The Hidden World

Yuki returned to his dorm after his conversation with Yuna and as soon as he closed the door behind him, Akira popped out. She then promptly went to the couch, flopped down, and began to sleep.

‘Well we did do a lot of fighting,’ Yuki thought.

He let her sleep on the couch though he felt the slight urge to move her to his bed instead. The couch didn’t seem all that comfortable and he wanted to sit on it while he did his work.

Yuki sat down in front of the couch on the floor, his back leaning onto it. Then he opened his laptop and began to tap onto the keyboard. What he wanted to do for the day was research. He needed information on how weapons are created in this world.

As he read the results from his searches, Yuki discovered that there were two types of weapons in this world. One type was magical weapons and the other was technological weapons. As the names would suggest, magical weapons used magic and technological ones relied on technology.

Magical weapons could be things such as swords that were enchanted to be impossibly sharp, bows that launched arrows stronger than missiles, and axes that burned everything it touched. Technological weapons were more similar to the ones that existed on Earth. These could be things like guns that shot out bolts of energy, swords whose blades vibrate at high speeds to slice things like metal, and explosives.

Of course, there were hybrid weapons that utilized both magic and technology. However these were incredibly hard to create as one would need to find ways to link together the tech and the spells so that they do not conflict with each other. Another problem was that technology in Ethros often times used mana to run. This would mean that a weapon with both magical and technological attributes would use many times more mana to run than a weapon with only one of them.

‘Guess I’ll make a hybrid weapon then,’ Yuki thought to himself.

He snapped his fingers and before a pile of metal appeared. This was not all of the metal that could be taken from the golem but Yuki’s storage capacity was too low for everything to be stored. So he had taken what he could and buried the rest underground.

Using his earth magic, Yuki began to slowly shape and mold the metal. As he did this he also removed any impurities that compromised the strength of the metal and rearranged the structure of the grains to improve the weapon as a whole. When he was done, a pair of knives as well as two matching sheathes laid before him.

‘Good,’ Yuki thought.

Next came the hard part. With his hand outstretched, Yuki began to inlay circuits into the sheathe and the blades. This was a necessary part in the creation of a weapon as it would allow for mana to circulate efficiently throughout it. Without a circuit, mana would be used throughout the whole weapon at all times leading to waste. Once he had finished with the circuitry, Yuki connected a thin wire to the surface of one of the blades. This was an interface that allowed Yuki to import code into the weapon. This code would be what the weapon will use to function.

Yuki began to type away at his keyboard as he created a few spells that he wanted imported into his new blades. When he was finished, he pressed enter and checked the time. The whole process took him a little over ten hours.

He did the same thing for his sheathes and once he had finished he put them on to test them. Yuki strapped the sheathes to the underside of his arms. Then by injecting a tiny bit of mana, he activated the first spell imbued into the weapons. The blades were magnetized and stuck firmly into the sheathe. No matter how hard Yuki shook his arms, the blades never budged. With some more mana, the magnetism disappeared and they slid out smoothly right into Yuki’s palms. Attached to the hilt of each blade was a thin wire made of the same material. This acted as a sort of lead for the daggers and allowed Yuki to throw and retract them. The wire would extend when he threw and retract when he pulled back.

Yuki then tested the next spell he put into the weapons. As he trickled mana into the dual daggers, they seemed to slowly fade from view until they were unnoticeable. They weren’t invisible but what Yuki did was distort the light around them so that it went around them rather than bounce off. This created a sort of fake invisibility field. The sheathe and blades themselves were already quite thin and so didn’t make a noticeable bulge when he pulled clothes over them. With this, they were now hidden completely.

Yuki swung them around for a bit before nodding to himself. These would do for now until he found a way to either make a better weapon or upgrade this one. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was almost 22:00. He had spent nearly eleven hours creating these two daggers.

Deciding to eat dinner later, Yuki went to the training room to test out his new weapons. When he entered, there was no one around. He clapped his hands and Raphael greeted him.

“Welcome back, Yuki,” it said to Yuki.

“Start simulation. Preset two,” Yuki requested.

“Understood,” Raphael responded. “Initiating simulation.”

Around Yuki, a grassy woodland are formed and with it a group of five armed opponents. Two were archers and three were swordsmen. Without another word, Yuki launched himself forward while lightly twitching his wrist. Two black blades popped out and their hilts rested comfortably in Yuki’s palms. With the blades in a reverse grip Yuki struck out.

The simulation recognized Yuki’s weapons and they cut through the normal metal swords of the swordsmen. Without hesitation, Yuki slashed their necks and twisted his body gracefully to dodge the arrow of one of the bowmen. Then he threw one of the daggers. It sliced through the air and stabbed the offending bowman in the neck. Yuki pulled his hand back and the wire retracted, bring the blade back to his hand. The second archer died in much the same way.

“The challenger wins,” Raphael announced softly.

Yuki didn’t bother asking for a report on this fight. That was because it wasn’t much of a fight to begin with.

‘These daggers are nice,’ Yuki thought as he held them in his hands. ‘They cut through normal metal with ease and the spells work flawlessly. I should make a weapon for Akira as well.’

Nodding, Yuki left the training room and returned to his room. Akira was still knocked out on the couched. Yuki went to the kitchen and began to cook a simple meal for himself and her. It seemed that the either the smell or the sound awoke Akira and she peeked into the kitchen, sleep still lingering in her eyes.

Yuki plated the food and handed it to her. She accepted it gratefully and began to munch on it with a fork. When they had finished, Yuki washed the plates and utensils. Then he sat back down next to his pile of metal and began to work on the sword for Akira.

“What are you making?” Akira asked him.

“A sword for you. Most likely a katana,” he responded. “You can adjust it to suit your likes when I am finished.”

Akira nodded then quieted. She sat in the couch and watch Yuki as he worked silently on the sword. They sat there, one watching and the other focusing, until the sun began to poke out and Yuki had finished the blade.

‘Done,’ he said in an exhausted voice.

Then he close his eyes and his head fell to the side where it was stopped by Akira’s head who was sleeping on his shoulder.