Ch. 130
Volume 2
Chapter 54 : A Greeting Gift
“Oh, young man, you are here.”
Amid a brilliant sea of flowers, the white-haired, red-eyed little girl looked as though she had only just woken up.
She was still dressed in the same pink pajamas Muen had seen the first time they met.
In her hand was a small, charming pink watering can, and she was watering the flowers as Muen approached.
In those red eyes, clear and lustrous as amber, there was a trace of satisfaction.
“You did very well,” she said. “Far better than I imagined. Even across my long years, results like this are rare.”
“Teacher Mera…”
Looking at her, Muen did not know what to say for a moment.
Even his hands and feet felt awkwardly out of place, so in the end he could only say stiffly:
“It has been a long time.”
Teacher Mera smiled.
“There is no need to be nervous. You are now a disciple of Meradomir. At any time, and before anyone, you have the right to stand tall with your head held high.”
“Really?”
His nervousness faded a little. Muen scratched his head again and asked:
“So this means I am officially your disciple now? Do I need to prepare anything? A gift for becoming your disciple? Or are there special rituals? Should I change how I address you?”
“Let us skip all those tedious formalities.”
Teacher Mera thought for a moment.
“As for how you address me, continue calling me Teacher Mera. I rather like it.”
“In that case…”
Muen still solemnly bowed.
“I will be in your care from now on, Teacher Mera.”
“Mm. And I am yours.”
Teacher Mera accepted Muen’s bow calmly, then casually snapped her fingers.
With a streak of flowing light, a silver-white box appeared in front of Muen.
“Take it. This is from me. Consider it a gift for our first meeting.”
“A gift?”
Muen’s eyes widened.
He had not expected Teacher Mera to treat him this well.
He had only just become her disciple, and there was already a gift?
But since it had already been placed right in front of him, there was no reason not to accept it.
Muen picked up the box happily, turning it over and over in his hands.
He even knocked on it with his fingers before asking curiously:
“What is inside?”
“You will know once you open it.”
Teacher Mera smiled.
“I think you will like it.”
With Teacher Mera saying that, Muen grew even more excited.
He quickly found the latch and pressed it hard.
Accompanied by the sound of the mechanism turning, the silver-white box sprang open with a creak.
A sharp aura and a holy radiance rushed straight at him, causing his breathing to stop for an instant.
Blades.
Short blades.
Two pure-white short blades engraved with golden patterns lay quietly inside the box. And yet they seemed almost alive.
The moment the box opened, they let out a soft hum.
Muen could hear a heartbeat.
His own heartbeat.
Because the instant he saw those two short blades, his heart could not help but start racing.
It was as though he had felt a resonance with them.
“These are…”
Muen felt his throat go dry as he looked toward Teacher Mera.
“I have not had the chance to name them yet. I thought it would be better to leave that to you.”
Teacher Mera spoke softly.
“I watched the recording of your battle before and realized that you seemed to lack a weapon that truly suited your hand, so I forged these for you while I was at it.”
“Teacher Mera…”
Like them? Muen was practically on the verge of tears.
Teacher Mera might have said she had made them casually, but judging from how exquisite those two short blades looked, and from the profound aura they revealed without trying, they had to be weapons of at least legendary quality.
As expected of a true powerhouse.
Even something casually tossed out by her was enough to knock him senseless.
Still…
Muen blinked and asked curiously:
“But this is a fairly uncommon weapon. Weren’t you afraid I might fail the exam and all your work would be for nothing?”
“Unlike that boy Prang, I have complete faith in my own judgment.”
Teacher Mera seemed to cast Muen a casual glance.
“If I thought you could not do it, I would never have wasted the time to seek you out in the first place.”
“I see…”
Muen said, suddenly enlightened.
“Somehow, it feels as though I have been entrusted with very great expectations without even realizing it.”
“Since you know that, then hurry up and work hard.”
Teacher Mera said:
“Why not try the blades?”
“Mm!”
Muen reached out and wrapped his hands around the hilts of the two short blades.
In that instant, he felt a sharp pain in his palms, as though some keen edge had sliced them open.
Warm blood instantly spread along the patterns etched into the short blades.
The gold turned dark red, and even the holy aura spilling from them took on something strange and almost sinister.
But that only lasted for a brief moment.
The next instant, the short blades let out a piercing hum, and golden light burst forth all at once.
Muen felt that the short blades, which had originally been as light as sheets of paper, suddenly gained real substance and that weight suited him perfectly, as though they were extensions of his own arms.
For a moment, he almost seemed to hear joy coming from within the blades themselves.
“It seems she likes you very much.”
Teacher Mera stroked her smooth chin as she spoke.
“There is a living spirit within the blades. Now that she has acknowledged you, it means that until the day you die, no second person will be able to use this weapon.”
“So incredible…”
Muen praised them from the bottom of his heart.
Having read the original novel, he naturally knew just how rare weapons with a living spirit were in this world.
And yet Teacher Mera had simply handed one to him.
Overjoyed beyond restraint, Muen swung a blade sharply.
In an instant, it was as though a flash of lightning had split the air.
A faint black afterimage, like a stroke of ink, appeared in the empty space before him.
“Based on your fighting style, the greatest trait I gave these two blades is sharpness.”
Teacher Mera said, “An extreme degree of sharpness. There are very few defenses in this world that can withstand it. For someone like you, who wins through agility, I think that is more useful than those flashy extra functions.”
“Besides that, when these two blades strike against each other, they can also activate a powerful alchemical domain.”
“An alchemical domain?”
Muen’s eyes lit up. Without the slightest hesitation, he brought the blades crashing together.
Clang—
The blades rang out.
Silver-white arcs of electricity spread along the golden patterns, forming a peculiar zone several meters around Muen, as though it had been forged from molten metal.
“The effect of the alchemical domain is… to reject all things from outside.”
Teacher Mera casually picked up a flower and tossed it toward the domain around Muen.
The pure white blossom turned to ash the instant it touched the edge of the domain, as though it had been burned by a raging fire.
“But in truth, that effect is not especially strong.”
Teacher Mera extended her fair, slender hand into the domain, and the silver-white arcs of electricity rippled like water around it as her hand stirred them.
“Anything with a slightly stronger body can force its way into this domain. Weapons are no exception. But this domain was never meant for defense in the first place. After all, if I wanted to place a defensive function on a pair of short blades, then why would I not simply give you a shield instead? So compared with enemies or weapons—things that possess a visible form—what this domain is really aimed at are those invisible, intangible things. Curses, poison gas, negative effects, mental attacks, and the like. And most importantly, it can isolate the inside from the outside.”
“In other words…”
Teacher Mera looked into Muen’s eyes and said, word by word:
“While the domain is active, you will be able to use the flames of the King of Withering without any reservations.”