The Sword Devil

by Nathan Valerio

  When they finished eating, he was smiling and they went to the gate to find Valmor.

  Like always, he sat upon the gate and when they drew near he opened his eyes and looked down.

  “Greetings Archmagus Valmor.” Xero bowed.

  “Greetings child, did you require something of me?” He asked.

  Xero nodded, “You know I recently broke through and Ashley’s innate spells can be improved but Miss Gilbody is busy and I wanted to get this done at the earliest time. Especially because one of them is new and the other directly affects the Flame spirit that was born from one of the spells my familiar has.” Xero said.

  Valmor chuckled, “How long has it been since I improved a spell.” He sighed and got up before casually jumping off the portal and landing softly.

  “Come, let me see.” he said stretching his hand.

  Xero puts his hand on the older man’s who closes his eye.

  “Sword Devil Flame, Sword Devil’s Flaming Slice and Elemental Grand Cleave seem to be converging and wavering, and Sword Devil’s Forge. Then we have that new spell, I see, it a general improvement from breakthrough.” Valmor said. “Come, let us sit down and I shall tutor you a bit.” He said.

  Valmor took Xero the side of the portal platform and took the Sword Devil’s Forge and began to tutor him on 4th year magic knowledge that he will learn in the coming year. It was almost summer and near the end of the school year so he had no problems in teaching Xero in advance.

  Step by step the forge was slowly upgraded. It wasn’t just some small points, Valmor, not wanting to overdo it but not underdo it, slowly taught Xero through the entire night and even the following day, with Ashley being the one cooking and serving tea, for Valmor at least, using knowledge only of the 4th year of the academy.

  He recreated the spell pretty much from start to finish from showing Xero more than a few dozen different and more efficient start up methods for the spell, structure sequences that form faults in the structure of the forge, anvil or hammer. Improvements in the mana gathering formation, heating control and fire starter and how to isolate the Sword Devil Flame runes making the spell independant and easy to switch the ever evolving flame.

  The spell underwent a huge change that was even beyond anything Xero could think of but it was also within his grade level. The strength wasn’t overly powerful and neither was it under the level strength either.

  Next was the Ignia herself.

  “Now this is an interesting sequence. Imp flame evolved into a flame spirit due to the presence of the holy rune.” He muttered and began to slowly change the sequence here and there and as he found what was correct and not he began to slowly explain to Xero as well the changes.

  The sequence doubled in size but the effect was evident. Ignia went from palm sized to palm lenge, being double as tall and her flames were much hotter.

  “Archmagus, you said previously the Cleave and Sword devil slice were converging? What does that mean?” Xero asked.

  “Sword Devils are a sword user exclusive race. They slowly develop spells related to the swords especially attacks. After a certain power, they slowly gather and form one spell usually a passive skill that contains all the spells. I said they were starting to converge but there aren’t many sword attack spells or defense spells. You should think about finding sword magic and putting the simple spells into your familiar. The outcome will be quite spectacular you know.” he said.

  Xero nodded still confused but agreed to go to the library and find some sword spell magic for Ashley soon.

  “Now this last one, child, you can release the spell to let it grow.” Valmor said.

  Ashley released the suppression and mana began to flow into her body and started to form the spell. After a while a name appeared in Xero’s mind.

  “It’s called… Sword Devil’s Field.” Xero said.

  Lucifer appeared at that moment in his tiny devil form. “Ah the Sword Devil’s Field, what a bloody and disgusting spell. I remember falling victim to it once in my early years. I fucking hate the bastard that killed me that time.” He cursed in rage.

  “What is this spell?” Valmor asked for detail.

  “It’s one of the most required spells of the Sword Devils. The field is kind of like a terrain spell that causes a distortion in the real world. The Field can hold the sword minions and can help nurture them even better than simply planting them. What’s more, a high level sword devil can have a huge field and when a demon is caught in it, they are instantly surrounded and even more, the field has a suppression aura against other demons and devils except the Plated Devil.” Lucifer said and sat in disgust.

  Ashley’s eyes were shining upon hearing it.

  “Alright, let’s see.” Valmor said and broke the startup sequence and added something he taught Xero and the following sequences followed the same frame of mind. Xero soon realized that this spell was much higher level when it’s size kept growing. Valmor was using Grade 4 knowledge but the spell was much higher level then that but his high level of knowledge perfectly built the sequence to its end.

  “There, it is complete. I highly doubt you will reach above level 40 within the next two or three years so this is plenty.” He said.

  “Thank you Archmagus!” Xero said and bowed.

  “If you need anything that is impossible for others to help with, don’t be afraid to come and ask. This old man has been bored for the last few years after all.” he said.

  “Alright sir… actually, I remembered that I helped my brother, the one with the Plated Devil, make a much higher level spell for the forge and other spells but I was using only 2nd year magic knowledge. I was wondering if you…”

  “Ahaha, I see, so the forge of the young one was only made with 2nd year knowledge. No wonder there were so many inconsistency and leaks as well as such a backlash on the young devil. Alright, let us deal with this quickly.” He said and taking Xero, they appeared in their house.

  The sudden appearance of an Archmagus obviously set off a huge commotion but after explaining there was an even bigger commotion as they tried to calm down at the fact that he came just to upgrade Zip’s spells.

  Of course it was many times quicker since he didn’t explain the knowledge to Zip. He simply reconstructed the forge spell, and only the forge spell, into something using the same amount of knowledge that Xero learned, or to the same degree.

  The spell ended half as long but it’s length showed how big it was.

  “Alright, the rest of the spells is with Xero, I shall return first, I bid you all good luck.” He said and stepped through space vanishing like the wind.

  Xero sighed with relief and looked at his brother and laughed wryly.

  “Now bro has a super strong forge.” Xero said.

  “I guess so. It will just make my work harder though.” He replied and sat down, “Want to do the other spells?” He asked.

  “Little bro, please improve the imp fire, it is too weak for my use now!” Cinder complained.

  Xero chuckled and sat down with Zip to improve the spells that needed to undergo changes and taking out the few notebooks worth of magic knowledge he wrote down during the study time with Valmor, he began to improve Cinder’s spells which were, Imp fire, Forged Demon Claws, Layered Scales Hardening and Plated Devils’ Divine Forge.

  Imp Fire became Plated Devil Flame, it is similar to Sword Devil’s flame but it isn’t a holy flame, Forged Demon Claws became Plated Devil’s Devil Alloy Fist. Layered Scaled Hardening evolved into Plated Armor Reinforcement and Plated Devil’s Divine Forge was simply upgrade by Valmor.

  When they were finally finished, Zip went to the smithy while Xero split off to go check up on the nature dragon eggs that he had not picked for a long time allowing them to mature and absorb an even more drastic amount of mana beyond what was needed to refine the bone.

  The dragon bone yard had the many varied sized sword eggs and starting at the smallest he began by pulling out the sword and saw that all the bone ma
tter had been digested and a common sized bone sword was formed from the smallest ones.

  Sticking out of the ground were dozens of swords and one by one they pulled it out and confirmed all the bone material was all used up. All the bones radiated nature magic and they were much better looking than if they were plain bone. This showed how well the nature magic sequences changed it.

  All the swords were control swords so they all could alter wood when controlled.

  As for the mana needed to become an ego sword.

  “Hmm, the swords have a good amount of mana, I can probably make ego swords from them already if I let the forge charge several hours.” Ashley said.

  “Don’t you think the new changes would have improved the ability plus Ignia’s ‘birth’ and further upgrade?” Xero asked.

  “Probably but Ignia will probably hurt me after I forge with her so I need to heal each time.” Ashley said.

  “Well we can start and I can just ask her to not hurt you.” Xero said.

  Ashley shrugged and stored all the swords.

  They moved to the back of the dorm. The five first years were studying or training when Xero and Ashley came in but looking at their expression the five didn’t go after them and watched from afar.

  Ashley summoned her forge in the backyard.

  It started the same way with the seven groups of swords landing and the hammer shooting out but to their shock, the volcanic rock seemed like it had been forged itself. It was shining metal of darkish red with red veins. The anvil was the same and the five mana gathering crystal pillars were more spread out and bigger. The furnace was still the fangless beast shape but now it was even intimidating and bigger. The material it was made from was higher quality and no heat escaped as Ignia appeared.

  Xero told her not to burn Ashley, making her pout, but he kept petting her head and she eventually agreed before going to help Ashley in preparing the forge and watching it gather mana.

  ***

  Nadir had bright eyes as she grinned and looked through the first years library in Clear Sands Academy.

  The previous week they had not been allowed in due to giving many tests to see how deep the knowledge of each student was and categorize them in different grades of supplementary classes they would require.

  Towards magic, Nadir would not need the 1st years course that 10 year olds took and she gained permission to see the 1st year level of the library.

  A Magic academy is indeed a magic academy and even a newly built one had advantages over national academies. Where National academy only allow magic course students see the magic achieves, in the magic academy, everyone was allowed and the stock of books was already as much as any national academy.

  Clear Sands Magic Academy was set up by a good number of merchants and craftsmen, most of which were magic craftsmen specializing in the use of magic for in creating magical goods.

  None of the students that had no familiars gained familiars because they would still require basic knowledge of mana and training in mana control. They would be a year late but would gain it together with the 10 year olds that entered at the same time as them.

  The reason Clear Sands recruited just before summer break was also to use the summer to reinforce the knowledge base of the students and already got the permission of their parents to have them in school during most of the summer and the last two weeks they would go back home before returning. This was to make sure their foundation of magical knowledge and anything lacking compared to the 1st years would not be too far off.

  Nadir though, as someone with her own familiar already, was clearly registered and was giving access to the first year knowledge.

  She did have her own classes but at this time she had nothing to do and wanted to look at the spells and things that seemed like fun to her.

  She walked into the library and showed her student ID and the librarian allowed her to enter the section. She searched for the magic section and soon began to look at the books.

  They were filled with different series of large groups of numbers and runes, most of which she learned through headaches from her little brother.

  Some spells she found boring but she did find some that were interesting to her.

  One book described things like unique space gardens inside certain familiar and she thought about the space in her pot, others had different forms of making items like forging.

  While she was spending time having fun reading, she also picked up many random bits of knowledge and ideas that sank into her mind. Having a childish mentality, she didn’t learn very quickly but she picked up on things with a bit more sensitivity like children did.

  Although she herself didn’t notice, she was smiling as she looked at some books and frowned at some others that she would quickly put away and found ‘boring’.

  Her focus slowly took her towards a poorly developed section of magic that the academy was able to simply obtain since there was little use for it which was transforming magic.

  Transforming magic is what it’s name suggested, it transformed the shape of a person or object into another.

  She giggled and almost laughed a few times at the books that showed different stuff but found that there were very few books. She liked the transforming magic because it made things very fun to look at and it was easy to pick up on since there are so few and many of them were just a small bit higher level than common 1st year knowledge. At most 2nd year which she also learned partially as Xero had been in his second year when he was teaching them.

  Before she knew it, it was nighttime and she had looked through a lot of different books. The books actually contain some skills she had as well books on references of Pot familiars that she was currently reading.

  “Pot Spirits are usually regarded as alchemy familiars. Their best attribute is their growing strength to handle medical solutions, combining and extracting needed material in a safe manner after properly trained.

  The most common evolution paths for Pot Spirits, and most object spirits in general, is either the object itself forming sentience and gaining the ability to talk and think or it forms a separate body such as the Pot Fairy race.

  Unlike common organic races that need an extensive exterior stimulus for such an event to happen, or gain a unique evolution, it is a natural event for Spirits to develop sentience.

  The spells an item spirit possesses has a huge effect on their future and developing the material of each item spirit is also important for their future.” The book said.

  Nadir scrunched her thin brows and took another book that was focused on Smithing and thought of her oldest and younger brother who both had forge for making weapons and armor. She thought it would be interesting but she liked playing with herbs but when she got to this point her eyes shined as she finally saw a section. A single word ‘Metallurgy’, the process of melting and merging metals and ore into alloy.

  She remembered her spells were, Dimensional pot, Mix, Cook, Boil, Synthesis, Extract, Combine. All of them were simple spells that all alchemists could do but what she found very interesting was Mix, Extract, Synthesis and Combine, in this case.

  “Ahaha, That sounds like fun. Maybe if I add something for smithing, I can combine these spells so that I can use alchemy with metals!” She thought and her eyes shined as she looked once more at the transformation spell. “Ah! That’s it! I can make it transform!” She said smiling brightly.

  When she thought about it, her face brightened greatly but she remembered she didn’t have any notebooks with her.

  “Ah! I need my notebooks!” She said and quickly ran out of the library.

  The Librarian that had been watching all along looked curiously and walked over before taking a look at all the books she read through and the ones on the table she had left before running off.

  “Is she trying to make something?” he asked himself but since he heard that she would be getting a notebook, he left the books.

  He decided to take a different approach and slowly buil
t a spell sequence that caused him to become invisible to watch what the girl would do.

  She soon came back with several blank notebooks and put them down before she started to look at the different books and using one notebook she started to, almost, play with the sequences as she took the transforming spell and the forge spell along with another specific book meant for cauldron summoning and began to try and structurally combine them just right.

  The librarian, after seeing this, shook his head and soon left seeing that it was just child's play. He would keep watch to make sure that she didn’t try it in the library but would not mind this childish game anymore.

  Chapter 26

  BANG! BANG! Ding!

  Watching Ashley forge, the now metallic Hellish Volcanic Alloy hammer and anvil lit up while the white bone swords were bathed in blue white flame. Around Xero were several different types of Nature Dragon bone swords that weighed heavy or light.

  Some had been forged into short swords while the biggest, which had the size of a huge heavy greatswords that was almost exaggerated in size, had been reduced to the of a bastard sword but the density was even harder than before while also being much higher quality as the impurities of the bone had been burned by Ignia.

  As Xero had requested, she did not burn Ashley which allowed her to focus on her work and properly forge the swords without injury. Well, mostly.

  Her body was still weak to the fire so even if Ignia didn’t attack, she had to rest after each forging, as well as quench her body to release the heat building up. These are things that she can only train to resist better for the future. What’s more, she can not do it all in her demon form, which was the proper method to use it.

  The armor was shiny black and she could not handle the form to some better degree and both of them resisted the demon corruption particles better.

  Xero kept improving the nature control magic while Ashley forged and Ignia moved inside the forge sometimes spewing flames directly at the sword if the material wasn’t melting enough.