She did one pass on all sides before tossing it up and letting it spin. Strangely it almost landed before it suddenly stopped in the air and fixed itself until it was upright.
Ashley nodded, “Not bad for my first try, it's all because of masters careful planning when making it. Master, this is an Ego sword, it’s a rank above the Spirit sword and it has a conscious mind. I forged the Sword spirit improving it then it was bathed several times under my flame. It is the same rank as that little blade you fly on but its magic ability is many times greater. It chooses its own master but because master is master it will accept you as his master as well. It can’t talk yet though but they do have one ability the little flying one doesn’t.” Ashley said and snapped her finger.
Suddenly the topaz gemstone shined blinding almost everyone but when they looked they sucked in a cold breath. Standing with two meters in height while holding the previously floating sword which now lacked the gemstone, was a large knight in thick plated armor.
“This is my own brand of minions master, this is my Sword Demon Minion.” She said.
“This looks strong.” Meldie said and all the men around them nodded.
Then they saw the body glow and was absorbed into the empty space on the sword.
“Because they are just ‘born’ they don’t have much mana master so they need to gather sufficient mana to maintain that form.” Ashley explained and waved her hand making the sword float slowly over to Xero who took the sword.
Touching the sword he felt a strong connection and he felt the interior.
There was absolutely no change to any of the spells but the still broken ones were flashing every so often and the complete ones had some runes that flashed.
“As master can see, as long as the spirit is alive the spells master made are safe. To make it better, it can now learn to make spells.” Ashley said and walked over but suddenly tripped, “Eh?” She said as she felt extremely tired.
Night sighed, “Figures, even if she was able to make a blade, she didn’t use her true form to do it and probably the holy magic is started to backlash now.” Night said.
As he said that small yellow lines from Ashleys chest began to spread until blue white flames began to appear.
Tsss!
The sound of something burning while the flame hissed like a snake and started to break her skin all over and started to burn her.
Soon Ashley’s ‘life’ burned out and she returned to seal.
With her, the forge broke down into mana and dispersed into the air releasing abundant mana it had gathered.
The only proof that anything happened was the yellow blade with the topaz gemstone that remained in Xero’s hand and he lifted it up and wanted to test this out.
“I wonder, is there any of you Sir’s who would spar with me?” Xero asked while he held the sword.
The warriors looked at his sword curiously and one of them stepped up, “Come on kid, let’s see your metal.” He said and the two stepped up.
Far in the corner of the field, Night was watching bored when he found that Francis had appeared behind him holding a small sized Magic bag. “I have your request.” He said.
The Dark Cherub grinned and took it and looked through everything and grinned wider. He pulled out a few mana stones and the halfling nodded walking away.
Night’s yellow eyes flashed a sinister light as he leaned against a tree. Slowly the shadows seem to come alive and his body slowly melted into the shadows.
With the mental link of the familiar seal, Ernest suddenly heard “Don’t look for me for a few days.” Night said.
Ernest looked around but found that the Cherub was gone.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Night appeared in Ernest’s room coming out of the shadows. The boy who had trained all his senses and never truly fell into a deep sleep and was somewhat attune to shadow magic becauses of his familiar, suddenly opened his eyes and saw Night looking at him upside down with his yellow cat like eyes.
“What did you go do?” he asked.
Night just grinned, “You will eventually find out.” He chuckled and turned into a red light before returning to the familiar seal while his chuckle echoed in the room.
Ernest laid down and rubbed his head and opened his eyes looking at his right hand. The tattoos covered his hand.
Ernest was actually a high level talent just like Silvia, he was currently maxed out at level 30 but his familiar was level 35. This last bit of difference that was marked on his hand was an immense gap. The gap between a level 30 and level 31 is like a gap between a level 1 and level 20. It was a high milestone that was very hard to break even when he pushed himself greatly to his limits training to the limit of his endurance.
Ernest just closed his eyes once more and let the remaining bit of night time pass.
***
KLANG! DING! DING! DING!
The sound of swords impacting was heard from the training field early in the morning. At the center of this sound was Xero holding a regular sword and in front of him, a yellow armored knight.
The two kept clashing one into the other. This was Xero’s earth sword Sword Devil minion. To try out its power Xero had left him resting in the ground the night and come morning he found the knight sitting cross legged sleeping while the sword remained in the ground still absorbing mana.
When he called it, the red glowing eyes appeared. Xero had been curious about their strength and borrowed a pair of iron swords.
Apparently the body was a physical manifestation of the sword spirit but the true body was the sword. As long as it stayed in the ground it would slowly absorb mana to sustain the body.
For a magicless spar, it would not fade away so Xero took it to battle and discovered something. The Minions were like newborns, although they have sword magic, they lacked swordsmanship skills.
They waved the swords like waving a stick so during the dawn hours Xero had taught it just the basic fighting form of the sword fighters. It soaked up the knowledge like a newborn and quickly adapted to using it but it had a lot of wasted movements and energy.
Although the physical strength was unexpectedly around level 24 or 25, the way it moved and attacked were reckless, slow and inefficient while Xero’s small body moved and dodged by a hair's breadth as best he could and attacked areas with openings causing the Sword Devil to collapse.
Xero would then explain what it did wrong and the two would spar once more. He would try the same thing again and find that the Sword Devil would somewhat fix the problem and block or try dodging before Xero takes it down in another form.
Skill triumphs strength as long as it is not a situation of absolute strength, even within the same level rank, normally within the same 10 level range, skill can outdo strength.
Soon the young guards and knights woke up and discovered Xero and the Demon Knight sparring from early on.
Only after a while, Xero was covered in sweat that he called an end and went to take a bath while the Sword Demon just sat back down in front of its sword absorbing more and more mana to sustain itself.
Ashley eventually came out stretching as if she had just woken up while still wearing her swordswoman suit. “Morning master~! That sleep was so good.” She said and smiled at him.
Xero just looked at her with his mouth a bit open.
“Master? Is something wrong?” She asked before blushing and fidgeting, “Or did you finally fall for my charm and want to make me your official wife?” She asked.
Xero shook his head and pointed up, “Your horns.” He said.
“My horns?” She said and touched them. As soon as she touched the tip she took it off blowing her fingers that had been burned and was peach color and slowly was covered by the blue color once more.
She frowned and looked around and found a mirror and looked. What she found was that at the tip of her horns were two very small blue white flames. She looked curiously and held out her finger and saw a spark of the flame come out before she
was able to somewhat manipulate it with her mana but suddenly her arm caught fire as she controlled the flame even without touching it and soon the fire spread from inside and she was withdrawn to the seal.
It was a strange thing that Xero saw but after a moment, she respawned frowning, “My Sword Devil’s Flame is evil! It hurts!” She pouted, “Stupid thing.” She said but what was amazing was that a hiss came from the two little fireballs and suddenly her sleek black horns turned shiny white and she shouted in pain. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!” She shouted and slowly the horn returned to being black except the tip.
“What is going on?!” Xero asked.
Ashley was tearing up as she held her horn but not touching the flame. “I-I’m still too young and weak to properly control the flame.” She said tearing up due to the pain that she was feeling in her horn and head. “These flames are alive, because it has Holy mana, it gave them basic sentience. I would probably hurt myself each time as I control it because I still have no resistance to Holy Fires.” She said looking in the mirror at the little flames and sighed.
“For now, it seems the flames will kill you with each use but they don’t seem to endanger you during the forging process though.” Xero said.
“Yeah, their primary focus is forging so they would allow me to control them in the forge but afterward there will be a backlash I think.” She said pouting and looked at her master, “Master, I will go refine master’s Volcanic Obsidian sword now. Then master can go train the Earth Demon minion, they will learn almost anything master teaches them including how to efficiently use magic. If master teaches them how to build magic formulas and such, they would even build masters magic formulas for you.” She said.
“Can Devils learn to build spells themselves?” Xero asked.
“Devil’s yes, it's what sets us apart from demons. We are the sentient race of hell after all and it is how we improve our own spells beyond the basic natural upgrades. We also can steal magic formulas by looking through the soul of demons and devils defeated by us.” She said.
“Okay, I’ll go train it to just fight for now.” Xero said and went to take a bath and rested up before going outside and finding the sword minion sitting down.
Xero found one of the knight trainers and asked him for his help because the minion did not know how to properly fight. In the end, the huge armored creature was put alongside the recruits to swing the sword constantly until its form was properly.
Xero joined as well because it would help him improve his skill and like all the recruits, a very powerful restraint was put on his arms and legs to force the legs and arms closed so that they built strength and force them to be conscious of their position and movements.
With nothing that anyone could do, days passed and soon weeks. Ernest soon healed under Meldie’s healing magic that was placed when he would go to sleep and in the morning Pou would come out and usually he would heal some more afterward before it stopped when he woke up.
Along the first few days, a total of four sword minions joined the training. The first was the yellow minion that had been there, the next was a short female devil in light green armor, the next was a male devil that was as big as the first but it’s armors were black with red and it released heat from within and a red glow appeared through the cracks from the inner flames existing within. The final one was another female with compressed wooden armor but she was 170 and her armor was a bit thicker and like a classic knight but not heavy armor.
The green wind sword had become light as a feather unlike the volcanic rock and earth swords. The most unique was the wood sword, strangely the wooden sword became ‘metallic’ but the wood had many red veins hat was the enhanced skill from the Bloodvine tree ability it had absorbed. It was hard as steel and sharp as a razor and unlike the other long swords. This one was a one edged longsword while the other side was blunt. It was light and had a very slightly curved blade and was a very swift, hack and thrust sword that was perfect for drawing slashes, unlike the common longsword.
Eventually Ernest also joined them once his leg healed so that he could recuperate his legs strength.
After almost a month like this, the Sword minion’s movements became smoother. As they end the morning exercise and spar Xero sat down and Meldie walked over and handed him a waterskin with a fruit juice meant to re energize the drinker.
Meldie was blushing as she handed it to him but still smiled, “You're incredible Xero, your skills grew so much in just a month. Your tattoo even shrank down half way down to the wrist already. Doesn’t that mean you’re level 21 at least right?” She asked.
“Thanks for the drink…” he said with a small pat on her head, “As for my level, who knows? Only when school starts again we will check.” Xero said.
Every start of the year, the levels of all students are checked for summer progress.
“That is true.” Meldie said.
“Hey girl, it’s been nearly a month, is there any word on the barrier yet?” Night said irritated.
Meldie’s smile faded and nodded, “Word just came in to father, the Merchant’s order, his royal highness and the church of Light all forced the closure to come to an end. Father got in contact secretly with some of his allies and someone is coming to take everyone out without any problems.” She said solemn.
“Great! That said, Ernest, we shouldn’t return to the school, it would cause more trouble, we should hide out somewhere until summer break is over.” Night said to Ernest.
“I know.” Ernest replied simply.
“If you want somewhere to hide, you can come stay with me and my family, our village has both Light and Dark Ice and Fire church as well as the Dark Holy Church in the borders. You can get protection from them since we have a good relationship with them.” Xero said.
Ernest showed a shocked expression and smiled wryly before nodding, “If your family will have us for the remainder of summer then we would be thankful but we hope we don’t draw trouble.” He said.
Xero shook his head, “I don’t doubt they might try something but I also don’t doubt that the Dark Holy church isn’t hiding someone really strong to protect my family.” Xero said.
Meldie looked confused, “Why would they protect your family? Is it because your two older brothers both summoned Demon familiars?” Meldie asked.
Xero smiled and shook his head but didn’t say more because they were still near a lot of soldiers and even if they were part of the Donima family he wanted to keep exposure, especially in this nation, to a minimum.
They waited for two days until the transport arrived and to Meldie and Xero’s surprise, Univa stood in front of them. Her drake had gone from 7 meters to 12 meters long showing that it had undergone a growth spurt.
“Young Miss Crost, I thank you for helping out my daughter and her friends.” Francis said.
“Eh?! Me?” Meldie said.
“Of course dear, I very much don’t want you to get stuck in the nation once more by the stupid actions of the church so she will be taking you as well.” Francis said and walked over to Xero and patted him on his shoulder, “Take care of my little girl out there and come visit when times are less… troublesome.” he said.
Xero smiled wryly, “I’ll see if I can do that.” Xero said.
“Good! I’m quite happy Meldie brought home such a good son-in-law that is so trustworthy and hardworking.” Francis laughed.
“FATHER!” Meldie said.
In front of Tryus, Univa almost choked on the water she was drinking when she heard his words and looked over in shock. “Xero… you got married with the halfling?!” Univa asked in surprise.
“NOO!!!” Meldie shouted and ran back inside red faced.
Xero scratched his head and sighed, “It's just them calling me that for… some reason. I didn’t get married and don’t really plan to since I’m still too young.” Xero said.
Univa let out a breath, unlike halflings, humans only marry after 16 but an arranged marria
ge within nobility would still be planned before that and normally the birthday of the one that turns 16 last is also the engagement date so her shock was mostly towards that but unfortunately for her, a certain demon was currently out of his seal and grinned as he floated over.
“Oh my what’s this? The little princess of the Crost family is feeling nervous when she thought that Xero was married?” He joked and laughed.
Instantly her face turned bright red as she pulled her wand and from the tip she compressed wind and released it as a shockwave but how could her low level hurt or not be seen by the level 35 demon? He easily vanished from her view and appeared next to Ernest laughing.
“You~! Control that blasted demon!” She shouted at Ernest.
The boy in question sighed and recalled Night before he caused more problems.
Eventually Meldie came back out after calming down but her face soon burned when she saw Xero again.
As for Xero, he had all the Sword Minions return to sword form and strapped them to his back to transport them without raising much attention from other people but Univa was still quite curious about them and their strength level. She was startled to find they had physical strength in the level 20’s from the get go but calmed down when she found out that their minds were undeveloped but they had a fast growth rate.
It made her curious about the swords so after they took off on the back of the dragon, her, Xero, Ernest and Meldie, she asked about the specifics of how they came to be.
***
Only after a few hours the drake was able to arrive at the border. Univa explained that the barrier actually did not affect dragon type beasts under the familiar seal of a specific few bloodlines. Hers being one of them. Not only that, Francis has paid a good price for the Crost family to liberate a one time use medallion that would undo a small section of where they pass so that they would not be identified when they crossed through.
The Sword Devil Page 8