I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1339: First Item Creation [part 1]

Northern held a cold blue blade in his hand. The steel alone stretched nearly five feet from pommel to tip, forged from the Kirithon’s carcass and the aetherium. Northern hadn’t needed to beat the crystal into submission this time. He had expected resistance, had prepared himself to hammer the mineral’s will into compliance, but the moment he held it, the thing had simply... surrendered. Its defiance collapsed without a fight, which made the aetherium’s work almost trivially easy.

’Huh. First time for everything.’

The crossguard swept outward in elegant, wing-like curves forged from another part of the Kirithon’s bone, polished to a silver-chrome finish that caught light like frozen mercury. Where the guard met the blade, an intricate knotwork pattern contained the Azure Spirit Core, which glowed faintly behind a geometric housing. The light pulsed in a slow rhythm, like something breathing.

The grip was wrapped in dark leather that Northern had fashioned from a thin curved bone of the Kirithon, providing exceptional purchase even in wet conditions. The pommel featured a faceted aetherium housing containing residual essence, and it occasionally exhaled wisps of pale lightning that crackled against his knuckles without harm.

As he drew the sword and held it in the darkness, the blade illuminated its surroundings in pale blue light. The temperature dropped noticeably within arm’s reach, cold enough that his breath should have fogged if there had been any moisture in the air down here.

Northern admired it with an easy smile.

”Okay, I think this is enough. Now... for the finishing part.”

This was the part that Northern suspected would prove either devastatingly easy or devastatingly difficult. But he had a strangely flawless assurance that it would be a success. The logic was too clean, the pieces fit too well. Ul’s system had rules, and rules could be exploited by anyone who understood them deeply enough.

’I’m sure Master Eleina would be shocked to her bones when she discovers what I pulled.’

Northern thought about the other people in the forge too, and how surprised they’d truly be. The old smiths with their centuries of tradition, watching some upstart daemon accomplish what they’d never conceived was possible.

He looked up and flew, plunging through the air and landing on the edge of the hexagonal pit with the ease of someone steadying on a stair.

Northern passed a mental command and a clone of his appeared from the darkness with a core in his hand. Northern collected it and sat on the edge, staring at the radiant blue orb that was the soul core of a Destroyer.

’This should work, right?’

While Northern’s expression might have looked nervous to an observer, it wasn’t fear of failure that made his fingers tighten around the core. It was the opposite. He was overstimulated by the anticipation of success, his mind racing through the implications faster than he could steady himself.

He inhaled deeply and started.

The conventional way to make the sword a registered item would have been to bind it to his own soul. That was, in fact, the foundation of what Northern intended to do. Except he wasn’t going to use his own soul. He was going to use the remnant of this Destroyer’s soul, which was its soul core. It carried the creature’s essence signature, and if Northern could successfully use [Soul String] and [Binding Weave] to connect the sword to the soul core, he deduced that the system would automatically register the item as legitimate.

And because of this, the item would likely gain stats that identified it with the nature of the soul core. Even though Northern had crafted it from the Kirithon’s carcass, he believed the soul core would matter more to Ul’s system than the physical materials.

He didn’t know exactly how Ul utilized her powers, but Northern didn’t think she was capable of personally overseeing the vastness of the world. He was an Origin after all, and because of his Origination, he had gained a mind that was incredibly vast and could operate on multiple cognitive streams simultaneously. Northern had even tried to glimpse reality through nine thousand echoes and he knew how tumultuous it had been, even for a Daemon. If he had continued for more than a day, his mind would have fragmented beyond any hope of retaining a sense of self.

The First Origins were special, certainly. But it was still impossible for one Origin to encompass the entire world in her mind.

Which was where Spell arts came in.

Northern had reason to believe that Ul had taken a fraction of her origination, perhaps gotten assistance from her brothers and sisters, and woven an encompassing spell that did the job of overseeing for her. A system within the system. An automated arbiter.

This spell wasn’t perfect, of course. Northern theorized that people like him and Raven were products of its dysfunction. Him, who had no talent. Raven, who had two. Anomalies that slipped through the cracks.

But the flaws in Ul’s spell were nearly nonexistent. For all practical purposes, it was perfect. And that was exactly what Northern was counting on. He was betting that the spell would express its perfection by automatically accepting his item as something of itself, because of the soul core and the particular soul thread he would first connect to the weapon and then weave into the strings of reality itself.

He exhaled and started the process.

Northern’s eyes glowed and the black rings in his pupils seemed to shift as he glimpsed the threads of reality.

[You’re using the First Layer of Shingan]

Northern’s vision shifted, the world becoming layered with luminous filaments that connected everything. Cause to effect. Existence to existence. Soul to reality. The threads were beautiful in their complexity, an endless tapestry woven by something far greater than himself.

He could see the soul core now for what it truly was. Not just an orb of condensed essence, but a knot of severed threads, frayed ends still reaching outward, searching for the body and purpose they had lost. The Destroyer’s remnant will, confused and directionless.

’Perfect.’