The radiant light of dawn shined upon the lands once more after a very… eventful, night. Akira had agreed to travel with them, at least until her leg was fully healed. Apparently, young and adolescent wyverns, such as the one Akira had fought when they first met, have poisoned claws and teeth in order to defend themselves from apex predators such as Elemental Drakes or Griffins. This of course meant that Akira’s injury will likely take a while to heal.

“Listen Kori. There are two main things you need to remember when using magic. Your intentions with using the magic, and your vision of it. More complicated larger scale magic requires a magic circle, but we won’t need one right now.” Kori had asked Akira to teach him magic and were in the middle of their afternoon lessons. “Try creating an icicle and shoot it at that tree. Have clearly in your mind what you intend to do, which is to impale the tree, and your image of your magic, an icicle.”

“Alright.” Kori envisioned in his mind, summoning tiny water particles, freezing it into the shape of a spike. Kori thought of piercing and penetrating the tree, drilling a hole in it. Kori opened his eyes and saw before him swirling ice particles concentrating into an icicle. He shot it right at the tree. It was on target at deadly speeds. It hit the tree… and promptly shattered. It didn’t even make a dent in the tree.

“Hmmm…” Akira was judging and observing his spell. “It's potent, but not controlled at all. It’s not stable. Focus. Keep it together. Imagine your magic essence turning into ice and condense it. The more condensed it is, the harder it is. Look.” Akira made a piece of ice and put it on the ground. She took a sharp rock and handed it to Kori with a smile. “See if you can break it.”

Kori took the rock and hit the ice with all his might, and there wasn’t the slightest dent. It felt as hard as steel. Kori also noticed frost spreading from the ice and onto the grass surrounding it. “Hey, how come frost is being emitted from it?”

“The more condensed it is, the harder it is, but it also gets colder. This is very useful for conjuring weapons with your magic. If its fragile, then it's useless.” Akira suddenly brightened up. “Hey, I have an idea. You can use a sword, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s have a duel. We'll be using weapons made with our magic. Any other magic is banned.”

“Sounds cool to me.”

“Alright!”

Akira stood 10 meters away from Kori. She created her ice sword already, and it looked like it was chilling the air around it, like a breath in cold air. Kori closed his eyes and focused. He condensed his magic into the shape of a sword. It looked like a hurricane of icy waste, condensing into one frozen horror.

Unlike Akira's clean traditional looking katana, Kori's blade was a wicked looking katana of dark shade, a color he hadn’t seen since 8 years ago, and with jagged curved spikes of deadly sharp ice jutting out the back side of the blade.

The handle and balance were perfect. It as if some godly blacksmith had forged it for him personally.

Akira whistled at the sight of Kori's blade. “That’s one crazy looking blade you got there. Is that a design you came up with?”

“No, it just… happened I guess.” Akira tilted her head in confusion at that.

“Well, whatever. Give it a name. Once you do it will bind to you as your personal magic weapon and you can give it other enchantments and summon and unsummon it at will. For example, mine is called Stormbringer.” Kori thought for a while, and a name came to mind, as if it was meant to be, like its name was always there in the dark corners of his memory.

“Murasame. Yeah. Murasame it is.” Kori had a satisfied look as he named the weapon. Then it suddenly felt like it became a part of him. A missing piece of his soul he didn’t know was missing. He gripped the weapon as he readied for the duel. It felt cold, but somehow warm and comforting at the same time.

“Ready?” Akira called out.

“Yeah.”

“Go!”

The both of them charged at each other, swords clashing. They both gave a metallic sound as if they were made of steel. Murasame held out well against Akira's Stormbringer. For Akira's size and injury, she was holding her own against Kori, who had trained for 7 years.

“Oho? You and your sword are pretty durable. You should be proud of yourself, being recognized by a Demon such as myself.” Kori winced at the word Demon. He had almost forgotten that Akira was a Demon. She had seemed so human-like. Reasonable and approachable.

Kori shakily said, “Thanks.”

“I guess I can put a little more effort into this fight then.” Akira then jumped back and dashed at him at speeds faster than anyone her size should be able to move. Kori was barely able to block the strike. Akira was then suddenly behind him, going for his blind spot.

Kori sidestepped the strike and spun around to counterattack, only to hit nothing but air. Akira then smacked him on his head with the back end of her katana as she flipped through the air as a gymnast would and landed on her feet… then stumbled, almost face planting into the ground she had paved with that absurd speed. “Ow. Ow. Gods, this wound truly is despicable. But despite that I still won.”

“Yeah. I guess I can’t beat a Demon huh.”

“And you never will.” Akira said with a playful smile.

“Hey! One day! Just you watch!”

“That day will come in at least a hundred more years.” Akira laughed as she teased him more. “It’s pretty late. We should go to sleep.”

“Yeah. Wait. How to I summon and unsummon my weapon?”

“Ah. That’s right. Reabsorb the magic energy that was used to create it. That energy is then stored in a special place in your soul and you can call upon it again by calling its name in your mind. Because of this, you can summon multiple, or fix your weapon if you wish to do so. It just costs a little more magic energy.”

Just like he had done with unfreezing time, Kori reabsorbed Murasame, then summoned it, then unsummoned it again. Kori smiled. He couldn’t wait to test it out more tomorrow. He would most likely sell his regular iron katana later at some town. As Akira headed inside her tent where Elizabeth was already sound asleep, she said, “Good night Kori.”

“Good night.”