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Chapter 69: Attempts
🕑 Added 2025-07-03 15:04:24 +0000 UTCVivi quenched the blade in water and wiped her forehead with a towel. She placed the sword down and examined her work.
The veins shone inside the red katana, lighting the smithy in a subtle scarlet glow. Vivi had used red hardsteel, an alloy of ordinary steel. It was made by combining a large amount of steel with a small amount of adamantite. This gave the steel a reddish color while strengthening it by a significant amount.
The sword was solid, but nothing about it was impressive. The metal was strong, but ordinary. The veins were simple and effective, but it was obviously a warm-up sword, riddled with small errors. It certainly didn’t have any qualities to warrant it costing ten thousand ether.
Regardless, Lucius admired it as if it was some legendary artifact. “It’s shiny,” he said. “It’s like the veins are alive.”
“Grandpa would have called this trash,” Vivi said. “The materials couldn’t have cost more than three hundred ether, and I spent less than a day making it…”
“It’s still an inside-veined runesword thingy, no?” Lucius asked. “And it has two runes. Ven will be overjoyed. This sword is far better than anything he could obtain through other deals.”
Vivi sighed. This wasn’t her proudest work. She didn’t want to spread Grandpa’s name with swords like these.
“Let’s not forget that we’re selling swords to prisoners in a facility,” Lucius said. “It’s not like we’re scamming a king. We’re not scamming anyone at all. In the demons’ eyes, this sword is a top-notch runesword.”
“Right,” Vivi said.
Ten thousand ether. That was more than what Grandpa’s smithy made in five years selling four and five-runed swords. What’s the chance Ven will try to scam us?
“High, I’d say,” Lucius said. “But he did save us once before.”
We’ll have to take the risk, I guess.
Before anything, she pushed ether through its runes, making sure that the sword worked well. The final test for a runesword was always the first time ether was pushed through the veins. Sometimes, runeswords would snap in half even if everything seemingly went great.
The sword responded, the veins filling up with power. She could feel both sets of veins inside the sword working seamlessly together. The sharpness rune snarled at Vivi like an animal eager to cut something in half. The swiftness rune made the sword practically weightless. The metal itself had a presence in her consciousness.
Despite the faults, the sword was still a two-runed sword. It was far stronger than Vivi’s previous blade.
“Let’s sharpen it and give it a finish,” Vivi said. “Good looks always amp up the price.”
She spent the next thirty minutes sharpening the blade. The sharpness rune enhanced the sword with ether, but the runes didn’t physically change the shape of the metal. Runeswords still needed to be cared for.
With the sharpening done, Vivi hid the sword in spatial storage. She still had another job to do before selling it.
She grabbed another ether root from the sack. She gathered her tools and took a deep breath.
“Are we finally going to craft a three-runed sword?” Lucius asked, flying excitedly.
“We’ll try,” Vivi said. “I’m still warmed up from the first attempt. We have time to craft the veins. If all goes well, we’ll forge the sword after some sleep.”
“We’ll be done tomorrow, then?”
“I doubt it,” Vivi said. “The last time, I required months’ worth of attempts to successfully craft one. The second time will probably take less. But I’m still rusty.”
“Hmm,” Lucius said curiously. “Three runes are a lot more powerful than two, right? The ancient dwarves were proud of their three-runed masterpieces.”
“Yes,” Vivi said. “Properly smithed three-runed swords are far stronger than two-runed variants. Truly powerful rune combinations are unlocked at three runes. Mass and sharpness makes for a great heavyweight monster slayer with just two runes, but adding a swiftness rune also makes the sword easy to swing. Alternatively, you can add a crush rune to pretty much any rune combination to add damage. Three-runed swords are insane.”
“What about four, then?” Lucius asked.
“Improvements after three are less substantial,” Vivi said. “There’s only so much ether you can cram into metal at once. But Grandpa did come up with a few ridiculous combinations. He built the classic monster slayer mass, sharpness, swiftness sword, and added a shockwave rune as the second set of veins. Every swing that the sword made came out as a projectile. Grandpa couldn’t wield the sword properly since non-spirit wielders can’t control their ether, but he managed to cut a boulder from a range with the sword.”
Lucius was brimming with excitement. “Let’s make that!”
Vivi sighed. “It had four runes, Lucius. I’ll struggle just to fit three.”
She squeezed the first ether root between the vise’s jaws and gathered her tools. She still had eight ether roots remaining. That meant Vivi had two attempts. Three at most if one failed early. Vivi chose to start with a simple iron root.
“Let’s use the locum root thing,” Lucius said with an excited grin. “This sword will be great.”
“Starting with it would be stupid,” Vivi said. “The locium root is rare. If we fail at any part of the process, the root is gone. It can’t be reignited. Spending rare roots for projects that have a good chance of failing is not worth it. Even Grandpa only uses cheap roots for his five-runed swords and six-runed attempts.”
“But you’re good at this,” Lucius said. “We won’t fail.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Vivi said. “We’ll start out with cheaper materials. The difference in power between ether roots isn’t that massive. At most, an adamantite root is twenty percent more efficient compared to a more simpler iron root. Just initiate the root.”
Lucius pouted at her, but he eventually agreed. His wisps flowed across the air, and the iron root cracked open.
Vivi got to work shaping the veins. The exact vision wasn’t clear in her head yet, but she knew she wanted to craft another, stronger, skeleton-cutter greatsword.
The core rune will distribute a strength or a mass rune, Vivi thought while the main stalk of the iron root grew. The first ether root was always the easiest part, but Vivi already had to plan ahead, leaving enough space for the next two roots to accompany the core. Space was often the limiting factor when it came to three-runed swords. Three ether roots’ worth of veins had to be crammed closely together without interfering with each other.
The first root was always like the calm before a storm. Vivi was still in the easy parts, but she already had to prepare for the harder parts to come—like preparing shelter for a storm. Inadequate shelter would make surviving a lot more difficult.
She completed the first set of veins in an hour. She nodded, satisfied. So far, nothing had gone catastrophically wrong.
She continued straight away, while her hands were still moving smoothly. Vivi carved the hole through the bottom of the core root’s hilt, exactly as she’d do with a two-runed sword. The techniques used for the three-runed veins were the same as with two-runed swords. Three-runed swords just had to fit a third ether root, and as a result, were a lot more difficult to craft.
As the stalks of the second root joined the core root, Vivi leaned close to her work and focused. She’d chosen a white obsidian root to use for the crush rune. White obsidian was on par with mid-tier mithrils. It was cheap at the cost of being unpredictable like a plant root.
She guided the white obsidian stalks to coil around the core stalk. The pattern resembled a coiled spring weaving around the straight core root.
Branches extended outward from the coils. For the crush rune to be effective, its powers needed to be spread evenly toward the sword’s blade. The branches had to extend as far outward as they could, while also leaving enough space for the third ether root to fit. Leaving the crush branches short meant the rune’s effects would be inefficient. However, if the branches spread too far or wide, fitting the third ether root would be difficult.
Grandpa made the process possible with a technique he called looping. Vivi had learned the technique during the last two years. The name was quite literal.
Vivi twisted each obsidian branch up and around, leaving a circular loop. Each loop was large enough to fit an ether root’s stalk through. The loops had two purposes: to further spread the branches to use space to the maximum, and to leave a hole for the third root to traverse.
The loops were also ridiculously difficult to shape properly. If one was made slightly too small or large, ether would be asymmetrically distributed. Asymmetry was death when inside carving. A sword with asymmetrical veins would likely snap in half.
Vivi had to juggle two obsidian stalks at the same time on each side of the sword, often shaping two loops at the same time. She had mere seconds to work on one loop before the one on the opposite side required attention. To fill a full greatsword with branches, Vivi required at least ten branches on both sides. Each branch required a loop.
That meant Vivi had to prepare over twenty loops in total. Each one required concentration, and there was little to no margin for error. She worked with absolute focus, knowing that the slightest fault would mean starting over.
There were no breaks. After the ether root was initiated, Vivi had no choice but to finish her work or give up. She shaped the loops and branches while also guiding the obsidian stalks up their correct paths.
She wasn’t practicing in Grandpa’s smithy anymore. Whether she succeeded now could be the difference between winning or losing a fight. Vivi didn’t have time for failures anymore.
That fact made her nervous. She shaped the branches, guiding the loops with years of practice behind her back. But her hands were shaking. Her body was filled with pressure. The closer she got to success, the more nervous she became. She had to focus. She had to succeed. She had to—
Her hand slipped. The crochet hook fell from its hold, slipping slightly out of place. She quickly fixed her grip, but the damages were done.
“Ahh,” Vivi said, staring at her veins. She bit her lip and stepped back.
Lucius blinked, looking surprised. “What happened?”
“The sword is ruined. You can stop pouring ether,” Vivi said.
The obsidian root continued to grow aimlessly at the pace of a snail until Lucius reluctantly stopped the flow of ether. The root cauterized, never to be reignited again. “But why?” Lucius asked. “What happened?”
“Look at that loop,” Vivi said, pointing at the seventh branch on the right side of the veins. “It’s not circular, and it’s slightly larger than its opposing loop on the left. I can see the difference with my eyes.”
“What’s the big deal?” Lucius asked. “It’s just a loop. Surely, we can continue?”
“No, if we finish this, the sword will break,” Vivi said. “Sometimes, the veins snap even if everything looks good. If there’s an error that’s visible to the eye, it’s definitely ruined. The veins are asymmetrical. There’s nothing we can do. This sword failed.”
“That’s it?” Lucius asked. “The sword failed just because you made a miniscule error with the loopy loop?”
“Yep,” Vivi said. “That’s all it takes. Vein-shaping is insane.”
Lucius floated there in bafflement, staring at her. “What do we do now, then?”
Vivi untied the ether root from the vise and tossed the veins aside. The first root was ruined too, as it had combined with the failed second root. After the process had started, the veins couldn’t be separated.
Vivi had said would sleep after the first attempt, but she wasn’t tired yet. Her touch with the crochet hook was improving. Her fingers felt good; better than when she had started, and she could keep her eyes open without irritation. Vivi was still ready for at least one more attempt.
She picked up another iron root and twisted it on the vise. “We start from scratch, and we try again.”
