The Valentines were a British couple with a great economic power.
They were respected and admired by everyone who knew them, but they had a problem which may endanger their social status: They weren't able to have children.
However, the proud Lord Valentine wouldn't allow that to tarnish his image. And fate decided to help him. One morning, while he was walking down the beach, he found a baby girl who had been abandoned. He adopted her and made it look like if she were his and his wife's biological daughter. They named her Isabella, but they fondly called her Ivy.
...
Lord Valentine had amassed most of his fortune by means of his alchemy studies, which Ivy also studied during all her childhood and part of her adult life.
Through his research, he found out everything about Soul Edge, the Sword of Heros.
Lord Valentine was very interested in the manufacture of weapons, and Soul Edge could be a good piece.
He became obsessed with finding it up to the point of neglecting his health and he died before Ivy came of age.
Ivy's mother took charge of her, while she continued studying alchemy.
...
When Ivy was 30, her mother became seriously ill.
At deathbed, she confessed to her daughter that she was an adopted child.
But Ivy didn't have any interest in finding her biological parents..
She was focused on her research, trying to create a powerful weapon, just as her father had tried during his whole life.
...
Two years later, Ivy managed to do it. She made a very special sword. This sword's blade was composed of many pieces forming a chain, which came together and apart at the owner's will, making it look as if the sword was alive…like an iron snake.
Once she had managed to fulfill her father's first goal in life, she decided to go after the second one. And that was no other than finding Soul Edge.