The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

It was already late when they got there, so the hall was nearly empty. There were just a couple of people milling about and the team moved past them towards the mission completion desk.

A man was sitting there with a bored expression. There rings under his eyes and it looked like he hadn't slept for days.

"Hello. We've completed a medium difficulty Rank 1 mission, but there were several additional complications for the mission. We'd like to be evaluated for an S grade."

The man's tired eyes sprung open in surprise after hearing 'S grade'. He gave his eyes a rub, straightened up his posture, and tried his best to seem awake,

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"The mission was to kill a certain wild beast, and we did that. However, we were then ambushed by 2 cultivators – one of whom was upper stage. That goes beyond the scope of a typical medium difficulty mission."

The man nodded his head, then replied,

"I need one of you to write an official mission report. Meanwhile, I'll get one of my colleagues to interview the other 3 of you just to confirm this qualifies for an S grade."

The man disappeared for a few moments, then returned with another man. Isaac spoke to the others,

"I'll write the mission report. You all go with him."

Upon hearing this, they all stopped hesitating and went with the new guy. Meanwhile, the tired man handed Isaac a pen and some sheets of paper. Isaac took them and went to sit in one of the chairs around the hall's edge. He sat there and quietly began to write up his report.

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About an hour passed by before Isaac raised his head; he'd been disturbed by a slight commotion. Johan, Eva and Abbie had all come back into the hall and were walking towards him. Isaac ignored them for a few moments to make a few more jottings and additions to his report, then he put down his pen and looked up once more.

"Well?"

"He said 'it seems like an S grade mission, but my superior still needs to sign off on it'. There's a bit more admin to do and they need to decide on our new rewards, so the man said to come back tomorrow."

Isaac listened carefully to Johan's response and then nodded. He got up from his chair, walked over to the desk to hand in his report, then walked back to the team.

"We're all finished then. You can all go home; we'll meet back here at 10 am tomorrow." Isaac began walking towards the door, but then he stopped and turned around, "Oh, and before I forget... good work on our first mission together."

The others all smiled. The mission had been a difficult ordeal and it had taken all their guile, skill and teamwork to complete it. Now, however, they were back in the safety of the Sect and ready to enjoy their rewards. It was truly a job well done.

Isaac didn't get too caught up in their jubilant reactions though. He calmly turned around and kept walking towards the door.

*************************

The next day, everybody was back in the Adventurers' Hall at 10 o'clock.

They gathered in the somewhat crowded lobby and queued up for the mission completion desk. When they got to the front of the line, they came face to face with the same man from yesterday. He looked even more tired now than he had before,

"Oh, it's you? Just wait a minute, I'll grab my colleague."

He went to get the same person who interviewed the team yesterday.

"Hi, my name's Martin. Just follow me and I'll take you to get your rewards."

The team walked past the mission desk and deeper into the Adventurers' Hall. Usually, only staff could access this area. However, Martin brought them through anyway. He took them to the small lounge area employees could use when they were off-duty or on breaks.

Everybody sat down in the chairs near the door. Then Martin began to speak,

"Your mission has indeed been awarded an S grade. We had a pretty hard time deciding what to reward you since we didn't just want to give a monetary reward."

Abbie was quite disappointed by that statement. She tried to conceal her emotion, but Martin was very perceptive and just about noticed. He laughed,

"Don't worry, there is still a monetary reward – a whole 30 reward points – but there's also something special."

He paused for a moment, letting an air of anticipation descend upon the room,

"Your mission report stated each of you obtained an Anima during the mission. However, we know that these Anima might not suit you perfectly. We're giving you the opportunity to swap one Anima with anything in the Sect's Rank 1 Anima storage. Unfortunately, you'll have to pay to make up the difference if you want an Anima more expensive than the one you have, but it's a great opportunity nonetheless."

Martin was right. Having Anima that fit your combat style was extremely important, so this was a fantastic opportunity. Isaac replied curtly,

"Shall we go then?"

"Sorry, there's just one more thing. The way it is now, your grade for this mission won't be noted on your team record. That's because you're not an officially registered team. If you want this S grade to be put on your team record, you'll need to fill out the necessary paperwork and form a team within 3 days. I'm about to go off and get your reward. If one of you comes with me, I can give you the papers for forming a team as well."

Everybody looked at Isaac. He nodded and stood up,

"Thank you. I'll come."

The two of them left the room and returned 5 minutes later. Isaac was carrying a stack of papers while Martin held 3 leather pouches. He put the pouches on a chair and spoke,

"There are 10 reward points in each pouch; it's up to you how you distribute them."

As he spoke, a faint spirit flew around his head twice. Everybody's gaze was drawn to the floating pair of ethereal spectacles.

"This is the Librarian Anima." Martin spoke as the spirit landed on his outstretched palm, "Visiting each storage facility and looking around would take forever, so you can just use this to browse through all the Anima we've stored."

The Librarian Anima was a very common, very popular Anima across all 4 continents. It was so popular that people had invented literally hundreds of formulas to create the Anima using all different kinds of materials.

And why was it so popular? Information was power, and this Anima stored information extremely well.

Isaac experienced this first hand when the Anima flew towards him. He stretched out his will and used it to activate the Anima with Martin's permission.

Knowledge streamed into Isaac's mind. However, he didn't suffer information overload since all the data stored in the Librarian Anima was well organised.

The names of many different categories appeared in Isaac's brain. First were the basic categories such as 'Offensive', 'Defensive', 'Movement' and so on. Then came a plethora of Anima styles, such as ice-style and necromancy-style.

Isaac immediately navigated to the 'Weapon-style' category. When he focused on that topic, everything else began to disappear as if he'd forgotten it completely, and new knowledge appeared. It was a fresh set of sub-categories like 'Shield', 'Sword' and 'Axe'.

Weapon-style was unique in that it was made up of several 'sub-styles'. However, Isaac wasn't interested in any of these other weapon-style Anima. He only had eyes for the sword.

He focused on 'Sword', and about 20 or so names came up. These were the names of the Rank 1 sword Anima the Sect had in storage. Whenever Isaac focused on a name, more information about that Anima would come up. Isaac looked through all the names thinking about which Anima would be perfect for him.

Based on conventional wisdom, he should take a defensive Anima to complete the core combat trio of offence, defence and movement. However, this mission had also showed him how useful ranged attack Anima were, and that a detection Anima was necessary to guard against ambushes.

Unfortunately, the sect didn't possess any sword detection Anima. There were a couple of ranged attack Anima, but they both seemed pretty standard. Isaac was starting to feel rather disappointed when something caught his eye.

'Nihility Intent Anima. A defensive Anima which creates an artificial sword intent to protect the user. The intent has the property of nihility, meaning it shreds attacks into nothingness. However, this Anima requires a lot of Qi per use and attacks above a certain level will only be degraded, not destroyed.'

It was perfect. However, sword intent was something Isaac had only seen in books. Obtaining such a mythical ability – even an artificial version of it – would surely come at a price.

Isaac continued reading the Anima's description.

'This Anima's sword intent must be channelled through a sword to be used. Non-swordsmen cannot use it. 87 reward points.'

Isaac was stunned by the outrageous price.