Chapter 50 - Golden Edge
Kai went silent as the system began speaking.
[Your body has reached its limit. Every human should not be able to have more than ninety skills at once, but the sheer number of skills you have, specifically the ones from my side such as Identify, which reads into the records of an item, are far too much for your current body.]
Kai frowned and said "Records? Limit? What the hell are you even saying?"
It was the first time he had an outburst since he had grown accustomed to the system's antics. It was leaving far too much information out of the picture.
[Records are the core structures of anything in the world. My skill Inspect is merely a weak imitation of a long-forgotten skill that even I cannot recreate. That skill was able to see through all records. My skill is limited to things you understand and are able to perceive. For example, had you not learned of bloodlines, I would not have been able to tell you about your mother's bloodline.]
Kai sighed and said "Still don't understand. Sure, you say they're the core of everything, but what does that even mean?"
[Think of it like a web history. An item has owners, users, improvements, losses, battles, and every event impacts its records, whether good or bad. The better its records, the easier a path it will have.]
The system had genuinely tried to explain it, but Kai still barely understood. He could see the vague picture, but the finer details escaped him.
Giving up on trying to understand it for now, Kai returned to experimenting with the blacksmithing skill.
Kai began combining the materials inside a mold. This time it was shaped like a dagger.
Kai watched as the metal finally became hot enough before attaching a wooden handle to it and grabbing it.
[Created a new weapon. Please name it.]
Kai stared at the golden-bladed dagger and said "Well... Golden Edge."
[Mortal-level blade has been created.]
[Title gained: Mortal Blacksmith - A journey that has no end. Your hands are able to create weapons that can both bring wars to a halt and start them. Where shall this path take you? The path of a blacksmith.]
[When using this title, you will naturally always be able to create the best possible weapon based on the materials used.]
Kai looked down at the blade before mentally saying "Inspect."
[Golden Edge - Mortal]
[A weapon created by Yuan. Its power is low, but its materials are many.]
[Hard Blade - The dagger itself is far harder than normally possible due to the purity and combination of the materials within it.]
Kai smiled and began another project, this time creating a katana.
"Honestly, this feels nice. Calming," Kai said to himself.
He started experimenting with the runes, but before that another question came to mind.
"So why did you use Yuan? You did say that's my true name."
[Your level is too low to gain that information.]
Kai frowned and said "Alright then. Why is Yuan my true name?"
[It is both the name that started your journey and your only future hope.]
Kai nodded as if he understood, but in reality he had absolutely no idea what the system was talking about. He already had far too many questions.
God Eyes alone was confusing enough.
Why had he received something that had barely even leveled up?
Then it hit him.
God Eyes was his most frequently used skill, yet it had never once leveled.
Kai immediately asked "Wait... I split it into multiple skills and everything. Can I still combine them back together?"
[Affirmative.]
Kai smirked and combined the skills.
God Eyes returned to how it had originally been, with Perfect Sight still integrated within it.
Kai rubbed his forehead and said "Records... true names... more than one bloodline... an unknown, seemingly alive lifeform calling itself a system... way too many strange things happening in the academy."
He let out a long sigh and said "This is simply too much. I need to focus on one thing at a time. I'm spreading myself too thin."
Kai raised his hand.
A ball of mana appeared before splitting into dozens of miniature swords and daggers that floated around him.
"This skill was the start of all my magic... and it's still the most useful."
[True Mana Manipulation - Level 1]
Kai blinked and said "It naturally absorbs mana in a fifteen-kilometer area around me. Does that mean when I wake up I'll have all my mana back?"
[Naturally not. Your mana veins and blood vessels are mostly destroyed. Your body was forced to absorb and release mana in impossible quantities at your current level. Even I am unsure how you managed it, or how you endured the pain. You should have passed out within seconds after absorbing only one hundred thousand mana.]
Kai stared at the Golden Edge he had just created.
He had already upgraded it into a Spirit-grade weapon, which wasn't much higher than Mortal.
"I infused it with nearly sixty thousand mana."
The blade itself had become unbelievably durable. Kai couldn't even break it anymore.
It had also changed shape. The original dagger design was gone, replaced by a shorter but much thicker blade. Despite that, it was still technically considered a dagger.
The runes he had carved into it were a mixture of everything he had learned.
He had finally understood how they truly worked.
Every basic rune served as a single part of a much larger language.
Some gathered mana.
Some absorbed it.
Some forced it outward.
Others redirected, compressed, stabilized, or released energy.
Individually they seemed simple.
Together they became limitless.
It was a language.
And he had finally learned how to read it.
Kai was ecstatic.
Inside his mind space, he had practically thrown a celebration that lasted nearly an hour. Somehow he had even managed to create a cake entirely out of mana, followed by a miniature fireworks display.
Even more surprising, two of his skills had finally leveled despite the system insisting they shouldn't have.
Rune Weaving.
True Mana Manipulation.
Rune Weaving especially had changed.
The mana cost for creating and maintaining runes had fallen dramatically.
Kai had finally grasped the fundamentals.
The dagger had only become a Spirit-grade weapon because of a single rune he had created.
He called it Pinpoint Eruption.
The rune continuously gathered mana from either its wielder or the surrounding atmosphere.
Once enough mana had accumulated, it released everything at a single point.
Not outward.
Inward.
The explosion was perfectly converged into one location.
When engraved onto Golden Edge, it permanently became an enchantment.
The dagger now possessed a function remarkably similar to his sword.
Kai already had a plan.
Once he woke up, he would buy better materials, take on academy quests, earn a mountain of coins, and forge the true Golden Edge.
Everything he had created here existed only within his mind.
Yet despite that, the levels he gained were completely real.
Kai stared at the finished dagger.
After carving the final rune, he created a tree out of mana.
He drove the dagger into its trunk.
The rune immediately began absorbing mana.
Ten thousand.
That was its limit.
The moment it reached that amount, the tree suddenly exploded from the inside.
Thanks to all of his observation skills, Kai watched every moment of it.
The blast wasn't a normal explosion.
Every ounce of force had been compressed into a single perfect point before erupting outward.
It was exactly what he had envisioned.
A flawless convergence.
Satisfied, Kai summoned a blacksmith's hammer.
His gaze shifted toward the unfinished mold resting nearby.
A katana.
He smiled and said "Let's see what I can make next."