“Ah, hold on, alright?” Kur said, sighing. “Let me get things organized in this mess first. And, uh, you can just stay there for now, I guess.”

  “Right,” Nar said, too stunned to say anything else.

  “Alright, people!” Kur said, clapping to get everyone’s attention, spread out as they were across different branches and levels. “Medis, Jaz, Jul, and Sej, senses on full range. I think this fight filled us all with [Touch of Rot], so let’s head back out to cleanse and change clothes before we get caught up in another fight. As for harvesting let’s…”

  Kur’s voice trailed into the background as Nar tried to, once again, pry his fingers from the sword or send it into his inventory, both attempts ending in failure.

  A sapient weapon? He asked himself, as the sword continued to devour the dead beast. But how…

  “You alright there? Why are you still—Holy shit!”

  Nar looked up at Leon’s jaw dropped expression, Eum standing beside the paladin with such utter shock the likes Nar had never seen on the tygaris before.

  “Am I—Is it doing what I think it is?” Eum mumbled, blinking at Nar’s sword.

  “You know what’s going on?” Nar asked.

  “Wait! Wait! Wait!” Leon panicked, pushing Eum’s face away. “We-we can’t say anything! Right?”

  “Uh… I-I don’t know,” Eum said, so stunned he didn’t even push Leon’s hand away from his mouth. “I… Shit.”

  “Stop panicking,” Kur said, joining them once again. “You can tell him. His master specifically mentioned this place probably for this exact reason. And you both probably know more than I do. I only read about it in passing. So, I’m going to leave you two to deal with it while I help harvest. The longer we stay here, the higher the chances that another brawl will erupt.”

  “Right… Uh, yeah, you go on then. We’ll explain it to him,” Leon said, his eyes still glued to Nar’s scarred, purple blade, the purple cloth draped over Nar’s stuck hand.

  “Well?” Nar asked, half-worried, half-irritated that it was taking so long for someone to tell him what in the Pile was going on.

  “Hang in there,” Kur said, raising a fist in encouragement. “We’ll talk tonight, alright? For now, just do what you have to do.”

  Leon exhaled audibly as Kur turned their back to the three of them, then squatted besides Nar to inspect the sword more closely.

  “Azzin… How did you manage this?” the paladin whispered, his glowing golden, pink and rainbow eyes staring wide eyed at the writhing glop raising up the blade.

  “Maybe it will help if you tell me what this is?” Nar asked, swallowing his irritation. “What’s it doing? And what did Kur mean by gaining sapience?”

  “Right… Right,” Leon said, passing a hand over his hair and freezing when he found it under the cover of his hood and mask instead. “Right. Alright, so… Azzin, how do I even start?”

  “From the start. I think?” Eum said, and there was no hint of sarcasm in his tone.

  “Right. Okay,” Leon said, and he fully sat down beside Nar. “So, jumping straight to gaining sapience might be a bit of a stretch, as that skips several steps in the process and it’s only a potential outcome. A very, very difficult and rare outcome to be honest with you.”

  “Go on?” Nar said, shifting onto a more comfortable position.

  “I’m going to make a few assumptions, alright? And since you’re an auramancer I might be a bit off the mark with some things,” Leon said. “But I’m going to guess that one, this sword is your original sword, the one granted to you when you chose to Climb, and two, that you are soulbound to this weapon, correct?”

  “Yes to both,” Nar said, frowning at the paladin.

  “And then, as an auramancer, I’m also going to guess that you somehow forged the pathways of this weapon yourself? Perhaps even its core too?” the aethermancer asked him.

  This time Nar just nodded.

  “That’s it, then, isn’t it?” Eum said, stunned. “That’s all you need, right?”

  “Not quite,” Leon said. “Your weapon needs an aspect. And a well defined one at that. I’m guessing you have the hunger affinity, and not medium or anything like that, but a proper, full hunger affinity on this sword?”

  “Yes… It all started when we killed a bunch of cannibals and gained an AUC for it. Everyone’s weapons gained a Minor Hunger Affinity then,” Nar explained, thinking back to the cubeplant defense. “It gave us all a very small healing effect that probably saved our lives more than once…”

  “Tygars, of course it has a healing effect!” Eum said, kneeling on Nar’s other side. “And that’s on top of the self-healing you’re trying to unlock… Radiants. That’s insane. Your masters must be—”

  “Eum,” Leon warned. “Sorry, Nar. Not knowing what your masters’ plan for you, especially since your own affinity hasn’t unlocked yet, means we have to be careful with what we reveal and expose you to. Which was why we didn’t know if we could talk about this sword or not.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Anyways, you have all the conditions necessary for your sword to upgrade to the stage above soulbound,” Leon continued. “Soulbinding a weapon is actually quite common, and it’s something that everyone does at least once in their delving career in order to acquire a decent weapon. The weapon itself needs to be at least upper uncommon for that to be possible, which means that the higher you climb in your delving career, the higher the chances that you will be soulbinding different weapons of increasing quality.”

  “So rare and epic?” Nar asked.

  “Most would stop at lower or mid-rare. Anything above that and you’re delving at least into the Deep Zones,” Leon added. “You probably haven’t heard of this yet because, well, you guys just started delving, and your faculty must prioritize what they teach you… Plus they probably had to start with just explaining to you guys about Creation itself.”

  “Right…” Nar said, nodding along as he glanced down at his sword, still drinking in that slurry of baboon juice. “And my master has been keeping me in the dark about the sword as well. With everything going on, I haven’t really thought much about what soulbinding meant either, but, as far as I understand, I soulbound this weapon to me when I first carved the pathways into it.”

  “Weapon pathways is the way it goes for an auramancer. You either carve it yourself, very rare, or someone carves the pathways for you and you attune to the weapon. On the other hand, for an aethermancer, it is our spirit patron that performs the binding for us,” Leon explained.

  “Oh,” Nar said.

  That’s unexpected. I wonder if that means that you can also lose your soulbound weapon if you lose your contract then, just like you lose the aether and all your skills…

  “All the weapons we have on our party are soulbound, as that’s the only way for us to fully utilize them to their full potential and stats,” Leon continued.

  “A-All of them?” Nar asked, his jaw dropping.

  Eum chuckled, his canines peeking. “Rich kids and all, you know?”

  “Yup… Something like that. Though, to be fair, only me and Calli actually use weapons,” Leon said, grimacing. “But anyways, that’s the soulbound stage. There are two more stages that a weapon can naturally evolve to. The first one is the soullinked stage, and as the name implies, this occurs when a connection is formed between the weapon and its wielder.”

  The paladin motioned towards Nar’s sword.

  “In order to achieve this stage, the weapon must first acquire a huge amount of energy by various means. This is usually dictated by the wielder's patron aether element, or in the case of auramancer weapons, but the weapon’s affinity, which can be different than that of the auramancer wielding it. In your case, given its affinity, the way to gain that energy is… Well, this.”

  Nar blinked at the blade at his side. “It’s… eating the beast?”

  “Sure looks like it,” Eum said, rubbing his chin. “And eating stuff is the most common way of getting energy in Creation. One thing always eats another thing and is eaten by some other one as well. I don’t need weapons, but if I did and wanted to form a soullink, given my patron, I would need to drench it in copious amounts of blood. Copious.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Exactly,” Leon said. “For me and Calli we would require light aether.”

  “So my sword is eating beasts… That’s why it was fighting me. It’s hungry,” Nar mused. “But it’s also demanding aura from me at the same time, so much that I can’t even risk using my [Aura Blade]. It’s stuffing itself with it, and it’s not going into the core! I have no idea what it's doing with all that aura.”

  Eum pulled a face and stretched his right hand fingers, the hand he had used to take Nar’s sword away from him when it had gone out of control during their escape in the Hungry Jungle.

  “I remember that… That was sore.”

  “This is only my guess, but an auramancer’s weapon requires aura in order to evolve,” Leon said. “Plus, it’s eating aether aspected beasts. Maybe it needs help breaking the energy down?”

  “Oh, that could be it,” Eum said. “So, it will continue eating beasts and taking his energy until it's full?”

  “Until it has enough to upgrade, yes,” Leon said. “When that happens, it will likely go dormant again until you present it with a catalyst.”

  “You mean an AUC?” Nar asked.

  “Usually yes, but it could also be some incredible raw material like an ore or a beast component,” the paladin said, taking his eyes off the blade and looking down to stare at Medis for a moment. The leontar expertly retrieved a yellow-red aura core from one of the armored t’nothit on a branch below them. “But…”

  “It has to be high rank, doesn’t it?” Nar guessed.

  “Epic grade. At least,” Eum confirmed.

  “Which you are unlikely to find laying around,” Leon said. “You are going to need help from your guild in order to acquire it. While Tsurmirel should be able to procure it with ease, they won’t do it without certain… assurances.”

  “Like Gad’s contract,” Nar said.

  “Exactly. A soullinked weapon, especially in the hands of a delver like you, and especially one whose pathways were carved by its own wielder? That is a powerful combination, Nar. Very powerful,” Leon said, fixing his glowing eyes on Nar’s. “They will want to tie you to them in exchange. And for a very long time at the very least.”

  Nar nodded slowly.

  Well, I’m already tied to Tys anyways, and she to Tsurmirel, so there wouldn’t be much difference there… Nar thought, watching as the beast at his side deflated as its insides were apparently liquified and slurped by his voracious blade. But given what’s already happened with my [Ego] and [Aura Blade], is upgrading my sword to soullinked also part of their plans?

  He had known that he was extending a great deal of trust to his master, and then again to Tys as well. He had known that they would keep things in the dark from him, though he hadn’t expected to be lied to as he had in regards to Aedina’s part in his education, and it made him wonder what else he might’ve been lied to.

  I asked for power in order to make sure none of us ever become the playthings of some piece of trash, but what if I end up becoming Tsurmirel’s plaything instead? Nar wondered, as he watched the final strand of goo be sucked up into his blade’s core. A guild with over twenty-seven billion people under its payroll… How could he, or his party, even begin to compare to such a monster? It was hard to even understand the sheer meaning behind those numbers, and he was likely just another tiny, tiny cog in Tsurmirel’s giant machinery.

  “Looks like it’s done with this beast,” Leon said. “I suggest finding another corpse now. It’s going to need a lot of energy… But I think that if we use a beast whose aether reservoir has already been harvested it will take less aura from you. At least we can try out that hypothesis, and we won’t be ruining reservoirs we can sell.”

  “Right,” Nar said, standing up and pulling out his blade with ease from the desiccated beast now crumbled at his side.

  “Eum, come give us a hand!” Calli shouted from the lower branch. “We need to get moving before another brawl erupts!”

  “Booo,” Eum muttered to himself, but with a sigh and a wave at Nar, the tygaris leaped down to join the harvesting effort.

  “Come on, let’s try that body over there,” Leon said, pointing towards another baboon with a huge gash across its chest.

  Still reeling from the sudden turn of events, plus his concerns about Tsurmirel, Nar followed after Leon and stabbed the dead baboon.

  “If I do get that catalyst, what happens then?” Nar asked the paladin.

  “Then your sword will evolve,” Leon said, kneeling beside the dead beast to observe the feeding process up close. “All of its stats will grow tremendously, it will gain new ones, and perhaps even active ones!”

  “Active ones? Like a skill, you mean?” Nar asked, stunned yet again.

  “Exactly like that,” Leon said. “At least, that’s the case for aethermancer soullinked weapons. I don’t really know for auramancer ones… And by the way, soulbound weapons can also have skills, but they pale in comparison to soullinked ones. That said, the greatest benefit of a soullinked weapon is that it will take a piece of your soul, and will thus attain semi-sapience.”

  “A piece of my soul?” Nar nearly shouted.

  Leon chuckled. “Oh, don’t be so worried. It’s well worth it for what you get! All the huge stats aside, a semi-sapient weapon is a forever companion. An ally you can trust with your very soul. While you still need to master swordsmanship to bring its full potential to bear, and a master wielding a soullinked weapon is an absolute terror to face, having a soullinked weapon alone will propel you above the vast majority of delvers.”

  The aethermancer grimaced.

  “Facing a soullinked weapon, especially one who has truly mastered it, without a soullinked weapon of your own is a huge disadvantage,” Leon continued. “For that reason, a soullinked weapon is a must for any aspiring Named Few.”

  “Do they all have one?” Nar asked, gaping.

  “Yes. Unless they are body fighters like Eum,” Leon said. “They can only rely on themselves.”

  “Doesn’t seem fair,” Nar said, as his weapon continued to drain the dead baboon and sounds of whispered conversations reached his [Awareness] from the others.

  “Body fighters have their own advantages, so don’t worry for him,” Leon said, shaking his head.

  “Figures. Always pros and cons,” Nar muttered.

  “Indeed, and semi-sapient weapons do come with the con that they have their own will, which can sometimes be hard to deal with…” Leon said.

  “And what’s above soullinked, then? You said there was one more stage.”

  “Ah, that would be the souljoined stage,” Leon said, his tone dropping. “A weapon with full sapience, a person in the very definition of the word, the other half of your soul. And wielding a power you wouldn’t believe… These are the highest and most powerful of the legendary weapons within the Nexus, and they and their owners are all under complete control of the Church, even if they’re in the payroll of other entities, such as guilds.”

  “As expected…” Nar grunted. “Oh, sorry.”

  Leon waved it away. “A sapient weapon is capable of destruction unlike you can even begin to comprehend. Me too, to be honest… So it makes sense that the Church wants to make sure such weapons are used correctly, and that they stay on our side.”

  Nar raised an eyebrow at that. “Do you mean…”

  “Yes. Named Few flip sides too… And while losing a Named Few stings, losing one with a souljoined weapon is a catastrophe,” Leon said, his jaw clenching. “You can expect them to become Abyssal Paladins, Those Who Bring Forth The Dark. Those people are no joke, Nar. Better to lose ten thousand battleships than a single Named Few with a souljoined weapon. And better to exchange those ships and all the million lives that entails than to allow one such fighter to reach the Nexus… Or Radiants forbid, a Dark Prophet, The Heralds Of The End Times.”

  Leon glanced over at Nar’s stunned expression, and he chuckled. “Or so I’ve heard anyways.”

  “From your paladin training, I’m guessing… But, should you be telling me all this stuff?” Nar asked the aethermancer. “I thought talking about this was forbidden?”

  Leon grimaced. “Well, don’t go blabbing about it, I guess. Though, I blame you for this.”

  “Me? What in the Pile did I do?” Nar asked. “You're the one running your mouth!”

  “It’s because you inspire confidence. Trust!” Leon said, stabbing him with a finger. “People like you are the worst, man.”

  “How does that even make sense?” Nar threw at him, but Leon just laughed at his confused outrage. “Wait, is that why you told me that you… You know, you have that thing?”

  Leon went still for a moment, impenetrable thoughts coursing behind his glowing eyes behind a suddenly walled off expression. Then, he nodded.

  “I guess so,” Leon said. “I can’t tell you exactly what it does, but it…”

  “Why are you telling me even more?” Nar asked as he retrieved his blade from the dried husk of the beast.

  “Maybe I want you to trust me,” Leon said, beaming at him. “Plus, now that I did tell you, it’s better if you know what it does, in case you get the wrong idea about why I don’t use it unless we really, really, really are about to die.”

  “Well…”

  “Right? Hey, stab that one there! Looks like its reservoir was already harvested,” Leon said, pointing with his chin at a dead bug by Nar’s foot. “Anyways, it’s an active skill, and it’s an incredibly powerful offensive one at that. The issue with it is that it’s not the kind of skill you can use around people, if you catch my meaning…”

  “Like Cor’s [High Tide]?” Nar asked, his eyebrows rising.

  “Pretty much, but it’s worse because it surrounds me. I have no control over its direction or range,” Leon explained. He glanced up to to grin as Jaz and Mul flung dead insect bits at Tuk, who was equal parts shrieking and retching. “Also, while I’ve never seen Cor’s skill, the power behind mine is… I need to cast my [Divinity of the Faithful Protector] just to keep myself safe from it.”

  “Crystal…”

  “Exactly. Plus, it’s something that has a very, very high cost. A sacrifice that I much rather not do,” Leon said, his tone dropping. “It… It is a forbidding cost, Nar. I cannot use this skill.”

  “Damn,” Nar whispered.

  “Damn indeed. I’ve never even tested this skill. Not once.”

  What in the Pile does it take from him? Nar thought, as he nodded slowly in the face of Leon’s distant expression.

  “So anyways, it’s there, but… It’s an emergency, you know?” the paladin said, his eyes downcast. “I really can’t use it unless all hope is gone.”

  Nar reached over and patted his back. “I get it, don’t worry. Though I will tell Kur… Because, you know, he’s my party leader.”

  “Ah, it’s fine!” Leon said, brightening up. “I trust you guys, plus people will have heard us anyways.”

  “And I already trust you too. No need to keep revealing your deepest darkest secrets to me, damn it!” Nar told him.

  “Hey! I’m a paladin! I don’t have deep dark secrets,” Leon said, swatting Nar’s hand away.

  “Sure, sure. Whatever you say, oh mister holy paladin,” Nar said, smirking. “And here, just because I hate the feeling of things being unbalanced, I can tell you that I also have a hidden skill. It just boosts my attributes though, so it’s nothing Creation-shattering as whatever crazy skill your patron gave you!”

  Leon burst out laughing. “What I have is far from Creation shattering, trust me! But cheers, man. I appreciate the trust.”

  “Right,” Nar said awkwardly. “Looks like having no reservoir makes it a lot easier to… eat, I guess. They’re going down a lot faster, and with less aura needed from me, so I you were right.”

  “Nice!” Leon said, pumping a fist. “Let’s stab that one next. You’ll need a lot of beasts from what I understand. It’s a shame we’re not doing that War Quest, actually. Monsters would work a lot better, given their limited sapience…”

  Nar shook his head.

  “I don’t think anybody here wants to do that War Quest,” Nar said.

  “True, true,” Leon said, his eyes growing distant once more as he watched Nar’s blade absorb its third corpse.

  So you really do have a hidden skill. Calli was right, Leon thought, his eyes drawn to the shimmering cloth tied around the top of Nar’s weapon guard. And with your sword already showing signs of sapience this early, too… As expected. You really are someone that I need to recruit, before someone else realizes your potential, Nar. No matter what it takes, I will take you in…