Chapter 368 Soul Fragments
After finishing their food, the two of them made their way back to the teleport shrine and arrived in New York.
Looking around, Shiro immediately spotted Helion waiting in the corner and walked over to him.
"Yo, did you wait long?" Shiro asked with a small wave.
"Not too long. You can call it compensation for making you wait last time." Helion chuckled softly as Shiro shrugged.
"Well it couldn't be helped last time. Anyways, I'll hand you the materials now and I'll be back on my way to Kyoto."
"How come you're in Kyoto?" Helion asked curiously.
"Class up requirements. I want to find out a bit more on the celestial trials as they're opening in 3 months." Shiro smiled.
"I see… Hmm I was just wondering if there's anything I can do to help you." Helion furrowed his brows.
"Don't worry about it. If anything, keep levelling up and reach new heights. That way, you can truly help me out in the future." Shiro grinned.
"Haha, that's quite a bit of pressure for me then. But don't worry, I'll try my best." Helion nodded.
Just as she was about to keep on talking, she remembered about her god slaying sword Akram. She had tried to avoid using it since she didn't trust such a handy tool that just fell on her lap. If she was the god slayer herself, she'd rather do the task herself rather than let some unknown person do it for her.
However, she wasn't too sure about how risky it was to tamper with the weapon as of this moment.
"Is there anything wrong? You look worried?" Helion asked with concern.
"Mn? Oh nothing, just thinking about a troublesome weapon. Say, since you're chosen by 'you know what', do you think you can examine this weapon? But if it gets dangerous, don't hesitate in destroying it if needs be." Shiro replied seriously.
"What weapon could be so bad that it warrants this kind of treatment?" Helion furrowed his brows.
"Hmm… it's better that we do it in a dungeon."
Leaving the teleport shrine, they entered a relatively low dungeon. With Lisandra clearing out the monsters that tried to kill them, Shiro pulled out the God Slaying Sword Akram.
Despite its current status as being sealed, the moment she pulled out the level 100 sword that matched her level, unrelenting killing intent spread out instantly and tried to target Helion.
Whether it was because of his status as the god's chosen or not, Shiro didn't care as she instantly threw it as far away as possible.
*BANG!
Crashing against the dungeon walls, it embedded itself deeply while some sort of corruption started to spread out from its blade.
"Tch, aggressive little b*stard that sword is." Shiro clicked her tongue while massaging her wrists.
"Are you alright? Where did you even get a sword like that!?" Helion widened his eyes and he quickly pulled out a health potion.
"I got it from an emergency raid. The sword is apparently called the god slaying sword though I can't prove anything. I don't trust the source and was just wondering if the previous owner was trying to pull something shady without me knowing." Shiro replied as she rejected his health potion. After all, her natural healing was quite monstrous.
"I see… Hmm, let me have a check then."
"Be careful. Seeing as how it tried to lash out at you, the fact that you're a god's chosen may be dangerous." Shiro reminded.
"Don't worry, I have you here don't I?" Helion chuckled and slowly approached the sword.
Narrowing his eyes, he started to appraise the sword. Analysing its core components, his face slowly turned pale.
Seeing this, Shiro furrowed her brows and wondered what's wrong.
"Shiro, I'll be honest with you. I don't know why such a thing even exists but you should never use this sword. Hell, don't even pull it out if you can since the more you interact with it, the more chances it gets to acclimate to your body." Helion warned seriously.
"How come?"
"You see, from what I can see so far, every part of this sword has been crafted with what seems to be soul fragments. The more you use the sword, the more these fragments will weaken your hold over your physical body. After a certain point in time, your body would be extra vulnerable for something or someone to possess it. However, this is just theory from my already pre-existing knowledge combined with what I saw."
"Hmm… that's quite troublesome then isn't it." Shiro frowned since she had expected as much. It was no wonder the fabled god slayer would actually have a random girl take his job.
"Anyways, how do you even know about the soul fragments? That's pretty high level knowledge." She asked curiously.
"I know of it because there are some blacksmithing techniques that require the use of soul fragments. However, these are only used for forging cursed weapons that will fight against its user. An example is the legendary cursed swords created by the blacksmith Muramasa. While this was just a legend, people have tried to recreate it with some success and part of the forging process is to infuse soul fragments." Helion replied as Shiro nodded her head in understanding.
With the introduction of the system, legends soon became reality so such a situation was not uncommon.
"I would help you destroy it but the composition of the blade is rather unique. Should you try to forcefully destroy it, the soul fragments and anything I couldn't discover would go rampant and attack you directly since it's bound to you. Give me some time, I'll focus some research on it and try to find a way for you to get rid of this sword."
"I see, thank you."
Storing the sword away, she quickly transferred all the materials she collected as Helion rushed back to the teleport shrine so that he could do some research and help out Shiro as soon as he could.
Seeing his urgency to help her, she had to admit it was quite a nice feeling. Though if it was anyone else, she would probably be more annoyed than pleased. It would just feel like they're looking down on her but with Helion, it was genuine concern.
Shaking her head, she too teleported to Kyoto since she had her own journey to go on.
'Seems like it was a trap after all. I knew it, if they're powerful, one shouldn't trust them so easily. Their attachment to life is greater than what one would expect.' Shiro thought to herself.
Arriving back at Kyoto, she planned out what she would do in the next two months. Her main goal was to explore mount Fuji and talk to Keiko. During that time, as long as it wasn't too big of a detour, she could basically do whatever she wanted with Lisandra.
"Right then, mount Fuji is to the northeast of Kyoto. So regardless of what we do, as long as it's on the way, it doesn't matter too much. Lisa, on the way there, if you find anything fun, don't worry about it and tell me. We'll take a detour if needs be." Shiro smiled as she took her mind off the sword situation since there wasn't much she could do other than wait for now.
"Alright. Um… I was just thinking about this thing called dojos." Lisandra replied while showing her a page on the forums.
Due to the system and the impact it brought upon the world, dojos that trained people in martial arts and fighting techniques became popular once again all over japan as parents would want their children to have the best start they could get. It was so that once they eventually awaken their class, they're able to fight off the monsters to a certain degree.
"Hmm… from what I can see, apparently you can challenge them for a certain amount of money. Depending on how you do, you can get some rewards and even be offered a premium membership that has access to their martial arts manuals." Shiro raised her eyebrow in curiosity.
"Mn. Maybe we could challenge a few and see how we fare against people of different countries with just our techniques. Back in New York and Miriel, martial arts weren't too common so for a country this full of dojo's, their standard should be pretty high." Lisandra replied since she was always ready to get some training in.
"I see… Alright. We'll do that on our way there then. Who knows, we might even pick up something decent." Shiro grinned.
This was the start of their adventure in Japan and the first thing they were going to do is to raid dojos for their manuals.