Final Preparations

With the experience of making Frostmourne behind him, Zheng Yichen found Azurewrath much easier to make. It still took nearly two days, but the explosions were far less frequent. A Magic Weapon made with nothing but magic power—magic really was an incredible thing!

Frost enchantment and a basic magic-gathering effect were straightforward enough. What took Zheng Yichen so long was the most important spell, Divine Protection. It had no simplified beginner or intermediate versions, only a complete form. It was a spell held by the Holy Church, one that ordinary people could not even learn!

That showed just how valuable this spellbook was. It recorded spells that were not circulated elsewhere; its wealth of content spoke for itself.

The spell's main effect was to repel and suppress evil creatures within a certain range. While suppressed, they took sustained damage from light elements. Then came purification, a spell that specifically countered evil powers. The last one was Weapon Blessing...

Zheng Yichen had learned his lesson this time. He moved as he worked, keeping an eye on the neighbors lurking who knew where. Sure enough, the explosions from making the Magic Weapon drew their attention, and they investigated each place where he had worked.

If their first reaction had been anticipation, their reactions afterward were confusion and rejection.

Tch. I'll deal with them later. They could not find the castle anyway, and he had other things to do. Zheng Yichen returned to the castle and began his final preparations.

"You're going to give her this Magic Weapon?" Lolise asked inside the castle, looking at the weapon Zheng Yichen had just made. Without Frostmourne's Soulbinding Enhancement, it had less future potential than that Magic Weapon. Even so, its effects were impressive enough to make it popular with the Holy Church's knights.

"Of course not." Zheng Yichen shook his head. The unusual nature of the Magic Weapons he made was enough to attract plenty of attention. Giving one directly to Petty would be putting an innocent girl in danger. Possessing a treasure could itself be a crime; the moment the weapon's special effects were exposed, trouble would find her.

If he wanted her to use a Magic Weapon without making her a target, he needed a better way.

"I'm going to combine it with a Summoning Spell."

"..." Lolise gave Zheng Yichen a long look. Call it a wild idea or confidence born of a plan, but he certainly seemed bent on stirring things up. Nothing like this had ever appeared in this world. Weapons were inanimate objects; they could not sign contracts with Summoners or receive Summoning Marks.

Then again, before Zheng Yichen, this world had never seen permanent Magic Weapons of this kind. Magical weapons that truly never vanished were made from physical materials.

"Go on." She did not question where his confidence came from. Too many things about him defied common sense.

"A Summoning Mark anchors itself to mental power. There's some of my mental power in the Magic Weapon too, so I'm going to imprint a Summoning Mark on it." Zheng Yichen had come up with the idea because the Summoning Mark in his Sea of Consciousness placed almost no burden on it. It was more like a pattern drawn on paper.

The Magic Array Patterns inscribed there, on the other hand, were like drops of water. One drop soaked only a small patch, but enough drops would leave the entire sheet wet, unable to hold any more.

A Summoning Mark served only as a link for the Summoning Spell. The actual summoning still depended on the spell cast by the Summoner.

That made it quite possible to imprint a Summoning Mark on a Magic Weapon. Zheng Yichen had already enchanted it with several spells, leaving a considerable amount of his mental power inside. He had checked: that power was securely locked in. As long as the weapon's magical structure did not collapse, the mental power left behind when he cast those spells would not dissipate.

That gave the Magic Weapon what it needed to hold a Summoning Mark!

"A Magic Weapon can't agree to a contract." Even with Zheng Yichen's mental power inside it, the weapon remained an inanimate object.

"But I can." Zheng Yichen shrugged and picked up the most basic Magic Weapon beside him. "I just need to copy the Summoning Mark into each weapon, right?"

He could say that because, while making Magic Weapons over the past few days, he had discovered that he could move the Summoning Mark in his Sea of Consciousness with ease—even take it out—as long as it remained anchored to his mental power. Without that anchor, the mark was like air. With it, the mark became "solid," like an object in his home that he could place wherever he liked or even throw away!

Throwing one away would only cost him a little mental power, which he could recover with some rest, so the loss did not concern him. Lolise's brows lifted slightly. That was possible?

"Hold still." She touched Zheng Yichen's forehead, and a gray glow lit up. Zheng Yichen suddenly felt as though a beam had scanned him from head to toe. He shifted uneasily... and earned an eye roll from the little girl.

After examining Zheng Yichen, Lolise understood. The Equal Contract he had signed with Petty had "changed" on his end, likely because of his own "talent." The contract still held Petty fully bound, but for Zheng Yichen, it had become nothing more than a verbal agreement. He could keep it if he wanted, or break it just as easily.

"Otherworldly Soul..."

"Hm? Why bring that up again?" Zheng Yichen asked when he heard Lolise murmur.

"It's nothing. Your soul is unusual. It can disregard many things, even the restrictions of a contract. But don't abuse that advantage," Lolise warned him. It was useful, certainly, but using it too often was bound to cause trouble. Being unregistered was one thing; shouting about it every day was practically asking to be hauled in for questioning!

"What do you mean?"

Lolise explained what had happened to the contract. Zheng Yichen clicked his tongue and scratched his chin. So he would not have to worry about being trapped by a contract in the future. Even if someone tricked him into one, he could simply refuse to honor it...

"Heh. No contract can bind someone who isn't on the books. Nice! As long as I don't go out of my way to break contracts, that doesn't count as abusing it, right?"

Lolise nodded. Zheng Yichen was mature enough to decide for himself. She had told him what he needed to watch out for; what he did next was up to him.

"Phew. Raising a protagonist—that's the work of those old mentor figures, and here I am doing it already." Zheng Yichen rubbed his hands together and set about the final preparations. First came the conditions for signing a contract. He could hardly make everyone who wanted one search for a Magic Weapon in person, could he?

He decided to make something like a "Summoning Book." He had also worked out the contract process: he would inscribe a Projection Spell's Magic Array Pattern onto the Summoning Book. It would be a stable, fixed-pattern array, like the spells built into some magical tools. It could be used repeatedly, with or without an infusion of magic power, specifically for remote operation.

A spell cast from such an array would have no room to grow stronger, but power did not matter here. The Projection Spell only needed to create a channel for communicating with the Summoner, so the most basic version would do.

After that, the Summoner could use a Summoning Spell to call forth a projection of the Magic Weapon!

A projection, not the complete weapon. Zheng Yichen had no intention of letting Summoners summon the real Magic Weapons for now. If one of those was destroyed, it would be gone for good. Destroying a projection, on the other hand, would only cost the Summoner some magic power. He would need to make that clear before anyone signed a contract.