Testing the Sword

Knight Marshall let out a great roar and spread his battle qi throughout his body. No battle qi flashed across the greatsword, because he was afraid of injuring Abel with the recoil.

"Let's try again!"

After the previous clash, Knight Marshall still felt a little dissatisfied because he had not used his battle qi—or rather, an Intermediate Knight had an almost fanatical confidence in his own battle qi.

Abel glanced at Knight Marshall, whose entire body was wreathed in battle qi, and considered whether he would be struck by the recoil if he brought his sword down. His body was still extremely weak, but seeing the determination in Knight Marshall's eyes, Abel took a deep breath and raised the greatsword over his head once more.

This time, Abel did not use his physical strength to slash. He was simply too uneasy about Knight Marshall's battle qi. He knew very well that the Professionals of this world were not like the martial artists on Earth, who emphasized stopping at the right moment. Here, "stopping at the right moment" meant switching to a wooden sword and cutting someone down. Injuries were inevitable.

Relying on its own weight, the greatsword lightly struck Knight Marshall's greatsword. Even Knight Marshall could feel how perfunctory Abel was being.

Knight Marshall's greatsword collided with Abel's. Since Abel had not used any force this time, his greatsword did not even bounce back after the collision. It merely rested lightly against Knight Marshall's sword. Just as Knight Marshall was about to say something, that enormous, unstoppable force appeared once again.

Although Knight Marshall wanted to use his battle qi to resist the force, how could human battle qi withstand a great mountain? That was exactly how Knight Marshall felt at that moment.

One step, two steps, three steps... ten steps.

This time, Knight Marshall was forced back ten steps again, almost exactly as before. Even though Knight Marshall circulated his battle qi while Abel used not the slightest bit of strength, it still could not change the fact that he was knocked back.

"Abel, I'm actually very good at using two swords." Knight Marshall gazed at the Magic Greatsword in Abel's hand with reddened eyes and spoke in a tone like someone trying to coax candy out of a child.

The Magic Greatsword was simply too important to Knight Marshall's strength. Imagine that when Knight Marshall fought an opponent, he knew in advance that the opponent would be knocked back. He could then make his judgment ahead of time and prepare his next killing move. As for his opponent, caught completely off guard, the chances of being hit would be extremely high.

There was another possibility as well. If Knight Marshall encountered an opponent he could not defeat, as long as he could knock that opponent back ten steps, he would be able to escape with his life.

This Magic Greatsword was practically another life for a knight. He did not need to use it normally and could simply carry it with him, then use it to save his life or defeat an enemy at a critical moment. In any case, the weight of a greatsword was nothing much to an Intermediate Knight.

"Uncle Marshall, here you go." Without another word, Abel directly tossed the Magic Greatsword to Knight Marshall. The runes on this Magic Greatsword had been provided by Knight Marshall, and the knight had helped him so much that one Magic Greatsword was nothing. Abel continued, "The runes on this greatsword are the same ones on the Rune Tablet you gave me a few days ago. I modified them onto the Magic Greatsword, and the effect is pretty good."

Knight Marshall felt his mind go blank. That Rune Tablet had been lying in the secret room for more than a decade. He had only given it to Abel a few days ago, and Abel had already created a Magic Greatsword with the same effect.

But could a Magic Greatsword and a Rune Tablet really be the same? A Rune Tablet had to be activated by crushing it, and once crushed, it was gone. But the Magic Greatsword could display its effect every time the sword was swung.

Moreover, the Magic Greatsword's ability was astonishingly powerful. The magic weapons Knight Marshall had heard of in the past had all kinds of effects, but they were basically limited to ice, fire, lightning, and poison. In his decades as a knight, Knight Marshall had never heard of a magic weapon that could forcibly knock an opponent back like this.

Knight Marshall looked at Abel before him. Being able to create such a powerful magic weapon based solely on a Rune Tablet—someone like that could no longer be called merely a genius. Knight Marshall no longer knew how to describe Abel. He could only keep telling himself that he absolutely had to send Abel to the Sorceress. A peerless genius like this should not be left in the mortal world.

"Uncle Marshall, keep practicing. I'm leaving first." Abel saw that Knight Marshall seemed to be thinking about something and did not want to disturb him, so he turned and bid him farewell.

"Abel, rest properly for a few days. You must not use battle qi again during this time." Knight Marshall came back to his senses and admonished Abel.

The first time a Rookie Knight used battle qi, he released all the battle qi in his Qi Vein. After this release, the Qi Vein was left as nothing but an empty shell. As long as he rested for a few days, the Qi Vein would naturally recover. However, if he used battle qi a second time during this period, what he consumed would be the Qi Vein itself. At that point, not even an empty shell would remain. Without a foundation, recovery was impossible, and he could only start cultivating again from scratch.

Abel naturally knew this. He planned to do nothing at all for the time being and use this period to return to his room, draw some runes, and train his spiritual power.

After Abel left, Knight Marshall held the Attribute-less Magic Greatsword in his hand, his heart filled with soaring pride. He even felt an urge to charge to Harvest City and cross swords with Viscount Dickens, the city lord.

Of course, that was merely Knight Marshall's beautiful fantasy. With a gap of two major ranks between them, Viscount Dickens, the city lord and Knight Commander, could absolutely beat Knight Marshall senseless. No matter how powerful the weapon was, it was useless before an absolute disparity in strength.

Starting from the rank of Knight Commander, a knight could form a suit of battle-qi armor outside his body. All kinds of powerful attacks would be weakened, while ordinary attacks could not shake the battle-qi armor at all. A powerful weapon like the Hari Bow was undoubtedly a nightmare to low-level Professionals, but against high-level Professionals, the danger was much smaller.

Knight Marshall continued testing the Attribute-less Magic Greatsword in the training room for a while and gained a preliminary understanding of its properties. He discovered that it could only unleash its knockback ability against an enemy. This concealed method delighted Knight Marshall immensely. He crossed the two Magic Greatswords over his back, one on either side. At that moment, Knight Marshall could hardly wait for the orcs' attack to end so he could go to Bennett Castle and have a proper swordsmanship match with Knight Bennett.

Meanwhile, Abel had returned to his room and was sitting in a high-backed chair, wondering whether he should forge a super magic weapon. He could now upgrade his rune ink into high-grade rune ink, and he still had a perfect sapphire as an energy source. In theory, he should be able to create a super Ice Magic Greatsword powered by the perfect sapphire and inscribed with runes using the higher-grade rune ink.

Abel thought about this and desperately wanted to try it immediately, but the weakness flooding his body dispelled the notion. He would have to wait until he felt better before continuing his research.

Taking out the Rune Brush and dipping it into the rune ink, Abel began drawing runes on a rectangular piece of wood. This was the only method of training his spiritual power he could think of. Only rune ink could stimulate his spiritual power more perfectly; ordinary ink could not achieve the effect of training it. Wasting some was no big deal. Steward Linsey had already brought back a pile of materials from the mercenary guild, and Abel had also seen his five-digit gold coin balance in the Horadric Cube. He could not help curling his lips. He had more than enough gold coins, and his little treasury was well stocked.

The Rune Brush sometimes danced like a dragon and sometimes flowed like drifting clouds across the wooden block. This was the fire rune Abel knew very well, and his spiritual power was constantly being depleted. When he finished drawing, Abel sensed that after the rune had been completed on the wood, some substance in the air seemed to have been drawn over. The wooden block then slowly turned black from the rune lines, as though it had been burned by fire, until it finally became a lump of charcoal.

Runes could automatically absorb energy from the air. This was Abel's first time drawing runes on something other than metal, and he had not expected such a state to occur.

Runes were actually extremely unstable magical symbols. If the materials in the rune ink did not form a stable balance with the surface of the steel, the runes would slowly accumulate energy over time. In the end, either the material would be damaged, or there would be a massive explosion of energy.

Abel only had rune ink that could work on steel, not rune ink intended for other materials. He did not know this, but he did not care either. He was only using this practice as a means of training his spiritual power and did not need to make anything from it.