Creation system
Chapter 30: Space slash

Chapter 30: Space slash

She lifted one of the tier 1 strength rings, turning it slowly in the dim light to examine every detail.

[Tier 1 Strength Ring – Carved from some kind of dense, dark wood and infused with raw mana, this ring provide a more modest boost of 3 points to body stat. The amateur craftsmanship was evident in the slightly uneven cuts and the way the magical energy pulsed irregularly through the grain.]

Mitch leaned closer, his trained eye scanning the ring’s surface for hidden properties he might have missed during his initial inspection of the assassin’s belongings. Nothing unusual caught his attention.

"This was my ring. Look here," Leya said softly, her voice carrying a note of bittersweet recognition. She turned the band inward, revealing the inner surface.

Mitch squinted and saw delicate script etched into the wood, Leya, carved in flowing letters no larger than a child’s fingernail. The inscription was so small and subtly worked into the grain that he had completely overlooked it during his hasty examination of the assassin’s spoils.

"Did you get mugged before?" Mitch asked, curiosity and concern mingling in his voice as he began to piece together her story.

"The man who left me to die in the Whispering Forest stripped me of everything I owned," she replied, her jaw tightening with old anger.

"The assassin you killed must have either taken care of him directly or purchased my belongings from whoever finished the job."

"That makes far more sense than what I was thinking," Mitch nodded, relieved that the coincidence had a logical explanation.

"Anyway, thank you so much for gifting me these. They would have fetched you considerable gold at any merchant’s stall," she said warmly, rising on her toes to place a gentle kiss on his cheek.

"It’s better this way. If you’re strong, we both have a better chance of surviving whatever enemies we might face" Mitch replied pragmatically, though he felt a slight warmth spread across his face where she had kissed him.

"Do you know where I can go to practice some skills safely?" Mitch asked, eager to test abilities he hadn’t had a proper opportunity to explore.

"You have two main options," Leya explained, counting on her fingers. "Outside the town walls, it’s free, but you’ll be dealing with wandering monsters and potentially hostile awakened.

The guilds maintain training grounds within the walls, cost about a gold per day.

Leya provided detailed directions to the guild training facilities, sketching a rough map in the dirt with a stick before they parted ways, her heading toward her brother while he made his way to the training grounds.

The guild training grounds exceeded every expectation Mitch had formed during his walk there. He had envisioned perhaps a simple dirt courtyard with a few straw-stuffed dummies and basic obstacle courses.

The reality was a complex of sophisticated structures that spoke of serious investment and magical engineering.

Each training chamber was a separate building, reinforced with gleaming defensive arrays that hummed with protective energy.

Crystalline formations embedded in the walls pulsed with stored mana, ready to reinforce barriers or heal injuries.

The indoor spaces were spacious halls filled with various training equipment, enchanted dummies that could absorb different types of damage, weighted practice weapons, and weights for strength training.

The privacy aspect became immediately clear as Mitch observed other trainees entering and leaving their individual chambers with careful discretion.

In a world where knowledge of someone’s abilities could mean the difference between life and death, secrecy was worth its weight in gold.

So that’s why it costs a full gold piece, Mitch mused as he paid the attendant and received a crystal key attuned to chamber seven. Actually quite reasonable for this level of security and equipment.

Mitch was eager to experiment with techniques he’d had no opportunity to properly test. He had successfully learned the fire aura blade, but his other elemental affinities remained largely unexplored in weapon enhancement applications.

He began by drawing his current blade and coating it with his base mana, feeling the familiar tingle as magical energy suffused the metal.

Then came the delicate process of willing his various affinities to manifest and merge with the weapon’s aura.

Water aura blade, the result was disappointingly mundane. Upon striking the training dummy, the blade released a small splash of water at the point of impact, barely enough to dampen the target’s surface. The water seemed to lack any real force or magical properties beyond basic moisture.

Earth aura blade, this proved problematic in an entirely different way. The moment earth mana infused the blade, its weight increased dramatically, making it unwieldy and slow.

Worse, the earthen coating crumbled away like dried mud during the slashing motion, leaving gritty residue and accomplishing nothing.

Wind aura blade, now this showed real promise. The air mana made the blade’s edge significantly sharper than standard mana coating alone, and the strike generated enough wind pressure to actually push the heavy training dummy backward several inches. The cutting power was notably improved.

Holy aura blade, if water had been disappointing, holy mana was utterly worthless for weapon enhancement. The radiant energy seemed to disperse harmlessly on contact, producing nothing more than a brief, pretty shimmer.

He settled into his practiced combat stance, feet shoulder-width apart, blade held at the ready. He activated his mana flow, feeling it course through his body like liquid lightning, then guided it into his weapon before carefully willing his space affinity to take form.

A void-black, lightless aura manifested along the sword’s edge, not darkness, but the complete absence of light itself, as if reality had been carved away to reveal the nothingness beneath.

He brought the blade down in a controlled slash.

THUNK!

The training dummy, built to withstand punishment from tier 2 awakened and reinforced with protective enchantments, split cleanly in half.

The two pieces fell away from each other with barely a whisper of resistance. Mitch felt almost nothing through the blade.

It had passed through the dummy’s defenses and structure like cutting through cheese

Even the wind aura blade, with its impressive sharpness, had only managed to score deep cuts in the dummy’s surface. This had bisected it entirely.

That’s incredible! But the cost had been enormous. The single slash had drained more mana than casting six mana balls. The wind and fire aura techniques used modest amounts of energy by comparison, but the space aura blade was a serious investment of power.

[Water aura blade]

[Earth aura blade]

[Wind aura blade]

[Holy aura blade]

[Space aura blade]

Mitch spent the remainder of the day methodically working through each aura blade technique, refining his control and understanding of their individual quirks.

The space aura blade proved the most challenging to master, requiring precise mana manipulation and perfect timing.

While the space-enhanced blade was undoubtedly his most powerful weapon technique, it came with significant drawbacks.

Beyond the crushing mana cost, he noticed that each use dulled his current blade slightly, microscopic chips appearing along the edge where reality had been torn. His tier 1 wooden sword, adequate for basic combat, was simply not built to channel such destructive forces.

He needed better equipment.

Over the past few days, Mitch’s mana pool had expanded considerably. He now possessed 750 mana points, impressive for someone of his tier.

It was time to attempt crafting a proper weapon again.

From his pocket dimension, he withdrew the piece of tier 2 material he had been saving.

[Tier 2 Iron Wood - Dense heartwood from an ancient ironbark tree that has absorbed decades of ambient mana. Naturally occurring metal veins run through the grain, making it exceptionally durable while maintaining excellent magical conductivity.]

Mitch began the delicate process of coating the raw ironwood branch with his mana, feeling the material’s natural magical resonance respond to his energy.

He activated his [Weapon Creation] skill, the ability humming to life as it prepared to reshape matter according to his will.

This time, instead of simply willing the wood into a sword shape, he attempted something more sophisticated.

As the magical transformation began, he carefully guided the material’s natural mana pathways to converge into a small, precisely formed depression just above where the blade would meet the handle.

The skill drew almost his entire mana reserve, leaving him dizzy but exhilarated as power flowed from his body into the emerging weapon.

Mana flared, and when it faded, a magnificent sword lay before him.