Chapter 18
Junichiro sat in one of his chairs in front of his jewelry workbench. The Sword Birth amulet sat on the desk in front of him as he stared at it. His right hand was twitching and tapping the tip of a wand on the table, he was still marveling at the level of feedback he'd managed to get from the prosthetic. Meanwhile he lifted his left to take a drag on an herbal cigarette.
He was currently going over what he'd managed to gather from the scans he'd done. It was... fascinating but also slightly disappointing. The very most basic function of the Sacred Gear was essentially just conjuration. Something that just about any magical could do with the right spells. It's only saving grace is just how specific of a conjuration aide it is. With all the power of the Sacred Gear focused solely on the summoning of 'swords'.
It was all about the concept of swords and because of that it allowed the user to visualize and summon any sword they could at the cost of some magical power. The more powerful the concept of the sword, the more magical power it took to create. The Sacred Gear would act as an aide and a bit of an amplifier allowing for some conjuration limits to be breached. Such as the limit of not being able to conjure up fully magical items. There was a price for breaking that limit though, the swords were 'brittle.' Which honestly explained why Kiba's swords would shatter after exchanging a few blows with a real sword.
So, while mechanically interesting, the sword summoning function wasn't exceptionally brilliant or really all that fantastic, by itself. Junichiro already had the necessary skills to replicate that ability. No, what actually made the Sacred Gear more impressive and so fascinating was the support system built into it.
He couldn't get the full details of it, but he'd been able to get enough to understand its basic design. Everyone knew that the user of a Sacred Gear could make it stronger with need and desire. Issei got stronger by playing with Rias' boobs. Kiba got stronger when confronting that priest that killed all his friends. However, need could also be translated into desire, want, or even... a prayer. From what Junichiro could tell, a Sacred Gear grew stronger and evolved using a sort of prayer or faith system that was tuned into the user's needs and desires. The greater the desire, the greater the boost in power.
If he didn't know how to make faith based items for clerics and the like, he could have easily missed the connotations and slight similarities. It all honestly made sense too. The Sacred Gears were made by the God of the Bible after all, and he was big on faith. Need and Desire worked as well because those were the main feelings people had in combat. The Need for strength. The Desire to survive, to win. Then they use the best tool at their disposal, their Sacred Gear. Thus they have faith that their Sacred Gear could fulfill their needs and desires.
Slightly convoluted, but still intriguing.
This also meant that those who had complete faith in the power of their Sacred Gear, (Cao Cao anyone?), were the strongest in their use and the most likely to evolve the Sacred Gear beyond its basic limits and thus achieve their Balance Breaker. It would become a self sustaining loop of power. The user has faith in their Sacred Gear, the Sacred Gear gets stronger, the user gains even more faith in their Sacred Gear, the Sacred Gear gets even stronger, so on and so forth.
It honestly explained Issei's growth once he had some faith in himself and his power through the use of Ddraig and the Boosted Gear. He rapidly went from a piddling weakling to one of the strongest Devils with hardly an real actual work on his part. Not that Issei didn't work his ass off at times, but compared to someone like Vali who constantly pushed himself and sought out combat? No, if it wasn't for the faith system within the Sacred Gears, Issei would have never become a match for Vali in any meaningful way.
Then there was Vali's situation. While he did grow stronger over the course of the canon story, his growth wasn't all that much, comparatively, to Issei's. If Junichiro thought about the faith system, this also made sense. A major driving force for Vali was his need, his desire, to kill Rizevim. Now, this could give him some growth, and likely did leading to Vali being as strong as he was in the beginning of canon. However, Vali would also be aware of Rizevims Sacred Gear Canceler, meaning his faith in Divine Dividing would never be as high as possible due to unconsciously knowing, and fearing, that his Sacred Gear would be useless in his penultimate fight. Thus, less faith to empower it and slowing his growth.
It was just a theory, but from everything he could remember it made sense to him.
This meant the way to truly have a powerful Sacred Gear was to have complete faith in it. To know, with every fiber of your being, that it would serve you in your purposes. To practically worship it as one would worship the God of the Bible.
Man, that guy really was big on the worship.
The last thing he'd been able to determine wasn't all that important, really. Just that the amulet was made from a dragon scale. He had no idea which dragon and couldn't tell much more than that the dragon was strong enough, and large enough, that the amulet had been made from a single scale. Likely at least as strong as a Dragon King. He highly doubted it was one of Ddraig or Albion's scales though.
Now he kind of wanted to get his hands on a Twice Critical to see if they were made from Ddraig's body since they had his iconic Boost, even if it was limited. Not to mention it'd be nice to make items with a similar ability. He could make 'buff items' but they were always one use items, such as potions. Repeatable buffs would be nice.
Junichiro shook his head and stood up to return the wand he'd used to the wall and selected another. He used the new wand to perform another type of scan on the Sword Birth Sacred Gear to see if he could glean any more information. Sadly, all he found was a link heading off into the distance. Judging by what he knew, he expected this link was the link between Sword Birth and the Sacred Gear System designed by Big G. It seemed a little too weak, probably a result of how it was removed from its previous owner. His best guess was that the link would reestablish once it was back inside of a human, such as himself.
He performed a few more scans but didn't really glean anymore information aside from how he could expect the Sacred Gear to work once it was within his soul. He'd have to actually use it to know if his deduction was correct. After replacing the last wand back on his display, he crossed his arms over his chest to stare at the object of his desire. Part of him wanted to keep it out so he could study it more in the future. The other part wanted to jam it into his chest and begin experimenting with it.
…
He grabbed the medallion and held it to his chest while channeling his magical power into it. The medallion immediately began to glow while it seemed to convert into energy that moved into his body. It wasn't uncomfortable and, in fact, felt pretty nice. Since he hadn't been born with it and was more aware of his body, magic, and soul than most beings, he immediately felt the Sacred Gear settling within.
When the light show died down, he smiled. He knew if he didn't install the Sacred Gear now, he'd never install it. He would procrastinate and delay until it was far too late to do anything useful with it. Despite that, he got plenty of good information from his scans and a few concepts and ideas to add to future projects.
Once he felt that Sword Birth had settled into his soul, he focused on it and began feeding magical power into it. He stopped when he felt... emptiness. There was nothing within it, meaning no sword designs. Okay. He could change that. He closed his eyes and focused on picturing a perfect single handed English long sword. He imagined it with a double edged blade leading up to a sharp point with a fuller going up one third of the blade, a slightly curved and unadorned cross guard, leather wrapped wooden handle, and circular pommel. It was a simple, yet highly effective, sword design that had proved itself over the ages.
With the sword image firmly in mind, he fed magical power into Sword Birth once more and smiled when he felt it 'click' together. With a flash of white light he was holding the exact sword he hand imagined in his hand. With the sword manifested, he immediately used his Artificer ability to scan item with his magical power to get some information from it. He was pleasantly surprised when it came back as a basic steel sword. If it wasn't for one single factor, he wouldn't have been able to tell it was a conjured item. The best way he could describe it would be to say the sword's existence was 'thin,' for lack of a better term.
It just meant the sword would likely shatter after exchanging a few blows with a real sword if any real power was put behind it. In his estimate, someone with regular human strength using it against a regular human strength opponent, would never shatter it.
He slowly worked through a few katas, forms, with the sword in his hand and noticed things he hadn't consciously thought about were included in the sword design. For one, the balance of the blade was perfect. For another, it fit into his hand as if it were designed exclusively for him to hold. His grip on the blade would be very unlikely to falter. He also realized he'd never specified the material the metal should be. It was possible the default was steel since that was the best material for a simple basic sword by far. Exotic magical materials not being considered.
After examining the sword a bit more, he dismissed it and closed his eyes once more. He wanted to spend time experimenting with Sword Birth to see how viable so many of his ideas were. His knowledge and experience as an Artificer giving him some unique thoughts on what he might be capable of pulling off.
For the next sword though, he wanted to try to control the materials the blade was made of. Within his mind he imagined a standard executioners sword. The sword had the length of a single handed sword, he chose one hundred centimeters for the length making it longer than expected. The blade also lacked a tip making the blade one long rectangle with sharp edges and a flat top. At the tip of the blade were three holes drilled through it in a triangle pattern. The quillons of the sword were perfectly straight with a basic twist to give them at least a decent appearance. The basic leather wrapped handle was topped with a pear-shaped pommel for counterbalance. Not that it mattered when he imagined the blade widening until it was large enough to qualify as a shield. For the final touch, he imagined the blade being made of Adamantine and focused on all of his knowledge of the magical metal.
With the image fully formed within his mind, Junichiro focused on his faith, his belief, that Sword Birth could make the weapon exactly as he pictured it. After all, unless the Sacred Gear itself refused to make the weapon, there was absolutely no reason for him to doubt that it was capable. Even less reason to doubt with what he knew of its abilities and functions. Yes, he fully believed he could create the massive Shield-Sword as he fed his magical power into the image.
It took a while, much longer than the first blade, but Junichiro never lost his faith in his Sacred Gear and continued to feed it power until he felt the same 'click' as he had before. With a brilliant flash of golden light, the massive Shield-Sword appeared in his hand. Naturally, he instantly lost control of the sword as the huge and heavy blade was pulled out of his grip by gravity and slammed into the floor.
Junichiro took a few seconds to catch his breath while visually inspecting the huge weapon. It put a weapon like the classic Buster Blade to shame with how wide it was. It'd definitely take someone with supernatural strength to lift the thing and use it as an actual Sword. Junichiro merely intended to use it as a Shield that he could summon as needed to take a few hits. Still, the summoning took a fair bit more magical power than the previous one so he firmly believed he'd succeeded.
To prove he succeeded, he touched the blade and channeled his power through it after he caught his breath. A wicked smiled slowly curled his lips as the metal came back as Adamantine. It still suffered from the same feeling of a thin existence, but it was definitely Adamantine so it should be able to take significantly more damage than the steel sword. In fact...
Junichiro lifted the Executioner's Shield Sword up and set it against the table so it was standing up with the flat tip against the ground and the handle at the table's edge. With the massive blade propped up, he held his hand out and summoned his basic longsword in a flash of white light once again. Summoning it the second time actually felt like it took less magical power. He wondered, briefly, if the first time a sword is created and summoned took more energy than future summons. Something else to experiment with.
He pushed that experimental thought to the side and lifted the longsword up to grip it with both hands, one on the handle and the other holding the pommel for more power. Both of his weapons had the same thin existence, but would the Adamantine one prove to be more durable than the steel one? To find out, Junichiro swung the longsword in a powerful horizontal slice aimed right at the Executioner Shield's edge.
He felt the jarring impact of the two blades colliding together and grunted. The impact barely moved the much larger and heavier weapon but hadn't broken either one. He smiled and cocked his arms back to take another swing. It took over a dozen blows before the steel longsword shattered into pieces that dissolved into white light. Junichiro blinked at he noticed the different coloration of the light. The Executioner's-Shield had been made in a golden light, right?
Something else to look into! He dismissed that for now though. He focused on the Executioner's-Shield and channeled his power through it. A grin slowly grew on his face as he could feel that the sword's existence had become even thinner. He estimated it was maybe half what it was previously? Sword the Adamantine sword was clearly stronger and more durable than the steel, as it should be, and the summoned swords had a sort of durability system built into them. He was also clearly wrong about a normal human not being able to break them. He was not just a rather normal human, but also a teenager. Sure, he was strong for his age and his right arm gave him a strength advantage, but still... Well, he had no problem with being wrong about something. It happened frequently with alchemy potions anyway.
He waved his hand, an unnecessary motion, and dismissed the Executioner's-Shield. When it vanished in a flash of golden light, he pondered the meaning of the difference. Obviously his first conclusion was that the difference in the light color was down to the difference in the materials used in the weapons themselves. Mundane material versus magical material.
So, he now had two swords and the only thing special about any of them was the one was made of a magical metal. Now, what about a magical sword? He closed his eyes once again to focus. He smiled when he 'saw' the two swords he'd designed stored within Sword Birth, he could summon either one with just a thought and a burst of magical power and didn't need to focus on their details. Such a wonderful feature. For his third sword, he focused on a basic longsword, similar to the first, but added the ability for the sword to produce flames that covered the blade to add some fire damage to the weapon.
Once the image was firmly held in his mind, he sent magical power to Sword Birth while opening his eyes. A familiar looking longsword appeared in a flash of white light. A quick check showed that channeling power into it would ignite the blade and doing so coated the weapon in roiling red flames. Though Junichiro found it interesting that the magical weapon glowed white, not gold. So, just the difference in materials?
He dismissed the weapon and focused on making another flaming longsword. However, this time he focused heavily on the material the blade was made of. He choose to construct the entire thing of Hihi'irokane, a classical Japanese fantasy metal that actually existed and had close ties with fire, it was known as the 'flame-colored metal' after all. It did feel a bit sacrilegious to be using an Eastern metal to make a Western sword, but whatever. It was all about the relationship of the metal to the magical enchantment that mattered for this.
With another large burst of his own power, he summoned the new blade in a flash of golden light. It was looking more and more likely that the color of the light related to the material of the weapon. White for mundane, golden for magical. He actually didn't appreciate that. Once he was more widely known, after joining Rias' peerage, it could give away the strengths and weaknesses of his blades to the observant. That was definitely annoying.
He wasn't sure if there was anything he could do about it, other than making all of his weapons from magical metals. He was hesitant to do that for now though. They really did take a fair bit more power to conjure than standard steel and his mana pool was still rather average. He'd not been forcing its growth. Frankly, he was tempted to throw himself at Rias the moment she arrived just so he could stop holding his magical growth back. The last thing he needed was to become too powerful for her to reincarnate. He was already pretty certain that his Artificing knowledge would make himself difficult to reincarnate.
He shook his head to get rid of those thoughts and instead decided to focus back on playing with his new Sacred Gear. He still had so many different ideas to test! He was definitely not going to get any sleep tonight if the excited grin he had was anything to go by. This looked to be all kinds of fun!