Chapter 133: Attempted Refinement, Factional Conflict

Returning to his own home, Ron took out the Transcendent Weapon that Morris’s wife had delivered that afternoon. Even though he had personally used it to fight enemies before, this was his first time observing it so closely and in such fine detail.

He studied the pitch-black blade of the longsword, extending two fingers to slide slowly across its surface. The tactile feedback from his fingertips told him that the blade wasn’t smooth; rather, it possessed a fine, scale-like microstructure.

Under the light, this microstructure manifested as extremely faint, slender, and densely packed patterns.

Ron scrutinized the blade, his mind pondering the forging methods used to create such a Transcendent Weapon. However, none of the forging techniques he knew of or could comprehend could possibly achieve Transcendence.

Unable to figure it out after much thought, Ron didn’t force the issue. After all, he had no intention of becoming a blacksmith or a swordsmith.

“But how exactly do I trigger this Transcendent ability?”

Ron lightly swung the longsword through the air. He even held the blade over the flames in the fireplace to scorch it, but the sword didn’t display any anomalous phenomena.

No, there were still some!

Even after being roasted over the fire for nearly fifteen minutes, the blade of the sword was only slightly warm. If it were an ordinary iron sword, such treatment might have caused it to lose its temper, requiring it to be re-quenched before it could be used normally again.

Yet this Transcendent Weapon was completely unfazed by the fire.

Ron found it quite miraculous. In addition to this, the soot marks it had picked up from being scorched in the fireplace seemed to be merely temporary. A gentle wipe with a cloth restored it to its original, pristine state.

As for sharpness, Ron didn’t need to test it. Solely in terms of sharpness, it was actually inferior to the standard-issue longsword of the Territory Guard, only slightly better than an unsharpened training sword.

Ron carefully examined the edge, an involuntary look of distress surfacing in his eyes. This sword was indeed a Transcendent Weapon, and its structural integrity was unquestionably solid, but that didn’t mean it would never suffer damage.

What Ron observed right now were the tiny nicks scattered sparsely along the edge. Strictly speaking, they weren’t exactly nicks, but rather akin to rolled edges. Yet they were different from rolled edges; it was more like the blade had contracted inward slightly at those points, making them look like tiny gaps.

Ron guessed that it could still be repaired, stretching those slightly inward-contracted edges back out.

However, anyone with half a brain could tell that repairing a Transcendent Weapon couldn’t possibly be as simple as fixing an ordinary weapon. The craftsmen within the territory were nine times out of ten incapable of such a feat.

And if it involved seeking help outside the territory, the cost would be incredibly difficult to estimate.

A Transcendent Weapon, repairs outside the territory, either one of these factors alone would be reason enough for the repair costs to double or even triple.

…

After fiddling with it for a while, Ron still couldn’t figure out the method to wield the Transcendent Weapon. He speculated that it might be related to Life Energy, but he also knew that Life Energy was merely a conceptually defined virtual energy; it didn’t actually exist in a physical sense.

Could it be that Transcendent Weapons could utilize this form of energy?

Perhaps they really could. Fundamentally speaking, it might just be the user paying a 【Transcendent-level price】, which similarly manifested in the form of 【Life Energy】 fluctuations.

“It’s a pity I can’t test it for the time being!”

Most apprentices couldn’t control their own Life Energy. Quasi-Knights wanted to control it but couldn’t. Only Formal Knights or those with Knight-level talent could barely manage it.

Ron was naturally capable of it, but the very process of controlling Life Energy was essentially the process of advancing to Formal Knight. He was still slightly lacking in his Whole-Body Force progress, so he naturally refused to advance so haphazardly.

After a moment of thought, he slid the sword back into its scabbard, hugged it to his chest, and lay down on his bed.

This sword left behind by Morris was four to five times heavier than the territory’s standard-issue longsword. From the perspective of density, this meant that the sword’s density was roughly four to five times that of iron!

In Ron’s memory, the densest metal on Earth had a density barely three times that of iron.

Of course, Ron couldn’t yet definitively claim whether the iron in this world and the iron on Earth were the exact same substance. Still, a material with a density four to five times that of commonly used weapon-grade metals was a clear testament to its “Transcendent” properties!

Ron’s current physical reinforcement progress had reached around 40% of Level 2, which was the state local Knights referred to as having undergone one Limit Breakthrough. Furthermore, he was already nearly halfway to the Second Limit Breakthrough, which was the Knight level.

Wielding this sword with his current physical condition felt slightly heavy, but it was perfectly usable. Still, for a mere apprentice to swagger around with a Transcendent Weapon would be far too ostentatious.

For the time being, Ron had no intention of making this weapon his primary armament. Meredith, Morris’s former teammate, had told him to wait until he advanced to Knight before going to Mrs. Nina to inherit Morris’s weapon.

He just never expected that Mrs. Nina would deliver the sword ahead of schedule. Ron couldn’t very well send the sword back, and having Jason safekeep it also felt somewhat inappropriate.

It wasn’t that he worried Jason would covet the sword, but since it was an inheritance from someone else, and unlike potions, which possessed no special traits, leaving it in the care of someone completely uninvolved with the matter just felt a bit improper.

As for Morris’s former teammates, Ron didn’t trust them.

For now, he could only keep the sword in his own home.

When he was at home, he could carry the sword with him, familiarizing himself with its various characteristics. At the same time, it would allow the sword to become tainted with his aura.

Or, to put it more rigorously: he wanted the Transcendent Weapon to be exposed to the 【Transcendent Factors】 on his body, hoping to establish a certain connection so that he would feel a bit more grounded when wielding it.

It was somewhat akin to the concept of “refining” a magical artifact in cultivation novels. But since this world already had Wizards, Knights, and Transcendent Abilities, why couldn’t artifact refinement exist as well?

For the time being, Ron couldn’t find a more suitable word than “refinement” to describe his relationship with this sword and his expectations for it.

…

Early the next morning.

Ron transitioned seamlessly from a full night of Secret Pattern analysis work back into his physical body, which had been resting all night. Upon awakening, the very first thing he did was inspect the Transcendent longsword he had held against his chest all night.

Unfortunately, after checking it several times, he still detected no anomalous phenomena. A flash of disappointment crossed Ron’s heart. He immediately got up and hid the longsword inside the fireplace, which still retained wisps of residual warmth from burning throughout the night.

If faced with an enemy who possessed the 【Perspective】 ability, this hiding method absolutely wouldn’t fool them. But having stayed in Sis Territory for so long, Ron had never once heard of anyone capable of seeing through objects!

And he himself had no intention of displaying that ability. Derived from Pollution Secret Patterns, it inevitably left him feeling somewhat wary, even though he suspected that Pollution Secret Patterns and Transcendent Secret Patterns might not inherently possess any moral alignment of good or evil.

However, there was definitely a distinction in factional alignment.

In this world, the conflict between factions and alignments was far more intense than any conflict between good and evil.

…

Walking from his home to the training ground, even though it was still morning, he occasionally saw subjects of the territory hurrying past. Ron couldn’t help but feel a measure of worry in his heart.

Judging from Mrs. Nina’s words yesterday, it was likely that most of the territorial subjects were already aware that the territory was about to enter a decisive battle against the cultists. Even though the subjects placed immense trust in the Lord, the panic that arose in the face of an impending crisis couldn’t be entirely eliminated.