WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 17

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The Gift

Kyle lifted the lid off the box.

The first thing he spotted was a glass bottle filled with thick gray liquid. He pulled out the stopper, and a heavy, fishy smell hit him square in the face.

"Th... that's Iron Armor Dragon bone marrow."

Erika had followed him down and stumbled over the words explaining it. A refined concentrate of marrow extracted from a rare monster called the Iron Armor Dragon.

"To make just one bottle, you'd have to kill at least dozens of them."

Already rare, and you needed dozens just to fill one bottle. That said everything about how precious this spirit medicine was.

"Drink it and your bone density increases dramatically. Ordinary impacts won't damage your bones anymore, and if something does break or crack, the recovery is much faster. Each time it heals, the bone comes back even harder."

Kyle let out a low sound of amazement and shook the bottle.

The next item was also a glass bottle, though far smaller than the bone marrow one. No bigger than an adult's finger, it held not quite a liquid but something closer to a sliver of faint blue light.

"This is..."
"Thunder Herb dew."

Erika said it with a look of complete resignation.

"The concentrated essence of the Thunder Herb, which grows wild deep in the Valley of Ten Thousand Thunder in the south. And that one..."
"Incredibly rare and expensive, right?"
"Right. Drinking Thunder Herb dew gives you a massive boost to your reflexes."

Third was a sticky red lump that looked exactly like clotted blood. Kyle was poking at the wobbly thing with one finger when Erika let out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Good lord... even Blood Demon Tree fruit...?"

Naturally, this too was staggeringly rare. The Blood Demon Tree was hard enough to find in the first place, and it only bore fruit on rare occasions, the fruit wilting the moment it was picked.

"Eat that and your muscle fibers become tougher and more elastic. Density and endurance increase dramatically, and recovery speed goes up too."

Listening to all three descriptions, Kyle smiled to himself.

'Grandfather has good taste.'

Without an awakened spirit root, any elixir for expanding mana would have been wasted on him. What he needed right now were things that would toughen this underdeveloped body.

Iron Armor Dragon bone marrow for the bones. Thunder Herb dew for the reflexes. Blood Demon Tree fruit for the muscles. Through these three elixirs, his body would grow far stronger than any ordinary five-year-old's, and as the years passed and his training deepened, that physical foundation would only compound.

'These are all rare finds.'

He'd never heard of Thunder Herb dew before, but Iron Armor Dragon bone marrow and Blood Demon Tree fruit had both existed five hundred years ago. Absurdly expensive and nearly impossible to come by. Even back when he was the Sword Demon, he'd only ever heard of them, never once tasted either.

"What's this?"

There was still plenty left in the box beyond the three elixirs. Kyle tilted his head and lifted out a necklace. Inside a transparent gem of uncertain origin, a violet light swirled and pulsed, and when he focused on it, something deep in his body gave a faint electric tingle.

"That's... a Thunder Essence Stone."

Arian's voice carried genuine surprise.

"Just as the name says, it's a gem infused with the pure essence of lightning. Simply wearing it raises your affinity for thunder energy."
"Thunder energy?"
"It doesn't always work this way, but there are cases where carrying an elemental essence on your body from a young age causes you to awaken a matching spirit root."
"The odds are low, though."

Erika said that flatly.

"The Family Head has a lightning spirit root, you see."
"Ah. So grandfather is hoping I awaken the same kind."

Kyle smiled and slipped the necklace around his neck. Five hundred years ago there had been no such things as spirit roots or mana cultivation techniques. What genuinely captured his curiosity was the spirit root he'd be awakening five years from now.

In this era, real cultivation began with the awakening of a spirit root. You couldn't learn mana cultivation techniques without one, and nearly every martial art built its foundation on mana use.

The world had changed beyond recognition in five hundred years.

'Back then, you had to cross the threshold of death a dozen times over before mana's blessing ever found you.'

The people of this age handled mana without going through any of that. Part of him felt curmudgeonly about it, but there was nothing to lament. If anything, he felt a genuine excitement at the thought of learning what the "sword" meant in this era.

What remained in the box were several books. The one sitting on top was titled Basic Sword Techniques Manual. He picked it up and opened it, eyes brighter than they'd been for any of the elixirs.

Basic sword techniques it might be called, but it was nothing like the generic manuals circulating out in the world. The foundations of swordsmanship using only the body, without mana. The absolute basics of blade technique, laid out in enough detail that even a small child could follow every step.

"Wow...!"

Eyes sparkling like a child handed a new toy, Kyle leafed through the manual. The techniques inside were things the Sword Demon of five hundred years ago had done as naturally as breathing, but seeing them laid out like this gave him a fresh, warm feeling all the same.

Beneath the sword manual were other books. Family history, already taught to him by Arian. Noble etiquette. Continental history. The current state of the continent. Simple introductory texts, the sort written for small children.

"Teachers who will instruct Kyle-nim will be visiting the Rose Mansion going forward."
"Father, honestly. I could teach him myself."

Arian muttered that, though her expression didn't match the complaint. Seeing her cold, reserved father show this much interest in her grandson's education, sending educational texts on top of everything else, genuinely moved her.

'Well, I can teach him spirit arts myself.'

That was only for when Kyle decided he wanted to learn them, but Arian was certain he would. He had such an enormous thirst for learning.

He couldn't study mana cultivation without a spirit root yet, but spirit arts could be learned without one. And cultivating spirit arts now would later influence the spirit root he'd awaken, helping him accumulate mana far more efficiently. Put it to him that way, and there was no reason he'd refuse.

"This can't be real..."

The knight who had delivered the gifts and the family head's message withdrew. Erika murmured in a daze.

"Iron Armor Dragon bone marrow, Thunder Herb dew, Blood Demon Tree fruit. And a Thunder Essence Stone necklace on top of all that...?"

Alastor, called the continent's foremost martial family, held enormous wealth, but being a pure-blood didn't mean you could draw on that wealth freely. Every one of the family's assets was governed by the family head's approval.

Access to the archive on the second floor, the cultivation floors, the various rare elixirs, to enjoy any of it, you had to prove you deserved it.

Pure-bloods were noble and set apart, but privileges had to be earned. That, too, was a family principle upheld across hundreds of years. Alastor was not so careless as to hand its treasures to someone with no talent, no qualifications, and no effort to speak of, purely because of their bloodline.

Among Julius's children and grandchildren, including Erika herself, not one person had been given elixirs of this scale at five years old. A five-year-old might show talent, but how much could they really distinguish themselves at that age?

Resources like these were things you earned after awakening your spirit root, after formal training began, after you'd proven yourself. And yet Kyle, at barely five years old, had been given all of this.

That was what unsettled her. Jealousy kept flickering up toward her young nephew, and with it a creeping unease that she was falling behind.

Any plans she'd had to talk with Arian and share tea vanished completely. She clenched her fist and turned to Arian.

"Unni, I'm heading out."
"Oh, you're leaving without eating?"
"Yeah. I'll come visit again, so stop by my place sometime too, alright?"

Erika was Julius's youngest daughter, the only one of his children who hadn't yet come of age at thirteen. The position of family head was so far away it was barely worth dreaming about, but that still didn't mean she was willing to be left behind by a nephew eight years her junior.

She spun around to face Kyle, turning at an angle where Arian couldn't see. Quietly, she raised one finger to her lips. Keep quiet about yesterday and this morning.

"Goodbye, Erika-imo."

He had said he'd tell on her, but that had only ever been teasing. Kyle wasn't petty enough to actually follow through.

Brash she might be, but she didn't seem to have a bad heart. She clearly got along well with Arian, too.

"Don't hold a grudge against Erika."

After she left, Arian stroked Kyle's head.

"She has a lot of complicated things going on. Her mother... passed while Erika was still small. And I left the family for my marriage, so I wasn't around much to spend time with her."

It was the first time his grandmother had been mentioned.

He had wondered. At yesterday's dinner for the pure-bloods, there had been no grandmother at the table.

He hadn't asked because some absences had reasons you didn't prod at carelessly. But now that Arian had brought it up herself, he couldn't stay quiet.

"Passed?"

He thought she meant died. But Arian answered with a heavy expression.

"Literally. She's been sleeping for ten years. There was an accident in a secret realm."

Arian forced a smile and drew Kyle close.

"The accident left her with an illness no one could identify, and she's been sleeping on the 10th floor of the Sword Tower ever since. Two of your uncles, Roel and Seros, left the family to search for a cure."

Two relatives he'd seen yesterday hadn't been at dinner. Those two, apparently.

'A secret realm...'

Spatial rifts that appeared without warning. Five hundred years ago, secret realms had been a constant source of accidents and conflict. There had even been territorial wars fought over the right to claim a single one.

"Alright, my son. Let's eat before you take the elixirs."

She pulled her smile back into place, held Kyle close, and steered them toward the dining room.

After the meal at the Rose Mansion, Kyle began taking the elixirs with Arian standing by to watch.

The Iron Armor Dragon bone marrow tasted terrible. Like chewing through the guts of a rotting fish. He made a face but swallowed it down.

A heavy weight settled in his stomach, and his joints began to tingle. The tingling became pain. His chest thudded, his bones ached. Every bone in his body was being crushed, slowly and invisibly, from all sides.

"Kyle, are you alright?"

Arian's voice was tight with worry. Kyle was dripping cold sweat but managed a calm smile.

Next was the Thunder Herb dew. He'd been quietly looking forward to this one. A boost to reflexes? He'd never felt his reflexes were lacking, not in his past life and not now, but he was genuinely curious what would happen if they sharpened further.

He uncorked it and immediately brought the bottle to his lips, drawing in the pooled light inside. A tingling rush flooded his mouth and spread through his entire body at once.

His neck and the back of his head buzzed. Cold, then hot. Cold again, then hot. His vision blurred and swam, then snapped back into sharp clarity.

Catching his breath, he tried moving. The bone marrow had taken time to feel, but the Thunder Herb dew was immediate.

His movements were different. Not the movements themselves, exactly, but the space between thought and motion had compressed. The feeling of moving the moment the thought formed. He slipped off the Thunder Essence necklace, flicked it straight up, brought his arm down, raised it again, caught it. The necklace had barely fallen at all. Natural. Effortless. If he pushed, he could move faster still, and with more strength behind him, faster beyond even that.

"Wow."

He picked up the Blood Demon Tree fruit. The sticky, wobbly red lump looked impossible to put in your mouth willingly, but Kyle didn't hesitate. He shoved the whole thing in.

Surprisingly, the taste wasn't bad. Sweet, with a faint fishy aftertaste.

"Ugh...!"

The taste was fine. The pain was not. Far worse than the first two combined. He could feel each individual muscle fiber across his entire body, all of them twisting at once. Wringing, unraveling, pulling, snapping strand by strand, then knitting back together.

'Crazy old man. He gave a child this to eat?'

A normal five-year-old would have been screaming and sobbing. Kyle sweated and endured. No, screaming didn't quite cover it. A normal child would have passed out from the pain entirely.

Kyle was not a normal child, so he couldn't afford to fall apart. He bit down and held on. Arian paced in place, heartsick, watching her son grit his teeth. She'd never eaten Blood Demon Tree fruit herself and had no way to know how much it hurt. But seeing her son's face contort like that, her son who almost never showed pain, something tore inside her chest.

"Huu... hhk..."

Fortunately, the pain didn't last long. Kyle drew a sharp breath and straightened up from where he'd curled over. Like the Thunder Herb dew, the effects of the fruit were immediate.

His whole body felt light. Overflowing with strength. The wooden sword that had tired him out after a few swings felt like something he could swing all day without stopping. He looked down at himself for a moment, then wrapped both arms around Arian's legs.

"Kyle? What are you doing all of a, oh, oh oh..."

Arian yelped as her feet left the floor. A five-year-old had just lifted a full-grown adult woman off the ground.

Even Kyle found it a little absurd. There had been all sorts of elixirs five hundred years ago, and the Sword Demon had taken more than his share. Never at this young an age, though.

"Mom, you're kind of heavy."

He said it with a snicker. Arian knocked him on the head.

"I should go thank grandfather."

Kyle rubbed the spot where she'd hit him.

For a body as small as his, there was no better gift.

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