WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 28

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Is That Expensive?

Awakening a Spirit Root opens your senses to mana and unlocks the circuits through which it flows inside the body. The Mana Cultivation Technique is a technique for drawing mana from the world into those circuits, refining it according to the Spirit Root's nature, and accumulating it in the dantian.

Awakening multiple Spirit Roots is rare. But more doesn't automatically mean better.

Mastering even one is hard enough. The path of martial arts stretches so far that no one can see the end, and spreading attention across too many directions only slows the journey. Pouring everything into a single Spirit Root and pressing forward with complete focus is already more than most people can manage.

There are advantages, of course. A broader range of options, for one. Multiple roots sharpen mana sensitivity and speed up accumulation, and the additional circuits allow for more flexible control.

But.

More Spirit Roots means more choices, yet achieving true greatness by mastering all of them is another matter entirely. Most practitioners with multiple roots end up picking the one that suits them best, learning a cultivation method to match, and settling for faster mana accumulation as their only real gain.

'Too many circuits is its own kind of danger.'

As one's realm deepens, new circuits can be forged as needed. But carrying a dense tangle of them in a body that hasn't yet reached that level only makes mana control harder. At worst, those circuits could knot and collapse, a self-destruction not unlike Mana Addiction in the Demon Tribe.

A double-edged sword. Julius wasn't even certain what he was hoping to find in his grandson.

'A single lightning Spirit Root would have been enough. And yet, multiple roots...'

The downside of multiple Spirit Roots was simple: everything got harder. Everything more demanding. But conquering that difficulty meant proportionally greater rewards. Where others were bound to a single element, a practitioner with multiple roots could wield several freely, accumulate mana faster, and handle it with far greater versatility.

Whether any of that was truly possible, though.

'Still too early to worry about it.'

Julius steadied his expression and fixed his gaze on the crystal. Multiple roots seemed likely, but exactly which ones, and how many, had yet to be confirmed.

Hum...!

A faint vibration stirred inside the crystal. Not the calm blue ripple Nelia had demonstrated. Something heavier. Rawer. A turbulent rumbling, like something waking deep within.

Crack!

The first thing to appear was a flash of violet.

"Lightning...!"

Julius's eyes flew open. For five years his grandson had never once removed the Thunderstone from his body, and he had taken thunder-infused Elixirs at regular intervals. Julius himself had felt the lightning in Kyle's temperament. Lightning coming first was no surprise.

This crystal, the Spirit Root Resonator, held pure and concentrated mana within it. It responded to whoever touched it, reshaping the nature of that mana according to the person's Spirit Root.

In other words, it reflected the caliber of the root. And right now, Kyle had done nothing but place his hand on the crystal, yet every last drop of the mana inside was in violent upheaval.

'To stir the mana to this degree with just a touch...!'

Julius had placed his own hand on the crystal at the age of ten. His lightning Spirit Root was in a class of its own, beyond any comparison within its element, yet the lightning now raging inside the crystal at Kyle's touch was in no way inferior to what Julius had produced back then.

Whoosh!

The lightning vanished. Brilliant crimson flames surged to fill the void. Not small sparks. The entire interior of the crystal packed full with great, roiling fire, not a gap left uncovered.

"Fire..."

Julius found his fist clenching before he'd decided to. Lightning and fire. Both destructive by nature, both difficult to master, but devastating in power.

Clang!

A sharp metallic ring burst from the heart of the flames. A blade of metal slashed through them. White ice crystals bloomed in the void left behind, then melted almost instantly into a great sweeping wave, only for a massive wall of stone to surge up from below and swallow it whole.

"What... what in the world..."

Arian, watching from behind, pressed her hands to her mouth. She had heard Kyle describe the dream, but she'd never been able to picture it. Seeing the crystal now, she understood at once just how impossible those images had truly been.

"Good lord..."

Nelia murmured, eyes wide. The inside of the crystal was total chaos. Dozens of elements appeared and vanished in a ceaseless, relentless cycle.

The crystal began to vibrate. The mana inside was struggling to keep pace with changes too rapid and too wild.

Roar! The mana, now split into warring natures, crashed together and began to mix. Colors churned into a single spiral, then became a shade that defied any name.

Murky yet clear. Dark yet blinding. That light swirled and shook the crystal from within.

"Chaos..."

Nelia's expression hardened. The mana raging inside the Resonator looked stable at first glance, but in truth it was on the edge of detonating at any moment. This wasn't simply a case of having many Spirit Roots. Each individual root was too powerful on its own. The density of mana driven by that caliber kept expanding, and fine cracks began to spread across the crystal's surface.

"It's dangerous! Child, let go!"

Nelia cried out. Kyle did not release the crystal.

He couldn't.

'Huh.'

Kyle stared at the crystal with an odd expression. This was not his own will at work. The Spirit Roots that had taken form inside his body, the lower dantian that felt like a hole blown open in his abdomen, were greedily reaching for the mana in the crystal. The complex circuits threaded through his body connected to that dantian, and those winding paths extended all the way to his arm and palm, pressing against the crystal as if trying to fuse with it.

'My own body, refusing to follow. What kind of situation is this?'

Unfamiliarity, perhaps? Spirit Roots and dantians, no matter how he turned the concepts over in his mind, felt deeply foreign. According to the records, Spirit Roots had first appeared in the human body roughly four hundred years ago, and it was only two hundred years ago that virtually all humans had awakened them.

Magic had spread, mana had become familiar, and humans had evolved, or so they said. But Kyle had lived through the world of five hundred years ago. The gap between that time and this hit him so acutely he genuinely wondered whether the humans of this era were really the same species as those from his time.

Crack, creak...!

The fractures in the crystal widened, and mana began seeping from within. It didn't dissolve into the air of the Sword Hall. It was drawn straight into the palm of Kyle's hand.

Through it, he felt the circuits inside his own body. As numerous and intricately knotted as the nerves in flesh, and yet, unlike the dantian, they had no physical presence in him.

More like circuits engraved onto his soul than his body. So numerous and tangled that merely observing them made him dizzy. But Kyle guided the mana through them by instinct and experience.

Not the instinct and experience of a ten-year-old. The Sword Demon's, from five hundred years ago. So the way he moved the mana reflected not the cultivation methods of this era, but the Sword Demon's memory.

"Kyle!"

The crystal shattered. Arian screamed and threw herself toward him. Whoosh! The wind spirit answered her call and wrapped itself around Kyle's body.

[How can anything be this adorable?]

From the wind curling softly around him, Kyle heard that voice. Arian's contracted wind spirit. A great bird, just barely visible, spread six wings wide and gave a delighted laugh.

[Arian's child. Had I met you sooner, I would not have made my contract with Arian...]

Unmistakable regret in its voice.

Boom!

The crystal erupted. Julius's gesture, arriving just in time, stilled the storm of mana, and the barrier Nelia cast beyond the wind spirit's wings sealed the space and protected Kyle.

"Kyle, are you all right?!"

Arian pressed through the wind and pulled him into a tight embrace. Held against her, Kyle blinked slowly. He was observing what was happening inside his own body.

The mana he had just absorbed had crystallized near his heart. His lower dantian ached with a wringing, twisting pain. The blown-open hollow was crying out to be fed.

'More or less what I expected.'

Kyle moved the mana according to the Sword Demon's memory. The mana he stirred from the crystal near his heart circulated through the circuits and made its way toward the lower dantian. As the dantian filled drop by drop, the wringing ache faded rapidly.

Circulating mana between his heart and lower dantian, Kyle arrived at a conclusion.

It was something like hunger. Not thinking about food at all, then catching a delicious smell from somewhere, and all at once feeling your stomach clench with fierce, desperate need. That was exactly this.

This empty vessel, this hollow, had just caught the scent of mana. And tasted a little of it. Now it was screaming, frantic, demanding more.

"Mm."

Enough contemplating. Kyle looked around. The shattered crystal had dissolved into particles of light without leaving a single fragment, and the mana that had filled it was snuffed out by Julius's intervention.

"Seems like I'm the one who broke it."

He scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile.

"Is that thing expensive?"

At that calm, unbothered voice, Julius let out a helpless laugh. Nelia drew a long breath and shook her head.

"Expensive... yes. Quite expensive."

It was a magical instrument built from layered enchantments. The Resonator itself held enormous value, but the pure and concentrated mana packed inside took a very long time to refine. Simply put, Kyle had just destroyed the equivalent of a reasonably sized castle.

"But child. Is any tool more precious than a single drop of your blood?"

Nelia gazed at Kyle, warmth plain in her eyes.

"I have spent many years managing the Resonator and observing the Spirit Roots and potential of many Alastor children. But I... I have truly never, not once, seen potential as extraordinary as yours today."

"Nelia."

Julius spoke.

"What exactly are Kyle's Spirit Roots?"

"I'm not sure how to put it... Family Head-nim, you saw it yourself just now."

"I did."

"What did you see?"

"Everything."

There was a tremor in Julius's voice he couldn't conceal.

"Not one element or two. Every element. All of them. It was like..."

"The world itself."

Nelia nodded.

"There is no precedent for this in any text. Even two Spirit Roots is rare... but a Spirit Root that resembles the world itself."

"It wasn't harmonious."

"No. But it held everything, and seemed like it could become anything. Chaos, in a word..."

Both Julius and Nelia looked at Kyle.

"Extraordinarily dangerous, and yet, an absurd potential dwells in that small body."

"..."

"That child can master any cultivation technique and execute any sword art. If he desires lightning, his Aura will become lightning. If he desires fire, then fire. Ice, then ice. Or perhaps... he may not be limited to a single form at all. Assuming he can bear it when the time comes."

"Absurd."

Julius shook his head with a wry laugh.

"Absurd. A Chaos Spirit Root. Never heard of such a thing in all my life."

"Neither have I. But Family Head-nim, we witnessed the Resonator with our own eyes. And on top of that, we saw a child who had just awakened his Spirit Root today shatter it with nothing but his innate quality."

"That's not all."

Julius stepped toward Kyle.

"Right before the Resonator cracked apart. The mana inside it... was drawn into your hand."

"Yes."

"The way you say it, it almost sounds deliberate."

"Deliberate is putting it a bit strongly... It kind of just happened."

He could hardly say outright that he'd done it the way he had in his past life. Julius let out a wry laugh.

"What happened to the mana that went into your hand?"

"Hmm..."

Kyle hesitated a moment, then quietly held out his hand toward Julius.

"I don't quite understand it myself. I think you should take a look, Grandfather."

The martial knowledge Kyle had absorbed over the past five years was limited to tier-five sword art texts from the Great Archive. The stated reason was the risk of picking up bad habits before awakening a Spirit Root. But Kyle had his own quiet guess.

In this era, martial cultivation began with the lower dantian and the circuits that awakened alongside the Spirit Root, but that wasn't where it ended. At each successive realm, the dantian expanded and the circuits gradually multiplied.

'If there were only one dantian to begin with, they'd just call it the dantian.'

The fact that it was specifically called the lower dantian meant there was something above it. Kyle watched Julius with bright, expectant eyes.

Julius couldn't read every meaning behind his grandson's gaze, but he took the offered hand all the same. He closed his eyes and guided his mana into Kyle.

"...!"

Julius's eyebrows trembled.

'This... what is this...?'

Far too many circuits for a ten-year-old. An uncountable tangle of them, knotted together like a labyrinth. More surprising than the sheer number, though, was this: mana was already flowing through the whole complex mess, however faintly.

'Unbelievable...'

Had he already guided mana toward the dantian by instinct, without having learned a cultivation technique?

'No, the mana... it hasn't gone to the dantian. It's settled somewhere else.'

Surely not. Julius swallowed against the thought that had surfaced and guided his mana carefully forward.

Then he noticed something else.

'It's drawing my mana in. Like it's trying to swallow it.'

Julius held perfect command over his own mana, of course. But the greedy, consuming quality of the talent sleeping inside his grandson's small body left him shaken.

'Good lord.'

Following the complex circuits to their destination, to the place where mana had crystallized. The moment he confirmed it, Julius could no longer keep his eyes shut.

"Your middle dantian is already open...?"

At those stunned words, Kyle's eyes lit up. Just as he had suspected. The lower dantian in his abdomen was not all there was.

"What's a middle dantian?"

He asked with a perfectly innocent expression.

"The middle dantian is... the second dantian, located near the heart."

Julius withdrew his mana with care.

"You must fully develop and complete the lower dantian before the middle dantian can begin to open, little by little. And yet you... yours is already open."

Everything Julius knew, everything this world had ever established as common knowledge, was contradicted by this.

"Kyle."

Julius reached out a trembling hand and gripped Kyle's shoulder.

"Do you remember what I said five years ago? I told you that Arian had given birth to a treasure."

"Yes, I remember."

"Let me correct that."

Something shifted behind Julius's eyes.

"What Arian gave birth to was not a treasure... it was a monster."

"Hmm..."

Kyle blinked a few times, then spoke.

"Calling your own grandson a monster. Isn't that going a bit far?"

"..."

On reflection, the word was perhaps a little harsh.

"A monster-like treasure... no, a treasure-like monster. Let's go with that."

Julius corrected himself.

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