What he focused on next were the hilts for both swords, since they"re meant to be one handed longswords both hilts should be at least seven inches long, but Alex was going to make it possible for both swords to be combined together into a bigger blade, and as such he felt a little extra inch wouldn"t be too bad. So instead of a seven-inch hilt, which honestly was a little ambitious for a one handed sword, he made it a nine-inch hilt. That way even if both swords were combined, he still had enough s.p.a.ce to maneuver both hands up and down the hilt of the blade.Plus, the extra s.p.a.ce would make it all too easy for him to swing the combined longsword with an ease akin to a mace. It would be like a berserker swinging a great sword every which way. Either way, while the blades slowly underwent fundamental changes, Alex carved and shaped a ma.s.sive chunk of Spirit crystal, and the proceeded to combine both Stellar Mythril and Sky Steel together, and then he meticulously coated the spirit crystal hilt with it.
He had etched symbols of dragons, snarling wolves, winged fairies, roaring lions and majestic eagles on both hilts. The hilts themselves were rectangular and were just about two fingers wide, they were similar to the katanas of the old shogunate of j.a.pan, but the blades themselves weren"t curved and the hilts seemed fully metallic. On their pommel however was the yin-yang symbol of the Wudang sect and Zhang clan.
But beyond that, Alex had already combined the Luminalium and the special warding ink his father had gotten form him. In all honesty, the ink or the Luminalium wasn"t needed as Alex had mastered arrays and wards enough that he would be able to use his energy to etch them, however Luminalium made the wards and arrays glow, and it had a 5% amplification effect for using of skills or spells, now coupled with the ink that Alex suspected had an amplification percentage of about 40%, he would be looking at a 45% increase in power and its distribution , and that"s if he didn"t take into account the amplification sure to occur from using spirit energy to combine them.
He used the ink to do something many people before him had failed to do, he had taken a lot of time to study this, and he was sure he was ready. His ability to combine qi attributed and mana attributed materials had made it possible for him consider other possibilities, and when he saw the incredibly sloppy work on the tower back at the academy, his conviction was further strengthened. And now he was ready to put a few things to test.
He had developed basic versions of what his choosing to call Origin Runes. By studying the runes that make up wards, and the inscriptions that make up arrays, Alex was able to fully reconstruct an entirely new runic script from the ground up. And he would be using the first he created, though in all honesty this could not be considered basic.
(Link)
This rune would connect two people together, probably help them hear each other"s thought or something, Alex has not had the strength to try it out yet for fear of failure, however the rune was usually in a pa.s.sive state and could only be activated by spirit energy. He was going to etched it on the hilts of both swords, and then hopefully when he activated them, they"ll combine together. If not, he would have to redesign the hilt to have a locking mechanism of sorts.
The etching of the origin rune was swift and quickly done, however just to draw it on a single hilt, took a quarter of all his reserves out of his body and left him feeling mentally drained. It didn"t matter if it was his qi, mana or spirit energy, they were pulled out of him so swiftly and suddenly Alex felt as if someone had taken a scooper and cooped out a portion of his brain and insides. He took a few minutes to rest and the etched it on the second hilt.
After that he had to rest for almost an hour before he began the meticulous job of connecting both hilts to the blades. He didn"t even have to do anything as the hilts suddenly joined with the blades, they literally became one as Alex was unable to tell where the hilts ended and where the blades began. The hilts quickly took on the color scheme of their blades, a dark blue for east cloud and a matte black for west wind.
The chill in the room seemed to increase as his breath was fogged and his white hair rose up in the air static electricity dancing through it, which was expected, the sword embodied the lightning element of wind for east cloud and the frost element of wind for west wind. But Alex wasn"t done yet, what followed was him etching a few more Origin runes, but this time it was just to give them their names, as apart from the Link Rune and the Runes for their names, Alex had not fully figured out the language for the Origin Runes.
As soon as he finished etching those runes, he took both blades with him to another corner of the immortal forge. There was a rapidly spinning conveyor belt, or rather there were two of them. One would be responsible for polishing the blade, and the other would be responsible for sharpening it. And with hesitation Alex got down to work, screeches filled the forge room as sparks flew every which way.
A normal person would have to protect their eyes, but considering he had eyes that couldn"t be considered normal, Alex had no problem as he happily polished his blades and grinded at their edges, smoothing the out as he made on edge sharp and the other blunt. The blades themselves were three fingers wide, going by a fully grown man"s measurement. About the normal size of a standard longsword, making it a bit wider than the standard katana.
Alex got lost in the process, and for the better part of an hour and half he created an edge so sharp that looking at it literally made his eyes bleed, which was saying something because he knew those swords were bonded to him for life. So it was hard to imagined what someone who the swords didn"t belong to would feel like, he had to make a scabbard that would fully seal their power. But before that, a little test run was in order.
Alex ran his qi into both swords, there was a swirl of wind around him as tiny shards of ice and wisps of lightning sparked to life around his body. He added his mana into the mix and the swirl of wind became turbulent, the shards were now crystalized snowflakes the size of a donut and the lightning was a meter long and two fingers thick. And at the moment there were dozens of them dancing around his body like blue snakes intertwined together.
Luckily for Alex, he still had a bit of common sense left, so he was able to refrain from adding his spirit energy into the mix, that would have been stupid, like way beyond stupid. It wasn"t something he could do in such an enclosed s.p.a.ce, then he activated the link rune, and just like he hoped, the swords combined together, becoming a palm wide broad sword with one edge blue and the other black. And right then the origin runes for their names changed, and Alex was not looking as west wind or East cloud anymore, he was looking at (Zephyr).
And then he did the most stupid thing ever, he let his excitement get the best of him as he could feel that link rune did not just connect both blades together, it connected them to every weapon in the vicinity giving them limited control over it, which is to say in a fight Alex could turn an opponent"s own weapon against him. But beyond that, it also connected him to the blade itself, mind and sword as one, and along with that link came an overwhelming connection to the wind. And in that moment, Alex jumped multiple levels to find himself in first level of the true element realm, completely rushing through the true essence realm.
And once he got into the true element realm, he could feel every element he was born with. The spirit element, the trace amount of wood element, the spirit element, and even the lightning and metal of his mana. The feeling was intoxicating, like he was pumped full of the most adrenaline inducing drugs in existence and then in his euphoria Alex decided to do the stupid thing and swing his new sword.
*BoooooooooooooM! *
The wall in front of him was blasted open, the forge was turned to rubble and pieces of metal scattered every which way, but this was the full extent of the damage as rapid cracks spread out through the whole of spirit tower, and the purple slash of frost, lightning and wind kept on destroying everything in its path as it went to the other side of the canyon and destroyed three more towers before slicing a ma.s.sive hole into the canyon wall bringing down a ma.s.sive amount of rubble down on a lot of people and buildings. It wouldn"t kill them, not unless someone took that casual slash head-on, but the amount of destruction it had cause had probably put four organizations out of a home including the spirit tower.
Alex watched with eyes open wide as everyone within the spirit tower rushed out and the entire tower collapsed to the ground in a very dramatic fashion. They all watched as the dust settled and a completely dust covered Alex was standing there with a rather shocked look on his face. But as if that wasn"t enough, thunder clouds quickly gathered above his head and struck down, heading for the sword in his hand. All Alex could do was lament at his misfortune, he really didn"t think he would cause this much problem, but what could he expect...he had made the first immortal weapon ever made by a native of earth, even the heavens got angry at that.