Comparison

The next morning, Zephyr woke with a clear plan in mind. Today, he needed to get the job done- securing the heart of a Blue-Headed Ice-Python. If he could finish early, perhaps he might even catch the old apothecary unaware, delivering a pleasant surprise and hopefully finding him in a more talkative-less inquisitive mood.

After completing his usual morning routines, he exited the cave and headed deeper into the forest.

In his hands were two battleaxes he had gotten from the local blacksmith. They were basic. A stark contrast to the finely crafted weapon he had wielded back at the military camp. Each axe was double-headed, measuring approximately three feet in length, with the formidable blades consuming nearly half that span. He had chosen to acquire a pair purely due to their mediocre quality.

Years spent forging weapons at Bjorn's Forge had honed his eye, allowing him to instantly discern that the metal used was far from exceptional. It had even begun to chip at the edges because of how he used them. And there was no way to enhance the weapon with runes. he had lost all his personal possessions in the gateway link that had brought them to this world. That violent transference had incinerated everything not intrinsically part of them, including— to Zephyr's frustration— his specialized rune-inscribing tools.

Back at the military camp, he hadn't had the time, nor had he deemed it necessary, to enhance the battleaxe he wielded. The quality was already sufficient, and any further effects he might have added would have been purely of a magical nature. For him who had a difficult enough time simply maintaining the Mana Barrier spell, it would have been a waste of precious effort.

But he was here now, and some simple [Structural Stability] runes could go a long way to help him. He had made some observations about the state of runesmithing here, and he'd found that it was actually well developed. In fact, not at all dissimilar from the level of his own world. It most likely had to do with the fact that the people here were used to drawing out models in the first place, but still, rune language and spell models, despite their similarities, were fundamentally different fields.

True rune inscribers were few and far between here, which meant that while the field was developed, prices were exorbitant. Zephyr could afford them with his current funds, but a pair of dual battleaxes enhanced with an equivalent [Structural Stability] rune would cost him nearly a third of his savings.

Firstly, he'd rather save the money and just get new weapons when his current ones wore out. Secondly, as a runesmith himself, his heart would bleed every time he used a weapon he'd bought, knowing the cost and the fact that he could have done an even better job. And the ironic part was, Zephyr couldn't even inscribe runes at the moment.

If the minute frequency adjustments needed for a simple fire spell were giving him so much trouble, then inscribing runes without his specialized tools was out of the question. But even knowing that fact... He still wasn't going to buy an enhanced weapon.

.

.

Zephyr stared at the Blue-Headed Python, sprawled out in the open, basking in the sun. So far, Aegis had been providing information on local animals and their habitats by cross-referencing their similarities with its internal database. Sometimes the data was accurate, but other times— like now— it was wildly off. So off, in fact, that Zephyr wondered what source material the AGI even used.

The better part of the morning was already gone, wasted on Aegis's false lead. They'd scoured temperate and cool regions, explored caves that Aegis claimed would likely house the Blue-Headed Python Zephyr had glimpsed once from a distance... all to no avail. He'd just paused for a quick break to relieve himself when he spotted one, lying brazenly in plain sight, against Aegis' logic. It was large. About forty feet in length and some five feet in girth. Fully white in color. The white scales on its body made the blue crown that it was known for even more prominent.

Just as Zephyr had spotted the beast, he was sure it had also spotted him. It laid there feigning ignorance in an attempt to lure him in, but Zephyr knew better. The barely perceptible tensing of its muscles and the subtle flare of gills just beneath the striking blue scales that flowed from its crown, down its sides, and into a beautiful pattern on its back told Zephyr a different story.

There was no trace of fear on his face though. He'd done something like this a few times already these past few weeks.

He didn't bother hiding, or being cautious. He simply walked right into the open like he was taking a stroll, shocking the beast with his audacity. It dropped its feigned ignorance, staring directly at the human who so gallantly dared to invade its territory, then with a sharp hiss, the gills on the sides of its face flared open as its body coiled backward like a spring before lunging at Zephyr like an arrow let loose from a bow.

Zephyr watched it in seeming slow motion, evading with ease, yet cutting it close enough to intentionally provoke the beast further— The past few weeks had made him increasingly familiar with his body's capabilities.

The Blue-Headed Python, using its fluid body, whipped its powerful tail mid-air to knock Zephyr off balance. But he accounted for that too, pirouetting below and around the attacking tail with his battleaxes swinging. He landed a foot out of range with a flourish, whipping both axes downward to flick what looked like blue blood from their blades before turning to face the beast again.

There was a beat of silence as both he and the beast watched the lower half of its body slowly fall away, cleanly severed.

'Here it comes,' Zephyr thought.

HISSSS!!!

The beast erupted into a mad rage, watching its lower half roll away without so much as a reflexive twitch. It had been hacked off so cleanly that the nerves in the tail still seemed to behave as if connected to the main body. And the fact that it had been done by a creature it considered so puny added more fuel to the fire.

It reared up instantly as the blue patterns on its head began to glow, making Zephyr react in turn as he crouched into a ready posture.

The gills on the side of the python's neck flared wide, releasing a stream of white gas that seemed to be sucked into the patterns on its head, causing an immediate drop in the surrounding temperature. The beast opened its maw wide as the air around it began to coalesce.

'Stupid,' Zephyr thought, before flashing quickly to the side of the beast, causing it to look around confused, in search of its vanished target.

But the next thing it saw was an image of its own body from a different perspective before the light of life faded from its eyes, its spell never completed.

This was how simply Zephyr dealt with the beasts here. After his first few encounters, he realized that the magic beasts were born with various patterns that allowed them to cast a limited number of spells. Some had even evolved corresponding natural fluids to aid their casting. But the glaring issue with every beast here was their ridiculously slow casting time. It was so slow that even Zephyr, for the first time in his life, found himself criticizing the processing speed of something else.