Six months later, Bloed was already fourteen.
It had been two years since the day he met Camilla, and Bloed had grown into a handsome young man.
With a healthy body, short black hair, and a pair of deep black eyes, Bloed was the dream lover of any girl. Unfortunately, nobody besides Camilla knew it.
The last six months had been very eventful to Bloed. After the incident in the village, he dedicated even more time to his training. Bloed stopped seeing movies or playing games in his free time, and instead, put all his attention on his ESP abilities and his studies as a mechanical engineer.
And his hard work was rewarded with amazing results.
Even Camilla could only sigh in admiration seeing Bloed's progress. In two years, he went from being completely ignorant about technology to being a qualified mechanical engineer.
Three months ago, Bloed completed his first combat exoskeleton. It was a thought-controlled armor that increased his strength and speed three-fold. Besides it, it allowed flight and had an energy barrier that could defend against C-Grade attacks and below.
In fact, Bloed could create an even stronger armor, but his psychic energy could not support the energy consumption of a stronger armor. As such, Bloed decided to use this one until he grew stronger.
Bloed had also created many other interesting artifacts, such as smart glasses, an all-terrain vehicle, a new kind of energy gun, and a small robot.
On the other hand, His psychic energy showed noticeable growth. He had become a D-Grade Esper four months ago, and his psychic energy had reached to middle D-Grade a few days ago. Bloed did not want to boast, but he was confident in breaking through to C-Grade in a year. Such a speed of advancement was first-rate even in the human confederation.
But there was something Bloed felt even more proud yet.
Currently, Bloed was about to succeed in his most amazing project to date.
A saber.
The futuristic-looking sable was one meter long, made using layered-compression technology. More than one hundred kilograms of steel had been compressed in twenty layers to create the blade of the saber. It gave the saber a hardness and resistance incomparable to any material in this world.
Of course, its extreme weight was a drawback, but Bloed planned to wield it only when wearing his armor anyway.
However, the greatness of the saber was neither in its design nor in the materials used. Instead, it was in the runes Bloed was carving in the blade.
Magic runes.
When Bloed finished carving the last rune, he heaved a tired sight and wiped away the sweat on his forehead.
"It's done." Bloed smiled in satisfaction.
[… I still don't know what you are planning, young master.] Tito said. [I can't see anything extraordinary in this saber besides the material.]
"I told you, Tito, the secret is in the runes."
[Young master, you said the same with the last three sabers you made, but they ended as three normal sabers with beautiful marking on their blades.]
Bloed's smile froze on its face. "Hahaha… Well, I'm sure I'll succeed this time."
[I hope so. Are you going to test the saber right now, young master?] Tito asked.
Bloed nodded. "Yes, I will be unable to rest without knowing if I was successful or not."
[Understood. I already prepared the test room.]
Bloed nodded and followed Tito. Soon, they reached the room used to test new weapons.
Bloed took a deep breath, wore his armor and grabbed the saber. He then walked towards a two-meters-tall metallic block made with the same materials as the saber.
Closing his eyes, he focused his mind in the saber on his hands. He then called upon his sleeping power. Once he was ready, he opened his eyes.
Psychic energy surrounded the saber. For a brief instant, the runes in the blade lit up with a dim light.
Then, Bloed raised the saber and slashed downwards.
The next second–
*Slash!*
–The metallic block was cut into two.
Bloed opened his eyes wide. He looked at the saber on his hands with an expression of disbelief.
"I… Succeeded?"
[… I think it can be considered a success. Congratulations, young master.]
Instantly, Bloed's face morphed into a wide smile.
"Hahahahaha! I succeeded! Tito, I succeeded! Look, I used [Molecular Disintegration]!"
[Well done, young master. Even I can't understand how you managed to activate it. Is it thanks to the runes?]
"Yes." Bloed answered with an excited look. "Those are magic runes, Tito. I read about them when I was a child, and when I stepped into D-Grade, I was able to remember them. I thought I could use them to activate my ESP ability, but unexpectedly I succeeded!"
Tito's eye rotated and focused on the runes. [So those are magic runes. I never expected they had this effect.]
Bloed smiled proudly. Actually, although he described the process as something simple, he needed an enormous amount of hard work to make it work.
The runes he saw when he was a child were the runes of basic spells. Those runes were already ensembled to get a specified effect. In other words, they were already a complete system.
But Bloed disassembled the spell runes to get the most basic runes of magic. He then relied on his deduction and countless experiments to determine the effect of each rune.
Such experiments already exceeded 99% of the mages in this world. Even although Bloed could not use magic, his knowledge of magic runes surpassed most mages.
Once he was done determining the effect of each rune, he experimented to see if the runes could be used with other types of energy.
Unfortunately, normal energy could not be used. However, the experiment using psychic energy showed that it was possible to use it to activate the runes, but limited to one's ESP ability.
So, Bloed got the idea to use the runes to ease the use of [Molecular Disintegration].
The reason [Molecular Disintegration] can not be used is that the calculations necessary to activate it exceeds the current capacity of his calculation zone. But if he used the runes to realize most of the calculations and then uses his psychic energy to activate the runes, then it's possible to use his dormant ESP ability.
When Bloed was sure that his deduction was, in fact, possible, he excitedly developed a weapon to use [Molecular Disintegration] with.
Thus, this saber was created.
Unfortunately, Bloed current capabilities limited the weapons he could create. He thought about creating a gun, but the number of runes needed would make the gun five meters long, maybe longer, making it completely useless in battle.
So, Bloed decided to start with a saber. He would think about creating a gun later.
[Young master, are you going to see master?] Tito suddenly asked.
Bloed was startled before nodding. "Yes. I'm going to show the saber to her. I'm sure she will be very happy."
Tito's eye flashed briefly. [Perfect. Master asked you to go to her room. She has something to show you.]
Bloed smiled. "Oh? Mother has been working on a secret project for the last six months. Could it be about that?"
Tito nodded. [Correct. It's master's biggest achievement in her life. You will be surprised when you see it.]
Bloed was stunned. But then, he smiled excitedly.
After hearing Tito, he was really curious about Camilla's latest creation.
But not even in his wildest thoughts he could have imagined what he was going to see next.