Chapter 1283: Short Sword
Once the Matter-Essence hybrid air was ready to be properly converted, Ning pulled on it. The thing became thin and stretched as Ning pulled on it.
Byron watched from the side, slightly nodding as what Ning did was correct to his eyes. He had to pull it and then start hammering on it too…
Ning didn’t bring out any hammer and simply continued pulling on the thing without stopping.
Byron wanted to tell Ning that he was doing it wrong, that he had to change it as he pulled, but he didn’t want to distract him right now. He would have to hope that Ning knew what he was doing.
In the meanwhile, he moved away the other people from around the area just in case.
Ning continued pulling and whatever he pulled would remain in his hands, grasped tightly. He pulled and pulled and pulled until there was nothing to pull anymore.
Everything he could pull was all in his hand. So, there was only one thing left to do. To covert what was in his hand into a worthy conduit.
There were many things he could do with it, but for practice purposes, he decided to go with a short sword. He closed his eyes and visualized what a short sword looked like.
As Byron had mentioned when teaching him about it, the hammer and anvil were all there to make him believe that he was making a sword. It was to help him visualize the transformation from a Matter-Essence hybrid to an actual weapon.
If one could do the same without using anything, then they wouldn’t need any hammer or anvil.
Ning focused on the image of the short sword in his mind. His consciousness returned to a time when he made every form of artifact for a very long time. A short sword to him from all those years ago was something as simple as a flick of a wrist.
With his eyes closed, he slowly opened his palm, pulling the amalgamation of Matter and Essence. As he pulled, the object slowly took shape.
Without getting hammers, the object became flat. Without being sharpened, it gained an edge. With just a single pull, the sword formed in its entirety.
Byron watched in absolute shock as something that would have taken him minutes to hammer and form was instead made in seconds by Ning by simply pulling on it. He wanted to believe that he was seeing wrong, but with all that had happened around Ning, he simply couldn’t.
Ning opened his eyes and looked at the dagger in his hand. The greenish-white hue had now lost a lot of its color, now retaining a mostly colorless body with a very vague inkling of any other color.
Ning took the blade and flipped it a bit. “Ooh! I did it,” he said excitedly. “Is this how it’s supposed to be done?”
He turned to look at Byron who still didn’t speak. “Hey!” Ning shouted at him, catching his attention.
“Huh?” the man looked at Ning with a scared expression.
“How did I do?” he asked. “Is this good enough?”
He tossed the short sword to Byron who quickly caught it. Byron gave it a cursory glance and then gave some deeper inspection when he saw something that he couldn’t believe was there.
Details. The short sword that was casually made had details that would take a normal smith a long time to carve into it. He couldn’t believe it.
“How did you get this hexagon and text here?” Byron asked. “Never mind that how did you make this sword in just a single pull?”
“Ah, you said that I needed to be able to visualize to make the conversion, right? So I did. I visualized the sword in my hand and it simply came to be,” Ning said.
“But… but how?” Byron couldn’t help but ask.
“Oh that,” Ning said. “I actually used to be a smith too. Well, not just smith. I used to make all types of weapons and artifacts. Still do sometimes, but not to the same level as I did back then.”
“You worked in a smithy?” Byron asked.
“I owned a Smithy,” Ning said with a big smile. “Ah! Those were the good days. I was world-famous for my artifacts. I used to have so many people working under me.”
“What happened? You got bored?” Byron asked.
“No, not bored. Things didn’t align with the… uhh… royals of that place. They wanted me to make weapons for war, and I didn’t want that. I had to leave the smithy behind and leave.”
“Ah, that sucks,” Byron said.
“That’s alright,” Ning said. “Anyway, you gonna judge the sword?”
“Oh right,” Byron quickly said. “This is incredible. I don’t need to judge to know that.”
“Ooh, is it?” Ning asked excitedly. “What would you rate it from 1 to 100? 1 being absolutely garbage and 100 being the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.”
“Uhh…” Byron thought for a bit and answered, “Something like 65? The craftsmanship itself is amazing, but you are lacking volume. Of course, this is just your first work, so I’m sure you’ll do much better soon enough.”
“Volume, huh?” Ning thought to himself. It was true that he had used not as much air as he should have. This amount of air was basically nothing for the sword, especially since man-made conduits were only as good as the amount of material that had gone into making it.
His continental sword had a continent inside of it, so he could create as large a structure as he wanted without worry. But something that used a small amount of materials would only be able to produce a small amount when used.
“65 huh?” Ning thought to himself. “Yeah, I’m not going to leave until I cross 80 at the very least.”
Ning went back to training again, and under Byron’s supervision, he managed to make 5 more different kinds of artifacts.
2 swords, 1 spear, 1 staff, and an armor.
Every single one of them was greater than 70 points, according to Byron, with the final armor reaching as much as 83 points from him.
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