Birth of the Demonic Sword

Eliminating the unstable parts would reduce the effective power of the item but it made possible for the forging to continue.

Noah's attention was completely on the internal composition of his creation.

Every time he saw signs of instability, he would manipulate that specific part to separate from the core.

Little by little, the item in his hands reached the length of a Moon needle.

Yet, the forging was not complete.

The toxic smoke continued to corrode the bone, forcing Noah to cut even more pieces from it.

From the size of a needle to the one of a small shard.

From a shard to a fingernail.

From a fingernail to nothing.

The item completely turned into dust, the forging had failed.

However, Noah was excited.

'Finally, it didn't explode! This is the right method to forge with my current materials, I just have to accept that I can't create a complete weapon while I have a rank 3 body.'

What he was aiming for with those processes was to gather experience toward what would eventually be his main weapon.

Yet, his body needed to match the rank of the other material and only the chameleon's bone was not enough to create something sturdy.

The Elemental forging method required patience and incessant experimentation, one could not obtain results in just a few months, especially once the materials' level rose.

'I have one last refined bone, I need to at least have some slight success with that one. As for the other materials, I should just wait for my body to reach the heroic ranks.'

With the wealth obtained in his last mission, Noah had bought more rank 4 materials, mainly Undead chameleon's bones.

"No explosions today?"

Ivor appeared on the edge of the door, warily watching the reinforced room.

"I've tried Annette's stabilization method and it had some results."

Noah answered.

The idea of cutting off the unstable parts was not his, it came from the accumulated knowledge in the inscription method that Ivor had passed him.

It would be stupid for Noah not to use the previous experiences of the inscription masters of the Elemental forging method, he had access to all their notes after all.

"Oh, that one. It surely works nicely but it inevitably lowers the power of the finished product. Yet, it's the first step toward a complete creation."

Noah's interest was piqued.

"What do you mean by that?"

He asked, those moments were the only occasions where Ivor could actually help him so he didn't hold back any of his questions.

"Well, even if you waste most of the materials, the remaining stable part would still be an inscribed item, a complete product. Annette worked with dangerous and wild substances, her solution was to create many small complete products and then forging them again in a bigger item. There are many problems involved with that method though, she could only attempt in it because she was quite wealthy and she had no problems refilling the wasted materials."

Ivor explained, making Noah nod in understanding.

'Even if I don't consider the enormous number of materials needed to successfully apply that method, there is the problem of doing another round of forging on an already inscribed item. Also, there is more expenditure of absorbed "Breath" and if the second forging is to fail, one would lose everything. It does manage to maintain the initial power though and maybe even increase it.'

Seeing that Noah was sorting his options, Ivor left the room and returned to his jars.

He knew that in order to be successful in the Elemental forging method, a lot of solitary experimentation was required.

Ivor sighed, taking out his knife and softly caressing it.

'For such a young man to have the will to forge, it means that he had gone through many hardships already. Is it wrong to feel blessed for having found such a cursed student?'

Meanwhile, Noah went to rest.

His mind was fixed on not wasting his last refined bone, he wanted to make sure that his attempt was perfect!

That day he didn't train, all he did was reviewing the process in every little detail.

At dawn, he opened the last sealed bucket and took out the dark-red material.

His sea of consciousness was used by then in storing gaseous "Breath" in the second rank, the amount that remained in his mental sphere wasn't enough to create the usual headache.

The "Breath" was consumed, the small saber over his mental energy diminished in size until only a tiny amount of it remained to hover there.

A small sphere made of toxic smoke appeared in his left hand while his right one held steadily the beast's bone.

'Begin!'

The incubating membrane enveloped the two materials and the smoke gathered around the bone.

He had been through that process nineteen times already, his manipulation was smooth and rapid.

Yet, as the two materials fused, the usual traces of instability appeared.

Noah didn't waste time and directly cut away every unstable part.

The incubating membrane was mainly used to keep the inscription masters safe from dangers relative to the forging.

However, Noah immediately removed it, laying the item on the floor and stretching one of his hands over it to better control the toxic smoke.

The instabilities accumulated and Noah was forced to remove more and more pieces of the item.

Dark-red pebbles shot out in every part of the room and black smoke came out from the severed areas, making the inscriptions in the room flicker.

Since there was less material to forge, Noah chose to diminish the quantity of toxic smoke in the forced fusion!

Smoke continued to come out of the bone and small solid parts shot out everywhere, sometimes even scratching Noah's skin in the process.

Yet, the item on the floor became darker and darker, the two substances were successfully mixing!

'Just a little bit more!'

Noah shouted in his mind as he removed even more unstable pieces.

In the end, the forging ended and a small black shard remained on the ground.

It was only the size of a pinkie and extremely thin, it seemed frail beyond reason but it was solid!

Noah picked it up and inspected it, a sense of danger was exuded from that little shard.

'Second rank, middle tier. To think that with just one rank 4 material it can already reach such power, the Demonic form spell is incredible! Pity, it's only a one-use item.'

His creation was too thin, it couldn't withstand the power that it could unleash.

'Nevertheless, this is only an initial prototype and I can now confirm that my spell can become the core of my weapons! Let's see, I should call it Demonic Saber.'

At that moment though he remembered his conversation with Ivor when he had passed down his legacy.

A slight smile appeared on Noah's face as he decided in his mind.

'I guess I'll call it Demonic Sword, that scrounger needs some recognition after all.'