Something I Made Recently...

Magic Weapons... Zheng Yichen only called them that for short. In the human world, the term referred to magical weapons in general. He had no intention of correcting the misunderstanding Petty might have.

A permanent Magic Weapon made directly with magic—letting anyone know about that would only bring trouble. If she had the wrong idea, he would leave it be.

"Connor, where did this book come from?" Petty searched her memory, but she had never seen anything like it.

"Oh, I made it recently. It's pretty useful." Zheng Yichen gave her a brief explanation of the book's origins. Magic Weapon Book would have been a more fitting name for it. As for its potential, there was no reason to doubt it.

The more people who signed contracts with it, the faster it accumulated mana. The more mana it held, the stronger it became. It was a virtuous cycle, provided the book survived its early days and had a decent environment in which to grow.

After making it, Zheng Yichen had continued adding Magic Weapons and, with Lolise's help, refining its functions. Those improvements were not useful yet, but they would have their place once the Magic Weapon Summoning Tome developed further. For now... they would make do.

There were plenty of blank pages. He would have all the time he needed to add every kind of weapon under the sun.

"You... made it recently!?" Petty's eyebrows shot up. "You made this?"

"Yeah. Anyway, sign a contract with the book first. There aren't many Magic Weapons in it yet, but I can add more later." Since some people lacked a Summoning Mark, unlike Summoners, he had also inscribed a Summoning Spell in the book. Once they projected the book, activating the Summoning Array Pattern on it would let them summon a weapon.

"Can I really?" Petty followed the instructions on the first two pages of the physical book and infused it with her mana. The terms of a contract immediately appeared in her mind. It was a revised Equal Contract concerning the summoning of Magic Weapons. If she accepted and signed it, she could imprint her Summoning Mark into the book.

In return, she had to supply the Magic Weapon Summoning Tome with one percent of her mana each day and provide an additional amount whenever she summoned a Magic Weapon.

Beyond that, the contract held no traps. Losing an extra one percent of her mana each day was hardly a problem. After reading it carefully, she accepted. The barrier preventing her Summoning Mark from entering the tome vanished.

The moment her Summoning Mark entered the tome, Zheng Yichen sensed it. His consciousness linked with the book, temporarily giving him control over its operation. He had built this procedure into it; all he had to do was wait for the mark to settle in.

He could also intervene and make the process fail. Lolise had her own methods when it came to designing contracts. The Equal Contract imposed no restrictions on Zheng Yichen, because its primary subject was the book, not him!

In short, he was the chief administrator. He added new Magic Weapons, "reviewed" applicants, and removed violators from the list of contract holders. He could also draw on every bit of power within the book whenever he wished.

Only after signing the contract did Petty fully understand why Zheng Yichen had told her to practice martial techniques. She summoned an ordinary sword-shaped Magic Weapon and tested it. Its strength already matched the weapons used by some upper-year students at the academy... and it might even have been sharper.

She could make the comparison only because she had been studying martial techniques with Kesha lately and had seen the weapon Kesha used.

Those basic weapons had no proper names. A sword was a sword, a saber was a saber, and the illustrations described them as starter weapons for Summoners to practice with. Higher-tier weapons had simple prefixes to their names and, unlike the basic ones, possessed effects of their own.

Some inflicted burns or frost. Beyond those advanced weapons came the highest tier she could see, with distinctive names like Frostmourne, Azurewrath, Meteorite Sword, and Gáe Dearg.

The illustrations for weapons of that tier were half gray, meaning she lacked the ability to summon them at full strength. A completely gray illustration meant she could not summon that weapon at all. Only a fully lit illustration meant she could summon the complete Magic Weapon.

"Warriors would love this book." After looking through the Magic Weapon Summoning Tome, Petty handed it back to Zheng Yichen. She had signed the contract and imprinted her Summoning Mark into it. The contract would never let her summon the physical book, but she could summon a projection.

Having the book in her hands therefore made little difference. Even if someone wanted to sign a contract with it through her someday, a projection would suffice.

The greatest advantage of a projection was that no matter how badly it was damaged, the original would never suffer enough harm to be destroyed.

The drawback was that the closer a projection came to the real thing, the more it cost to maintain. Most people could not afford it.

"Keep working hard. This book is far more powerful than you imagine. You'll understand once you advance a rank," Zheng Yichen said cryptically. After completing the Magic Weapon Summoning Tome, he had naturally needed to test it.

The Ghost Maids had handled those tests. They might have been experts at housework, but every one of them could fight. Lolise had trained them, after all. Apart from the six little Ghost Maids who specialized in looking adorable, more than twenty were Mages, while nearly fifty were warriors.

Even if someone broke through the barrier around the castle and forced their way inside, they would still face over seventy Ghost Maids who had advanced long ago...

With so many advanced fighters testing it, they had quickly worked out the tome's properties. They had also discovered some subtle ones. Thanks to Zheng Yichen's talent, every spell he cast "mutated" to some degree—including the seemingly lackluster Mana Gathering.

Mana Gathering had acquired a "theft" property. When someone used the advanced ability that let Summoners borrow power from their summons, it forcibly drew in ambient mana for temporary use within their body.

The stronger the mana within a Magic Weapon, the more mana it could draw in. Mana Gathering was fully integrated into each weapon, making it something like a water pump: a weak one drew in little, while a strong one drew in much more.

That effect seemed to veer away from a Summoner's path and toward a warrior's. Warriors, after all, could circulate large amounts of mana within their bodies while consuming the least mental energy. Petty could pursue that path if she wanted, or remain a conventional Summoner. The Magic Weapon Summoning Tome's mark took up little space in a Summoner's Sea of Consciousness.

"Oh, right. If someone takes an interest in a Magic Weapon you summon and threatens you over it, you can negotiate with them."

"Huh?" Petty blinked. "But it's yours, Connor. Wouldn't that be wrong?"

"It's fine. The more people use the Magic Weapon Summoning Tome, the stronger it gets." Zheng Yichen waved a hand. He had seen it firsthand. After extensive testing by more than seventy advanced Ghost Maids, the mana accumulated in the Magic Weapons had raised the quality of the basic ones severalfold. Granted, that was because their quality had been so low to begin with. Their improvement would slow as they grew stronger.

The low-tier Magic Weapons made later had improved by roughly onefold, while the mid-tier ones had gained only about a fifth. The higher the tier, the slower the improvement; their quality was already high.

"As the first person to sign a contract with the Magic Weapon Summoning Tome, you get some special privileges."