Shane, with a dark face, grabbed the high-spirited Erza, who was eager to fight right then and there, and dragged her toward the forest outside without any explanation.
"What are you dragging me for? Isn't it the same wherever we fight?" Erza grumbled in dissatisfaction, but her feet followed him.
"The same?" Shane looked back and pointed grumpily at the house behind them. "We bought this house with real gold and silver. If we break it, we have to use real gold and silver to fix it!"
Although he didn't go to the guild often, every time he did, he could hear Makarov complaining about who broke the guild hall again and that it needed renovation.
"..." Erza imagined the messy scene after a fierce battle, her momentum instantly weakening a few points, and she muttered in a low voice, "Fix it then..."
One after another, the two quickly arrived at a clearing deep in the forest.
The terrain here was flat, the view open, and some frosty, bare fruit trees grew at the edge of the clearing. It was a good place for sparring.
"Looks like apple trees..." Shane's gaze was attracted. "Wonder if they're wild or someone planted them on purpose." He noted it silently, thinking maybe he could come buy some fresh fruit when they bore fruit.
"Hey!"
Seeing him distracted, Erza clashed her dual swords with a clang, the clear sound echoing in the forest.
Her silver-white and crimson knight armor shone in the morning light, her tone carrying urgency. "Aren't you going to transform?"
She had always thought Shane's Heroic Spirit form was some kind of Take Over Magic or Transformation Magic.
Shane came back to his senses but didn't immediately respond to her fighting spirit. Instead, his gaze fell on the dual swords in her hands.
"Before that," he frowned slightly, "let me see your swords first."
"Hmm?" Although puzzled, Erza handed over the swords trustingly.
Shane reached out to take them, his fingertips brushing over the cold blades.
They felt slightly heavy in his hand. He could clearly feel the faint Magic Power fluctuation emitted by the Lacrima fused inside the sword spine, which indeed enhanced the firmness and sharpness of the blade to a certain extent.
So this is a Magic Sword... he thought to himself.
In terms of firmness and sharpness alone, they were indeed much stronger than the weapons he forged with ordinary iron before.
But...
The craftsmanship is too lousy. Shane commented in his heart. Rough structure, stagnant power transmission, zero aesthetic sense. Simply a waste of materials.
Imitating the technique of that paranoid swordsmith in the illusion when examining inferior works, he held a sword in each hand and gently tapped them against each other.
Ding—
Just as the clear sound arose, a sudden change occurred!
Even though he looked like he didn't use much strength, those two solid longswords snapped like dead branches at the sound. With a few clatters, they broke into several pieces and scattered on the ground.
Erza's pupils constricted, her whole body freezing in place.
"You... what are you doing?!"
In the next second, she almost pounced over, snatching the only remaining hilts from Shane's hands. Looking at the fragments shining with cold light on the ground, her face was written with heartache.
"My swords!"
She squatted down, her fingers touching the cold fragments helplessly, wanting to cry but having no tears.
She bought these with hard-earned money from commissions last month while Shane was obsessed with blacksmithing.
70,000 Jewels each!
Shane, however, looked indifferent, his tone even carrying disdain. "With me here, you still want to use this junk..."
"What do you mean?" Erza looked up.
"I mean, I can forge Magic Swords now!"
The corners of Shane's mouth raised slightly. The crimson flames originally burning quietly in his eyes suddenly burst into blazing wildness with a whoosh.
"Didn't you want to see the effect of my new magic?"
The moment his voice fell—Boom—!
Crimson flames erupted abruptly, swallowing him completely like a blooming fire lotus.
The rising heat stirred the air, sweeping the surroundings, making Erza subconsciously raise her hand to block it.
In the dancing firelight, she saw Shane's ordinary clothes being rewoven by the flames.
His right half was covered with a bright red single sleeve, but his left chest and abdomen were exposed, revealing smooth lines that were beginning to take shape.
Flames wound like flowing fabric, condensing into a white wide sash at his waist. A pure white cloak draped from his shoulders, the inner colorful patterns flowing and shining in the firelight.
When the last wisp of flame dispersed, the Shane standing there had changed completely.
Not only the attire, but an indescribable pressure shrouded him, making Erza unconsciously hold her breath.
The Shane at this moment no longer emitted the gentle, reassuring aura like the winter sun.
Instead, he was like a blazing, unextinguishable furnace!
Scorching, surging, carrying a non-human absolute focus!
Shane didn't say much. He made a grabbing motion with one hand. Hammer, tongs, and anvil—three tools manifested beside him accompanied by fine sparks.
He picked up the sword fragments on the ground with iron tongs. Without seeing any special movement from him, those metals softened rapidly when approaching his palm, melting into glowing hot iron lumps.
He placed this metal, which fused the materials of two swords, on the anvil and raised the hammer.
Clang!
The clear striking sound echoed in the forest, carrying a peculiar rhythm, without the slightest harshness.
Erza watched intently. previously when watching Shane forge swords, she only felt his movements were skilled and smooth, far superior to ordinary blacksmiths.
But now, although she still couldn't understand those complicated techniques, she could inexplicably feel an indescribable beauty.
That was the beauty of craftsmanship tempered thousands of times... that even a layman could appreciate!
The forging process was astonishingly fast.
Shane's arm movements brought up afterimages. Hammer up, hammer down, sparks flying sporadically. That metal lump was shaped at will under his hands as if endowed with life, rapidly elongating and thinning, outlining the slender and elegant contour of a sword body.
Soon, a longsword with a simple yet sharp style began to take shape.
With Shane's last strike, he picked up the sword body still emitting high heat with tongs and casually tossed it into the murmuring stream beside him.
Hiss— A burst of thick white steam rose.
" Although it's a casual work," Shane dismissed the tools, his tone flat, "it's still much better than that junk you bought."
When he touched them just now, he had already discerned the distribution and structure of the Lacrima inside the sword bodies. When destroying them, he deliberately avoided these cores, preserving them intact and integrating them into the new sword.
Saying this, he looked with interest at Erza's form-fitting knight armor. "Let me say this first: I won't forge your armor."
"Eh? Why?" Erza asked subconsciously.
"Tools of 'Martial Arts' born for battle—I only want to forge swords."
Shane's tone carried a craftsman's paranoia. "Armor is a tool of 'Defense,' a shield, armor... it feels wrong."
Whether it was himself or the philosophy of Senji Muramasa he inherited, neither had any interest in forging armor.
Uninteresting forging would absolutely not produce any quality goods.
Hearing this, Erza suddenly thought of something, her face changing slightly, and she waved her hand hurriedly.
Magic light flashed on her body, and that beautiful knight armor was instantly retracted into the Requip space, swapped back to the original sleeveless dress.
This time it was Shane's turn to be puzzled. "You're not going to wear armor to fight me? That should strengthen your Magic Power, right?"
He could feel the Magic Power amplification attached to that armor.