The Gamer's POV

Chapter 334: Cursed Weapons

Some time early in the morning...

——

Cedric’s new home was in fact very luxurious. At least by his standards. Compared to his little apartment in Seoul, one would have to agree that the young man was indeed moving up in the worlds.

After spending six months in the first ring, which to him felt like a few years to be honest, it felt good to finally breathe a sigh of relief in a place he could call his own.

The young, title-less noble spent quite some time exploring the massive townhouse that now belonged to them. The interior of the home was large enough to house a small museum, and it was furnished so luxuriously that it felt almost intimidating to walk through. Large chandeliers hung high above, casting golden glows over the expansive hallways and polished floors, while every piece of furniture looked as though it had been crafted for royalty rather than a common household.

There were lots of rooms in this house that Cedric wasn’t sure he was ever going to use. Rooms like the ballroom which was located on the first floor, for instance, or the formal banquet hall on the ground floor, as he definitely didn’t have plans to host any grand feasts or noble guests in his new home.

However, he had come to find that his favorite place in the whole residence was the large, enclosed training space which sat in the middle of the mansion like an atrium-style courtyard.

At the moment, if one walked over to the upper corridors and leaned over the ornate stone railings to look down into the training space, they would see both the lord of the house and his bond engaged in vicious sparring, as if they were hell-bent on killing each other.

The sound of real steel rang out sharply in the enclosed space as the duo traded brutal strikes and parries with real swords. There was nothing graceful about the duel. And as Aika bent backward to avoid Cedric’s blade, which whipped over where her head had been, she gritted her teeth as she realized that if she did not get serious too, Cedric might really kill her in this duel.

She took a step back and raised her blade to deflect his, and both their weapons entangled again in fierce melee. But as the fight continued to drag, Cedric refused to give her a chance to recover her bearings and kept forcing her to take steps back until her back was against the wall.

At that moment, he swung his blade down with all his strength, knocking her blade out of her hand and sending it clattering across the stone floor. Then, he stepped forward and slammed his forearm against her neck, pinning her against the wall after which he brought his blade and pressed it against her ribs.

The space became silent, and the only sounds that could be heard were the heavy breathing of the two sweaty people who were now staring into each other’s eyes.

Cedric sighed.

Slowly, he withdrew his blade, removed his hand from her neck, and took a step back. Then he turned around, threw his sword on the ground, placed one hand on his hip and ran the other through his hair.

His face then scrunched into a deep frown.

"Tsk. I’ve grown rusty," he muttered as he looked back at Aika who was rubbing her neck.

She frowned and arched a brow. "What makes you say that?"

Cedric did not reply immediately, but instead turned his gaze to his sword on the ground. He looked like he was analyzing the fight. After a few seconds, he finally looked back up and spoke with a heavy voice.

"I made lots of mistakes and those mistakes created a lot of openings. I know how you fight, Aika Soryu. So I know you purposefully ignored those openings so that you wouldn’t send me back to the anchor."

Aika exhaled and slowly dropped to the ground. Then she leaned her hands back and after taking a few breaths, she said, "You have not grown rusty. You are just not in the right head space."

Cedric chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds. Regardless of this disappointing outcome, he was grateful because he really needed this duel. Anything to take his mind off his thoughts.

He turned his gaze from her to the screen in front of him.

[Exp: +50]

The screen then disappeared as his attention shifted to something else. He decided to test out a few new toys that he had gained during his battle of the Lords.

He opened his palm and a small dagger appeared in his hand. It was a red blade forged from a blood-tinted crystalline metal and its hilt was wrapped in dark, coarse leather. However, the moment it manifested in his grip, a deep frown crossed Cedric’s face because he began to feel his mana drain at a terrifying rate.

After a few seconds, he threw the blade to the ground in front of him. Yet despite breaking physical contact with the weapon, he could still feel his mana slowly seeping out of him, though not as aggressively as before.

’Hm...’ He crouched down and narrowed his eyes studying the weapon. After a few seconds, he shifted his gaze to the side and called, ’Gamer Privileges...’

[Activating Gamer Privileges...]

’What do you know about this blade?’

[Retrieving Information...]

[...]

Name: [Jiangshi’s Curse]

Nature: [Cursed Blade]

Description: [The Jiangshi’s Curse was created by the character Ji-hoon using the Ultimate skill: Forge.]

Insight: [The cursed blade was created to be wielded exclusively by beings who do not rely on mana, and to be wielded specifically against those who require it.]

Restriction 1: [Because it holds a volatile, ravenous curse, the blade itself is actively rotting from the inside out every time it tastes mana. Once it reaches its threshold of what it can consume, the blade will shatter.]

Restriction 2: [This blade can’t tell friend from foe and will drain just about everything with mana in its vicinity.]

Restriction 3: [This blade’s weight depends on the time of the day. The closer it is to noon, the heavier it is, and the closer to midnight, the more weightless it feels.]

’Ah... so in my case, a double-edged sword then.’

Cedric shook his head and clicked his tongue three times after reading just the insight.

’It seems that little guy had the power to create cursed weapons. No, more like he can apply a curse to weapons. It makes sense that the dagger is best wielded by those without mana, considering that the Lords did not use mana.’

He extended his hand toward the blade, but when he felt his mana drain like an upturned cup, he quickly withdrew his hand.

’It seems that I’ll only be able to properly wield this weapon when I’m low on mana and have essence left.’

His eyes drifted back to the screen, and he frowned slightly at those restrictions. But after a few seconds, his smile returned. Regardless of all its flaws, at the end of the day, it was still a Grade Four weapon that could completely empty a being’s mana just by being in proximity to it.

So... he could safely say that it was a nice addition to his arsenal.

He extended his hand over the blade and swept it from left to right. As he did, the blade vanished into his inventory. Then, he swept his hand from right to left and a large polearm, shaped like a naginata, but with two heavy blades on each end, appeared on the ground in front of him in the dagger’s place.

[Retrieving information...]