by Pegaz
“You,” he said. “Toss the sword to the A-Team guy.”
The man did what he was told to do and threw the sword. It landed only a few feet away from the other man.
“Good arm.” John nodded. “Now you. Pick that sword up.”
The A-Team man picked it up.
BOOM!
Without any kind of hint of remorse, John’s mouth curled into a smile. The rune, “WHEN using NO left OR right fingerprint = explosion,” had worked. Now he and Sarah could use the nano swords without worrying about them getting stolen. As soon as somebody else picked the blades up, they would self-destruct, possibly killing the thief, too.
“Congratulations for surviving.” John looked over at the only man left standing. “I trust you know you have to forget what you’ve seen, right?”
Slightly pale and a small trace of sweat beading his brow, the man could only nod shakily. He took a deep breath and began returning to the prison. But he never made it.
With an ear-shattering bang, his knees gave out and his world went dark.
John had shot a bullet through his head.
“Sorry,” John apologised as the man’s body collapsed onto the ground. “This experiment can’t have any witnesses.”
Carrying on as if nothing had happened, John burnt any traces left of the four men and using his earth element, he filled in the craters left by the explosions. Once all evidence was removed, he approached the prison.
Chapter 33
Report
John walked into the prison’s administration building, where he met once again with the elder in charge. Said elder took notice of him and offered a smile.
“How did the experiment go?” The old man’s voice held an optimism that John almost admired.
“No survivors.” With a shrug, John shook his head. “I took care of the bodies.”
“Ah… I see. If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that you were working on?” The elder raised his brow in a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, no trace of his previous optimism. “Four people died in an hour from your experiment. If you want to continue in such a manner, you’ll need the sect master’s permission.”
“Sorry.” A wry smile spread across John’s face. “I can’t tell you what the experiment was about. Right now, I need to process the results and decide where to go from there. I probably won’t be back for a few years. Not until I’m ready for another experiment.”
“Need-to-know only?” The elder sighed. “All right, then. Have a safe trip back.”
John thanked the elder and walked into the following room. The two grand elders from before were guarding the teleport rune.
“I never got your names,” John said nonchalantly.
“That’s Harvey Ward,” said one of the men, pointing at the other. “And I’m Nicholas Kelly. We’re both Rank 8 grand elders. We’ve guarded this prison for fifty-four years, and we’ve still got another forty-six years to go on our contract.”
“Forty-six more years, huh?” John was more impressed than surprised. “Does a long-term mission of a hundred years pay well? Can you even cultivate here?”
Harvey laughed in response.
“Unless we’re breaking through to Rank 9, there are no dangers while cultivating here.” Nicholas nodded in agreement while Harvey continued his explanation. “Even if we’re interrupted in the middle of our cultivation, there truly is no danger. As for payment, a hundred-year mission will pay on average 5 Grade 8 Life Stones.”
“That’s not bad for payment.” John nodded. “But how does the Sword Sect make the majority of its income? That prison has a lot of mouths to feed. It’s kind of a money pit if I’m being honest. Why not just kill them all and sell their bodies to science or something?”
“Actually, the sect rents out the prisoners for labour,” Nicholas replied. “So this prison actually brings in a steady amount of profit. As for any other types of income, I’m afraid that’s beyond me.”
“Your ideas all involve killing the prisoners,” Harvey interjected. “That’s a one-time payment. Keeping them alive can only bring us more of a profit.”
“Then why did the sect allow me to dispose of prisoners?” John knitted his brows. “That’s just throwing money away.”
“Those prisoners were death row members. They committed crimes too horrendous for us to rent them out.” A dark, solemn look crept onto Harvey’s face as he spoke. “Even a 1% chance of them escaping is too much.”
“That’s fair.” John nodded. “All four volunteers are dead anyway, so I guess there’s nothing to worry about. None of them would have stood a chance at escaping, anyway.”
There was a moment of silence, in which the air grew heavy. John glanced over at the two men and saw they both wore strange expressions. Perhaps he’d been a bit bleak.
“Doesn’t matter,” John broke the silence. “I’ve got to go back. If I’m inside the sect in forty-six years, then I’ll buy you both a drink.”
And so, John bid his farewells and headed to the teleportation rune.
He had to go through another teleport to get back to the sword section, but once he arrived, he proceeded to walk home. The first thing he saw in his Scan upon approaching his destination was Sarah, who was inside a cultivation room in the basement.
He let her be and instead walked into the living room, where he created four “fingerprint” runes. Two of the runes, he put his left and right fingerprint onto and when the blood dried, he placed the runes inside his nano swords. Smiling, he picked them up and tested them himself. Success!
Sarah came upstairs not long after, having noticed John with her Scan ability.
“You’re back.” Sarah welcomed him with a hint of satisfaction.
“Come put your left and right index fingerprint onto these runes,” John responded with a glance. “Turn your Scan off and close your eyes for two minutes, then you will receive the presents early.”
Sarah did what he asked. John took out her nano short swords, did her fingerprints for each rune, placed a rune inside each sword, and placed them into her hands. Her eyes fluttered open and fell onto the blades.
“I made these swords from the nano metal I skimmed off the ring,” John explained. “These runes detect our fingerprints and keep our weapons safe from being stolen. We still have three rune slots left on each of them, though. I think one slot needs to have the change colour rune, or a disguise rune so people won’t notice them being made from nano metal.”
Sarah was extremely surprised and happy with the gifts. The two continued discussing the swords late into the evening.
At the elders meeting hall, Frank and Fred sat in the empty room. They were pouring over a report of John’s experiment. Within the document, the elders of the prison explained in great detail how many people John had used in the human trials. They stated that, since there were no survivors, no one knew what kind of experiment was conducted. At the grand elder’s statement regarding John’s killing intent, Fred and Frank were shaken by disbelief.
“Father,” Frank looked over at Fred. “This man was the rogue sect master’s disciple, but according to the age test, he was only thirty-three when he first joined our Sword Sect. Granted that he couldn’t have killed for money before he was fourteen, that means he’s killed millions of people within a span of nineteen years. And he can hide his killing intent perfectly, which tells us he’s a professional. To top it off, he has the inborn skills he used on us! We couldn’t even see his clothes move, let alone the man himself.”
“Ah, but son”—Fred smiled—”You forgot one thing.”
Frank looked at his father, arched eyebrows in surprise.
“What did I forget?”
“There’s two of them.”
Silence. Fred’s jaw dropped a bit, and he gawked at his father for a moment.
“That’s right,” Frank said slowly, coming out of his shock. “All these reports are on John, but he has a wife... Is she stronger or weaker? Does she have the same training, t
echniques, and power that John has?”
“No one knows.” Fred shook his head. “I think he planned this whole thing.”
“Planned how?”
“When he first came to the sect”—Fred took a deep breath—”you said he did all the talking. He even pointed out the spies, right? All the focus was drawn to him. Not one elder even noticed his wife until he said something. Even when we visited his home, we saw nothing of her actions. They’re definitely hiding something. She’s either inexperienced in fighting, or much stronger. What a trump card.”
“But father”—Frank drew his breath steadily as he spoke—”even if she’s inexperienced, John alone is a big threat. If she’s stronger than he is… I fear that most of the sect could be destroyed from within.”
Once again, a pause. The silence was deafening.
“We don’t even know what the experiment was.” Fred’s hushed words were steady, though his face paled. “For all we know, it’s an experiment on destroying the blood oaths. They can already get around their own blood oaths, but what if they’re planning on teaching this technique to others?”
“So…” Frank took in all the information. “What do you want to do?”
“Speculation aside, he has done nothing against the Sword Sect. For now, we should honour the agreement made when he joined the sect. All we need to do is gather information on his movements. If we suspect he’s betraying the sect, then we can deal with him. Until then, we’ll leave him be.”
Chapter 34
Limiter
John and Sarah went to a branch of the Sword Sect’s rune shop inside sword city to look around. They bought four Mythical Grade colour change runes and made all the swords silver to match their hair. They also bought a mythical grade self-clean rune for each sword, to keep the blades clean. Finally, for the last rune slot, they bought a mythical grade air resistance rune for all four swords. This rune removed all air resistance when swinging or drawing the blade, improving attack speed.
John strapped the longsword onto his back, the hilt sitting above his right shoulder. His short sword swung from his right hip. Sarah strapped the two short swords behind her back, just above her waist.
“When we fight each other in the tournament or practise,” John said carefully, “no using these swords.”
“I’m not stupid.” Sarah grinned back at her husband. “But for the sake of curiosity, what do you think would happen if these swords clashed together?”
“Hmn… Now that’s a question.” John mulled it over in his head before cracking a smile. “I guess the swords would destroy each other. That’s one experiment I don’t want to test, though.”
“Should we buy spares for both of us to use in the tournament, then?” Sarah asked casually.
However, John didn’t reply. He was checking the sheaths of the blades. It surprised him that the sheaths had no rune slots since he made them from the same metal as the blades.
Maybe the rune slots only open on weapons and armour, and not sheaths? I’m not too worried about it, but now I really want to know. And since I brought up the subject of armour, maybe we should buy runes for the two nano armour sets I’m planning on making.
And so, John mentioned his new goal to Sarah and the two continued shopping. After browsing the wares, he bought fifty Mythical Grade runes. Now in his inventory were ten more self-clean, shapeshift, colour change, self-heal, and Force Friction runes.
The Force Friction rune was a recently invented one that cancelled small forces on the armour. If a blow hit the sides of the armour, the rune would push the force around the armour, not through it. If a force was too large for it to cancel, it would only work on a portion of the attack.
As they were walking home, John was struck by a thought. He leaned over to Sarah and whispered.
“Where is the Anti-Assassin planet located?” Sarah’s eyes widened at John’s question. “When we go on missions, we’ll want to avoid that part of the universe for the time being.”
“I don’t know the position in the universe,” Sarah answered with a shake of her head. “But I can show you the way from that planet where we met for the third time.”
“That will do.” John nodded. “I’ve got the universe mapped out from the Rogue Sect. I’ll draw a map for you later. How did Anti-Assassins get around anyway? Do they have their own teleport system?”
“No, they use the public one the Adventure Guild has.” Sarah frowned in thought. “A few times I’ve waited for more than a week to teleport to the next planet.”
When they returned home, Sarah drew the teleport route she took using the public teleport system. John looked at it and confirmed that the route was the same as using the teleport system of the Rogue Sect. He made a rough sketch of the whole universe and marked the positions of the Anti-Assassin, Sword, Rogue, Death and Dual Cultivation Sects.
It was late in the night when the map was complete. Once Sarah said she had memorized it in its entirety, the map was destroyed.
They left the house a few hours later. Sarah’s match was in an hour, so they headed towards the arena. Soon, the two were walking through the arena tunnels towards the contestants waiting area.
“How goes the control of your poison?” John whispered. “Can you turn it into a hand and pick things up? Or anything like that?”
“Not yet.” Sarah shook her head. “I can knock things over, but getting the control to pick objects up is much more difficult. It might take me a few weeks of practice to pick up a glass of water, never mind a sword.”
“I guess that’s no shocker.” John smiled. “It takes a lot of effort and time to create our own skills. The first cultivation method I taught you while using five parts of your mind took me six months to get it right.”
“It just takes time.” Sarah nodded in conclusion. “From your experiences, the system seems to help make us become stronger and much faster than any other person I’ve encountered. But it’s a limiter if we depend solely on it. We need to hone our own self-made skills as best as we can.”
They finished their talk just as they stepped out of the tunnel. The ring was at the centre of the arena. The Sword Sect had removed all twenty of the smaller rings and replaced them with one massive ring, covering the majority of the arena space. John scanned the area, noting the thickness of the ring.
I wonder how they made this giant ring... Does someone inside the sect have the same metal elemental power as me? Maybe they combined all twenty of the smaller rings and formed this one? If that’s the case, there’s a chance someone might have noticed the millimetre of the metal I skimmed...
Act innocent. I felt sick for a minute so I rested on the ring. Stick with the story.
Arriving at the contestants’ waiting area outside the ring, John and Sarah walked up the stairs and found their seats. Everyone around them noticed the two swords strapped onto their bodies. It was the first time John and Sarah had shown their weapons. The blades they now carried were Mythical Grade Rank 5 swords they bought as spares. Within each sword were the same five runes that the nano swords carried.
Frank sat inside the VIP area next to Alisha. Upon seeing the swords, his interest was piqued.
“They must be getting serious,” he muttered. “The next stage of the tournament is about to get interesting.”
Alisha looked at him, confused.
“They have never used their weapons while inside the sect,” Frank explained in a grave voice. “The strange technique that John knows can create weapons for a short time, but we’ve never seen him use a normal weapon from the start.”
“Ah, you’re right, then.” Alisha’s lips curled into a grin. “This is about to get way more interesting.”
Chapter 35
Round One
Walking onto the ring was a man wearing the Sword Sect’s white robes. On his back was a picture of an axe, and on the front of the robe were the letters ‘GE’ for Grand Elder.
The grand elder stood in the middle of the ring and announced
the first battles. The order had been mixed around at the last minute, so nobody knew who they were fighting until the announcement on the day of the fight.
He explained that the Sword Sect did this to make the battles a more realistic experience since while out adventuring you might not know who you would have to fight until the last minute.
The rules were the same as the preliminaries. No killing allowed, but accidents were to be expected while fighting. The first matchups were as follows:
Round 1
J vs D
I vs E
C vs F
B vs G
A vs H
Oh, John thought. I’m fighting the first match of the finals.
Ready for battle, John stood up and approached the ring. As he stepped onto the stairs, the grand elder walked off. In passing, the grand elder offered John a smile and a nod. John returned the motion but checked him out with Immortal Eye at the same time.
???
Rank: 8
Level: 7
Sin: 5
Taking note, John continued up the stairs and onto the ring. He walked about one hundred feet on the ring and stopped. The size of the ring made of this “rare” metal was so large that the only way John could see the entirety of its detailing was because of his improved sight skill. Tearing his eyes away from the ring, John saw that his opponent was on the other side across from him. It was a young man in a white robe, and because of the Scan, John saw a spear design imprinted on his back.
So he’s from the spear section. This will be my first time fighting somebody who uses a spear.
John drew both of his blades. His opponent pulled out a long spear from the bag on his hip. Both men had their eyes set on the referee nearby. The air was heavy as they waited for the signal.
“FIGHT!”
Both John and his opponent instantly charged forward. Once within striking range, the spearman came to a stop, trying to keep John at a certain distance for his advantage. John, however, kept charging forward.