Experiment

Asami had seen quite a fair share of weapons and equipment. From beautiful spirit grade materials, to horrid looking monster parts, but never in her thirty two seasons of life, had she ever set her eyes on the weapon in Seth's hand. It's magic, he had said. She had never heard of the concept, and like all children, curiosity washed over her entire being.

"Seth-san?... What's magic?"

Seth sighed and face palmed himself. How could he forget that she was not an earth kid? She had never read story books of princesses and dragons, never seen movies about fairies and genies, and definitely never read webnovels about mages and sorcerers.

"Um... how do I explain this... Magic is... magic, I guess?"

He wasn't a girl, he was a boy, and played knights with other children instead of reading storybooks. He pulled the wings off insects instead of having tea parties, and built tree houses instead of playing with dolls. That was the best and only explanation Seth could come up with, and somehow, Asami beamed brightly.

"Magic sounds fun!"

***

Seth turned the weapon around in his palms. The weight, the size, and the feel were all just right.

'So old man Shiro's theory was true, huh?'

Shiro had speculated that the scroll had unlimited power, and that the previous owners did not use it to the full potential. He claimed that the limit of the ancient scroll was at its holder's imagination, and Seth had quite an imagination. Why wouldn't he, when he spent all his time reading webnovels?

The dagger grazing the inside of his palms made him begin to wonder what else the scroll was capable of.

"Isn't it possible to build a tank? or maybe a machine gun or something?"

Creating the dagger only took a tiny little bit out of the enormously large cluster of energy that drifted in his soul, and if this could work, why wouldn't the rest? Thus Seth dived back into his soul realm to further test out old man Shiro's theory. Wait, a theory that had been proven correct was a fact, right?

Anyways, Seth battled against the unwilling cluster of energy for a rather long time, for it to take the shape of another weapon he had seen - Lee Chun Hua's fearsome jian - and manifest itself. The jian was much longer than the daggers, and thus required a much more exhausting battle of wills. Eventually, the energy from the scroll succumbed to his will, they were within his soul, and could do nothing about it. He watched in excitement as the weapon slowly begin to take shape, forming a hilt, blade and everything, before a ringing sound appeared in his mind.

_ring_ ring_

[System essence has been depleted]

[System will now be uninstalled]

[Uninstalling...]

[0%... 10%... 20%... 50%... 100%]

[System has been deleted]

[Note that all abilities obtained by the system remains with the user, and system shall adapt to user new status when reinstalled]

"Fuu..."

Seth sighed deeply as he glanced over the notifications, yes the system was a fast way for him to grow in strength, but the endless possibilities that harnessing the very power of the scroll itself, instead of using just a bit through the system, would bring him, seemed much more useful. At least he got to keep his daggers, and probably his inventory that he hadn't ever really used. It made things easier. But that aside, the jian was lying in his palms, glimmering with an ethereal blue glow. He was not good at feeling auras like Chun Hua was, but he knew for sure that the weapon was powerful. Now, Seth decided to put his imagination to the test.

He unmanifested the fearsome jian, dived back into his soul realm, battled with the cluster of energy, but this time, he not only imagined a weapon, but added some specifications.

"A dagger that can... um... let's say, absorb Qi from plants?"

To his bewilderment, the dagger formed in his palms. Out of curiosity, he aimed it at a small shrub lying at his feet, only for the shrub to shrivel up and dry, and him to feel another type of energy pouring into his soul.

"Holy... It friggin worked!"

It was merely an experiment, as Seth was already satisfied with the ability to create any kind of weapon, but it turned out to be an outstanding success. With such an overpowered ability, he would be unstoppable! All that was left would be to survive the Imperial Sky Emperor's trial, and officially take hold of the scroll.

But there were still some flaws to consider though. Everything had a limit, and surely the scroll's power, despite how vast and ancient it was, had to have one too. He would need to experiment on the ability much more, if only to heighten the edge of his imagination. He knew about thousands and thousands of weapons from the various novels he had read, but only really remembered how to use a dagger because of that levelling guy story he had read last. All he had to do was think really, really hard and maybe he would remember how the main characters of other novels used their weapons. Then he would be able to recreate it, and...

"Seth-san!"

Seth rolled his eyes inwardly. At first, Asami's questioning was cute, then it was interesting, but now, it was nothing short of plainly annoying! Was this really what having a junior sibling was like? If so, then Seth was truly grateful that he was an only child.

"Yeah, Asami, what's up?"

The little girl ran over to Seth with an excited look on her face. Her green eyes were gleaming with excitement, and her mouth was full with some sort of plant leaves. Her kimono had multiple stains overlapping against the floral pattern printed on it, serving as evidence that she had been digging round really hard.

"Look! Look! Seth-san! It's a spirit grade sucrose herb! From its looks, it should be at least four hundred seasons old!"

Seth knew quite a lot about herbs and plants from the novels he had read, and in all of them, anything deemed spirit grade was definitely powerful,.... and damn expensive!