Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation(1-3VOL)

Vol 3/Chapter 30: The Weapons Shop

This weapons shop had a very simple name, just two words - "Holy Hall". But before even entering the shop, a gorgeous long sword displayed in the window had already caught my attention.

This sword was really special. Firstly, its hilt adopted the more common style in Edenmere - winding lines, and golden lustre, giving it a noble yet graceful feel. However, that wasn't too special. The important part was the straight blade, engraved with countless tiny glyphs, emitting a white glow through the conduction of the sword body, looking as dazzling as those weapons with special effects in online games.

"Pretty nice right?"

A familiar voice suddenly sounded next to my ear. I turned my head to look, and surprisingly it was Aetna. She seemed to have just exited the weapons shop.

"What a coincidence..."

I was stunned for a moment, not expecting to run into her at this time and place. We were going to see each other in class in a few hours anyway.

"Yeah... I saw you staring at that sword for a long time, so I really couldn't resist coming over to say hi."

She smiled back, although she was our teacher now, she didn't put on much of a teacher's air before me and Nicola. Perhaps in her eyes, we were still fellow tribesmen at an equal level rather than students.

"Although this sword looks flashy and eye-catching, it's just an ordinary elemental weapon. Other than being more effective against magical beasts, it's not that different from a normal long sword. Its sharpness might even be inferior. And to achieve this glowing effect, glyphs are carved to deliberately leak out its inner elemental composition. It's simply wasteful with an extremely low cost-effectiveness."

"Elemental weapon?"

I discovered another new term and asked quizzically.

"Elemental weapons are weapons made directly out of specific elements. Generally one needs exceptionally profound control over an element to produce them. So they are very expensive across the board."

Aetna patiently explained this to me in detail.

"Take this exhibit for example. It's made out of the light element. Typically it would require at least three 10-winged angels, taking dozens of days, with the assistance of spell formations, before it can finally be forged into shape."

"That difficult?"

It sounded just like Nicola's Condensation Sword. I immediately moved closer to carefully sensing the blade. Indeed as she said, nearly the whole sword was made up of the light element, and the light element within those glyphs seemed particularly unstable, slowly dissipating outwards at an extremely slow pace. So this sword, plainly speaking, was just a consumable item, merely with an extremely gradual consumption rate - roughly needing many years to completely disappear.

But her statement about needing three 10-winged angels to make it really surprised me. Given what 10-winged angels represented in Edenmere, they were all big shots, belonging to the highest echelons. Judging from the looks of those elders, legion commanders and Elara, they were all unfathomable beings who had lived for thousands of years. For a weapon made by mobilizing three such characters, exhausting massive amounts of their energy, one could imagine the astronomical difficulty.

"Of course it's difficult! Directly transmuting elements into matter is an extremely arduous process to begin with."

Aetna patiently lectured me as if I was still her student outside of class too.

"Take the Angel Descend Formation that gave rise to your birth for example. Not only are the precious materials too numerous to count, but the mere task of gathering them would require several decades just to set up initially. To smoothly operate, it requires close to a hundred high-ranking angels simultaneously conduct the ritual simultaneously. Compared to that, making this sword is already very simple."