Tect Slowly pulled the sword out. When he designed the sword it was a colorless form, Azulak had explained that the Auto Forge would use the design, and available materials to stylize the colors of the blade, which made Tect a little nervous. There was no need to be though, as the sword was gorgeous. The long blade was blue in the center which became silver as it neared the edge of the blade, and the very edge was jet black like the imbedded material from the Greater Elementals core. The cross guard was a stylized dragon just like the dragon bridge, it was sapphire blue, and the eyes were golden. The handle was wrapped in a strange material that was comfortable, and provided excellent grip, and finally the pommel was set with a highly polished rose quartz that had a faint inner glow that Tect innately knew he could shut off by pulling it's mana away or brighten by adding his own to it. The machine also produced a scabbard, it had a strange blue material that was made to look like scales and a silver inlay. Tect was astonished that this machine was capable of this level of craftsmanship.
"This is the most amazing sword I've ever seen."
Laughter radiated from Azulak, "This is auto forged garbage. The skilled smiths from my time could make swords that would cleave mountains."
"I once saw the son of the Lord of Campbell county. His sword and armor were trash compared to this. I can't imagine what kind of monstrous individuals used to live here but if what you say is true I can understand why they needed a god to wage war."
Azulak got solemn after that, "Yes, your ancestors were amazing. Now it's time for you to be amazing too. I'm going to share a few memories with you, then we will go practice using the dummies you made. The first Technique is called dulling." Azulak sent Tect a memory of him wrapping his claws in mana that was soft and squishy before he attacked a group of soldiers during a training exercise.
"Using mana to spar helps your control, and allows you to spar with real weapons. It still hurts like hell to be hit, but it's not fatal. Next, I will show you the first form of Mana Deflection. It's important for someone like you who is using a longsword. I don't suggest using a physical shield since mana is just as good and far more versatile." Memories of a sparring match between two swordmasters play in Tect's mind. Neither man has a shield, and blocking is done with the sword, which is extremely stupid as your sword will be wrecked after a few fights. Azulak then showed Tect the mana currents around the two fighters. Every block the blades barely came within millimeters of each other, just like the dulling technique, mana was used to soften the incoming blow. The scene then changed to a swordsman blocking arrows, the same Technique was used, but to conserve mana the arrows met a hard wedge of mana and were redirected to either side of the fighter or down to the ground. After a half dozen arrows the shield fell, but Tect understood what was happening, during the sword fight, the blade channeled the mana for high efficiency, but the arrows were stopped by a large quantity of mana held in the air, which was much more difficult. Tect wouldn't be managing this anytime soon.
"Lastly, as a basic Swordsman you must learn a sword art. A sword art is a technique that uses mana of any attribute to empower the sword, in this case I will teach you the first tier Dragon's Fang. Any melee weapon can use it, and any attribute of mana can be used for various effects. It is a great first art for you." Another memory begins, Azulak is focusing dense mana directly ahead of him in a tightly compacted ball, he then coats his talon in mana and swipes forward. The mana on his claw forms a small crescent moon shape, and when it hits the highly compressed ball the ball explodes forward as a long crescent splitting the ground.
"With Adjustment this technique forms the bases for almost all weapon arts. Even ranged weapons. Just be careful and start slow. It's tough to control at first. The further the ball is ahead of you the narrower your aim can be, the closer the wider, but the closer it is to you the harder it is to aim. If you can master this move, you can kill any elemental to probably the 10th level of the mine in one hit."
"One hit?!?! Even the big humanoid one from before?"
" If you practice well, that mining laser will seem like a child's toy compared to the dragon fang."
Tect's eyes lit up, "Do other people know these moves?"
"Of course they do. Where do you think adventurer's guild members' skills come from? I'd say they stole a lot of knowledge crystals from your people after their god killed everyone. On top of that they should have their own techniques. The Elders from before might have been able to flatten a Human kingdom but they weren't all powerful either. Humans, Elves, and Dwarves all have ways of becoming just as powerful. The Humans also reproduce at a higher rate than longer lived races so what they lack in individual power they make up for in numbers. Don't ever think that the things I teach you make you invincible, even a toddler can kill a horse with a sharp enough knife." Azulak was deadly serious about this, and Tect knew he wasn't all powerful, but it'd be nice to feel that way for a second longer. Then Tect felt Azulak's laughter, "What's funny?"
Azulak shared the memory of what he imagined just now with Tect.
A small baby dressed in all black, a shining silver dagger in its hand, slowly approaching a horse from behind. The baby jumps unnaturally high, the dagger over it's head ready to end the horse's life. The horse's ear twitches subtly then it kicks with it's rear leg sending the baby flying away.
"What the hell, aren't dragons supposed to be these super powerful noble creatures. Are you even older than me?!"
Azulak snorted, "Those things are of course true, Dragons are the most noble creatures in this world. As such we do not need the affirmation of lesser beings where comedy is concerned. Now go train, child."
Tect Shook his head but did as he was told, for 3 days he trained maintaining the squishy mana coating on his blade before he mastered it, but eventually he did. Then since he had no one to spar with to practice shielding, he practiced the Dragon's Fang sword art.
The first attempt was awful. He took his time and went easy just like Azulak advised. He coated his blade in mana, and compacted a mana sphere directly ahead of himself then struck. A fierce crescent flew forward striking a falling leaf, and slightly pushed it nearly an inch…
Azulak laughed, "Oh great and powerful swordsman please don't strike me with your rabbit's fang sword art buhahahahaha!"
Tect flushed red, "I'll show you, watch this." Tect coated his blade, then charged up a huge ball of mana before slashing it horizontally, hoping to cut down a tree. A massive crescent of force surged forward striking the tree, and a small bark chip fell off.
Again Azulak laughed, "Ok I'll tell you what the problem is. You're making massive balls of loose mana, make small compacted balls, the more you compress it the more power you'll have."
Tect readied himself again, this time he compressed his mana down as tight as he could and made a tiny ball, then slashed it. This time the crescent was much smaller, but it sliced nearly 2 inches into the tree.
"Better, the density will affect the power, and the volume will affect the size of the mana blade. Keep practicing, in a fight you need to do all of this in a fraction of a second. It sounds crazy now, but soon the mana balls will form instantly and you won't have to think about it. Keep practicing. Size isn't as important, but you need to at least penetrate through the whole tree."
Tect practiced for 2 full days, and around noon on the third day he punched through the tree.
"I did it finally, is that enough to kill the Earth Elementals?"
"It should be, make the mana sphere again, then stab it instead."
Tect was confused, but did as he was told. The dence mana sphere formed and he stabbed it. Unlike the prior times where a crescent was shot forward, this time it was more like an arrow. The mana arrow pierced through 3 trees before dissipating.
"Yeah thats good, that should kill them no problem."
Tect was very confused, "Why did you have me slashing instead of stabbing?"
"Simple, it is harder to penetrate with the slash, so you worked harder to achieve the result that would have been easily obtained through a stab, also your slash technique is stronger too. It was a great way to train two techniques without using double the time."
Tect nodded, it was easy to admit to himself that if he had penetrated the tree on the first try using the stab that he wouldn't have been as motivated to practice.
"Now we can go get the last crystals for my armor right?"
"Yes, but you will also need leather, there are 3 beasts nearby who's hide would work. The cows, the sheep, and the cart lizards. They will look a bit different when used for the armor, but functionally won't be much different."
"I see, still I think I know what I want to use." Tect had a mischievous smile on his face.
Tect used the rest of the day to get the hide he needed, and while he hunted elementals and searched for high grade power crystals his Armor was built one piece at a time. The New year came, and went until the 12th of January when the final armor piece was complete. During the 2 weeks it took to forge Tect had made it to the 10th level of the mine, and acquired nearly two dozen basic power crystals, this should be enough power for at least a year given the current state of mountain heart.
The Main power station was located within the destroyed city, but the back up station was only a days walk to the west. It was a simple building made of the same strange metals that the other constructs he had seen were. Inside it had basic offices, and a large power distribution room. Tect gently loaded the basic power crystals into a series of sockets, when the last crystal was placed he slid a protective screen into place and a probe lowered to the first crystal. As soon as the probe touched it the crystal began to glow, and the lights in the building turned on.
The roads running through Mountain Heart glowed faintly as a wave of power passed through. In the dead city a series of repair systems came back online, The half melted castle next to Azulaks old office began to glow, small insects crawled across the surface slowly chewing the metal and then splitting into two. At the Lumber mill where a group of goblins were hand sawing and splitting logs into boards a large machine that stood inside a nearby building roared to life.
It slowly moved from the building to the first perfect row of trees. The machine grabbed the tree, cut it down, stripped the branches, then pulled the tree inside of it. For a few minutes steam rose from the machine, then the log was stacked beside the building, and the machine moved on. The Goblins inspected the log to find that it had been dried and aged in mere moments. The building then opened up pulling the log inside cutting it into perfectly straight boards, the sawdust and bark were flung through a pipe into a pile outside where a group of green slimes began to consume it. The goblins were overjoyed to see that they were no longer going to be lumberjacks. Unfortunately now they knew their new life as cart mules was soon to begin.
After nearly 2 months Tect begins the 3 day trip back to the clans campsite, he hadn't noticed it till now, but thinking of seeing them again reminded him of how much he missed seeing his family and his eyes grew wet for a moment, and then he walked just a little bit faster.