by Andrew Rowe
“How close did we get to beating her?” Patrick asked.
Meltlake laughed. “Don’t think a busted lip is going to get you anywhere close to taking me down, Patrick. My simulacrum still had about ninety percent of her mana, and about eighty percent of her barrier left. That is not an insult to your performance by any stretch, however. As first-year students, you were not expected to be able to hurt her at all.”
I nodded at that. The simulacrum was probably at least a Citrine-level monster, and aside from Jin, none of us were anywhere close to that.
It definitely reinforced the knowledge that Derek had been seriously holding back when he’d fought us in the spire. That simulacrum alone was more than enough to beat all of us — and the real Meltlake was probably considerably stronger. A glance showed her aura as Citrine, but I suspected she was hiding an Emerald aura, just like Derek had.
“Given the difficulty of reaching the end of the dungeon, as well as your performance in the fight, I am pleased to give you all a rank of ‘A’ for your final exam. Congratulations.”
We let out another cheer, except for Sera, who wisely kept her enthusiasm subdued.
“Now that we’ve completed the test, can we ask you some questions about it?” I asked.
“Of course. But keep in mind that you still may not speak to any other teams about the test. Some people haven’t finished it yet.”
“Great. Now, let’s start with the dark room...”
We spent the next hour grilling her with questions about how certain puzzles were meant to be solved. I was surprised to find that everyone seemed just as interested in knowing the other solutions as I was. Even Jin had a question or two.
After that hour, Professor Meltlake smiled and waved. “I’m going to have to go — I have another test to run. If you have any further questions, you can ask me at my office at a later time.”
I nodded. “Just one last one. Did anyone do better than we did?”
“Not many,” she admitted. “But one first-year team actually managed to beat my simulacrum.”
I blinked at that. “How?”
“That’s confidential for now, I’m afraid. But I can tell you after the end of the year, if you’re interested.”
“Very interested.” I wanted to learn every trick I could for future tests and trips to the spire.
I wasn’t surprised that someone had managed to outperform us a little — there were hundreds of teams, after all.
But beating the simulacrum?
I had to know who could fight like that.
I’d definitely look forward to finding out.
***
“Hold on, everyone.” Sera stopped us outside the building, as we were about to split up. “Even you, Jin.” Sera’s voice was scratchier than usual, almost as bad as it had been right after her first surgery.
Jin was already ahead of us, but he still turned around and returned to the group. He shoved his hands in his pockets, giving Sera a look of mild irritation.
The rest of us just turned toward Sera, since we were already walking together. Sera was still having trouble talking, but at least she wasn’t coughing.
“I wanted to say that everyone did a great job in there, and we couldn’t have succeeded without everyone’s cooperation.”
We gave her a series of nods.
“Wish they would have let me use this. We might have done even better.” Patrick patted the sword that he’d fastened back on his hip. They’d forced us to hand over his Dawnbringer replica before we’d even entered the exam.
It was a little irritating, but given what had happened with Selys-Lyann, I didn’t blame them for being cautious with our magical weapons. I was lucky they’d even let me bring in the transference sword.
“You still did just fine without it.” Sera gave him a friendly nudge. “Anyway, I had a couple more things to say. First, I would like to ask you all to consider being on my team again next year, provided we all graduate — which I’m sure we will — and that we have similar tests next year.”
“I’m in,” Marissa replied at once. “Couldn’t hope for a better team.”
Patrick gave a cheer. “Yeah! We’ll do even better next time.”
I smiled. “I’ll be here, obviously.”
Jin winced as all eyes turned to him. “I’ll think on it.”
Sera’s eyes narrowed. “Good. I would like to include you, Jin. But there is one more thing.”
Jin tilted his head downward. “Say it.”
She nodded. “You clearly already know where this is going, but I’ll say it regardless. If you ever hurt one of my friends again, I will personally feed you to Seiryu.”
He gave her one of his signature half-nods. “Understood. If that’s all...?”
Sera’s jaw tightened just a hint. “That will be all.”
Jin spun on his heel and walked away.
Patrick’s expression sank. “Was that really necessary, Sera?”
Honestly, I thought she was being too generous, if anything.
I wanted to trust Jin again. Working with him again had been fun. We did make a good team.
But it was going to take more than just not killing anyone during one test to regain my trust.
“You weren’t there,” Sera snapped, tightening her hands into fists. “You don’t get to complain.”
Patrick winced and took a step back.
Marissa stepped in between them. “Hey now, Sera. Don’t bite off your hand just because it itches.”
I hadn’t heard that expression, but it seemed pretty appropriate.
Sera tensed again, then sighed. “Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m just... He nearly killed someone. He could have gotten us all killed. You and Corin might be the forgiving sort, but I’m not going to just pretend we’re all friends again like nothing happened.”
“I’m not sure I can forgive him, either.” I folded my arms. “But let’s not have this argument. If we need to discuss how we’re going to handle Jin at some point, that’s fine. This isn’t the place or the time. We’re in public, and we can’t let all this slip out.”
Sera shook her head. “I said what I needed to say for now. Just know that I’ll be keeping my eyes on him. I know the reasons he gave you in the spire, but I still don’t think we know a fraction of what he’s really up to.”
“All right. If that’s done, then, why don’t we get some eats?” Marissa snagged Sera by the arm. “Nothing like punching a dragon to get my stomach rumbling.”
Patrick laughed. “You’d probably eat the dragon if it was real.”
“What, wouldn’t you? Bet it’d give me magic powers or something. Wasn’t there a story like that?”
“They say that’s how the Blackstone Bandit got so strong. C’mon, I’ll tell you about it on the way to the dining hall.”
Mara frowned. “Don’t you mean the Blackstone Assassin?”
“Naw, totally different. This guy is real — just saw him in the papers recently. Robbed a casino blind just a few weeks ago!”
Patrick continued to regale us with dubious tales of the Blackstone Bandit’s exploits all the way to the dining hall...and through much of lunch, too.
***
Later in that evening, I overheard Sera having a conversation with Keras back at Derek’s manor.
“...Sounds too dangerous. Especially in your condition.” That was Keras’ voice.
“Might be just the thing I need to get my edge back, though. You sure you don’t want to try?”
“Definitely not yet. I’m sorry. The risks are too high. We can talk about it when you hit Sunstone or Citrine.”
“Bah.”
I found the two of them inside Derek’s training room, which we virtually never used, since the rooftop had turned into our de facto location for sparring.
Still, the training room had its uses — most notably two training dummies that had powerful magical shields. The walls were, of course, also shielded.
I waved when
I walked in. “What was that all about?”
“We were, um, just talking about Ceris.” Sera’s voice sounded pretty rough again, and that worried me, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to come across as nagging.
In the back of my mind, though, I was making plans for heading to Vanreach Peak at some point in the future. Sheridan’s treatment had helped, but it clearly hadn’t solved the problem entirely.
Sera raised the crystalline sword. From her stumbling over her words and Keras’ dubious expression, I could tell that the sword was definitely not what they had been talking about.
I decided not to push, both because she was clearly uncomfortable, and because Ceris was an interesting topic in itself. She’d had it for several weeks now, but I hadn’t seen her experiment with it much yet — presumably because she didn’t have enough mana to make it work. Either that, or she’d just been training in private.
Ceris was a legendary weapon, the personal sword of Katashi himself. Unlike the Six Sacred Swords, it wasn’t forged for mortal use — rather, it was an instrument wielded by the visage himself, supposedly for his battles against the Children of the Tyrant. They were the only living beings, aside from the Tyrant himself and the god beasts, that were thought to rival the visages in power.
If what Keras had told me earlier was true, some of those children might even be more powerful than an individual visage — which explained why even a visage might need a powerful weapon.
There were other legendary beings that might have been similarly dangerous — the old gods that had supposedly died, and monsters and servants they’d left behind. But as far as I knew, none of those were on this continent — they’d be back in the old lands that our people had left behind during the great exodus to Kaldwyn hundreds of years ago.
Because Ceris was used by a visage, however, legends about it were...varied. Some of them were clearly nonsense, like that Ceris was forged from the heart of another world that had died long ago. Others were a little more plausible; some said that it had once been used by one of the ancient gods who had died in battle against the Tyrant.
In terms of the sword’s actual capabilities, I knew even less.
I waved a hand at Ceris. “I’ve heard the stories about it, of course, but how’s it actually work?”
“We’ve been trying to figure that out.” Sera snapped back to her normal demeanor, tilting the sword sideways. The weapon’s entire blade was made out of some sort of blue crystal.
There were no visible runes on the surface, but I could see some kind of mana swirling around inside the crystal, even without my attunement active.
“What’ve you learned so far?”
Sera turned toward one of the combat dummies. “Here, watch.” She slashed the dummy, and I saw a flicker of energy as it impacted against a shield. Nothing else happened.
I folded my arms. “So, it can be used to...hit things. That’s very impressive, Sera. Truly, it is a blade without equal.”
Sera turned back my way and rolled her eyes. Sighing, she said, “Pay a little more attention, will you? Here, I’ll make it easier. Keras, if you would?”
Keras held up a hand, conjuring a ball of fire and hurling it at Sera before I could react. I had a moment of fear and alarm before Sera raised Ceris to intercept the blast.
What happened next was peculiar. She didn’t cleave the fireball in half like I might have expected Keras to; instead, the sword flashed for an instant and then the ball of fire distorted, seeming to stretch out toward the blade. When the flames reached the crystalline surface, they vanished entirely.
A moment later, the inside of the crystal was swirling with crimson mana.
As I processed what had just happened, she turned and swung the sword at the dummy again. Flames burst across the dummy’s surface as the blade made contact, leaving wide cracks in the protective shield.
Sera was grinning as she turned back toward me. “Get it now?”
I nodded, impressed. “It absorbs and discharges mana. How do you make it work?”
“I just think about the spell that I want to absorb and it pulls it toward the blade, then absorbs it. The range seems to be about ten feet, and it isn’t automatic. I have to mentally command the sword to do it.”
I rubbed my chin. “The fact that it can read your intent is interesting — that’s a pretty sophisticated enchantment. How do you discharge the stored mana?”
“By hitting something. That doesn’t seem to require any special effort, just a certain amount of pressure on the impact. Means I have to be careful — dropping the sword from far enough will set it off.”
“Can it absorb more than one spell at a time?”
“Nope. Have to discharge the last spell before you can store another one.”
That was unfortunate, because I was hoping to be able to mix mana types inside. Having a relatively safe and reliable way to make compound forms of mana would be extremely useful. “What’s the capacity on it?”
Keras interjected there. “I’ve been advising against trying to test that. If we hit the limit, the whole sword could explode. The last time I heard about an artifact exploding, we had to take a city off the map.”
I winced at that thought. “That’s...bad, yeah. But we really need to find out before she can use it in a combat situation, otherwise it could explode at an inopportune time.”
“Right, I’ll make sure we break it precisely at explode-o-clock.” Sera folded her arms.
I laughed. “That’s not what I meant. A powerful Enchanter or Diviner might be able to figure out the capacity. There are spells for testing material capacities, similar to what my mana watch uses for testing personal mana limits.”
“Thought of that.” Sera set the sword down on a nearby table. “Problem is that no one seems to know what the sword is even made out of. Thought the blade was just some kind of hardened mana at first, but it’s definitely not.”
Keras walked over to the sword and tapped on the blade. “It’s similar to a type of crystal I saw once before. It was a green gemstone with ancient enchantments. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that was made out of, either. Normally I can use stone sorcery to get a feel for the composition of most types of stone, but the enchantments on this artifact prevent me from sensing it properly.”
“That might block Enchanters or Diviners in the same way. Hrm.” I took a look at it with my attunement on. The aura around it was colorless right now, which didn’t tell me much. It clearly wasn’t just a Quartz-level item, so it probably used a completely different form of enchanting than modern ones, much like the Jaden Box.
“I’ll see if I can start researching spells for analyzing items. Could be useful, considering the number of magical items we’ve come across that don’t use standard runes. I don’t know if the spells will work, but it’s worth trying.”
Sera nodded. “Thanks.”
“Have you figured out anything else about it?”
Keras shrugged a shoulder. “It has some standard magic sword properties. Tougher than steel, but it’s hard to say if that’s because of enchantments or the crystal itself. It’s sharp, but nothing particularly impressive. Then there’s this.” He picked up the sword, then hit the target with it several times in rapid succession.
I could hear a faint ringing in the air each time he struck, with a slightly different tone — like musical notes.
I blinked. “That’s...really strange. Is it doing anything other than making sound?”
“Can’t tell.” Keras set the sword back down. “Might be some kind of vibration based attack, but if so, it doesn’t seem particularly potent. It seems to change based on where I hit the target, so it might also be some kind of information for the wielder.”
“Information?”
“I think the tone might indicate points the sword considers more vulnerable than others. If it was built for use against powerful monsters, for example, the tone might be useful for finding areas where scales are thinner, or that sort of
thing.”
“Like knocking on dungeon walls to find a hollow spot. Huh.” I’d thought of some pretty strange ideas for enchantments over the years, but that definitely wasn’t the type of thing I’d ever considered. “That’s...weird, but I suppose it could be useful.” I thought about it for another moment. “Does it make a different noise when you have a spell stored inside?”
Keras’ eyes and lips narrowed as he considered. “Haven’t noticed a difference, why?”
“If the sword is about storing and distributing mana, and it also has some kind of weak point detection, maybe it can be used to detect for elemental weaknesses as well.”
“Not bad.” Keras tapped his fingers against the table. “I hadn’t thought about it, but that does make sense. I generally don’t bother with figuring out monster weaknesses.”
Probably because you’re so powerful you don’t have to worry about them, I realized with a hint of amusement. But the rest of us mere mortals need to strategize more.
“Wish we had an easier way to test that.” I finally said. “I could build an elementally aligned shield sigil, but it’ll take a while.”
I considered the idea of testing it on a summoned elemental for an instant, but then I realized that was horrifically immoral and dismissed it entirely. Fortunately, no one else brought it up.
Another idea did occur to me, though. “Keras, what about that bond you can make with weapons? Wouldn’t that give you a better idea of how it works?”
Sera frowned. “We talked about that. There are some risks with trying to make a contract with an artifact with unknown properties, especially when we know at least one of them involves absorbing mana. We’re probably going to try it, but we wanted to figure out what we can from safer tests before we make a decision.”
That sounded wise. “Have you figured out if there are only specific types of mana it can absorb?”
“Seems like any of them, at least from what we can tell.” Sera formed a little sphere of ice in her hand, picked the sword back up, and absorbed the spell into the weapon.
There were a lot of possible applications for that. “Could you store a healing spell inside, and then use it to heal someone later?”
