The Weapon of choice (2)

"I will buy them all," Ed said.

"Hold on a second... I need to ask my boss," the attendant said. Ed nodded and watched him leave. He saw that this man was only a mortal and it was normal for him to be selling these on behalf of someone.

The attendant returned with a smile.

"Sure... should I round them up?" he said and Ed nodded.

"Who is your boss?" Ed asked and the attendant froze.

It was just as he suspected. This man had gone to tell his boss that there was a big fish in his store. He wondered if it mattered who he was, didn't that mean it was a fellow cultivator and not one of the regulators who owned the shop?

"Your boss is not one of the regulators," Ed said.

"No. the regulators don't sell. Training cultivators can. But they must pay a token to the regulators," the attendant answered and Ed nodded.

The attendant put all the swords in a low-grade spatial ring and handed it to Ed.

"How much is all that?"

"Four hundred and fifty thousand spirit tokens," he said. Ed produced a bag and dropped it on the desk.

"Count," he said. The attendant looked inside and saw spirit stones. Four thousand five hundred of them. He became more respectful of Ed and bowed deeper in thanks.

Ed turned and left. He returned back to his cave and sat down in the sitting room. Taking out one low-grade human sword, he saw that the quality was not too good. He passed the same percentage of energy as he would in a wooden sword and it was fine. He increased the energy little by little, gauging how long it would last. As it approached true one per cent, the sword rusted and crumbled to the ground.

He tried again with a mid-grade human sword. It only lasted a little longer, but still crumbled at that level. Was the purity of the sword important? He understood that the demon lands did not have great sword smiths. So, where did all the swords come from? He looked through them and saw that they were all different in make and purity. This sword looked as though it had been picked from anywhere.

Ed remembered the battles that had been created to encourage feuds where people fought to the death. These could be swords from fallen cultivators. He looked at them and chose those with higher purity for his tests.

After trying for a while, Ed came to a conclusion. The higher-purity swords were much better. They still crumbled at the same percentage of energy, a little approaching one per cent. But the swords with higher purity lasted longer. The better the purity, the longer it would take to crumble. Of course, there was an exception. Two of these words were made from a special material he could not recognise. It seems rare and powerful materials could help it last longer.

He had tested two low-grade earth swords and they could handle one per cent of his energy. He had to be gentle with these swords. Passing a percentage of his energy through them while in his cave was not the same as while in a fight. In a fight, one could lose control or use too much energy. He had to have great control over his energy as he fought. This was a hard thing to do. He wondered if there was any sword that would not crumble. His mind wandered to his spatial ring.

The Yhenxia sword.

This sword came with him from his world. This was given to him the moment he took up his quest. The oracle had said that quest takers would be given one of them. He knew this sword was special because he understood that there were no quest-takers anymore. Even in this world, he had read the text Jian Ou had given him. They don't exist anymore. They were the only known Godeaters. According to the oracle, it was the last of its kind.

Ed took out the sword from his spatial ring and stared at it. It was a sleek blade. It looked like liquid mercury as it shifted as though it was flowing from tip to hilt. The handle was tied with a black cloth. Ed touched the blade and words in a language he did not understand filled his mind.