The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

The blacksmith was a very observant man with a good eye for detail. He noticed that Isaac was carrying a bag of materials and had a young face but wore a Rank 2 disciple's badge, so he quickly realised Isaac wanted to perform Anima advancement.

The blacksmith was a Rank 2 cultivator himself so he didn't feel intimidated by Isaac's cultivation. However, he was over 40 years old and still stuck in middle stage, while Isaac looked young and was surely a promising cultivator with a bright future.

The blacksmith thought all this in an instant and felt that it would be best to avoid offending Isaac. Instead of charging over angrily, he stood up and gave a polite smile,

"How long do you wish to rent it for?"

"Three hours."

"That shouldn't be a problem, but the cost will be 1 reward point per hour."

"Half a reward point."

Isaac directly slashed the price and the blacksmith frowned,

"Eight iron pieces, that's the lowest."

Isaac directly took out 2 reward point tokens and 4 iron pieces and handed them to the blacksmith. The blacksmith lingered for a second, but Isaac shooed him away,

"Go. I would prefer to work alone."

The blacksmith was displeased but left anyway, leaving Isaac in the empty smithy.

Now, why had Isaac come to a smithy to advance his Anima? Well, 'advancement' was originally a natural process which occurred after an Anima had absorbed Qi for many years, built a strong foundation and eventually underwent a transformation which brought it to the next rank.

Using a formula and various materials to forcibly advance an Anima was essentially accelerating that natural process and completing it in a short time. The most important component was Qi, which usually came from materials. Then there were also other Anima and materials which would influence the new Anima's ability, idle consumption, shape, dwelling place and so on.

However, the 'environment' was just as important as these auxiliary Anima and materials! Since forced advancement was replicating a natural process, it should be done in an environment which was similar to the new Anima's natural habitat.

The issue of environment was also what gave the 4 continents their specialty Anima. For example, it was easy to find places to advance snow, ice, water and wind-style Anima in Northern Tundra but it was almost impossible to find somewhere to advance fire-style Anima. In contrast, Western Prairies had a great strip of desert across the middle of it where it was easy to find spots to advance fire or sand-style Anima but incredibly difficult to advance water, earth or plant-style Anima.

Isaac wanted to create a Rank 2 sword Anima, so he was doing it in a place which was naturally attractive to swords: a smithy.

He put the bag of materials down and took out a piece of paper from his pocket. When he unfolded it, a long list of detailed instructions could be seen – this was the formula he'd copied down after seeing it in the library a while ago.

He read all the instructions twice before beginning, just to refresh his memory. Then he took the first step.

'Burn Windy Qi Incense to fill the room with windy Qi.'

This step would provide Qi for the advancement, but also slightly altered the environment to suit the Controlled Breeze Anima he would be using in the process.

After lighting the incense, faint gusts of Qi began to blow around the forge. Isaac glanced at his notes again,

'Stoke the forge and begin smelting 2.27kg of iron. When it has melted, add 60g of gold, the higher the purity the better.'

Again, Isaac followed the instructions. He lit the forge and stoked it until the flames within it were roaring. Then he used the forge's traditional weighing scales to measure the exact amount of the metals he needed.

Isaac continued following the steps and the process continued smoothly. After a while, his bag of materials was almost empty. Windy Qi and fresh iron Qi filled the air, while a glowing globule of melted metal sat in the furnace.

Isaac watched the metal intently. When he decided it was ready, he commanded the Controlled Breeze Anima to fly out of his body. Its spirit body, which was an invisible gust of wind, hung in mid-air and began to hungrily absorb the Qi in the air.

Although Isaac couldn't see it, he could sense it expanding rapidly as it sucked in all the windy Qi. It also absorbed some fresh iron Qi, but there was an adverse reaction as it rejected some of it.

Isaac quickly activated the Gilt Rain Anima. A grey cloud appeared just beneath the ceiling. It rapidly grew darker and then began to rain tiny droplets of yellow metal. Some hit the floor with a clink, but many were stopped in mid-air as they landed on the Controlled Gust Anima's large body.

These droplets slowly dissolved as the Controlled Gust Anima absorbed them. As it absorbed the metal rain, the rejection against the fresh metal Qi decreased and it began to absorb that as well.

After a long time, all the Qi in the air was absorbed. Isaac felt the Controlled Gust Anima shaking violently. It was unstable and on the verge of breaking apart after absorbing so much Qi from a different style.

Isaac flicked his arm and the Gilt Rain Anima flew out. It was just a small, translucent metal droplet but it shot towards the huge Controlled Gust Anima fearlessly.

There was a sudden flash of light and Isaac quickly threw his last 2 ingredients towards the light: they were a bar of Murky Steel and 10 droplets of Needle Water which were held in a small glass bottle.

When the 2 ingredients were thrown into the air, they vanished into the shining light. Then the light began to rapidly contract and disappeared entirely, leaving behind streaks of golden air which Isaac could control to fly around.

However, he didn't control them to do this. This was a half-finished product which was still unstable, only slightly less volatile than the Controlled Gust Anima from before.

First, Isaac checked the liquid metal in the furnace. It possessed a chromatic shine with many different colours blurred together, but the colour of gold stood out the most. Isaac nodded. Then he controlled the golden air to float down to stomach level and commanded a Spirit Sword Anima to fly out and float in the middle of the air.

Next he took the container of liquid metal out from the furnace. He controlled the golden wind to wrap tightly around the small orange sword spirit, then he poured the metal mixture over them!

However, not a single drop fell to the floor. The metal formed an orb with the wind and Spirit Sword Anima inside.

Isaac smiled and relaxed. He could sense the process of advancing happening within that metal cocoon, so the advancement was highly likely to be a success.

As long as you had a good formula, performing an advancement was relatively easy: you just needed to follow the steps properly and you were likely to succeed. Right now, Isaac's formula said to leave the metal cocoon alone, so he did just that.

He sat on a workbench and read the formula over and over again, pondering the profundity of it and analysing how each step achieved a certain effect.

He had nothing else to do, so Isaac studied this formula for over 2 hours until, finally, the cocoon showed signs of breaking.

The cocoon was originally lustrous and large, about the size of a football. Now, however, it had shrunk to the size of a tennis ball and was a dull grey like all its vitality had been sucked away.

Many cracks covered its surface, but the biggest ran all the way from the top to bottom of the metal sphere. With a crackling sound, part of the cocoon crumbled. A golden shape sped out of it and excitedly flew around Isaac's head 3 times before coming to a stop in front of him.

Now he saw it clearly. There were over 20 miniature gold swords clustered together into a fist-sized space, forming a sword cloud. This was Rank 2 Sword Rain Anima!

Isaac had seen many Rank 2 sword Anima recipes, but this was the one he chose to advance first. There were 2 main reasons: its formula had a 100% success rate (as long as the steps were followed perfectly), and it was a strong AOE (Area Of Effect) ranged attack Anima.

Isaac had lacked a ranged attacking Anima, so this filled a gap in his capabilities. It would also be perfect against the Carapace Bugs. Most of them had power near the bottom of Rank 1, but they possessed strength in numbers. An AOE Rank 2 Anima like Sword Rain Anima could slaughter many Carapace Bugs with a single attack and was an ideal weapon for facing them.

Isaac smiled widely. Now that the Sword Rain Anima was in his hands, he had no fear in the upcoming mission. He controlled it to fly into his left forearm (since William had already taken back the Instant Notes Anima which used to dwell there) and picked up his now-empty bag.

He opened the door of the smithy and left while stuffing the bag into his coat pocket.