I held the blade, scrutinizing every inch of it. I did not recognize the metal, but I did not know much about metals and alloys to know if this was steel or something else.
However, knowing that Inscriptions could slowly change the materials that carried them, it may not matter which metal the sword was made of. If I carved a blade out of wood and engraved it with the Inscription for hardness, then it would become stronger than a common steel sword, and if that Inscription is maintained for long enough, and sufficient Containment Script was carved on the blade, and with Link, connected to the Hardness Script, then the blade would slowly grow harder over time.
All of these were new realizations and discoveries as my Inscription was growing, and a new burst of inspiration was constantly flowing into my head as if I had studied engraving for decades, and was just slowly refreshing my memory.
Having a powerful soul was such a great tool for learning.
The Inscription on the blade was simple at first glance, a straight line running from hilt to tip, the script for sharpness and weight. But beneath it, woven into the metal like a hidden current, was an advanced link script, which should be the connector script that linked all the blades.
It collected information from the first two scripts and would alert the Sovereign the moment the blade drew blood.
I traced the line with my finger, feeling its structure. The link script was not separate from the sharpness script; it was woven through it, using the same channels, and following the same flow of Essence. The three scripts were one, functioning as both weapon and alarm.
"That’s clever," I murmured.
The fox tilted her head. "What is?"
"The Inscription. It’s not three scripts. It’s one script doing three separate things. The sharpness, weight, and the link are the same pattern, just read differently. If you know how to read it, you can separate them."
I set the blade down and began to carve the script onto the floor, using a thread of the Loom to trace the pattern into the metal. It was delicate work, requiring precision I had not possessed a few loops ago. But Inscription at level eighty-one had given me a steadier hand and a sharper eye.
Engraving is copying, and copying is understanding. You cannot etch a script you do not understand; the metal I was carving upon would know, and the lines would always come out dead.
So I did not try to reproduce the blade’s sharpness script from memory. I read it off the blade with the fox’s eyes, one line at a time, and I traced each line onto the floor as I understood it, and where I did not understand it, I stopped and looked until I did.
A small part of me was aware that a few loops ago, the lines I was now tracing would have appeared incredibly complex in my sight, and would have most likely given me a headache after a while, and now, it was just... difficult.
It took a while; whoever made this had been good, the sharpness-script folded weight into itself in a way I would not have thought to do, so the two Inscriptions were not two things but one thing wearing two faces. I had to understand the join before I could copy either.
This sort of challenge was one I gleefully accepted, as my soul seemed to ache to tear apart this puzzle, and after a while, the floor held a clean copy of the blade’s edge-and-weight, silver in the metal, every line where it belonged.
I sat back and looked at it.
"That’s good," the fox said, from my knee. "Even I can tell that’s good."
"It’s not good yet." I looked at the floor-copy, then at the blade. "There is still one more important script left that would connect everything, and it is the link between all the blades in this facility. Technically, I am just drawing one Inscription that is not yet completed."
The fox looked at the blade and nodded when she noticed that I was not done, and she went silent and allowed me to work.
The script took shape beneath my fingers, line by line, curve by curve. I could feel the pattern settling into the metal, and when it was done, the resonance between the patterns and the blade was almost instantaneous.
The blade began to glow, and the script on the floor pulsed in response.
The fox’s ears perked up. "It’s working."
I stared at the glowing patterns, noting the connection between the blade and the floor. I had done it. I had copied the Inscription perfectly. If I held my hand between the blade and the pattern on the floor, I could feel the resonance through my fingers, the same way I felt the threads of the Loom.
I could push the script into the blade with Flow, and it would become part of the original inscription, reinforcing it, and make this blade mine. For a moment, I wondered whether it should be this easy to learn and perfect Inscriptions.
I wanted to finish the process and merge my Inscriptions into the blade, but if I did that, the Sovereign would know. The link script was tied to the network, and any change to the Inscription would be detected, and what was even more important was that I knew that every Inscription inside this place was filled with Darkness Essence, and Sid had told me that he had known of my presence when I pushed out the essence inside the armor.
The fox pressed her nose against my hand. "Elric? What’s wrong?"
"I need to test it," I frowned. "I need to know if I’ve really mastered the Inscription, but if I push it into the blade, the Sovereign will come."
The fox shrugged, "Then don’t push it, we can find something else to do, we have barely seen everything inside this place, and it is big..."
I thought about it for a moment, and then I shook my head. "I need to know if the Inscription has been mastered; only then can this skill grow more quickly. Remember, the anchor is an Inscription, and we can’t break it if I don’t understand this."
"Yeah, about that anchor stuff, Elric, why do we need to break it? Sid or Sad, both of them are bad news."
"You are right, but knowing I can break the anchor would be a weapon against the Sovereign. I know one thing that he hates more than anything in the world, and it has to be that Soul Flayer. If I can get both of them to fight each other, I may be able to survive this place."
The fox frowned, and then she slowly nodded, and she jumped to my shoulder, waiting for whatever was to come.
I took a breath.
Flow.