Rafe hit the red-hot metal. Again. He hit it, trying to temper it, to shape it to his liking.

Insights. He had had them within his soul for weeks. He had seen them growing, but he hadn't yet allowed himself to feel them, to use them.

First, an insight into sharpness. He had decided three would be enough for his initial step into conceptualisation.

Sharpness was the first insight he'd chosen. He wondered if it was a problem that he knew exactly what he wanted. From what he understood, these kinds of things tended to choose the person.

Like beasts with an innate affinity being forced into some kind of path from the moment they were born. Or Elemenoids like Filoria and the others being forced to use ice as the basis for most of their truths. And just when Rafe was thinking about it, he remembered he had a nascent affinity of the void.

Still though, he did not have the ability yet, so he decided it was useless to worry.

Now then, sharpness.

There was a cold feeling spreading through his body. Almost the exact opposite of the boiling feeling in his belly that would result from ingesting a strong alcohol. It was funny the end result of both substances was virtually the same. Well, alcohol also raised someone's mental state in a way, didn't it?

And it caused weakness and what not the day after, right? Only this new potion had been advertised to be way worse than good old alcohol.

He could feel the concentration forcing itself on him. Before long, he didn't even remember what alcohol was. He didn't even hear the rhythmic thumping of his hammer anymore.

He didn't feel it. He didn't hear or feel anything.

He had been in a similar state only once. That one time in the Skyholm trial, in the tower, on the second floor in the aura training room. Only this time he could at least see.

He was sitting in the dark. His surroundings cut off. Only him and his hammer and the sword he was shaping floating in a void of space. That was when Rafe started to worry.

Did it look like he was in the void? Was his nascent void affinity affecting his insights after all? Wasn't this the whole reason he had avoided trying to learn concepts in the void? Had all their precautions been for naught?

But soon that worry too was cut off. He had no more time for extraneous thoughts.

The last thing he did before he was fully disconnected from reality was accept his reward from the quest system.

Rewards:... Legacy concept visions…

The sword. What else was to be expected? The first vision Rafe saw was of a swordsman. A swordmaster as far as Aeon's ranking system went.

A more accomplished swordmaster than those of the past. Because in the present, the system made the dissemination of information easier.

And so, with his sword, the man took a stance. A technique stance.

He swung his sword. And then he was dancing. Dancing alone. The metal of his sword gleaming.

And then they were two. One swung a great sword vertically. And projected a whisp of energy from its edge. A simple concept ability. And how did it grow? When the insight grew into a concept of the sword, it seemed like the man was swinging two swords. One appearing and disappearing as he willed.

The first man, the sword dancer was dancing with tens of swords. Weaving in and out of them. A domain ability had grown. And he stepped onto a sword laid on the ground. And it seemed to suck him in.

Which was strange because it was such a thin saber. So much thinner than the man, but he disappeared into it. And he appeared from above, as if he was forming out of a floating sword.

He fell, but he did not reach the ground. Instead one of the swords went up to meet him. He landed in a crouched stance on the flat of the blade. And like a surf board, the sword carried him into the clouds.

Then Rafe turned back to the second man. The great sword wielder whose truth had grown while Rafe was watching the first man do tricks.

It seemed like Rafe had missed a step. Which was unfair. Could he rewind it? It was his vision. His reward. He should be able to control what he saw, shouldn't he?

Then the man started another swing. This time his sword didn't divide itself into two. And for some reason, some kind of buffer between Rafe and this world - a buffer Rafe hadn't even known existed - disappeared. He could feel the man's aura.

Aura grew with age and experience. It was a reflection of one's soul. Their skills, their power, their stats. Aura also housed things like one's killing intent. Killing intent grew from the amount of blood on one's hands. It was the first thing Rafe had learnt on Aeon, albeit he hadn't known it at the time.

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He had been thrown into a war and he'd killed thousands of people. And he'd learned to resist killing intent. And he'd developed his own killing intent.

After he'd regained his memories, he hadn't killed a whole lot of people. He had killed some, but not a lot. His killing intent was stagnant, but it was still potent for an F grade. His aura was much more potent than it ought to have been.

But there was no comparison. Whether of his normal-ish (if one considered Rafe a peak tier F grade, which he was not) killing intent or his monstrous overall aura skill to the gargantuan killing intent and aura he felt then.

It was obvious what the system's message was. Rafe had stepped on a path of endless death. The path of the sword was the path of endless killing, of endless floods of blood.

The man swung. Rafe was allowed to witness the swing in slow motion. He looked at it. Looked at the descending sword. Somehow, even if this time it was only one sword, the swing felt more potent.

There was an ephemeral light shining deep in it, in the sword. Like the truth had given it a soul. A life. And its edges had a glint. Like they were sharpened by a special whetstone. A divine whetstone.

A simple downward slash split a lake clean in two. The two halves flew away from each other, and the bed of the lake was further cut into.

Before, Rafe couldn't see the edge of the blue expanse. But now he could see the cut had travelled the whole length of the lake and it was continuing. There was a mountain in the distance. A mountain so far Rafe had only seen it as a silhouette. But all of a sudden there were two silhouettes.

"Huh," Rafe said. He was unable to come up with anything better to say.

But what inspiration was he supposed to take from that? So this was the stage beyond even the revered grandmasters of Aeon? Rafe had once fought a grandmaster, and he didn't remember anything except being cut apart without putting up much of a fight.

One vision had been absolute power. The other had been finesse. Insights helped, but they did not usually translate to an immediate power up. Concept abilities were one of the many ways insights could be used for instant power, though non-warriors also had their own methods.

But concept abilities did not become obsolete once one developed their concept. Perhaps that was what the vision had been meant to teach him.

He had seen that the concept abilities he would develop, whatever they maybe, would become the foundations for his future power. Finesse and force.

So then what had he learned from the absolute power version of the vision? He had learned of absolute deverstation.

"A sword so sharp it can split a lake into two and cut all the way down to the bedrock," he murmured.

Sharpness so potent it overwhelmed any defense. An insight into sharpness.

He thought his conclusions would help something snap into existence in his soul. He focused on the sensation of heightened concentration. He felt himself leaving the vision world.

And there in his soul was…nothing new he could see. Rafe found his mind trying to fight him. Trying to tear away the extraneous thought of his first vision having been wasted.

He fought it. He needed to start thinking alternatives in case the visions failed. He already had the insights bursting to break into his soul. He only needed the visions, and indeed the potion he'd drank earlier, to make sure his insights were as strong as possible from the get go. They were just boosts to solidify his foundations. Nothing more.

But then as he fought it, there was a moment when the potion overpowered him, and in that moment the part of his soul he could see expanded.

And there. Above his skills was something he had seen once, but paid no heed to.

When he absorbed technique manuals, Rafe knew there was an avatar that danced in his soul space, teaching him the techniques. He remembered studying the phenomenon in the tower, but not very extensively.

And now, for an instance, he could see an avatar going through some of the motions of the sword dance he'd seen in his vision. There was a second avatar. This one was sitting cross legged with its hands clasped over something. A sword, Rafe realised. A sword set in its lap.

And that avatar looked like—

"It looks exactly like me!" Rafe exclaimed as he fought back against the potion, delaying the activation of his not so caring persona. The persona the potion wanted him to take. The one who cared not for anything except understanding the heavens under which they lived.

His vision was flickering. One second he could see the part of his soul with the avatars, the next he couldn't. He wondered whether he would gain access to this part of his soul if he trained it using the basic manual he'd received from the tower. Probably not. It was just a basic manual after all, but he had to start training somehow. He had put it off long enough.

After his insights were settled, and before he could start working on concept abilities, he'd have to work on his soul.

He was fast losing the battle with the potion. In that instant before he'd fully lost his attention, the seated avatar opened its eyes. The dancing avatar froze like a deer caught between headlights. And then the most bizarre thing happened. Rafe saw the seated avatar absorb the dancing avatar.

Then it stood itself. Started to dance a little. Before he completely lost his attention, Rafe saw the avatar start to sit back down. It sat there waiting. Waiting patiently for its next meal.

And as his mental state elevated he kept zooming out. For a moment, he saw the true shape of his soul. The schema of a human body, but it was only for a moment.

And then it was back to pondering on the images he'd seen earlier.

The concept of a sword. What was it the vision was truly telling him, if not sharpness? He could feel that sharpness was a correct answer, but incomplete.

What was incomplete? Was the inspiration he'd gotten for his sharpness insight from this vision incomplete? But how could that be? He'd only wanted a simple, straightforward insight into sharpness. Nothing complicated.

But a nagging voice asked him: then why did you use all these ingredients?

He'd tried making a simple stew, but he'd used too much spice. Of course the result would be anything but simple.

The system had tricked him, he wanted to say. He had wanted simple. Noid had cautioned him against trying for fancy and complicated truths, but it seemed the system had not gotten the memo.

It was his fault really. He should have learned by now what kind of entity he was dealing with.

If sharpness was incomplete, then this vision could only be alluding to one other insight he was interested in. Hardness.

And just when he thought about it, he felt a vibration, a resonance within his soul.

An insight into hardness. He'd grow it to the peak, and then he'd combine it with sharpness to form sword energy for his concept. Or at least that had been the plan.

'Ding' Your quest system is reacting.

Objective: Build your first insight.

Collecting all pertinent information.

Collecting all pertinent skills.

Processing….

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