Finding a Weapon(2)

After he said this, he threw me something else in a much-synchronized manner, and the tiger jumped off me and moved to the other side of the arena. When I caught the new item, I realized it was a wooden spear. Throwing down the sword, I grabbed the spear in both hands determined to at least graze this tiger once.

Thrusting the spear at the tiger, he continued to dodge, but I tried one more time. This time, I ran the lightening elements through the spear extending the thrust at least five feet with the lightning coming out of the tip allowing me to just barely graze the tiger. I raised my spear celebrating my victory when I heard the laughter that was getting more annoying every time I heard it. He then said,

"You seem awfully happy after just tickling your opponent. Here I thought you could do better than a lower second stage beast. Oh well, at least it seems like we found what kind of weapon which suits you. Come out of the arena and follow me."

While saying this, he turned and walked out the door opposite of the way we had entered. Not identifying any other choice, I dropped the practice spear, jumped to the top of the wall and followed him. Immediately after stepping through the door, I was teleported into the grandest smithy I had ever seen.

There were ten anvils in a line all of different sizes. There was also a great furnace with eight bellows all working at a moderate pace completely by themselves feeding the room with enough heat to cause sweat to start dripping off of me. Along the walls were piles of imports of all different kinds of metals most of which I didn't recognize. Watching me look around he smiled saying,

"Like my workshop? It took quite a bit of effort to collect all of these metals you know. Anyway, let's get started. Grab me some of these purple bars."

He said this as he pointed to a smaller pile of bars which were a deep purple. Grabbing one, I nearly dropped it due to its weight. One little bar had to weigh hundreds of pounds. I hauled twenty or so of those little bars over to him. When I had gotten an amount of bars to him that seemed to satisfy him, he took them all and threw them into the furnace.

Then with a wave of his hand, the tempo of the bellows sped up to a ridiculous speed increasing the temperature inside the room. The sound in the room changed and enveloped us as if we were inside a volcano. Each wave of heat that rolled off the furnace seemed like a wave of lava rolling over me scorching every inch of me. I looked at him as he stood over the forge seemingly perfectly comfortable in the scorching heat.

Eventually, the bars must have reached some point he was satisfied with, and he started to quickly pull them out of the forge and hammering them together with blue sparks flying off with each hit. Quickly the metal formed into a dark purple spearhead. After he was satisfied with the shape, he brought it to a grinding mill sharpening it till it was razor sharp. Next, he did something I didn't expect. He pulled out a knife and started scratching strange runes into the metal.

This process took longer than all the forging, and I stood there watching for what was probably hours. Finally, the whole spear hear lit up with a purple light before settling down and changing the whole color of the spearhead to pure black covered in dark purple runes. Picking up the spearhead, he handed it to me saying,

"Hold onto this, I already have the perfect spear shaft that I had been saving for the right occasion."

He turned and left out a door I swear hadn't been there a second ago. When he returned, he was holding what looked like a standard wooden shaft beside the fact it was pure black. When he handed the spear to me, I was surprised again when I took it actually letting it hit the ground. Somehow this regularly sized spear shaft weighed thousands of pounds.

He indicated with his hands that I should put the spear together. While doing this, the spear lit up with a bright light and when it faded you couldn't even tell the spear was made of two different pieces. Seeing me hold the spear in amazement, he said,

"Looks like it all came together quite well. It should be good enough for you until you make it to the third phase. Now that we are finished, it is time for you to leave this place."

As he said this, a door appeared behind him and indicated that I should go through it. Stepping through, I appeared surprisingly at the edge of a desert. My journey now would be a lot quicker than I thought it would be. I looked out onto the endless expanse of sand a little worried about finding the ruins.

Knowing waiting wasn't going to make it any easier, I started trekking into the desert, and my visibility narrowed as the wind blew sand everywhere. I trekked onwards for miles. The scenery seemed to stay exactly the same with endless yellow hills stretching out around me. It had been a couple of days when according to the map I should have been about halfway there.

According to the map, there should have been some sort of oasis in this area. After looking around for a couple of hours, I finally spotted some palm trees in the distance. Feeling relieved that I was staying somewhat on track, I started heading towards the palm trees. As I got closer, I noticed leather tents placed seemingly randomly throughout the trees.

As I continued to walk towards the oasis getting closer, a group of ten men dressed in white robes with turbans on their heads and holding spears approached and surrounded me. After they finished surrounding me, one of the members walked up to me while glancing greedily at my spear and said,

"Leave your spear and your money, and we will let you walk away."

Learning my lesson from fighting the old man, I used my elemental vision to check that they weren't more than they appeared. Upon seeing that none of them had any sort of elemental aura around them, I started laughing at the idea of some common bandits trying to rob a coremaster. Seeing me just stand there and laugh, they all lowered their spears towards me and seemed almost hesitant on what to do next with me acting so different from how they expected. The one who had come up to me yelled,

"Kill him, who cares if he's crazy."

They all charged thrusting their spears in what appeared to me like slow motion. Not even bothering to dodge, I struck each of their spears breaking them with a slight touch and knocking them back. They looked at their weapons in shock, and before they could react, I concentrated to make lightning bolts hit each one of them knocking them out. With them no longer being a threat, I moved towards the center of their camp.

Not encountering any more resistance until I got to the middle of their camp and saw about fifty men sitting around a bonfire eating. What shocked me the most was that they had about ten cages filled with humans. Seeing this, I was disgusted, and I realized I wouldn't be able to show any mercy if I wanted to free these people. If not the bandits might just capture them again like the sect did to me when I let them go. Understanding this, I quietly ran back to the ten men I had incapacitated earlier.

I held my spear over the first man hesitating realizing I had never actually killed a man, but I remembered my master's words that if you want to have mercy, YOU must be strong first. So, knowing this was the only way to guarantee the captive's safety, I plunged my spear into him watching in shock as his life's blood slowly soaked into the ground.

Eventually, I got over my initial shock from killing my first man and pr0ceded to end the lives of all the remaining men. After I was finished, I moved back to the tents where the rest of the men were. I must have been making more noise than I thought because as soon as I got close to the bonfire, all of the men turned and looked at me.

Seeing me holding a spear covered in blood, most of them jumped to the logical conclusion that I wasn't there to make friends. They grabbed their spears and charged at me. This time I was no longer holding back, and so each thrust of my spear would kill a man. When I had killed nearly half of them, they shouted to retreat. Some even threw down their weapons so they could run faster. Not showing any mercy, I chased each one of them down ending their lives with a single thrust.

After all of them were dead, I looked around at the ground covered in blood and bodies and was horrified at what I had done. But I forced myself to accept this in the world I had stepped into. Collecting myself, I walked towards the cages opening them all. The people formed up into a group wondering what I was going to do with them. Finally, after the last cage was opened, a young woman walked out of the group addressing me by saying,

"Honored One, please allow us to follow you. We would serve you to try and pay you back for this favor you have done."

I saw hope in their eyes as the young woman finished talking. Sadly, I was going to have to disappoint them. I knew that I had neither the time nor the means to take care of a group of people. Ordinary people jumping into the coremaster world were just asking for death. So, looking at them somewhat sad that I would have to disappoint their expectations I said to all of them,

"None of you can follow me. The way I travel, I wouldn't be able to take care of a group of people. You guys can take what you need from this camp though. They have plenty of supplies."

Not waiting for a response, I started walking away. When I was nearly out of sight, I turned back to see what they were doing and saw they were still huddled up as a group with only a few of them walking around searching for supplies. I hoped they would be able to survive in this harsh world. Knowing there was nothing more I could do, I turned around marching once more towards the ruins.