Chương 373: B6—Chapter 23: The Swords are Dead. Long Live the Swords

On the way to the blacksmith, I groaned and facepalmed. Ugh. I forgot to ask her name. Again. Of course, the entrance dropped me off in the food court. Still, I took advantage of the detour and grabbed a cup of orbos. The unique taste was growing on me, and the jolt of energy it gave wasn't bad, either. This time, the blacksmith was actually out front, standing near the entrance. Spirits, she was beautiful. She turned as I approached, blinking once, then raising her eyebrows slightly in surprise.

"Weren't you a healer before?" Her tone was conversational, but the way her eyes narrowed made it feel like she was trying to puzzle me out. I gave a half-shrug, shifting the cup of orbos to my other hand.

"I'm both." She gave a slow nod, her expression unreadable. I stepped closer and extended my hand.

"Nice to meet you. I'm John." She looked down at it, her brows pulling together in confusion. After ten seconds, I let it drop, trying not to make it awkward. Total fail. Can't all the worlds just agree on standard greeting practices? It would make everything so much easier. After a moment, she tilted her head—not quite a bow, but definitely more than just a nod.

"Pleasure to know you, John. I am Payan." Then, her gaze sharpened.

"Do you have the mana stone for the swords?" I handed her the stones, and she nodded, turning briskly and motioning for me to follow. She led me to the back of the shop. At first glance, it appeared to be a standard blacksmithing setup. Tools lined up neatly on the walls, a heavy anvil stood beside a sturdy workbench, but that's where the similarity ended. I scanned the room again. No furnace or forge. Just a square, waist-high stone structure stood dead center, silent and cold. She caught me eyeing it.

"That's the attunement chamber," she said, patting it once like it was a pet.

"The process will cost five mithril. Is this acceptable?"

"Can I pay in gold?" Her expression pinched.

"Can you exchange the gold for mithril? I prefer not to deal with a mountain of coins."

"Where can I do that?"

"Seventh exit," she said, nodding toward the back wall.

"There's a financier just past it."

"Yeah, sure." I turned, ready to head out and get the exchange over with.

"Wait." Her voice stopped me at the door.

"You'll need to be here for one of the steps." She gestured toward a simple wooden chair tucked near the wall. I took the hint and sat. She moved with the quick efficiency of someone in her element, wheeling over a large square tub filled with something blue and oddly glossy. The moment she pried the lid off, the air filled with a faint herbal scent. I leaned forward, squinting. Whatever was inside looked like thick gel. My curiosity got the better of me. I stood, reached out, and poked it with a finger.

It gave way with the consistency of soft plasticine, leaving a slight indentation where I touched it. She raised an eyebrow at me, clearly amused.

"I got curious," I muttered, pulling my hand back.

"This is for the mold," she said. She cut the leather strip from the other sword, unwrapped both blades, opened the pommels, and retrieved the blades. One by one, she pressed them into the blue stuff and channeled mana into it. The material twitched, shifted, adjusted. When she pulled the swords back out, the molds held their shape. I couldn't help myself, and I poked it again. This time, it felt firmer. Less like soft clay, more like plastic. Maybe like hardened polymer clay?

At least, as much as I remembered from some long-forgotten crafts class back in middle school. Weird stuff. A sudden boom made me jump, and my head whipped around—just in time to see her slam a massive hammer down on one of my swords. My eyes went wide.

"What are you doing?!" I shouted. She laughed, bright and unbothered.

"I love this reaction." I narrowed my eyes at her. Pretty or not, that was uncalled for.

"Why did you destroy my sword?"

"To saturate them, I need to remelt them," she said casually, as if she hadn't just committed a murder in front of me.

"That's the reason I prepared the molds." I relaxed. Well, partially. She broke the other sword too, and I still winced but didn't shout this time. Once both swords were in pieces, she placed them in a square container that looked like basalt. My mana sense disagreed. It wasn't stone, but a dense type of metal, humming softly with some kind of enchantment. She added three of the mana crystals I'd handed her, then slotted the whole thing into the square structure in the center of the room.

"I suggest you supply the mana for the saturation process," she said, glancing at me.

"It is not required, but it will strengthen your connection to the swords." I stepped up beside her.

"How?" She pointed at a carved rune formation on the surface.

"Channel mana there." I did as instructed, letting the flow pour in. The runes flared and drew in more than I expected. The thing worked like a vacuum cleaner that sucked out my mana. I had to stop myself from wobbling when she finally said, "That is enough." She pulled the container out—barehanded, with no gloves or tongs—carried it over to the molds and poured the molten metal into them. And that's when the real magic happened. The molds didn't just hold the shape; they actively pulled the heat out of the metal.

I watched, stunned, as the glowing orange quickly dulled to silver-gray. In under a minute, the swords were fully solidified. Cold, even. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. She plucked them from the molds and carried them to another contraption. With a pulse of mana into a separate rune formation, a belt appeared. It looked like some kind of enchanted grinder or sander.

She began working on the blades, guiding their edges against the belt until they gleamed and looked wicked sharp. But what caught my attention more than anything was the constant stream of mana she kept pouring into them. From the moment she poured the metal into the mold to the final strokes of the sander, her mana never stopped flowing. Actually, it did stop for seconds here and there when she pulsed the mana, but then it changed to a smooth flow again. She wasn't just dumping energy into them.

My mana sense could tell that this wasn't wild or unfocused. She was guiding it. Shaping it. Changing the swords. The mana crystals were definitely infusing the blades with their aspects, but that wasn't the whole picture. There was something else going on. Something fundamental. She was altering the swords on a deeper level, folding mana into the metal itself like a second forging. I focused harder, narrowing my eyes and concentrating on my mana sense, trying to follow what she was doing.

Every movement of hers seemed deliberate, every pulse of mana precisely placed. I tried to track the flow and reverse-engineer it in my head. Didn't work. Whatever technique she was using, it went straight over my head. I might as well have been trying to read ancient script through fog. It was frustrating and humbling. When the swords were finally ready, she slotted the blades back into their pommels with clean, practiced motions.

A mana crystal went into each hilt, and she sealed them up before wrapping the grips with fresh leather strips and tightly binding them. She turned and held one out to me. The moment my fingers closed around the grip, I could tell. They were different. Alive, almost. The blade hummed against my skin. Not audibly, but in that subtle way magic has of brushing against your senses. When Lis first gave me the swords, they must've already been close to drained. Now, they practically buzzed with energy. Fully charged.

They also felt... mine. Not in a bonded or destined kind of way, just like they fit. As if they belonged in my hands, or maybe were an extension of me to some degree.

"If you want the mana stones to last longer," she said, meeting my eyes, "I suggest channeling mana into the swords while you use them. That's why I had you supply mana for the attunement process. It builds a resonance. The resonance also allows you to cast through the swords while using them." I nodded, adjusting my grip.

"When will I need to replace the stones?"

"You won't." She leaned back against the workbench, arms crossing loosely.

"The stones don't get replaced, they get absorbed," she said.

"How fast depends on how you use the swords. The more powerful the monster, or person, you cut, the more energy they'll consume. When the stones are fully absorbed, you'll feel it."

"Feel it how?"

"They'll start to lose their charge," she explained, tapping one of the hilts with her knuckle.

"At first, it'll be subtle. You'll notice the swords feel a little weaker." Her gaze flicked up to meet mine.

"Then that feeling will shift completely, and they'll start behaving like ordinary, unattuned blades." She picked up a rag and started wiping metal dust off the sander.

"And if you stop feeding them mana at that point, they'll go back to chipping like any regular sword." I pulled out the nature spear I'd picked up back in Tuonela. I was glad I'd gone digging through my storage looking for metals to study. Otherwise, I would've completely forgotten I even had the thing.

"Does this spear need attunement too?" I asked, holding it out. She accepted it with both hands and immediately frowned. Then she turned it around, examined the shaft, squinted at the wood grain, and walked off with it without another word. Completely absorbed. I watched as she carried it from one end of her workshop to the other, moving fast.

She slid the spear into a few rune-inscribed brackets, spun a wheel to activate a humming device that bathed it in a faint green glow, and even sniffed the handle at one point. That got an eyebrow raise out of me. She tapped it lightly against a metal plate, tilted her head, and tapped again, listening as if the spear might whisper secrets. Then she held it up and turned it slowly under a lens that magnified the embedded runes. Her brow furrowed. A moment later, she grinned, then frowned again.

She flipped the spear upside down, muttered something under her breath, and squinted through the lens from a different angle. Her fingers drummed against the shaft, her eyes darting between the various runes. Every few seconds, she made a small "huh" sound, equal parts confusion and delight. She was clearly running out of ideas, but also having the time of her life. Eventually, she returned, her expression a mix of awe and frustration, and handed it back.

"This is a level of craftsmanship I am unfamiliar with," she said, almost reverently.

"It might need something, yes. It is attuned to nature and growth, but I cannot say how or what it's waiting for. The spells inside are embedded so seamlessly I can't even trace their anchor points."

"The one who made this," she added, still watching the spear with awe, "was a master who uses advanced techniques, far beyond anything I've studied." I stored the spear and pulled out Mahya's flying sword.

"How about this one?" She took the sword gingerly, like it might bite, and turned it over in her hands. Her eyes lit up, and a second later, the confusion returned in full force. After a long minute of studying it, she looked up and started inspecting me with the same furrowed brow.

"What?" I asked. She just shook her head and returned her attention to the sword. This time, she was even more thorough. She ran her fingers along the blade's edge, then slipped it into a narrow box that projected shimmering lines of runes across its surface. She muttered to herself, adjusted a few knobs, then yanked it out and placed it under a set of floating crystal discs that began to rotate and pulse with faint blue light. She also ran it through all the checks she'd used on the spear.

She even cast some kind of spell on it—a short chant followed by a flick of her wrist—and frowned again when the blade refused to react the way she clearly expected. Eventually, she handed it back to me, shaking her head with a baffled smile.

"This one too. A very advanced creation, but entirely different from the spear. Different forge, different master, different philosophy. But just as out of my reach."

"They're both attuned?" I asked.

"Yes. Deeply. The methods, though… completely unique and unfamiliar." I nodded slowly.

"I know the sword was forged with beast cores from birds. I'm not sure how many or how. That's all I've got." Her eyes lit up.

"That explains it." She snatched the sword again and ran one more analysis, this time with a glass wand she held like a conductor's baton.

"Yes. I can confirm it's attuned to beast cores. More than one, in fact. But the forging wasn't done by mixing materials into the molten metal. It happened during the shaping. A different technique entirely." She handed it back again, gently this time.

"Do you know if the spear used a similar process?" I shook my head.

"No idea. I only know it's attuned to the nature element and has embedded spells, but that's about it." She tilted her head and studied me some more. Those looks were getting uncomfortable. They made me feel like a bug under a microscope. Then, after a pause, a slow, mischievous grin spread across her face.

"If you're willing, I'd like to study both of them properly. I won't damage them, I promise." I raised an eyebrow.

"The price for the swords' reforging was five mithril, yes?" she continued.

"If you let me keep these two weapons here for a while, I'll give you a discount. Say, two mithril off. For the privilege." I rubbed my chin, weighing it. It wasn't a bad deal. Honestly, it was a steal if her insights proved to be useful. I didn't say it aloud, but I already imagined her research helping me craft a flying sword, or more accurately, a flying surfboard for Rue.

"One condition," I said.

"You tell me everything you learn. Everything." She nodded immediately.

"Of course. You have my word." I handed over the weapons, and she cradled them as if they were precious artifacts. Which, I guess, they kind of were.

"Pay me when you pick them up," she said, already turning to clear a space on her workbench. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation, and I got the distinct impression she'd already forgotten I existed. I left her workshop and went off to find the financier.