The Weapon Soul had appeared glorious to me when I first woke up in the forest. It was shifting and alive, an endless cascade of colors and forms. I felt every tree in the forest, every life form, and every whisper of wind bowing to me in that dreamlike crucible.
It was mine. It was terrifying. It was beautiful.
But it seems that fate has a miserable sense of humor.
Because the reality came to me now, as I stand in the ceremonial circle with many eyes staring at me.
No radiant blade.No spear of light.No divine brilliance.
Clang.
The weapon that appeared in my hand was a disgrace. A rusty sword, brittle and corroded, as though dug up from some forgotten battlefield. Its once-proud edge was chipped and flaking, its hilt worn smooth by the ghosts of hands long gone.
The contrast was staggering. What I had seen in the forest was potential. What everyone else saw now… was failure.
The silence lasted one heartbeat, two. Then the laughter began.
"Is that his Weapon Soul?"
"Looks like it'll snap before it cuts anything!"
"Even kitchen knives are sharper!"
Their voices overlapped, sharp and cruel, digging into my ears. Mockery rippled across the gathered students like wildfire.
But while they laughed, I tightened my grip on the hilt. And there it was—that faint pulse. Weak, irregular, like a dying heartbeat. But alive.
Not broken. Not useless. Sleeping.
And I was the only one who could wake it.
The instructor, a scarred man with eyes like cold steel, frowned as if looking at me dirtied his boots. "Next!" he barked.
Dismissive. Final. A verdict.
But I wasn't listening. My heart was racing for a different reason.
Rust. Oxidation. Decomposition. These weren't flaws—they were signals. Evidence of process. Change. Life hidden under death. Everyone here thought Weapon Souls were static, bound forever to their first form. But nature doesn't work that way.
Cells divide. Genes mutate. Species adapt. Evolution never stops.
And if my Weapon Soul is alive… it can evolve.
That night, long after the jeering voices had faded into memory, I sat in my narrow quarters. The rusty sword lay across my knees, the candlelight playing across its corroded surface. Shadows clung to the pits and grooves, like veins etched into ancient bone.
I leaned close, tracing a finger along the rough edge. Not just cold metal. Too uneven. Too… organic.
"Almost like keratin," I whispered, studying the pattern. "Bone? Shell? No, denser. A composite. Something between biology and alloy."
The sword pulsed once—faint, like the twitch of a muscle long unused.
My breath caught. "You are alive."
I snatched up the quill and parchment, hands trembling with excitement.
Observation: Weapon Soul shows faint pulsations → bio-spiritual origin?Rust = dormancy, incomplete metabolic process?Hypothesis: Adaptation possible under correct stimuli.
The words scratched onto the page faster than I could think. The scientists back home had spent centuries mapping genomes, studying symbiosis, understanding life at its most basic building blocks. And now, here I was, with a chance to apply it—not to mice or bacteria—but to a sword.
A sword that wasn't just mine. A sword that could evolve.
The next morning, the training yard buzzed with energy. Students clashed in sparring duels, their gleaming weapon souls colliding in sparks and shockwaves. Each strike was a display of dominance, a declaration of strength.
My arrival drew immediate attention.
"There he is, the rusty swordsman.""Careful—don't cut yourself on that antique.""Maybe he can sell it for scrap metal."
Laughter followed me like a shadow.
I ignored them. My eyes were only for the sword.
I swung it experimentally. The blade groaned like an old hinge, clumsy and heavy. But with every swing, I felt that faint pulse in my palm. Feedback. Not strength, but listening.
I pressed the edge against a wooden training dummy. It bit shallowly, leaving nothing more than a jagged scar. Pathetic, by their standards.
But when I pulled it back, my breath caught.
The rust near the edge had shifted. Barely perceptible—but real. The flakes rearranged, darker, denser, as though responding to the contact.
My lips curled into a smile. "You're hungry, aren't you?"
Hungry for more than mana. Hungry for samples. For biology itself.
The laughter of the yard cut off suddenly.
A low tremor rolled through the ground. Dust trickled from the rafters. The chatter of students hushed as every head turned toward the forest beyond the academy walls.
Then—
ROOOAR!
The sound split the air, guttural and primal, vibrating through bone. The trees shivered. Birds scattered in a panic.
The instructor's expression hardened. "Beast incursion! Defensive formation!"
Students scrambled, their weapon souls blazing to life—swords of fire, spears of lightning, shields of ice. The yard blazed with power.
And me? I looked down at my rusty sword. It vibrated in my grip, trembling like a hound straining at its leash.
The others thought it was worthless. But I knew better.
This wasn't fear. This was anticipation.
"Time for your first meal," I whispered.
The weapon pulsed in answer.
From the treeline, glowing eyes appeared. Molten gold, searing with hunger. A beast stepped into view, muscles like knotted ropes, claws glistening, fangs bared.
The students braced. The instructors shouted orders.
But I couldn't hear them anymore. My pulse thundered in sync with the sword.
The beast roared, lunging forward—
—and my rusty blade moved on its own, dragging me headlong into the fight.