John weighed the sword in his left. It was a sleek weapon, entirely made of polished black. It could have been mistaken as stained glass or ice, but in reality it was obsidian. Taking the shape of a single-edged blade that was only three fingers wide and about a metre long, softly curving over that length, it looked like a natural extension of Purgatory.

Which, to be fair, it was.

‘A sabre, huh?’ John thought as he swung it around a few times. ‘I guess that fits.’ A sabre was the premier slashing weapon used for duels. Since this weapon was the second part of Fire and Flow Ascension, creatable thanks to the fact that Salamander was currently infused into the dragon claw, it only fit that it was the counterpart to the thrusting-oriented ice estoc.

He tossed the weapon into his right, unprotected hand. Immediately, he felt the heat. Like the cold of the estoc, however, it didn’t harm him or cause discomfort. It was like he was holding his hand close to a campfire.

He looked up to see the formerly simple green plain in front of him utterly torn apart. Gnome and Sylph had been going around, aimlessly tearing holes into the landscape. All of which happened in order to gain Rising Annihilation stacks. The moment those maxed out, he gave Undine a signal and she, too, changed into item form.

Normally, it was impossible for John to equip two elementals at the same time. However, Purgatory’s new form warped more than one rule. The Cleansing Flame that surrounded John’s arm from where the Suit of the Chosen melded with Purgatory down to his fingertips suddenly exuded a white mist as well. The mist didn’t stay for long, blowing over to John’s right hand and wrapping around it just as Undine wrapped herself around it as the usual, latex-like glove.

The energies intertwined. Rubbery material turned into dark blue scales, a colour-adjusted copy of Purgatory that soon melded with John’s shirt as well. “That’s pretty neat,” he said out loud, shifting the sabre back into his left and then summoning the estoc as well. Although he couldn’t see himself utilizing those weapons too often, it was a nice emergency melee option for his kit. “Definitely need to look into getting a fencing skill,” he told himself, then pointed his fists at an area of unharmed grass.

A bolt of golden and grey fire burst out, searing the grass. Directly next to it, a focused jet of water blew a hole into the floor, leaving the adjacent green covered in frost. John dismissed the sabre in his left and opened his hand. A light purple orb manifested before his palm, gathered energy for a second, then burst out as a semi-crystalline lance of magical energy.

Cleansing Fire, Cleansing Mist and Arc Lance, John had used all three in quick succession to gauge their relative effect next to each other. The results were as he would have predicted. Cleansing Fire’s projectile dealt damage in a nice radius, even if it was relatively shallow. Cleansing Mist’s destruction was very focused, penetrating deeper but dealing little damage to the surroundings. Arc Lance had them both beaten in both accounts. The 1000 MP cost spell had caused a very odd crater at the impact site, more shaped like the upper half of an egg than the even distribution one would assume with that word.

‘Guess I can’t expect too much from something that’s free, even if it has a condition,’ John thought, just as Undine was evicted from his arm and forced to retake her normal shape. Rising Annihilation had been drained and, since she was the elemental infused second, she was forced to be unequipped by John’s system. He moved the fingers of his left around. ‘Well, this is still quite an improvement over the old thing.’

“I am sorry for the delay, Master,” he then heard Aclysia’s voice and looked up to see her standing in the unharmed rest of the plain. She was in the process of bowing, much deeper than usual, and John gave her a calming smile when she raised her head again. “I was delayed by the staggering amount of work that had piled up since my last, proper visit to the island.”

“It’s fine, you came at exactly the right time anyway,” John told her. “We are inspecting the new equipment.” With a gesture, he guided Aclysia’s view over to Beatrice and Siena. The two were locked in a steady series of blows. “We have found out that Endless Step can be stacked by friendly individuals,” he explained, while uploading what had happened while she had been gone into the weaponized maid’s head. “However, only if the sparring match gets heated enough, so it doesn’t really have combat applications, which is sad, but it is how it is.”

“I see…” Aclysia’s answer was a bit distant, her mind struggling for almost half a minute to sort all of the (even summarized) information John was bombarding her with. Eventually, however, she had it all figured out. “I suppose it is my turn then, Master?”

He nodded. “Let’s go heaviest to lightest. Show me Tiemarath.” Heeding his request, Aclysia pulled out the massive claymore. She didn’t even try to present it like Beatrice had with Perfect earlier, the same pose as a knight offering his sword, but instead rammed the blade into the floor where it stayed put. Even with half of its blade hidden in the dirt, the end of the shaft reached up to John’s chest.

Unequipping Purgatory, allowing Salamander to witness things with her own eyes, John followed the same procedure as he had done earlier.

“Alright, I found out what All That’s Weak Must Die does from Perfect, so I only really need to inspect the last three.”

The old lifedrain ability that Marath had possessed had caused the next attack to deal extra damage and create a shockwave. Compared to that, this was quite different, but fundamentally better. Physical Stats increasing by 100% was a tremendous boon, especially since that also made an increase in HP and regeneration thereof, making the cost more bearable. Whether it was good or not hinged on just how much sanity this enraged mode cost. If Aclysia couldn’t discern friend from foe anymore, then Scourge would be useless.

‘Better test that first,’ John thought and had Aclysia put a hand on the blade and activate the Attribute.

A harmless shockwave erupted from her skin, leaving a thin, crimson aura hanging around her. Her hair fanned out as if minorly electrified and her eyes opened until the white dominated. “Master… this feels dangerously fantasssstic,” she hissed in a very much unmaidenly way.

“But you can still understand me, right?” he asked.

“Yesssss.” Her green pupils darted around. “This must be how Metra feels when she fights. Ah, I wish I could destroy something right now.” John noticed that Tiemarath began to radiate heat, golden lines peeling out of the black flatness of the blade’s sides.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he told her, and the crimson aura dimmed away. Immediately after her hair had settled down, Aclysia seemed discomforted. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing to worry about, Master,” she assured him. “A simple case of momentary confusion due to quickly shifting states of mind. It will fade soon enough.”

“Alright.” John nodded firmly, but kept a close eye on Aclysia just so he could catch her and shower her in kisses if she seemed actually harmed by any of this. The drawback on sanity didn’t seem too severe in the moment, though, which was the info the Gamer had wanted. How well she would respond to orders while actually fighting was another thing they had to discern.

And there was the explanation for the heat he had felt. Also, another and more potent anti-healing effect. That just added to the finality of being hit by Tiemarath. The way this was formulated, however, caused John himself to pause for a moment.

‘Hellblade and Hellfire are pretty close and this says MOST specialized means…’ He felt a bit of hope towards someday finding a cure for his blindness. Not a whole lot of it. He had already been aware of one thing that could shrug-off Hellfire damage and that was Thana. If it took being the (likely) strongest regenerator on planet earth, then chances weren’t all that high John would ever get there. As tempting as it was, he didn’t plan to invest every last point he got in the future into a regeneration tank build.

‘I don’t even have it that bad,’ he told himself and shook his head. ‘Really, my sight is better now than it was before thanks to these lenses. Getting my own eyes back is not high on the list of things I need, as satisfying as it would be…’ He moved onto the last Attribute on Tiemarath before he could get stuck on dark or sentimental thoughts.

That sounded really useful and really confusing. Not like something he needed to inspect closer at the moment. Since this had no immediate concerns affiliated with it, John preferred to look at what Eclys and Salver could do first and then have all of it tested in combat scenarios. “Next weapon,” John said.

Tiemarath vanished into Adaptive Bladery and Aclysia presented Eclys to her master. In the proper fashion, this time. Down to her taking the knee as she raised the silver-white katana up to him.

‘Peculiar new title,’ John couldn’t help but notice, especially because of the things he had learnt about Gaia in recent times. Eclys being Weightless was interesting, given the decisions made regarding Perfect and Tiemarath. Then again, Marathyu would have been aware that Aclysia had three weapons that could fulfil different roles. Eclys was the Artificial Guardian’s standard armament, it being opted to be more manoeuvrable and thus better usable in standard defence situations made sense. That aside, it wasn’t like the Mithril weapon wasn’t sharp enough to justify the loss in immediate force.

There were another 4 new Attributes that John had to look into.

That must have been what Helene had done to ‘dodge’ Beatrice’s attack. By itself, only interesting as a defensive cooldown. Nice to have for dodging and repositioning, but not fundamentally outstanding.

Now this made it a bit of a different story. Being untouchable 1/10th of the time was okay. Being untouchable 1/5th of the time on two independent cooldowns, that was quite potent. However, it was still nothing more than a defensive tool.

There were two good things about this thing. One, the obvious, being able to take 25% of the damage for John was superb, especially with that immensely raised Health Regeneration. Secondly, the less obvious, this was the perfect follow up for Scourge. After draining her own health for a little while, she could accelerate her stabilization quite a bit. The Mental Stats would likely be of use to that end as well, although they weren’t as interesting.

The flat Devotion cost also meant that this was something that could be kept up more and more as time went on. ‘Wonder how he managed to forge something that interacted with a specific mechanic only Aclysia has,’ John scratched his head, ‘or maybe this is the system working things out instead? Either way, it’s cool that it exists.’

On one hand, even momentary hindrances in mana regeneration could throw an enemy’s battle plan off by quite a bit, and Devotion was always hard to come by. On the other hand, this was another case of being quite boring.

“…Wait a second,” John crossed his arm, “where is Reality Cut?” The Attribute that had allowed Aclysia to attack at range had been removed. The same had been true for Tiemarath, but he hadn’t thought too much of it. Now, however, Aclysia had no ranged attack on either of her weapons. ‘Well… guess I have to take Sword Specialization 3 next time it shows up…’

“Uh-hu,” John just grunted and returned his attention to Aclysia. “Alright, let’s wrap things up, show me Salver.”

‘Delayed Cut, another Twinblade, Manaburn, let’s take a look at things,’ John quickly listed those things he didn’t know.

“NOW we’re getting somewhere!” John exclaimed when seeing the Attribute. Since Salver profited from Reality Cut through Twinblade, there was a very easy combo to make. Step one, dodge by going into Reality Fracture. Step two, cut, but not cut, the confused opponent. Step three, become tangible again and unleash the cut. Optional step four, immediately do a normal follow-up attack.

There were other applications as well, of course, but this basic synergy made John a happy camper. Game design like this was interesting and opened lots of doors. The cooldown was a bit restrictive, but that was the point of those things.

This was exactly what John expected after the last Attribute. It enabled the same combo when wielding Eclys. More than that, it encouraged a steady back and forth between both weapons to take advantage of all the cooldowns.

And this just reinforced that. One weapon emptied the mana pool, the other prevented immediate recovery. Made for quite the nasty combo. John really couldn’t wait to help Aclysia come up with all kinds of stratagems for these.

“Alright,” he clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention, “minor change of plans. Because of how complicated some of our new equipment is, we won’t go into an Assault just yet. Instead, we’re going to use this night to do some sparring and return to the usual schedule tomorrow. You know, let’s learn how to walk before we run.”

“Fine…” Salamander rolled her eyes, clearly not satisfied with the idea to spend the next few hours either as a glove or play fighting. In that, however, she was the only one. Everyone else was either fine with this development or didn’t care either way.