Chapter 96: Smithing

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Thanks to the help of a portal, Edward and Diana appeared in Kamar-Taj. There, the Ancient One, Yao, was waiting for them, pouring tea into three teacups.

The two sat down, and Yao remarked, "You made quite the mess, killing Deimos and Phobos, as well as terrorizing Hades."

Edward shrugged, "I was sending a message, and I was angry. I was a little brutal, maybe."

Yao smiled, and said, "I generally advocate for mercy, but most times mercy is weakness. Leaving a demon alive would only be inviting it to attack again. Generally, humans can find redemption and are to be spared, but sometimes they simply are irredeemable."

Edward nodded and thanked, "Thank you for your wise words." At that he drunk a sip of the tea, before explaining why he was here, "I want to learn about forging."

Yao said, "Kamar-Taj's library is always opened to you."

"I know, but I intend to create my own set of techniques, and to do so I need multiple techniques. Multiple styles to take reference from, as well as knowledge about the materials too." Edward explained.

Diana added, "We're already set on going to Hephaestus, as well as the Dwarves from Nidavellir."

Yao stroked his beard and spoke after a few seconds of thoughts, "Kamar-Taj's library is filled with more than enough knowledge, and if you add Hephaestus and the Dwarves, as well as Merlin's own insights he probably left in the book he gave you, I don't think you need any more of it…"

"Not even to add a little… spice to it?" Edward pressed on.

Yao eventually sighed, "The most powerful artefacts in the Universe have always been the natural ones created by the universe itself. However, to give your own artefacts an edge… There is a demonic blacksmith known as Muramasa in Japan, he has the skill to infuse a part of someone's soul into a weapon."

Edward was a little stunned by the strange skill, but his surprise quickly turned into glee as he asked, "Where is that Muramasa?"

Yao shook his head though and replied, "Unfortunately, Muramasa has been captured by an organization known as the hand, and sent to a pocket dimension in Hell ruled by the powerful demon known as the Beast."

Edward wasn't scared in the slightest by Yao's words, and directly asked, "How can I go there?"

Unexpectedly, Yao smiled and asked, "The Beast is strong, and has been a major concern of mine for many years now. Do you agree to kill it?"

Edward raised an eyebrow at that and asked, "Even you fear it? How powerful is it to be out of your reach?"

Yao shook his head and replied, "Killing it wouldn't be much of a problem if I could face it, but it is a much devious demon. I know where the entrance to it's dimension is, but I can't access it, I'm not very good at space magic I am afraid."

"But I am." Yao nodded at Edward's words and continued, "You most certainly will be able to enter his dimension, and killing the Beast shouldn't be too hard if the two of you go together. Careful though, and do not underestimate his close guards. They may be mortal men, the closest to him were infused with the Beast's power, corrupting them to the point of no return but granting them great power."

Edward nodded, and got up with Diana as he said, "Thank you, Ancient One, for your advice. I will first browse through the library before going anywhere."

The Ancient One smiled, and with a wave of his hand a map of Japan appeared in the air. Edward memorized it, and thanked the Ancient One before the couple walked away.

Once out of the room, Diana said, "What is it that you want to forge to need so much knowledge?"

Edward patted his chest as he replied, "The armor, first. The Armor of the Ancients is a great artefact, but I'm really starting to grow too powerful for it. My body is already, to some extent, stronger than it, so it's time for a change."

He then added, "Although I don't intend to fight with too big of a variety of weapons, knowing how to forge different artefacts still would be a great skill to have. Also, even though I have Aeglos now, I haven't given up on the sword."

Diana nodded, "The spear is better for big fights in large spaces, but if you have to fight in a smaller space the sword would become a stronger weapon."

Edward nodded, and as they arrived at the library Diana kissed his cheek and said, "Well, I will leave you to your books."

Edward smiled and opened her a portal home, before walking deeper into the library.

As he did so though, he was surprised to feel the presence of a time spell near him, so he walked over there, and saw Stephen sitting crossed legs, surrounded by a green array as his Astral Form read a book.

Seeing Edward arrive, Stephen came back to his body and the array around him stopped as he asked, "Already back? You had the time to release your carnal frustration?"

Edward smiled at the tease and replied, "My private life is mine to know, and yours to fantasize about… Well, no, don't do that," Stephen snorted, and Edward continued, "You are using this to read faster?"

Stephen sighed and he looked down at the array, "Yes, it allows me to read more, but I can only make time a little slower, I haven't studied much about time magic."

Edward nodded, and with a wave of his hand the array below Stephen disappeared. Then, with another gesture, a bigger, yet even more condensed array appeared, and Edward explained, "I happened to have studied it, and I doubt many can say to know more about it than I do."

Stephen raised an eyebrow, and recalled, "Remember when we met? We fought Circe, and she used a time spell on you if I remember well."

Edward nodded, "She slowed down time around me using word magic. It was quite weak, but I was even weaker. If we were to meet again, I would be the one slowing her down."

Without waiting for Stephen to say another word, Edward activated the array under them.

Not much seemed to change, but both magicians could feel the time around them significantly slow down. Stephen smiled as he went back to his reading, while Edward took a few seconds to accommodate.

Even though Kamar-Taj had more Chi than the outside world, it was still near Edward's limit for being comfortable, but as he slowed down the outside world, it also means slowing down the regeneration of the surrounding Chi, so it went down multiple times.

The feeling of lacking Chi was thus even worse than usual, but after those few seconds Edward sat down and used Astral Projection.

Now out of his body, his Spirit did not feel the strain of the environment anymore, Yin Chi did not work exactly the same as Yang Chi, so it felt a little better.

Reaching out with his Spirit, Edward activated one of the most interesting runes in Kamar-Taj.

Their library had thousands, if not tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of books, and walking and physically searching for certain books could be a pain sometimes.

So the rune in front of Edward was created, and it basically allowed one to get the book they wanted teleported to them.

Of course there were limits, everyone had different clearance levels and could only access to certain books, giving a book on dark magic to an apprentice Sorcerer would only result in a catastrophe, but with his clearance level Edward could read most books.

And so Edward began spamming his cheat. Coying book after book into his Spirit, Edward quickly gained a lot of knowledge, but he was forced to take breaks to recover. Thankfully, recovery of the Spirit did not rely on external energies like for the Core, so even in this slowed down area he could recover normally.

Stephen left after a few hours, which equated only to a few minutes in the outside world, while Edward crammed as many books as possible into his Spirit.

With his breakthrough to the Revolving Core Realm, the integration of the Freezing Crystal into his Spirit, the absorption of several of the Rivers of the Underworld and the opening of the Third Eye and Crown Chakras, Edward's spirit had become so strong he could store much more knowledge than any other human.

Before an hour passed in the outside world, Edward had finished copying all the books related to forging, but since he was already here and had more than enough time, he decided to also learn more about magic, be it elemental magic or other kinds of magic.

The hours passed, and as the sun fell and rose again, starting a new day, Edward finally deactivated the array around him. He looked fine, but his Spirit was very tired because of all the books forcefully copied into it.

Opening a portal home, Edward saw Diana and Donna eating dinner, it was only the beginning of the night in New York, but he barely greeted them both before going to his and Diana's room, not even listening to their answers as he crashed into the bed and fell asleep.

Edward was a little more tired than he thought it seemed as he slept for fifteen hours straight.

As he woke up, Edward closed his eyes for a moment as he reviewed what he had learned yesterday.

Because of the special path he had taken, Edward had to create his own spells, but that did not mean studying the spells from others paths was useless.

On the contrary, it gave Edward great inspiration to create his own spells, although his magic wasn't really confined to them, they gave directions.

After a few minutes of reorganising his knowledge, Edward found his comprehension of different kinds of magic to have benefited greatly from memorizing all those books.

Of course, he also learned a lot about forging, as well as some about enchanting and arrays.

Stretching his body, Edward left the room, and found Diana in her chair, reading something. She turned her head and smiled when she saw him, "I tried kissing you, but you wouldn't wake up sleeping beauty."

Edward rolled his eyes and kissed her, "Suffer from my greatest attack… morning breath!"

Diana laughed, "Unfortunately for you, you smell as fresh as a rose."

For the first time, Edward slightly regretted tempering his body so much. Not really of course, it was actually nice to see it had slight side effects like those.

With a gesture, his breakfast began making itself, and he sat down. He loved magic. He asked his girlfriend, "Where do you reckon we should begin?"

Not moving her eyes from her reading, Diana replied, "Nidavellir, Hephaestus and the Beast's Hell. Since you want to go to Hephaestus last, that leaves us with Nidavellir and Beast. If we want to go to Nidavellir, then we must go through Odin, who will most certainly ask us to do something for him in exchange."

Edward said, "If that's the case, then I guess we will be going to the Beast's Hell first. But since we will be going to Japan, how about we go to Tokyo first?"

Diana looked up from her book, an interested look on her face. Grinning, Edward created a portal.

"Tokyo, here we come!"