talent'. For Sword Arts, even if there's a difference in the effort needed between individuals, anyone can learn and improve through proper dedication. In Magic, however, if you don't have talent, you can't acquire it. Period.

「Talent?」

「Yeah. It might be better to say that each person has a certain compatibility with each attribute. For a person incompatible with the Fire Attribute, no matter how much effort they put into learning Fire Magic, they won't be able to do so.」

So, without talent, no matter how much training one does, it would all be to waste? Even with the dedication to burn oneself, it'd be possible to achieve no results… How terrible.

「Currently there isn't a method of examining which attributes one has a talent for, however, I don't think a person with absolutely no talent exists, so it'd be possible to learn Magic so long as one keeps at it.」

「Depends on efforts.」

「That's how it is. Incidentally, I had attempted to train myself for Fire, but I wasn't able to learn it in the end. Instead, it seemed that I had talent for Wind, so I was able to learn it in about a week.」

「I see.」

「It seems that there're also cases of geniuses capable of using Magic ever since they were born too, I think? I wonder if Fran's one such case?」

「Nn?」

「You can't remember, huh. Well, that's fine. Returning to the subject of composite attributes, there're two main issues in acquiring them.」

「Have to learn two attributes first.」

「Right. After that, there's the question of whether you have talent for the composite attribute itself.」

Because of those two things, composite attributes are extremely rare. Until now, the only composite attribute we've seen has been Nature Magic from both the Guild Master and Frion… Both of which are Wood Elves. Because of that, I'm under the impression that aptitude towards Nature Magic simply came to them due to their Race. If that's the case, then it's simply to be expected that composite attributes aren't seen often.

「And so, composite attributes are very rare.」

As for Fran, I wonder where her talent lies? Magic shared by me is usable without a problem for the four basic attributes; Dark and Recovery Magic are also the same. In that case, perhaps Skills gained through a shared relationship disregard talent. No matter how you look at it, it'd be highly irregular for her to have talent in all 4 attributes, after all…

「Next, I'll explain the rest of the attributes.」

「Dark and Recovery?」

「Just like those. First, let's start with Light and Dark.」

The Light and Dark attributes aren't included among the four basic ones. While the methods to attain them doesn't differ with the basic four, they're exempted simply due to the overwhelmingly few amount of people with talent for them.

Surprisingly, they're even rarer than those with talent with Composite Magic, making the order of rarity 4 Basic → Composite → Light and Dark. Being able to acquire Dark Magic from the Demon was extremely lucky.

「With the inclusion of Light and Dark, there're even more attributes to be derived. The derivations of Light are Purification and Illusion while Dark can be derived into Poison and Ghost.」

Everyone with talent for the Light attribute will also have talent with Purification and Illusion without exception. Similarly, talent in the Poison and Ghost attributes is also guaranteed if one has talent with Dark, so the derivation attributes are actually seen as subordinate-attributes in the eyes of researchers. Also, having talent with the derived attributes doesn't necessarily mean that an individual will have talent in the Dark or Light attributes themselves.

Furthermore, Poison and Purification have higher attributes: Decay and Cleansing.[2] There're way too many magic attributes.

「Other than those, there're also unique attributes.」

The unique attributes include Recovery, Support, Summoning, Contract, Space-Time, Moonlight, Spirit, Smithing, and other non-generic ones. Practitioners of Support and Recovery Magic seem to be plentiful, but when it comes to attributes like Space-Time and Moonlight, their rarity surpasses even Light and Dark.

「Those're only the ones off the top of my head, but there're many other unique attributes scattered across the world. There seem to be attributes unique to Demonic Beasts, too.」

「Such as?」

「Well, rumors have it that Dragons possess magic only usable by themselves. There's a similar case said about Fiends and such. Compared with mankind, Demonic Beasts that can use magic outnumber us by a wide margin, after all.」

「Why?」

「Well, in the first place, Demonic Beasts make use of magic on a daily basis. Demonic Beasts larger than castles would be killed off in no time if they didn't reinforce their bodies with magic, right? To them, magic is second nature — like breathing. Because of that, Demonic Beasts can use Magic even without Magic Manipulation, unlike mankind. Their Magic Stones might also have a hand in that, too… But of course, there're also ones that have Magic Manipulation as well, further increasing their efficiency.」

「I see.」

「It's the same with Combat Techniques. Even with differences between Vigor Manipulation and Magic Manipulation, in the end, aren't they simply Skills making use of magic? Because of that, Demonic Beasts can make use of Combat Techniques without Vigor Manipulation.」

I suppose Skills like Vibration Fang would fall under that category?

「And, due to the Demonic Beasts' peculiar magic-oriented nature, there're many individuals capable of using Light and Dark attributes too. Looking at it like that, they're far more talented than mankind.」

That reminds me, there's still one thing that I've been wondering about.

「Is Dark Magic only used by bad people?」

The Demon made use of it, and Poison and Ghost Magic are the types used by villains no matter how you look at it. If it was me, I wouldn't be able to trust a practitioner of Ghost Magic on our first meeting no matter what. They'd be an evil person, after all. Or… I'd imagine them to be so, anyways.

「That's not the case. Demonic Beasts may make use of it, and civilians might think that it's inherently bad, but… For Adventurers, magic of all kinds is generally recognized as 'useful'. For example, Ghost Magic is really useful in Dungeon exploration, you know?」

Alright. In that case we can make use of Darkness Magic without a problem. With that, Darkness Reinforcement and other such Skills won't simply be left to collect dust.

Finally, we asked about the combinations of complex attributes.

Water + Soil = Nature

Water + Wind = Ice

Water + Fire = Life

Wind + Fire = Lightning

Wind + Soil = Sandstorm

Soil + Fire = Lava.

Those are the combinations.

As for the composite attributes between Light and Dark as well as unique attributes, they have yet to be confirmed.

「Well, I don't know of them, at least.」

「I want a composite attribute.」

「Fran made use of Soil and Wind magic a while back, and you're good with Fire too, right? With those, it's possible to aim for Lightning, Sandstorm, and Lava.」

「Nn. I'll do my best.」

Alright, if that's what Fran wants then we'll obtain one without fail!

I could learn a composite attribute through absorbing one, or through manual acquisition. I was able to learn Flame Magic through Fire Magic Lv10, so the possibility of a composite attribute being learned through raising the levels of other magics is high.

『As it stands…… The attribute second to Fire is Wind.』

In the Goblin Den, Wind Magic Lv3 was repeatedly obtained through absorbing the stones of Army Beetles. The efficiency of absorbing higher-leveled Skills is better than lower-leveled ones, after all.

Raising Wind Magic through the insects' Lv3 versions took far less time than advancing Sword Arts through the Goblins' Lv1 versions.

『What shall we do…… Perhaps we should give it a level or two?』

47 Self-Evolution Points remain. We should leave 28 of those for the sake of testing out the Superior version of Sword Arts.

『What do you think?』

（What to do?）

In the end, we used 6 Points to raise Wind Magic's level. As we attained the Lightning Attribute properly, I have no regrets. Furthermore, the Storm Attribute and Master of Wind Titles were also obtained.

（Want to use it quickly.）

『Not here. We only just heard about Composite Attributes from Amanda, so somehow using one immediately would be bad.』

（Alright……）

『When we return to Aressa, let's test it out. Alright?』

「Nn.」

[1] Surprisingly mentions Hunter×Hunter without any censorship (狩人×狩人).

[2] In regards to the higher version attributes, the first (Decay) is actually Ptomaine Poison (死毒). Because Ptomaine is found in putrefying corpses/vegetation, Decay seems to be fitting, so I went with it.

The second is 聖浄, with the first character being Sacred/Holy/Pure and the second being Cleaning/Cleansing/Cleanup. 'Cleansing' in itself can be linked to the purging of sins/filth, so that's what I decided upon.

It should also be noted that 浄化, which I've translated as 'Purification' could also be 'Cleanup', so if Teacher and/or Fran happen to get it and the first spell is something like 'Clean', then I'll change Purification → Cleaning, and keep Cleansing the same.

As always, if you have a better suggestion, feel free to let me know in the comments.