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    Kaius laid his hands on the flat of the blade, feeling the cold chill of the inscribed steel. Breathing deep, he emptied his mind, allowing himself to come to a slow calm.

    In tune with his senses, he felt the world.

    Chill steel, the weight of his armour pressing on the familiar softness of his travelling clothes. The sturdy support of his brother against his back, the caressing warmth of a summer’s night wind, the low crackle-pop of the fire, the grit of the dirt worming its way between his pants and boots. All of it.

    One by one, he noted the distractions, and one by one he let them free to drift across his mind.

    He centred himself, and his heart slowed.

    Ready as he ever would be, Kaius let his eyes fall shut and he drifted into his internal world. Fresh from his experience earlier in the day, immortalised like it had been carved from adamant by the system’s will, the shape of his latest glyph came to mind.

    Both ends of the link were identical, but he knew that he had to start with the one on his body. It was an anchor, and the waypoint his sword would use to connect to him more fully. The conduit through which it would bind itself to his ascension, empowered in lockstep with his own growth.

    Soul-bonded items were rare things, only whispered about in rumours and legends, but he knew more now. The system had granted context along with its glyph. Material infusion might have been the way A Father’s Gift would increase in rarity, enabled by his glyph to improve both its enchantments and its construction, but it was the link itself that would lead to more fundamental growth.

    Once bound, truly bound, on a level far more fundamental than the base connection they already had, it would climb through the tiers of power in unison with him. Evolving to new heights in conjunction with his class.

    Thank the gods he had gotten the skill so early, he would have hated to think of the loss if he had waited for some other skill to evolve a linking functionality.

    Another slow breath quelled the musings in his mind, and he focussed on bringing the shape of the Bladerite to the forefront.

    Much like Drakthar it was imposing in its complexity, a three dimensional knot of sacred geometry and half understood formations. Unlike his first glyph, its shape and essence was far less brutal.

    Where Drakthar was all sharp points and cutting edges, the Bladerite was flowing movement made of smooth curves. It drew the eye to its angles, sweeping the gaze with increasing speed before it would bank into a hairpin turn, morphing into acute lines that would cut across the whole working.

    If he was honest with himself, he understood sweet fuck-all of how it worked, beyond being able to vaguely identify four separate arrays. One in the centre, with three others overlapping and subsuming it.

    Still, it was a gorgeous piece of runic work, one that called to mind the flowing grace of swordwork, and the beauty that could be seen in an immaculately executed sequence of moves. Speed in consistency and measured control.

    Thankfully, he did not need to understand the fundamentals of how the glyph worked to trust that it would. The system was many things, but it was not deceitful. That, and he knew he would have the skill’s own aide in its construction.

    Sharpening his mind’s eye, he pulled the glyph into focus, until it hovered in the black with as much clarity as if it had been lovingly sculpted from silver wire. Still, with how mind-bendingly complex the working was, it was easy for individual parts of the image to fall out of focus, blurring as he lost track of the individual details in the mash of geometry.

    Slowly, patiently, he retrained his mind on the problem areas. Sharpening the image over and over, until the glyph held steady in his mind. For anything else, it would have been agonising having to rework the same sections again and again.

    Thankfully, the Bladerite was a thing of sublime beauty, and he had no problem spending time lavishing every hairsbreadth of its length with his attention.

    **Ding! True Sight has reached level 31!**

    **Ding! True Sight has reached level 33!**

    Finally, he was ready. Kaius started to weave.

    With the new grasp that Tonal Weaving gave him over his internal mana supplies, it was easy for him to grip his mana pool, threading a string of power out into his body. Infusing that power with the essence of his soul was far more complex. His skill helped somewhat, as did his experience with soul-fire during the merging of his legacy skills, but it was not perfect.

    Kaius stayed calm, taking his time. There was no scream, no psychic dissonance to power through. Just him, his image, and his will. He could do this.

    Radiant power suffused his mana as a branch of soulfire connected to his pool. He continued his work, worming a thin thread of mana down his arm, to gather it in the palm of his right hand.

    Hairsbreadth by agonising hairsbreadth, he wove the thread around his natural mana pathways, snapping it into place as he formed his Bladerite. Sweat beaded on his brow, his forehead furrowing in concentration.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    The glyph came together. It was an interesting thing. Even with its beauty, and his own lacking comprehension, it was easy for him to see it was…incomplete. Too much empty space, odd lines that ended nowhere, and linking sentences of runes that failed to connect.

    With a final gasp, he wove the last line, and the first half of his Bladerite snapped into place. Linked to his soul, it pulsed with energy, searing his palm with a blinding heat.

    **Ding! Tonal Weaving has reached level 27!**

    **Ding! Tonal Weaving has reached level 29!**

    Groaning as softly as he could, Kaius bit his lip until he tasted blood in an effort to stifle a scream that would wake Ianmus. It would have been fantastic if he could have hidden away in their tent, but they’d decided to keep that in reserve. Afterall, an unknown ability to shelter in plain sight was no small advantage.

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