X776 March 27

"Then he sighed and replied: 'You think that too, huh? Everyone keeps saying the same thing. Hate? Revenge? I don't need any of that; there is no why'. And showing his fist, he said with a firm look and determined tone: Does a man need a reason to protect his children?" I said while imitating the pose of the first man.

"That's amazing! And then, what happened?" The little blonde asked excitedly.

Seeing her expression full of hope, I thought two things.

The first was how I would make her not cry about the outcome of the fight like I did when I read Shuumatsu no Valkyrie.

And the second was that I had shot myself in the foot when I decided to tell this story to Lucy, even knowing that many of the characters died.

Well, at least I hadn't done something as irresponsible as telling her the Akame ga Kill story.

I wasn't sure how she would react if I told her something like that.

"Um, well, what happened was..." I hesitated for a few seconds when luckily, a voice interrupted me.

"Lucy, where are you?" Jude called as he walked across the yard until he saw us.

"Hello, Dad". She greeted him as she got up and approached him.

For my part, I also got up and bowed slightly. "Good morning Mr. Jude"

The man gave me a single look. "Are you here today too?" He said, and then he looked at his daughter.

Yes yes, I'm the worst, and a ruffian, bad bad Jean; this routine stopped being fun long ago, man.

"I'll go on a trip for a couple of weeks"

"Will you bring me something when you return?"

"I'll try to take some time to find something you like." He answered her and then looked at me once more.

"Shouldn't you go home now?"

"Eh? But there is still time; Jean hasn't told me how the story ends yet"

"Actually". I interrupted Lucy to excuse myself. "I have something important to do today, so I was going to leave in a few minutes anyway"

"But-"

"Don't worry; I'll finish telling you what happened next Saturday, okay?" I told her, hoping she understood.

She pouted for a few seconds and then turned her head as she snorted. "Fine, but I hope Adan defeats Zeus"

Sighing in satisfaction, I said. "Well, we'll see that next time." And then I turned around to leave. "See you, Lucy, have a nice trip, Mr. Jude"

And without waiting for an answer to my farewell, I flexed my leg muscles and ran away as fast as possible toward my secret training place.

######

"He bothers me!!". I said, hitting a tree and destroying a part of the wood of the trunk.

"What the hell did I do to him? Be friends with Lucy? Is that why he dislikes me so much? What does he want? Lock her in a bubble so that no one other than him, miss Layla, or the mansion's servants can talk to her?" Breathing slowly to calm, I entered the pond to relax for a moment.

After 20 minutes of being there, floating and looking up at the sky, I finally let go of all the hassle and could focus on something important.

"Well, since I'm here, I'll use the extra time and try again". I said to myself, extending my right hand; a second later, a sword formed out of nowhere.

After practicing every day with my sacred gear and with the help of my uncle, who showed me and made me hold real swords to have a clearer image, I was now able to invoke weapons almost instinctively.

And just over four months ago, I had begun the part of adding special abilities to my weapons.

I started with simple and classic things, a fire sword, one that freezes things, one that threw gusts of wind, and things like that.

Until now, things had turned out relatively well to a greater or lesser extent, except for one thing, senjutsu.

In all this time, I had not made a significant advance in my quest for that ability.

I had started with things like sitting quietly and with a blank mind trying to feel the energy of nature, but after two months without any progress, I decided to try another approach.

And that led to just over three months ago, I started using my sacred gear trying to make some progress.

The first month I created a sword with the simple command of "gather natural energy" however, that month, there was no progress, and I assumed it was because I did not know how it felt or what natural energy was.

On my next attempt, I created a sword that would attract the Ethernano in the same way that the bodies of the wizards of this world did, basically functioning as a pseudo-container of natural Ethernano.

In this case, the results were mostly satisfactory, although it took me a few tries to achieve it because I also had to calculate how much Ethernano a sword should absorb before stopping; after all, on my first try, I did not do it and sword ended up breaking when it absorbed more than it could hold.

The next step was to modify the sword already created so that it transferred the stored ethernano to me as if it were a small and constant stream of water.

Although shortly after coming into contact with me, the energy dissipated, most likely because I did not have a container to store it.

But that was perfectly fine for me; after all, I did not want it to be stored in my body.

My goal was only to learn to feel the ethernano and become familiar with the sensation it transmitted.

Another month later, I could easily feel the ethernano that filled the whole environment, and although it was not useful to me, I was not going to deny that the feeling that the "magic energy" gave was comforting in its way.

With this finished, I was finally ready for the third and final step in my plan to be able to use senjutsu.

The sword I had just created plunged deep into the ground, and as I held it, I sat up, closed my eyes, and regulated my breathing so that it became steady and calm while I waited for the weapon to fulfill the function for which it was created.

Feeling everything through the weapon, I searched for whatever I could find.

The sword had been created with the function of searching, finding, and attracting any type of energy, ignoring the ethernano, something that was relatively easy at this point since I was familiar with the magic energy.

The most important and challenging thing in this process was the time I had to stay focused. After all, I had to be completely attentive to find the natural energy.

15, 28, 46, 72, 109, and 120 minutes passed as I searched for the natural energy, still sitting and holding the sword stuck in the ground, trying to leave my mind blanker to feel everything more clearly.

And finally, a couple of minutes after breaking the 180 minutes mark, I could identify something.

It felt different from the ethernano; it wasn't expanded in the environment but connected everything that had life, running through the plants and the ground like a vast circulatory network.

It was different from the sacred aura that all my swords emitted to a greater or lesser extent; it was not comfortingly warm like a campfire but peaceful as when you slept completely calm and comfortable.

It was not like the feeling I had when I was in the water, and my divine protection was working, not entering my body, but flowing through it like a stream.

Quickly the sword began to absorb the energy; the incoming current was neither fast nor slow, but calm and constant, just like the energy itself.

However, everything changed from one moment to another; something felt wrong and incorrect.

As if drops of black ink had dripped into a glass of fresh, crystal clear water, the feeling that the black stain conveyed was not pleasant.

I quickly released the sword before that stain flowed towards me, and I jumped back.

I could see how the sword half-buried in the grass began to rust and stain more and more with each passing second.

But with a quick thought, the sword disappeared from existence, and both the natural energy and the stain dispersed.

"I'm an idiot". I said with a hand covering my face. "How I could forget the risky point of senjutsu, that was why Koneko refused to use it and why she believed Kuroka had lost her mind"

When someone uses the energy of nature, there is also the risk that the malice of the world would corrupt the user.

Luckily I hadn't absorbed the energy directly but just stored it in a sword; otherwise, this could have gotten quite dangerous.

But even with this new problem on my way, I could safely say that I had made significant progress.

After all, I had confirmed that senjutsu could be possible in this world; it was only a matter of time and effort to add it to my arsenal; now, it was time to practice even more.

"So, what do you think?" I asked my uncle as I handed over a whole batch of swords.

He took one of them and balanced it a couple of times; then, he put it back with the others while smiling.

"It's perfect; it seems that the daily practice did wonder with your ability; with this, the runic guard will be better equipped, all the specifications were possible?"

"Yes, none of these blades will disappear with time; after all, they constantly absorb ethernano to continue existing while the surplus energy will be used to repair itself immediately if the weapon breaks for any reason; the only way to destroy it permanently would be to destroy its container or destroy the weapon completely with a single attack, besides that they all have a small opening in the guard where mini-tears of different elements can be placed to change the properties of the weapon"

"Well done, Jean, I will send you the payment today, and I have to tell you that I am somewhat jealous; if I am honest, you could become the best and most famous blacksmith in the kingdom. Are you sure you want to get out of adventures when you have a chance like this?"

"If I'm honest, I've already thought about it more than once, but my choice remains the same". I said while smiling.

"Money and fame are fine, but that's not what I want at the moment; if I do it, I would probably get bored after a few months of non-stop making swords. Maybe when I'm older and want to retire, I will take that option"

"You really are a stubborn kid, huh?" He returned the smile as he placed his palm on my head and rubbed it with some force.

"There is also something I wanted to ask you"

"Sure"

"Do you remember I told you that my ability only allowed me to make swords?"

"Yes, what about that?"

"Well, technically, I can cheat and consider other things like swords"

And when he heard what I said, my uncle's eyebrow went up. "What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is that, for example, I could consider spears, daggers, and things like that as swords. For example, spears would be swords with small blades and very elongated handles, while daggers would be swords with handles and the blade small, and the axes would be swords with long handles and with the blade coming out of the side of the hilt, what I wanted was for you to tell me if you think I should add those weapons to my fighting style just like I did with the swords"

Michael sighed heavily before saying in a somewhat tired tone. "You know? At this point, I think I should stop being amazed at the crazy things you are capable of". He finished, put his hand on his jaw, and thought for a few seconds. "And to answer your question, I think it would not be beneficial for you to do something like that"

"Why?"

"Well, do you remember what I said regarding your sword skills?"

"Although I'm not bad, my talent is not something I really excel at either, and if I wanted to improve, it would take at least a few more years of practice before I could call myself a real swordsman". I repeated what he once told me when I began my training on the path of the sword.

"Exactly, since that day, you have improved a lot, more than I thought, but you still have a long way to go if you want to be a fully accomplished swordsman; your time is divided between physical training, unarmed combat in addition to training with the sword, you have shown me that you are quite smart, so you must already know what would happen if you divided that time even more to train the use of something like the spear or the ax, right?"

This time it was my turn to sigh; I understood his words perfectly because I found myself thinking about it.

"I could become 'good' with handling all those weapons, but I would not become a master in any of them". I emphasized the word 'good' with many quotes.

After all, it was not want to be only 'good'.

I wanted to be the best.

"Exactly, I can't imagine that something like that wouldn't have occurred to you before asking me"

"I thought it, but I wanted to hear your opinion; you are the one who has experience in these things, not me"

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, and do you know what? I think it would not be bad if you added something secondary like throwing knives; in that way, you would have all the fields covered, swords as the main method, melee if for some reason you can not use your skill, and throwing daggers to medium and long-range"

"Do you think?"

"Yeah, don't worry, throwing knives isn't that difficult anyway; as long as you're not lousy at it, it will be more than enough"

"Then let's do it". I said excitedly; after all, I had some great ideas to use with daggers.

"Well, although for that you are going to have to train under someone else's tutelage, I'm not good with daggers, so I don't think I can help you much"

My brow furrowed a bit; if my uncle couldn't teach me, this would be tricky.

Masterless training could only take me so far before reaching a barrier that I couldn't overcome without guidance or a considerable amount of time.

And while I was thinking about that, a finger hit my forehead. "Ouch, hey, what was that about?" I asked my uncle with my hand covering my forehead.

"I know well what you are thinking, but don't worry, I know the perfect person who can teach you everything you need to know about throwing knives"

"Seriously?"

"Yes, I will have to ask him as a favor, but knowing him, he will not refuse; he may even like the idea." He said as he looked up as if he remembered something. "Yes, just give me a few days to convince him, and I'll let you know when everything is ready"

######

X777 02 April

"Ok, this time I'll make it, this time I'll definitely make it". I told myself as sitting cross-legged, two swords materialized in my hands and then plunged deep into the ground, my eyes closed as I concentrated.

After having felt the natural energy for the first time, I concentrated on doing the same thing I had done with the ethernano, getting used to the sensation it transmitted and learning to identify it.

And let me say that doing it was hundreds of times more complicated than with the ethernano, not only because of the time it took me to find the energy even with a specialized sword to do it.

But also because after finding the energy, I could only feel it for some seconds before the world's malice began to seep in, forcing me to break the connection.

However, after much effort and constant practice, I was able to memorize how natural energy felt and reduced the search time from 3 hours to a mere 60 seconds, or 50 if I was really concentrating.

That marked the first step on my path to senjutsu; the next thing was to deal with the world's malice; I tried different ways, each one completely failing.

Until I finally came up with the solution, or at least a temporary solution, until I was better with control of that energy.

That temporary solution was the sword I was holding in my right hand.

Since while the left absorbed the natural energy, the right would do the same with the negative emotions of the first sword, leaving only pure natural energy without malice on the other blade.

It was a clumsy, time-consuming method with too many steps. However, this was the best I could think of, so until I could use senjutsu without any help, these swords would be the rear wheels on my learning bike.

Focusing on the energy that filled the left blade, I stopped the flow when it reached its limit.

The weapon, now overflowing with natural energy, had a thin semitransparent white aura surrounding it.

And looking at it closely, I couldn't help exclaiming. "Holy shit, it looks like the sword of Mirai-Trunks when he covers it with his ki"

I really loved the way my creation looked, but it wasn't time to stare at the sword.

I slowly turned my head to the other side to look at the other weapon, and let me tell you something, seeing a holy sword full of negative feelings is very strange.

I had decided not to take any unnecessary risk, so I focused my mind on the weapon changing it slightly.

And a few seconds later, the malice and the holy aura disappeared, both canceling each other. With that, the sword disappeared into a multitude of particles.

When the weapon ceased to exist, I sighed in relief, I was not stupid enough to disappear a sword full only of malice leaving bad feelings free.

One had to be extremely careful when messing with things that could corrupt the mind, control you mentally, or directly cause a mind-break.

So I switched the sword so that the holy aura "attacked" the malice, canceling both. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about anything trying to mess with my mind.

Finishing the security measures, I focused again on my senjutsu-infused holy sword.

Grinning like a fool once more, I concentrated by closing my eyes, then modified the sword so that the natural energy slowly flowed into me.

And when I opened my eyes, I could see a new world.

A vast network covered everything alive. I could see the auras of all living beings in the vicinity, each squirrel, bird, insect, tree, and plant.

Before, I had already felt this, but seeing it was something completely different, even if my method was not practical, and technically, I could not use senjutsu yet. I found myself completely satisfied with the result of all my efforts.