A Sword's Dark Hunger
As Leon retrieved the wooden sword, blood gushed from the exact center of the man's pierced chest. Leon examined the recovered wooden sword for a moment. Was it because the opponent let his guard down...? Or was it simply that the magic sword was that powerful? Because of its ability to disrupt spell formulas? Or perhaps the influence of the magic infused with so much mana? Countless possibilities rose in his mind. However, since Leon's mana quality was not yet particularly remarkable, he did not consider the idea that it had happened simply because his own mana was overwhelmingly strong.
Wiping away the cold sweat brought on by tension, Leon first used detection magic to thoroughly scan the surroundings. Only then did he lift the man's corpse and step into the Chrono Orb. Kito was nowhere to be seen. After confirming she could fly normally, he had ordered her to explore the vast space within the orb. Leon collected the silver disc and stepped back outside. He quickly erased the blood-soaked floor with water magic. The gouged floor from the initial attack and the wall the man slammed into...
Finally, Leon summoned the earth elemental from the 4-star magic of Arpina that he had memorized. "Eosuite."
A round, sleek-looking brown head rose from the ground. The earth spells compatible with Eosuite included those that could collapse the ground in an instant or hurl clumps of stone, but Leon used them cleverly to repair the gouged floor and wall.
I can't make it look completely natural, but... He decided to be satisfied with creating enough confusion to hinder any precise judgment. A loud noise had rung out, so there was no telling when a mage might appear. After using even a mana trace remover, Leon quickly left the area.
In the end, Leon returned without even attempting to sell the items he carried. Inside the Chrono Orb, he was testing the power of the Sword that Scatters Moonlight.
Leon poured every last drop of his mana into the wooden sword floating in the air.
"Pierce."
The wooden sword flashed and shot toward a thick tree far in the distance in the blink of an eye, piercing straight through it. It did not stop there, continuing to fly at undiminished speed.
Crunch— Crunch— Crunch— Several trees toppled in succession. The wooden sword flew to a spot where retrieving it with basic telekinesis would be difficult and vanished from sight.
"Huff... Huff..."
Overwhelmed by the sudden emptiness of having expended all his mana, Leon caught his breath and wiped away his sweat. The more mana I pour in, the stronger it becomes. That's certain. It was also true that it was more than he could handle, but that was only because he had poured in every last drop.
To think magic could grow stronger based solely on mana quantity... With his currently low mana quality, he had discovered a way to strengthen spells through sheer volume. Since Leon was confident in his mana reserves, he welcomed the discovery.
Leon sat cross-legged and regulated his breathing. As clear mana circulated through his body, his mind grew somewhat calmer. The mana inside the Chrono Orb always left him feeling pleasant. After gaining All-Element Affinity, his affinity for mana had grown even stronger, intensifying that sensation. It was undeniable that this had become the driving force behind his relentless training.
Once he had caught his breath sufficiently, Leon personally retrieved the wooden sword and placed it inside his subspace pouch.
Now it's time to examine these...
Leon approached the man's corpse. Two subspace pouches had come from his belongings. One contained only mana stones. A quick glance showed there were more than a thousand. Leon set the mana stone pouch aside and emptied everything from the other subspace pouch onto the floor.
The first thing that caught his eye was a black grimoire titled Akripa Lineage: Brand of the Void.
Leon took out the book labeled Call of the Abyss from the simple grimoire case he had prepared. It was the dark magic tome he had obtained after killing Forn. While Brand of the Void was a high-level spell usable by esoteric mages, it did not seem particularly compatible with Call of the Abyss. Call of the Abyss was among the lower-grade spells even apprentice mages could learn.
On the other hand, Brand of the Void...
Leon's brow furrowed sharply at a certain passage.
These people are truly insane...
Brand of the Void was fundamentally a spell that required a mage's core to cast. Not the user's own core, but another mage's. Since a core had no physical form, it was natural for it to vanish the moment its owner died. Forcibly extracting and condensing it had created the black mucus that had felt so repulsive to Leon. Mages were beings who could influence reality through will alone. The mucus formed by mixing such cores gave off an eerie aura, as though it contained the grudges of the dead.
Furthermore, there existed an artifact capable of forcibly holding a core for temporary storage... Leon picked up the purple crystal lying beside the grimoire. It was small enough to pinch between his index finger and thumb. Across the crystal's purple surface, seven gray stripes wriggled as if alive.
A mage's core was stored inside this crystal, then condensed according to the Brand of the Void spell. The more cores condensed, the more powerful the mucus that could be summoned.
What a vile magic.
Leon set the book and crystal down for now and picked up the token. It resembled the one he possessed but featured more intricate engravings. After examining it with identification magic, he found it was an artifact capable of generating a D-rank barrier. Since Forn's had been E-rank, this was an improvement. A D-rank was effective even against beginner esoteric magic. There were no signs it had been used, so it could likely be activated five times.
He really did let his guard down... Possessing an artifact like this yet choosing not to use it meant he must have believed he could block the wooden sword with magic alone.
Well, if I saw an ordinary wooden sword flying at me, I'd probably snort and try to block it too.
The magic sword possessed the fraudulent ability to disrupt a mage's spell formulation, yet it was ironically vulnerable to artifacts that required only mana infusion.
Leon stared at the token, lost in thought. The man had clearly realized something when he saw Leon's token lying on the ground.
Could it be a token that lets dark mages of the same faction recognize one another?
Using it simply because it was D-rank left him uneasy. It was unclear whether the man had tracked Leon through a tracking spell on the token or had begun pursuing him after Forn's weekly research logs stopped arriving. Identification magic could not detect whether a tracking spell had been placed on it.
For now, I'll store it inside the orb. Even if a tracking spell was present, he could not imagine it would reach the space inside the Chrono Orb. The same went for the red orb beside the token. It was a communication orb; he planned to keep it inside the orb and drop it overboard at any convenient moment once he was aboard the ship.
The next item that drew his attention was a potion bottle filled with a deep navy liquid. Identification magic revealed that spraying the liquid would restore damaged terrain or buildings to their original state.
So he didn't launch a surprise attack in the middle of a magic city for nothing.
Thinking of the site he had only roughly cleaned up, Leon felt a belated pang of regret. It's too late to go back now.
The last remaining items were five E-grade elixirs. Since even E-grade elixirs would lose effectiveness once one reached the esoteric rank, he assumed they had been saved rather than consumed upon advancing.
Leon set the other items aside and once again found himself pondering with the black grimoire and purple crystal before him.
Akripa Lineage: Brand of the Void. Apart from the magic that condensed a mage's core, the shadow assimilation technique—which was simply a movement spell—looked useful, but that was not why Leon was hesitating.
The true reason Leon had felt extreme danger upon encountering an esoteric dark mage lay elsewhere. To learn dark magic quickly, one needed darkness affinity. Along with light affinity, darkness was regarded as the most outstanding talent aside from All-Element Affinity. It could not be substituted.
The reason traced all the way back to the primordial era when gods and demons waged war. After the gods' war ended, magic—called the byproducts of the gods—remained. Ancient mages had organized it into a systematic framework, which had evolved into the current magical system.
According to that system, one's realm rose quickly when learning attribute magic that matched one's affinity. Therefore, reaching the esoteric rank at a young age naturally required darkness affinity.
Yet what he discovered while examining Brand of the Void was that there existed a method for even those without talent to rapidly advance their realm.
Creating a new core around the heart. Unlike the core that naturally formed at the solar plexus, this one required offering one's own heart as a sacrifice to create an artificial core.
Of course, even that would require a certain level of talent.
There were surely side effects to this method, but they were not recorded in the grimoire. The text assumed the reader had already learned the secret technique and continued from there.
So this is why mages are persecuted... The term "forbidden art" fit perfectly.
Leon's gaze returned to the purple crystal. The seven small gray stripes wriggled as though alive. Perhaps they were the cores of seven apprentice mages. It was unlikely that actual souls were trapped inside, but Leon had no use for it anyway, and simply keeping it felt ominous.
Should he shatter the crystal? After pondering, Leon picked up the black grimoire. It seemed possible to modify the spell that condensed other mages' cores and instead release whatever was inside the purple crystal.
Is this too superstitious?
Brand of the Void was a magic designed to function using an artificial core created in the heart, but that did not apply to Leon. After all, he possessed darkness affinity. There was no need for him to create such an artificial core.
This isn't something to do right now.
Leon also emptied all the items from his original subspace pouch and laid them out. He needed to decide what to place in the subspace he could access immediately—in other words, to set priorities.
But Leon's plan did not proceed as intended. The moment he took the wooden sword out of the original subspace pouch, it began to tremble violently. Soon the purple crystal started vibrating as well, and something was abruptly sucked out from within it and absorbed into the wooden sword.
"N-no..."
It happened before Leon could take any action.