Art's Experiments

The next day came in a flash. Well, that was what he would love to say but he barely got any sleep last night.

He was just excited to check out his system skills, features, and also his true weapon.

After freshening up and changing the bandages on his wounds, he had a hearty breakfast made by Racheal and now he was locked up in his room.

"Where do I start?" He muttered.

"Umm….. Alright. Come forth." His hand glowed before revealing the silver orb which he now held onto. His true weapon.

He decided to do the weapon-sealing ritual first. Using his F-rank dagger, he created a cut on his palm and let a few drops fall on his true weapon which absorbed the blood and shortly after, it began glowing.

He could feel his bond with the orb in front of him deepen and after the glow vanished, the orb was no longer silver but now black and golden.

He tried to control the weapon telepathically but he failed as it seemed to be something accessible when he gets stronger.

Even though a weapon was S-ranked, the amount of power that could be drawn out of it depended on its user. So right now, the power of his true weapon was at most at E-rank.

Come to think of it, he didn't know its actual rank so for the first time, he decided to use his inspect skill for an object as he had tried it out on Racheal and it seems to not work on humans.

As usual everything worked with just a thought so the details of his true weapon appeared in front of him.

[Name: ???]

[Rank: Unranked]

Art waited for more info but nothing happened.

"Wait, that's it?"

'You obviously need to level the skill up to get more information and despite that, what you're inspecting is a true weapon, it isn't ordinary and something very surprising is that it is an unranked weapon.' Her voice was serious, unlike its usual playful nature.

"And is there a problem with that?" His eyebrows furrowed slightly.

'No, not at all, on the contrary, it's a very good thing. As it says, your true weapon is unranked which means that it doesn't have a limit. Its power depends totally on its wielder and the stronger you get, the stronger it becomes. I'm just surprised that you got something like this.'

Art's eyes widened after listening to what she said. He never expected to receive something so valuable. This was even better than the S-rank true weapons.

He tried shaping it once more, and after some difficulties, it took the form of a sword.

The sword was black with the edges gold but it was short and irregular and the hilt was plain. In other words, there was nothing stylish about it.

He let out a sigh as this was obviously going to take some time to master. Some of his mana got drained and since he was preparing for tomorrow which was the annual contest, he didn't want to exhaust himself even today.

So he put his true weapon away, back into his core before proceeding with his tests. He picked up his dagger using his inspect skill.

[Name: Life Steal dagger]

[Rank: F-rank]

[Host wielding capability: 300/50]

He could see more information and by the name, he had an idea of what it meant. He probably couldn't use weapons higher than his wielding capability.

Normally, his true weapon's handling capability requirement is far bigger than what he has but since it belongs to him, he could use it despite that.

If he tried to use another person's true weapon, it would end up in failure. But this didn't mean that anyone with enough wielding capability could use his true weapon as it could still reject whoever it felt wasn't worthy and as long as it has a bond with someone, no other person would be able to use its power.

After inspecting a few more things, he moved on to the next, his inventory.

He brought out some things and placed them on his bed. Among them were several glowing orbs which were mana cores.

He first tried with a book. He stared at it with the thought of it going into his inventory but nothing happened. It was after he placed his hand on the book with the same thought did it vanish into thin air.

"Well, that's one weakness," he muttered. With another thought specified on the book, it appeared on his hand.

He put it down before doing the same for the mana cores which also produced the same result.

He had left some of his breakfast to also test something out. He placed his hand on the plate of food hoping that what he had in his mind was true. The plate of food also vanished like the others and after some minutes of idling, he brought it out, and much to his relief, it didn't get any colder which meant that things put into his inventory would remain in the same state.

As for whether it had a time limit or a space limit, those were things he'll find out in time.

He moved on to his system skills. Picking up one of the F-rank mana cores, he let out a sigh before activating his mana drain skill.

[Mana drain activated]

He suddenly felt mana flowing into his body from the orb and after 30 seconds there was no glow left in the orb, it was now transparent.

He opened his stats to see that his AMP had increased from 100 to 110. After doing the same with the remaining F-rank mana cores it increased to 157. He concluded that an F-rank core gives him 8 to 10 mana points.

He picked up the E-rank mana core and after doing the same thing his EMP got increased by 100. He knew that he still had a long way to go as even most silvers here had more mana points than his.

A base mage is described as a mage of 8 to 10 years. So it's been over 6 years that they had about 30 points in their mana stat if using the system format.

He would surely need a way to get enough mana cores and this place wasn't convenient so he couldn't wait to leave. Of course not without settling some business.

What was left was his energy drain which had to be used for living things with decent intelligence. Something like the E-rank sonic mantis he fought would've been nice, or even better, one of the Silvers here.

After giving it some thought he decided to leave them be for now, he would surely get the opportunity to test things out later on.

There was also something else he was interested in, Mana cultivation. This was the way mages used to raise their mana and magic potential, it was a simple yet complicated procedure consisting of two major steps.

The mage has to absorb the mana around them into their body to their core, purify it, and absorb again over and over until a breakthrough.

It was similar to breathing and as easy as this may sound it was very difficult and gets worse as the mage gets more powerful, especially the purification part.

The more pure and concentrated a person's mana core is, the more powerful they are which leads to an increase in rank.

His guide had told him that he didn't need futile things like that but he still wanted to know if he could.

"Soooo...?"

'The system has its way of making you stronger but if you want to, you can still cultivate.' she responded.

He just wanted to know how it feels and besides he can't depend totally on his system so he put away everything on his bed and sat cross-legged.

He didn't need to be tutored on how to do it because of his obtained memory.

He started the process which wasn't easy and went on with this for hours. The rest of the day moved very quickly and finally, the day of the annual contest arrived as Art woke up the next morning with a smirk on his face.