One Last System

"So this is where we will split our ways," I muttered once we finally reached the doorstep of the shack.

"That's right," the pathfinder nodded. "But from the looks of things, it will still take a while before..."

He cut his words short, turning his head towards the side of the shack.

"What are you doing here, so early?" he asked instead.

"I had nothing better to do, so I came to pick the candidate up," a man appeared from beyond the corner of the shack with a smug smile on his lips. "You should be thanking me instead of sulking. Doesn't that mean you can get the fuck out sooner?" the man asked with a sneer before throwing a sizeable bag at the pathfinder's feet.

From the metallic sound the bag gave out, it was likely the payment for the job of bringing me to this place.

"Scram," the pathfinder barked before shaking his head and moving towards the shack.

He didn't bother picking the bag up but entered the small, rundown building instead.

"It seems like you haven't been to the sect for too long for your own good!" the man exclaimed, clearly amused by the reaction of my guide.

What was important, all this time, he didn't even bother to look towards me.

"If you value your health, get the fuck out of my sight," the pathfinder muttered before turning his head towards me. "What are you waiting for? Ignore that clown and come inside. It's not the time for you to go yet."

"Yes, sir," I replied and nodded my head, silently following after my guide.

Or rather, I did all the way to the point where the foreign man slammed his hand on my shoulder.

"You are going with me now," the man said, once again, not even looking at me.

From just this alone, it was clear that he saw me as nothing more but a tool to use against the pathfinder.

"I'm sorry, senior, I'm not into men," I said, raising my hand and shoving the man's hold away. "I know some poor and desperate boys back at the sect. You might want to try your chances with them," I added, angling my head and daring the man with a lovely look of sympathy, "that is, as long as you don't mind the foul stench of their own piss, they like to play at. But it doesn't seem like you will have any problem with that, sir," I added.

It was a pretty risky play to provoke this man like that. Yet, even though I didn't know his standing, I could tell that he was nowhere as strong as the pathfinder.

To a degree, I felt as if I could actually match his strength...

But I could only feel the power of his cultivation. Whatever skills and expertise in weapons he had, I couldn't foresee at all.

That's why I used the moment when my words managed to stun him in place, to retreat into the safety of the shack.

The building, by itself, didn't offer me any protection. It had no doors, and it appeared as if a single punch to its side would be enough to take it down.

What guaranteed my safety inside weren't the walls of the building but the presence of a pathfinder instead.

"That was unnecessary," the pathfinder muttered, shaking his head.

Yet, even though he said what he did, I couldn't see even a hint of disapproval in his eyes.

"Anyway, let's get started," he added, throwing the usual stones into the air.

A few moments later, I was already sitting in the middle of the amplification array with all sorts of materials placed around me.

"In order to make a weapon of any sort, you need to prime the materials first," the pathfinder said, slowly walking around the formation's perimeter. "You do it by pushing your own energy through it, just like you would do through your own flesh while cultivating," he explained.

There was no reason for me to waste any time.

I reached out for the long piece of the monster's horn.

"Start with the wood, first," the pathfinder corrected my actions. "Also, you need to smear it with your blood first," he added.

I raised one of my eyebrows. For a moment, I felt an urge to comment on the instructions.

With how I pictured those instructions playing out, the entire process came dangerously close to looking like some kind of weird ritual.

'When in Rome, do as Romans do," I thought, releasing a deep breath to cast my previous thoughts aside.

I didn't have any tool to cut my hand open, so I raised it towards my mouth and bit down.

'Fuck me,' I thought the second my teeth sank into my flesh.

The only reason why I did that was that it looked cool when a certain anime protagonist did it. Yet, the anime didn't convey how damn painful this kind of bite was!

Still, it achieved its purpose. I lowered the injured hand down on the long wooden pole while ignoring the facepalming pathfinder to the side.

Soon, the entire length of the straight, wooden stick was covered in a thin layer of my own blood.

"Now, while the blood is still fresh, do it!" the man ordered.

I grabbed the wood and closed my eyes to focus. This entire guiding energy thing was still quite new to me, even though it was far from my first time doing so.

'Don't think too much,' I lectured myself, 'just do it!'

Soon, my fervent wish to guide the energy coursing through my veins towards this foreign object was heard. And just like hot water melting a layer of thick ice, my energy started to conquer the stick inch by inch.

In a sense, it felt as if my energy needed to thaw through the solid parts of the wood, using the blood inside it as the guideline.

"Good," the pathfinder muttered silently, careful not to break my focus. "Once you will establish a connection between two ends, move over to the braces," he instructed.

I then repeated the entire process with the strangely-looking wooden shaving that would go on the central part of the spear to mark its center of weight. Then I immersed the counterweight with both my blood and energy, leaving just the monster's horn for the last.

"Now, this process needs to be seamless," the pathfinder instructed. "Once it's fully immersed in your energy, you need to keep pushing more of your spiritual force into it. Only in this way will you be able to mold it into the shape you desire," he explained.

Or so, I would love to say. But I was just as confused about the process as I was before his faulty explanations.

'Don't think,' I chastened myself again, putting my focus back on track.

Covering the horn in blood and pushing my energy through it wasn't a problem anymore. Yet, when it came to oversaturating it with mana...

It felt as if my actions were going against the very rules of the world. As if I was trying to make water flow upstream, the air flow from the vacuum to a more pressurized area...

But I persisted in my task. With my eyes still closed, I continued to forcefully inject more and more of my mana into the horn, too focused on the task to even think about what shape I wanted it to take.

"Are you teaching yet another person this useless art?" the man from before suddenly asked, almost destroying my focused state of mind.

'SHUT YOUR FUCKING CRAP,' I shouted in my thoughts, gnashing my teeth together.

If I were to release those words with my actual voice, I wouldn't be able to control my focus any longer.

"Next word kills you," the pathfinder whispered, most likely noticing the wrinkles that appeared all around my eyes.

Then, my focus broke apart. My mana just refused to flow any further, refused to get inside the horn in my hand.

And only now did I realize just how insanely exhausted I was after this process.

My forehead was dripping in sweat, the horn barely managed to stay still in my slippery hold.

I slowly pried my eyes open... Only to see that this wasn't a horn in my hands anymore. While I didn't understand the principle behind the process, it somehow turned into a nearly three-hands-long blade.

'It's like an arrow's head,' I thought, staring down at the blade in my hands with a blank face.

"Now, connect it."

The pathfinder stood right above me. For the first time since we met, he entered the array while I was inside it.

He placed his hands on my shoulders.

A surge of energy rushed into my body, pushing all the thoughts about the exhaustion aside.

"CONNECT IT."

His voice roared in my mind, even though he only uttered the faintest whisper.

Guided by the order, I brought the staff and the blade together, pushing my freshly regenerated energy through both of them.

At first, each of the elements formed a separate flow of mana, starting and ending right at the place where I held it. But when I pushed them together and sent another surge of energy, bringing myself to absolute exhaustion...

The flows merged.

Tic.

My vision blanked out. I not only neared my limits but broke right through them without a care in the world. Right now, only pathfinder's energy kept me awake.

"Are you done now?" the cold voice from behind didn't bother me in the slightest. In this weird state of mind, I could only see the spear in my hands.

"Congratulations," the pathfinder whispered in a soft, strange voice. "You are an adult now," he added, before raising his hands.

My vision went blank as I fell down on the wooden planks making up the floor of the shack.

"Now, are you ready to pay for what you almost d...." pathfinder's voice fainted away when my consciousness finally turned off.