"Eh?"Cecil could only stare stupidly at the aftermath of his reckless decision.
In front of him was a deep gouge and upturned earth that spanned 10 meters from his left to his right.
The battle was put to a quick stop since all the ursas in front of Cecil had either disappeared, was dismembered, or had a part of their bodies missing.
"W-what the f–"
"WHAT WAS THAAAT!!!" Tyr had already run over to Cecil while questioning him with a shout.
"..." Cecil was too confused to even respond to Tyr.
"What was that anyway?"
Cecil raised his sword and saw the light from his blade receding. The mana that was infused into the blade was dissipating. Along with the mana, the blade of his sword was slowly crumbling into dust as well.
"NO!"
"c.r.a.p. I forgot!"
It was the most elementary lesson he learned from Lucia"s father, Zaki.
Cecil was training one afternoon, he was training on imbuing his mana into the objects in his surroundings. This was his initial try at creating the Mana Burst spell.
Mr. Zaki saw this and came to observe. Seeing as Cecil was imbuing mana into objects such as the earth, sticks, and other objects only to see him destroying them, Mr. Zaki went forward and gave him tips and directed his training a bit.
"I see many swordsmen and fighters imbuing their mana into weapons, so I think this should be a little help. You shouldn"t recklessly imbue mana into things, Cecil."
"How come?"
"It"s because of what happened with the stone you injected mana into earlier."
"It... exploded?"
"Yes. If you imbue too much mana into an object that it pa.s.ses the affinity threshold of said object, then the only result would be you destroying the object."
"Ohh,.. I see... so then I should just do it in moderation?"
"Yes and no. For you it would be a problem since you can"t control how much mana you imbue because of your vast amount of mana. The only other solution would be to find materials with high magical affinity and craft them into a weapon that could withstand your mana."
"Ahah! I see... thanks Mr. Zaki!"
Of course Cecil was able to control his mana a bit now, so he could imbue small amounts of mana into objects. But other fighters would normally craft weapons or buy weapons that have a high mana affinity threshold.
The sword that Cecil had Mr. Argon craft was made from the first Blade Ursa he defeated. Since it was monster materials and Mr. Argon had also added some metals with high magic affinity into it, the mana threshold was enough for a normal average fighter to imbue his mana fully into the sword.
Cecil had always imbued mana that would reach just below the sword"s breaking point, but because he had thoughtlessly injected such a huge amount of mana into the sword, it had now started to disintegrate when the mana that was holding it together dissipated into the air.
Seeing as his thoughtless action ruined his sword. Cecil felt a little down. He ignored Tyr who was constantly chattering at him and sadly looked at the hilt in his hand.
The blade part had fully disintegrated. Cecil was already lamenting sadly in his heart.
"Not even a week has pa.s.sed... and I"ve already lost my weapon."
Seeing as the fight was over. The party that Cecil and friends had rescued came up to them. Milly went over to receive them.
The catkin male that was supposedly the leader spoke up,
"*cough* Thank you for the save. We nearly kicked the bucket earlier."
Milly was just about to ask them if they were alright, but seeing as the leader was able to crack a joke, she concluded that everything was fine on their end.
"No problem, us adventurers are supposed to have each other"s backs. So no biggie!"
"Thanks. I guess this is the end of the line for us. We didn"t expect to run into a huge tribe of ursas. Although you guys are young, you sure do pack quite the punch! We"ll be going back to the town now. We"ll be rooting for you fellows!"
"Thanks! Stay safe on the way back!"
The party leader turned back towards his party and led them in the direction of the town. But before they walked away, every member including the leader, with the exception of the two who were unconscious, took a second glance at Cecil.
They were of course shocked at the spectacle they just witnessed earlier. It was the first time they had ever seen such a bizarre, but deadly technique.
They wanted to ask what the name of the skill that saved their lives, but seeing as the fox boy who had saved them was looking sadly at the sword in his hand... or at least whatever remained of the sword, they kept quiet and left.
As they were walking back, a female member of the party who was around Cecil"s age said to her party leader,
"He looks to be the same age as me, but he"s so strong!"
The leader looked back and said to the catkin female.
"Yeah, he"s the same age as you Aki, but he"s leagues ahead in strength!"
"I wonder what that skill was called! Why didn"t you ask him earlier, Bram?"
"...you should learn to read the mood sometimes."
After responding as such, the leader, Bram, walked ahead.
Back at the clearing, Cecil and the rest were quickly collecting the subjugation proofs of the Blade Ursas.
After quickly collecting them, they handed them all to Milly for safekeeping. During this time, Tyr wouldn"t give it a rest and kept on pestering Cecil for an answer. The rest were likewise curious so they had no intention of stopping Tyr.
Cecil was too busy lamenting in his head that he just kept ignoring Tyr.
They continued collecting the Blade Ursa"s useable materials. The bodies that were left behind were in such a bad shape that they had a negligible harvest. The same went with the half that Lucia burnt to death.
The ursas that Lucia scorched seemed to come out even worse than what Cecil did since the party couldn"t even collect the subjugation proofs or materials. Just a slight touch would make the Ursa"s corpse crumble into chunks of charcoal.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Milly could only tell the party to continue forward and keep on hunting. The event would only finish after 3 days anyway.
The first day they would need to have one or more of their party members head back to town and turn in today"s subjugation proofs. This would be the same for the next two days.
The committee would calculate how much proofs they had for the first day all the way into the last day. The total tally would then be calculated and summed. The party with the most proofs would be declared the winner of this monster hunting event.
On their way to a new area, Cecil had already thrown away the hilt of his sword.
"I left my spare at the inn. Guess I"ll just use my fist like usual."
Cecil was letting out another sigh when Lucia came over to his side and handed something to him.
"Here, stupid."
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Hearing Lucia talk to him, Cecil looked up and saw Lucia holding the spare sword that Mr. Argon crafted for him using the other elbow blade of the Blade Ursa.
"I thought I left this back at the inn..."
"That"s why you"re stupid. I went back earlier this morning before meeting up with Milly and the rest. I thought it would be good to bring it just in case something happened. I didn"t think you would be stupid enough to break your own sword though. Mr. Argon would surely be sad if he found out~"
"Urk... thanks Lulu..."
"You"re welcome, stupid Cel~"
"Please... just please stop calling me stupid."
"No~"
With a cheery reply Lucia skipped ahead and began talking to Milly and Cathy. Cecil looked ahead and began thinking.
"That skill I used earlier was pretty cool... I have to master that since it"s also pretty powerful."
Cecil resolved to himself that the next time he used the skill; he would not destroy his sword. He then started mumbling to himself.
"Guess I"ll name it Excal–, no wait that"d be copyright. Also I wouldn"t look cool shouting that."
Cecil started thinking hard for what name he would use when he finally mastered the technique.