"Still not enough. Try again."
The silver-haired woman's voice filled the surrounding as I was once again thrown back to my previous position.
I conjured another Purple Sword made from Bedevilled Outburst and stood up with its help to face the still flawless spherical zone of hers.
This will be my 4th attempt after testing it with only one Purple Sword.
The World's Will stayed at where she was and continued watching my attempts to breach that nullification zone of hers without any attempt to dodge.
It's not that I couldn't penetrate it, the energy contained from the skill-produced energy swords were getting dissolved before it could touch her.
During my 2nd attempt, I used the same method as I did with Lucas' smoke barrier. Wielding one of the Purple Swords, I used the Sword Skill Flash Draw to break into it followed by 19 more which all struck the same place. Unfortunately, once the stabbing force brought by the Sword Skill faded, the Sword in my hand vanished straight away. Same for the 19 Swords which managed to embed themselves inside.
During my 3rd attempt, apart from bombarding it at only one point, the 20 Purple Swords simultaneously stabbed at it like a drill, connecting each sword at their hilts before hammering it with my full strength, however, the drill was slow enough that the opened path closed up once more before the next sword could replace the dissolved ones.
"Are you running out of options? I must say, you're good at improvising but... you only have Burst attacks which expire instantly after failing."
She's right. But that's because it's my chosen style. I don't want to prolong a battle I can win in an instant so there's only Burst. However, it's not like I don't have Sustained attacks. There's the Energy Explosion Projectiles as well as the Magic Missiles.
But yeah. I need to start thinking about how to improve the two. As well as the Air Bullet.
Now that I got the fundamentals for creating an Elemental Spell, I might be able to use it to upgrade those Wizard Spells and Knight Skills from the World of System. They're all man-made anyway, creating my own Skills and Spells are doable.
I will test them out later. Right now, overcoming this little contest comes first.
"You're right, I only have Burst attacks and I'm already out of options. This one will be my last attempt. I'll accept my defeat if I still fail to touch the hem of your robe."
How does one make a sword skill anyway? Back then, it was triggered when I added an Intent on that simple slash. And after observing Leianne, Lunaria and Nysia make something from their Weaponforces, I concluded that it didn't really need to be flashy. The Sword Skill only needed to have its reason for it to become an effective attack.
My target was a nullification zone which negates any form of energy trespassing inside. Then all I need is something sturdy to resist the nullification even for a few seconds. Apart from that, it has to be sharp enough to easily bypass its boundary. And lastly, it has to be quick enough to traverse the distance to hit her. Dense, Sharp and Swift. That should be what I should incorporate in this last attempt.
Having decided that, I produced more Purple Swords until I reached the limit of my current Control. 32 Purple Swords or 320 Energy Explosion Projectiles.
If I produce more, I wouldn't be able to control them like they're my own hands anymore. They'll become unstable and will surely make me fail what I planned to do. Maybe it will increase in the future but for now, this is all I have to try and win this little contest.
The 5th Orb will surely get drawn to me somehow but that Nullification. I will probably need more time to come up with the same method. If I can get her to tell me how, that will save me time.
"Isn't that the same as earlier? Don't you have more creativity?"
The silver-haired woman's words have been increasingly irritating but I guess she's trying to flare me up to come up with something. No matter what angle I look at this from, she's trying to help me improve.
"I'm not done yet. This is the last so I'll squeeze out everything I can do."
After saying that, four clones materialized next to me. All four made the same stance as me and created Energy Explosion Projectiles before merging them into 8 Purple Swords each.
The 32 Purple Swords from my clones and 32 Purple Swords I conjured gathered together and started merging one by one.
The process of merging started which made the 64 regular sized Purple Swords merged into 32 bigger Purple Swords. From 32 to 16. From 16 to 8. From 8 to 4. From 4 to 2.
As their numbers dwindled from the continuous merging, the Energy Intensity of the Purple Swords exponentially increased which changed the amused expression of the World's Will.
The 2 gigantic Purple Swords hovered in front of me and mirrored each other. Slowly, they drew closer and started the final merging.
In a normal battle, I wouldn't be able to do this as it needed a whole lot of preparation but here...
The World's Will was trying to see the extent of my ability. Since that's the case, I'll show her what it's like to condense all of my control into one dense sword.
2 minutes later. One humongous Purple Sword hovered in front of me. It's color turned deep purple which started to influence our surroundings. This mountain peak which the World's Will conjured as our background dimmed and lost it's earlier brilliance. The ground dried up and cracked.
Even the spherical zone of hers started to produce distortions making it unstable. Despite being a distance away from her, for the first time, the World's Will took a step back and landed on the ground to stably stand her ground.
I raised my hand and controlled the Purple Sword that was looming over like a mountain. As it drew closer to my hand, its size visibly shrinks until it turned back to the same size of the normal Purple Sword.
However, despite it transforming back to fit my grip, the amount of energy inside it is the same, it was only condensed to the extreme limits.
When my hand held onto it, my arm started shaking uncontrollably that I needed to use my other hand to support it, gripping the hilt tightly.
As I put myself into a stance, the 3 intents that I wanted to incorporate to the Sword Skill once again appeared in my mind. Dense from how much energy was compressed to produce this Purple Sword, Sharp from the shape I envisioned to it and Swift from how I will unleash this.
"Here it is."
I pointed the Purple Sword towards the silver-haired woman who's standing still from a distance. There's a hint of a smile amidst her calm face as she watched how the Purple Sword once more became covered by the last drops of my Swordforce.
It was constantly producing more, however, in the short duration of this contest. I've already squeezed all of my saved Swordforce.
When my feet ejected me from where I stand, my vision completely turned hazy as I traversed the distance between me and the World's Will in a blink of an eye.
Boom!
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[You have created your first Sword Skill. Please set a name.]
[You have acquired a Skill. Nullification Zone]
[Nullification Zone: Sacrifice 30% of your total control to create a spherical zone around you which nullifies any offensive form of energy. Nullification depends on the Energy Intensity of the attack.]
When my consciousness returned to my real body, the notification about the sword skill and the skill imparted by the World's Will welcomed my eyes.
I haven't thought of what to name that Sword Skill so I ignored it. Also, I'm afraid to give it a name. I'm aware of my bad naming sense after all.
As for the Nullification Zone, the name's too generic like how I named my own skills. The World's Will also has a bad naming sense eh?
In any case. My last attempt successfully reached her. However, all it managed to do was to strip her off that robe...
Though that created some kind of an awkward situation, a World's Will is not a real person. She casually created a new set of robes without mentioning it.
Well, I also didn't mention it. The result was unintentional but that earned me the win for our contest.
Like she promised, she gave the skill as well as the whereabouts of the 5th Orb. For now, it's still out of reach but I feel like it won't be long before I encounter it.
"Daisuke. Are you here?"
Hikari's voice along with the soft knocking on the door entered my ears once I put down the barrier enclosing the room.
Coincidence or not, her timing of knocking to my door fell perfectly at the same time as I took down the barrier.
"Yes. You can enter, Hikari."
"I was ordered by teacher to look for you."
Hikari changed back to a new loose robe. Her face still showed the fatigue she accumulated, however, the glow in her eyes was brighter than when I first saw it. Like a burden was lifted off her shoulders
"I see. What's wrong?"
"Here."
Hikari handed me a rolled-up fancy scroll. It's glittering naturally with the feather-shaped seal on it still appeared lifelike even after being torn into two.
I opened it and read the content. Despite how fancy the handwriting or the scroll where it was written, there's only one sentence in it.
"The Luxian Archon, Sofiel wants to meet the owner of the Metal Giant."
As expected. The Luxians finally came out of their seclusion.
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