……..
Having admired the blade enough, Zilan got to work.
The first order of business was to relieve it of Hihi’s unique aura, allowing only the Draconic aura to exist. This was necessary because without ridding the blade of all of Hihi’s aura it would never truly become something of Kifo’s, instead it would resist him from controlling it as Hihi was its rightful owner.
That being the case, there were two ways to rid something of a unique aura as efficiently as possible. The first being using formations and the other was a more direct process whose biggest merit was its quickness. It generally involved using an even greater aura to collide with Hihi’s aura for example and as a consequence they would cancel each other out.
Zilan wanted to use formations however, with time on his mind he opted to go with the second option.
Stretching his hand out, he channelled all of his unique aura into it before releasing it all upon the red blade. Grinding sounds accompanied with the occasional pop and crack entered Zilan’s ears.
“It’s working.”
A few minutes and a strange groan from Hihi later, the weapon had been successfully cleansed. An eye-catching red smoke slowly wafted from the now slimmer blade.
“Now then…”
Having completed the first step, it was time to move on to turning the physical blade into something that would easily ‘bond’ with Kifo.
What exactly did this mean? Well, in essence it referred to the common aspect that all respectable spirit tools shared which was their ability to become one with their owner’s. To elaborate further, most items in existence were usually stored within voids or voidless sacks etc however, spirit tools were different. While they could be stored in storage items, their true value lay in the fact that they could assimilate with their owners literally becoming a part of them. Just like other items they would appear when summoned but unlike other items when they did appear the summoner would be able to use them with a much better proficiency than before.
This was the process known as ‘bonding’ and usually it required a ritual before the Universe in order to work properly however, that was in the case of a Spirit tool. What Zilan was creating was not a spirit tool but instead something entirely different.
If he didn’t have Hihi’s scales as a material he would be at a loss as to how to go about ‘bonding’ without a ritual. Fortunately, though, he did possess Hihi as a material mine so the solution to the problem became a much simpler affair.
Because he was a Soul King, Hihi’s scales consisted of certain Spiritual qualities that made him equal parts illusionary and equal parts real and physical. These qualities were what would allow the now aura-less blade to assimilate with Kifo. All Zilan needed to do was to apply the mechanisms that would make it possible for him to infuse his aura into the blade.
Swiping his hands in a rhythmic manner, various inscriptions flew towards the weapon and attached themselves to it, causing it to turn a darker shade of red than before.
“This should be enough.”
Now all that was left was the final and hardest step, inscribing the blade with a set of Runes and inscriptions that would allow it to not only seal the laws of [Light] within the blade but also allow Kifo to freely control the blade as if an additional limb. This step, in truth could be separated into two stand-alone steps i.e. inscribing the blade and putting mechanisms in place that could allow Kifo to wield it better however, for Zilan doing them both at the same time was easier thus he combined them.
The inscribing of Runes was actually very simple for Zilan. This tedious [Way], for those who considered Rune Mastery a [Way], was something very few in the Universe seriously excelled at however, for Zilan all the major [Ways] aside from Cultivation could be described as Natural talents. His eyes as well as the knowledge from his Ancestors were in their purest form ‘cheat sheets’ and his body being a product of the Universe made it easier for him to work with aspects of the Universe that may be too pure/complex for others.
Of course, add on his own brilliance and you have a freak who created his own cultivation system thus by-passing the natural limitation placed on his kind. Thinking from that perspective, it wasn’t really a wonder why the majority of people who came across the true Zilan and not his disguise usually stood on two sides of an unfriendly bridge. To the right were those who viewed him as an unbelievable treasure and to the left were those who considered him an ungodly threat that had to be eliminated at all cost. And then there were those truly rare individuals who stood in the middle of the unfriendly bridge and who categorised Zilan as a gold mine who deserved to live as long as he remained useful.
What Zilan could at least take some solace in was the fact that below the bridge, hidden in its dark shadow, a horde of oppressed individuals just like him could be seen. They had jumped of their own volition in order to get away from the claws of their oppressors and yes, they did get hurt on their way down however, one day they will crawl their way back up and take revenge. Zaum in a way can be categorised as one of those who jumped of the bridge, only that it wouldn’t be him to crawl back up it but rather his descendants.
……..
As inscribing Runes was not hard, the true challenge was making the blade something that can resonate with Kifo, something akin to an extra limb. It did not sound difficult, in fact, it may sound just like the first step but if you explored deeper into the art of [Spirit Mastery] you would understand that this step was extremely hard. It was what made a Spirit tool a Spirit tool.
How did it do this? Well to answer this, one needed to first answer another question.
“What is it that makes a good weapon a great weapon?”
In the mortal world an extremely sharp blade customised to your specifications was enough for you to call it a great blade. However, in the cultivation world, intellect, sentience, a spirit….is what made a great weapon.
A killing weapon did its job well if it could cut a man down swiftly but what if the weapon knew that it was a tool for killing? It would thirst for blood, it would feed off war and it would grow stronger through the act of killing.
Now although sentience, intellect, spirit etc were mentioned, there existed varying degrees of them and in most Spirit tools a spirit is not inserted into the blade during the crafting process. Instead, various processes are put into effect that will make the tool feed off its owner and eventually become sentient.
Needless to say, special materials and special Spirit Masters are required to craft tools that can truly become sentient. In fact, there existed no such Spirit Master in the entire Herald Plane, a fact Zilan could confidently utter.
Despite this being the case, it was possible to create a tool that could learn extremely simple commands such as hover, return, thrust etc…a sort of artificial intelligence. This was what made Spirit Masters valued assets in an organisation. The better the Artificial intelligence, the better the tool, the better the Spirit Master.
What Zilan was going to do was obviously create an Artificial Intelligence as he lacked both the materials and the cultivation to create a tool with enough potential to gain sentiency and become a Divine tool. However, his was not going to be a normal AI (Artificial Intelligence), what he was going to do was make it extremely advanced with the capability of learning from Kifo’s habits. Eventually, it would even be capable of simple speech through thought, with Kifo.
The key reason Zilan was able to do this, was his ‘cheat sheet’ that provided him with an insane catalogue of Runes and inscriptions to choose from, couple that with his analytical brain and it was only a matter of time. It went without saying that he would not choose anything too powerful or it might end up destroying him in an instant.
“Let’s begin.” This was his first time delving this deeply into Rune Mastery which made it even more exciting for Zilan. Zaum left behind a lot of knowledge for him, it would be a shame not to try and put it to use.
