Spirit Soul

Unable to hide his smile, Kyle grinned as Niko unveiled the weapon that was ought to be his.

Excitement coursed through his veins followed by goosebumps that sprang all over through his body when he was looking at the faintly twinkling weapon.

It was a silver-bladed katana with a black handle that had twinkling stripes and stars on the blade, making the weapon look as if it was a piece of art instead of a tool to kill.

The slightly curved blade was 70 centimeters long, while the handle was around 20 centimeters long.

Receiving permission to pick it up, Kyle noticed that the katana's weight was barely a kilogram which was much lighter than he expected.

After all, Cultivators used mostly heavy materials in order to forge weapons as the density of the great ores was extremely high, making the weapons bulky.

As such, it was not uncommon that even lightweight daggers would reach a weight of more than 10 kilograms!

This was not even heavy for most Cultivators because their body would grow with their cultivation base and consequently they would be able to weild far more heavier weapons.

Because of that, Kyle's first thought was that the gorgeous-looking katana was, at most, at the Low Primar grade and would barely allow him to kill beasts at the Mid Vitae stage.

In the end, this wouldn't be bad, but he had hoped for a weapon for a bit longer on his journey.

Seeing Kyle's expression, blacksmith Niko understood what he was thinking, which caused him to smile pridefully as he remarked,

"Don't be fooled by its weight. I made an alloy with the ore you choose and the Silvercloud ore, in order to make it more suitable and light-weighted for you.

After all, you said that you want to focus on speed because of your wind affinity, right?

The Starbreaker Katana is a weapon at the Low Secur grade!"

'Huh?' Kyle almost blurted out in confusion, unable to believe his ears.

Wanting to test its strength, he quickly inserted some of his Soul force into the weapon.

Draining his Soul force at a rapid speed, Kyle saw the twinkling glow in some areas of the Starbreaker Katana start to glow lightly which astonished him.

'Those are the runes? That's…fascinating!'

Kyle's excitement increased, and by slowly moving Starbreaker, he was able to feel the minuscule wind resistance it had.

It was a huge difference from what he had assumed, but advantageous nonetheless, which caused him to smile foolishly.

'Fortunately, the Silvercloud ore seems to be compatible with all three cultivation energies. That means, I can make use of all the properties my Soul force has!'

Shortly after inserting the entire amount of Soul force into the Starbreaker, Kyle quickly noticed that the katana was like a bottomless pit that could store an endless amout of energy.

Yet, instead of wasting his precious Soul force right now, he observed the weapon intently and it looked almost as if there was small energy storage within the entire blade!

'Is that one of the unique traits the alloy has?'

While inspecting his new weapon from all possible angles, Kyle's interest in forging increased by leaps and bounds. There were soo many things he had yet to understand, and there was even more that he might even be able to comprehend by himself.

Inventing something new had never been his plan, but seeing and feeling the alloy made of two ores made him feel the need to test out forging alloys by himself.

Unfortunately, it had been almost a year since he had last wielded the forging hammer back at Gard's smithy, maybe even slightly longer than that.

As such, his little experience was already rusty, and it was probably better to learn everything from scratch.

However, in order to do so, he would have to find time to forge, which was not something he currently had left! No matter how much he excelled, he would always face a time crunch.

Because of that, Kyle could only admire his weapon and praise the blacksmith heartily, repeating himself until Niko's ears were bleeding.

Yet, Niko knew that Kyle was not praising him just for the sake of it. Kyle's eyes and his smile were proof enough that the young man in front of him was genuine of the opinion that the Starbreaker was a masterpiece.

Even he had been slightly astonished about the inspiration he got while forging Kyle's weapons.

As such, it was a given that he was confident about the weapon, including the unique runes only beings belonging to his race were able to inscribe!

Thus, perceiving Kyle's genuine excitement and happiness, Niko couldn't help but launch a detailed explanation of every single trait his weapon had.

In the end, this also included the special customization Kyle had found to be the most important.

"Because you didn't have any special requests pertaining to the runes that you wanted to be inscribed on your weapon, I added a few as per my liking. There are sharpness runes, durability runes, and a flexibility rune. Explaining the potency of them would take too long, so you can test them out as you deem fit.

Even with your low cultivation base you should be able to use everything properly, even if the effects will be far from the actual limit!

Speaking about the altered life draining effect, I'm not exactly confident that it works how you hoped it to, but it definitely works to some extent. Because I'm not yet a Master blacksmith, I cannot replicate what you wanted, but I tried my best."

Nodding his head, Kyle had already figured that it would be close to impossible to recreate Nitran's scythe without knowing what exactly the Soul storage medallion could do.

As such, even a lesser replication of the effect would be great, which was what he had hoped for.

Yet, looking at the Katana, he noticed one thing that astonished him greatly.

"How were you able to turn the Soul storage medallion into the guard? Isn't the katana's blade directly connected to the handle?"

Retracting his Soul force, Kyle returned it back to his soul core before he took a closer look at the guard of the Katana.

Only a moment later he looked up to see a sly smile on Niko's face making it seem as if he was laughing at his expense, teasing Kyle.

"I'm sorry but I cannot tell you. That's one of the major and well-guarded secrets of our race has! As long as everything works, you should be fine."

He couldn't help but be a little bit disappointed with the answer he received, but instead of complaining, he nodded his head before a faint smile reappeared on his face.

"In that case, can I purchase a scabbard for the katana too? I'm pretty sure that I won't store it inside my spatial ring all the time!"

There was one particular movement Kyle wanted to test out with the Katana, and in order to utilize it, he was required to sheath the weapon well.

It was probably possible to use that movement without sheathing Starbreaker in a scabbard, but it was likely to be easier if he knew that its blade was sheathed!

Niko understood what Kyle wanted and nodded his head as he answered,

"I already made a scabbard for Starbreaker, so you can just take it. After all, I got enlightened while inspecting our ancestor's weapon!"

He had had no idea that his spear would be the cause for Niko to be enlightened, but by looking at Starbreaker, Kyle figured out that it was different than the other weapons in the small store.

It had been forged while the blacksmith was in an enlightened state, which had its specific risks of failure.

However, everything had worked out perfectly fine, and Kyle was itching to go out hunting and test the katana right now!

As such, he turned towards the door in order to leave the shop the moment he received the scabbard which he fastened to his new leather armor's belt.

With Starbreaker sheathed into the scabbard, Kyle felt exhilarated to leave the city and enter the wilderness, only to run straight into Beatrice and Yasmine, who looked at him with an odd expression.

"You know…we are also here?!"

Beatrice's crimson eyes stared daggers at him, and he could only grimace before he tried to make an excuse as he heard Yasmine's low voice.

"I didn't know we had a master blacksmith in Lynar….all these weapons are exceptional!"

While Beatrice was frustrated about not receiving any attention from Kyle, Yasmine was in a completely different world, staring at Niko and the weapons he had forged.

Yet, contrary to his earlier excitement and bright smile, blacksmith Niko's expression stiffened when he saw Yasmine before he announced in an ice-cold voice that resounded in the room.

"Kyle, it was nice getting to know you, but I would like your friends to leave. Now!!"

The sudden change in Niko's behavior and his indifferent voice caused Kyle, who was occupied with calming down Beatrice, to turn towards the blacksmith.

Confused, he could only see the anger in his eyes, and following the direction of his sight, his eyes fell on the excited Yasmine, who made no efforts to hide her true, glorious self.

Faint fluctuations of the phoenix's aura were also released, but that shouldn't be reason enough to make Niko's behavior change by 180 degrees…except if there was something Kyle didn't know about.

'Maybe…he doesn't like Phoenixes?'

Blacksmith Niko could have had a rough past, and some unpleasant encounters with Phoenixes leaving him with a bad taste in his mouth.

After all, they were not really beings that could be described as placid.

Even in his past life, he had heard many legends about the destruction Phoenixes left in their wake at the time of their birth and death, and even more so during their lifetime.

In the end, they were extinct beings in his past, but that was not the case on Shima.

As such, all he could do was to draw inferences based on what he saw in front of him by clubbing it with the knowledge he had.

Though it didn't make things any easier for him.

Instead, he bid blacksmith Niko farwell, voiced out his hope to meet each other again before quickly grasping Yasmine's wrist.

She was still oblivious to anything that had happened as she was in a world of her own.

While Niko had glared at Yasmine and had been a step away from throwing her out of his shop, she was simply looking around the shop with a bright gleaming in her eyes.

Shaking his head, Kyle dragged her out of the front door with Beatrice in tow.

"Waah…what are you doing?! I wanted to purchase a new weapon!!"

Yasmine's squeal rang through the dark alley, causing some shabby-looking men to look up from the ground they were lying on, only to see a fiery red-winged girl being dragged out of the alley by Kyle and Beatrice.

For Beatrice, it was not difficult to figure out what had happened inside the shop, and she quickly helped Kyle to overwhelm Yasmine, whose cultivation was even higher than theirs.

She quickly bombarded Yasmine with a thorough explanation of what she had missed noticing earlier without being too harsh.

This worked wonders, and Yasmine calmed down in no time, astonishing Kyle greatly.

Apparently, Beatrice was really good at calming others, which was something he didn't think to be the case before.

However, it was extremely helpful and allowed Kyle to suggest something after they had left the dark alley.

"How about we go outside? Weren't there quite a few news reports about the overpopulation of a few kinds of beasts?

The guards and even Melin said that they wanted to go out and hunt them, in order to get some quick money!"

Hearing that Kyle was after money, Yasmine couldn't help but look oddly at him, which he noticed.

"What? I need to test my weapon and figure out if everything worked properly. Meanwhile, you should get to know the true extent of my abilities? Until now, you've only seen Arashi and how I tend my own cuts."

This piquedYasmine's interest, because she thought that Arashi was just some beast which he had bound to him.

She had once heard about someone being able to do something similar and thought that Kyle was the descendant of the man in the legends.

Yet, everything seemed different than she first assumed, flaring up the little flame of curiosity in her head.

Fanned by her nosy personality, it soon grew in size as she grasped the arms that were holding her.

Dragging Kyle behind her, she rushed through the streets, and towards the city gates while letting out a whoop.

"Then let's go…hurry up!! Into the Wilderness!!"