Starting from Zero

Clark is still busy with all the extra swords. When he saw me yet again bringing so many objects he almost fainted.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"I don’t know! It didn’t give me a single big iron slab, at least that\'s something to celebrate for." I carried all the stuff to him. "Sorry to bother you again. Heh heh..."

It took him 2 hours to finish up everything, then we began to examine the pile of weapons.

First, the nine swords. The longest one among all turned out to be a pitch black long sword. After some tries and trials we found out that it is a magnet steel sword. When I wield it around, the other smaller ones will also levitate and fly everywhere. Unlike when in the furnace however, this one now only attracts the small swords instead of every metal object in the room.

Speaking of the eight smaller swords...They\'re silver white, light-weighted. I can literally lift them all by using only one finger. I think they weight less than a kilo altogether, as if they\'re made of plastic.

"What are these? Throwing knives?"

Clark gave me that magnet sword. "Check out the status."

"[Master Sword of the Flying Dragon], Artifact, single-handed sword,

Growth quipment,

Durability 1500/1500,

*Attack 600-700,

Attack speed: Very Fast,

*+10% amplified damage,

25% chance to cause laceration,

100‰ chance to deal crushing blow (equipment hit by it immediately breaks apart beyond repair),

??% chance to freeze target,

Ignore defense,

+100 lightning damage,

25% life steal.

Talent skill [Flying Sword]: Able to control flying swords to attack targets within effective range."

"And this one." He gave me one of the small swords.

"[Sword of the Flying Dragon(3)], Artifact (appendant),

Growth equipment,

Durability 1500/1500,

*Attack 200-400,

Attack speed: Very Fast,

Consume wielder\'s MP by 2 points/sec,

+20% amplified damage,

Ignore defense,

+50 hellfire damage.

Talent skill: [Blade Barrier], [Blade Shift]."

"All small ones share exact the same attribute. So you use the big one to control them."

"That should be it."

I held up the master sword and waved it around at random. All eight flying swords moved, causing Clark to quickly dive under the table.

"Careful lad! Don’t ruin my house!"

"Argh!!"

One of the swords lost control and flew past my face, leaving a small gash on me. All remaining ones ran wild when I hurt myself which further caused several unexpected bleeding scars on my body. My armor is still under repair and I don\'t have any protection now.

"Stop it. Find an open ground and practice when you have time." Clark looked around all the damaged walls. "Any more of these and you\'re going to tear the place down!"

"Ow ow look at me. It\'s a good thing that my own attack doesn’t actually damage myself. These wounds are decorative."

Clark crawled out from under the table and took out the triangular object I found in the trash.

"What do you think this is?"

"No idea. An arrow head maybe?"

"Correct." He tossed it over.

"[Tip of the Dragon’s Fang], Artifact,

Arrow damage +100,

+20% hit rate,

Explode upon impact dealing 500 area damage."

That’s...not very impressive. And I only have three. I wonder if I can put it on a Soul Chaser bolt, so it will regenerate.

"What about the dagger?" I asked Clark while trying to install the arrow tip onto my special bolt.

"This is no dagger. It\'s a dart."

"That\'s quite a big dart then." I took one of them in my hand. Red, short blade, lodged onto a curve and smooth handle...it does look like a dart, if not for the exceeding size of it. It’s even bigger than a standard dagger. I’d call it a short sword.

I looked at the strange weapon which is about a feet long. "It must be quite powerful when thrown at someone. But, how do I throw it? "

"You can use it as a dagger if you like."

"Why do I need so many daggers?"

"Of course you need them!" Clark lined them up on his table. "You can use them as backup weapons when you can’t use your main arms for whatever reason. Throw them at people. Or conceal them and stab someone when they\'re least expecting it."

"I see. I can also use them to gut animals and roast some meat I guess. What about the other two dagger-like blades?"

"Oh, this..." He handed one to me. "Follow my lead."

I watched as Clark readied the other object. There\'s a short blade at the front of it, but it is S-shaped. The "handle" at the end of it looks like a disc. Now Clark is holding onto the object by the tip of the blade, I copied his action.

Next, he shook his hand. With a metal clashing noise, the object changed shape. It\'s definitely not a dagger now. A circle of small blades, also S shaped, appeared around the center disc. It looks like pretty much a wheel of an electric fan...just with thinner and sharper blades.

I mimicked his action and gave the weapon a shake. Nothing happened.

Clark returned the object to its original state and did it again. "Stronger!"

I did it this time. Now I\'m also holding a fan wheel.

"What is this?"

"...You never played this before?"

"Play?" I looked at the object in doubt. "So it\'s a toy? My Artifact comes with a toy?"

"Nonono it\'s not!" He quickly explained. "This is a boomerang! So you never saw any kids playing this thing?"

He hurled the weapon out of the window. I watched as the weapon made a U-turn and went back to his hand.

"How does that look?"

I tried throwing it too. It did come back towards me but I failed to catch it. The boomerang crashed into the only standing vase in Clark’s room and stuck into the wooden shelf.

"You need to get yourself familiar with it first! Now come with me."

He dragged me past several blocks and entered a poor looking structure.

"Where are we? This place doesn’t look like Lost City style."

"This is the training center for anything dangerous. It breaks a lot so we just made it into this simple shelter instead."

When we came to the center of it something scared me for good. At least a thousand people are inside this giant room, all wearing knight armor.

"They are the Mythal Legion?"

The very scene when I first came to the city appeared in my memory. These are the same ones who almost chopped my head off back there.

"You know them?"

"I met them before. But why is their level so low? You know how city NPC are usually level 800 or 850, why do they have level 200 ones?"

"Low level huh?" Clark beckoned at a practicing dark knight and called him over. "Check his level."

"...Dark knight, level 200."

"Try again."

I spammed my [Identify] several times, when a system notice came up:

"You successfully looked through target\'s disguise. Skill leveled up."

The dark knight suddenly turned into a bigger monster burning with blue flame. The name is now [Phantom Knight], level 850!

"He\'s a Phantom Knight??"

Clark chuckled. "A few commanders are level 950 Death Knights. Apart from them the entire Mythal Legion is composed of Phantom Knights."

"I see..."

"Okay, practice your weapons here, since you can’t damage something that’s already broken. If you somehow hurt yourself there is healer over there. Now I need to get a new furnace and repair all those damages you caused."

I began to familiarize myself with the flying swords and boomerangs. I contacted Rose and told them to head to the next city, and call me if something comes up.

The new weapons are deadlier than I expected. The whole practice is a disaster. I could never control the flying swords at my own will, now my hands and face are filled with scars. As for the boomerang...no matter how I threw it, it always comes back at my face. I either dodge away, or try to grab it with my eyes closed.

After a day’s effort, I can finally make sure the swords won’t hurt myself. I can\'t direct them to my target yet, but at least I won’t get more bleeding holes on my body.

As for the boomerang... No way. There is no advance.

"Hey boss. I\'m off now, dinner?" Wayne sent me a message.

"Alright, I’m off too." I collected my scattered weapons and logged out in defeat. Looks like I need to keep this up tomorrow, or no one would dare to team up with me in the future.

In the next day I can more or less control the swords to attack my desired target, though something innocent can still get hit now and then.

The boomerang can still escape my hand, but hey I learned how to dodge them! That’s a bless.

Before I can start the next round, Rose contacted me. "Ziri we need help!! Coordinate xxx, xxx, xxx!"

"Right away!"

She didn\'t sound good. I directly teleported to Clark’s place, grabbed my armor set. Clark gave me a fan-shaped metal box and asked me to equip it on my back. There are eight slots on it, and I can put my eight flying swords in there. There’s another bigger slot in the middle where I can plug my lance. As for the master sword...I have to hang it on my waist.

When everything’s ready, I teleported to the exact coordinate Rose told me. Before I can have a look around, something came down at my head and covered me up.

"Who is that??" I do hope Rose is not playing a joke at a time like this. "Get this off or it\'ll be violent you hear me??"

"You can try! No one has ever escaped my net before! Now give him some treat you lot!"

Countless punches and kicks rained down on my body. Okay, this is definitely not a joke. But how did someone set a trap on me when Rose told me to come?

Let\'s consider it later.

"Rosa!"

A hole appeared on the ground. Rosa dragged me under and sent me out from another location away from the trap.

"So which bastard was kicking me?"

I looked at the group in anger. About two dozen people.

"We all did it. So what?" Someone stepped ahead. I can tell he was the one who gave the order.

"So what?" I raised a hand.

Rosa grabbed one of his legs and pulled the screaming man over to me. I stepped on his face and ground it into the dirt.

"Oh please forgive me! You were all kicking me like that, so many of you! I\'m sooo afraid! So what? Huh? What can I do? Huh??" I tried to make that as sarcastic as possible.

"Let him go now!" A muscular man approached me. A berserker. "Touch my friend again and I’ll--"

I silenced him by throwing my lance at him. I\'m still not used to my new weapons yet. The lance went into his opened mouth and pierced his head, locking him onto a tree behind.

"Filthy pest."

I summoned Night Shade and hopped on.

"There were two female players here. Where are they?"

"Why would we tell you? Oh right, the bitches. I think our guild master already have them on the bed! Gah-hahaha!" A sneaky looking guy taunted while imitating some unspeakable motions in the air.

I released my dragon cord, caught his neck and pulled him towards me.

"Ohh you seems strong. And scary! I\'ll not ask you then. Let’s find someone else."

I dropped him to the ground and ordered Night Shade to stomp him until there’s only a bleeding meat chunk left.

"Now, which one of you would be so kind to answer my question? Oh don\'t worry, I only need ONE. As for everyone else..."

I made a "slit" gesture in front of my own neck.

Some people stepped up in panic. "I-I-I-know!"

"Quiet!" I recovered my lance and wiped it clean on the clothes of a random volunteer. "You then. Tell me."

"The guild master captured them!"

"Captured? There were nine knights, two dragons, a phoenix and a giant bug. Did your master defeat them all? Or did my knights slack off?"

"That’s not it!" Another one yelled. "They were strong of course! The knights killed 800 of our men and were drawn away by another group. We used the same tactic to get the attention of the dragons and the insect. Of course most of our men died. Those creatures are terrible!"

"Get to the point!"

"Then we assembled 300 Chain Wielders to capture the phoenix and locked it into a special cage we prepared, that’s how we managed to get to the ladies! We saw them chatting with someone, so our boss asked us to stay here and ambush anyone that appears. We were following orders! "

"The girls didn\'t use their harassment protection to escape? How did your master capture them in the first place?"

"The cage I mentioned, our guild can produce a special cage called the [Refined Iron Cage], anything put inside cannot use any teleportation, including the system protection."

"What??"

This is definitely a system bug! And we\'re the first ones to bear its consequences!

"Phantom Knights, on me!"

I assembled my team that were drawn away, except Phiona. I can’t seem to be able to summon her no matter how I try.

I pulled another man over. "Tell me the name of your guild. And your boss."

"We are the [God\'s Design]. Our master is [Big Blade More Killz], top player on the level ranking board, and second place on the combat rating list!"

"Big Blade? Man the world is too small."

I released the man and activated my Star Gaze, acquired Rose\'s location and ordered my team to move.

Now you dare to put your hands on Rose? I\'ll send you back to the rookie village this time!

The place is not far. It only took several minutes before we charged out of the forest and saw a medium size city ahead of us.

Before we can enter, the gate guards stopped us. "The city of God\'s Design is not open to sightseeing!"

"Fuck that. There are private cities?"

"You are on the blacklist for our city so you\'re not welcomed here. Leave now or we\'ll drive you away by force!" They raised their lances.

I moved away into a safe distance and contacted Rose.

"Can you hear me Rose?"

"Ah sweetheart. I guess you\'re outside the city now?"

"Yes. The NPCs won’t let me in. I\'m going to tell Hawk to bring more people to help. Are you and Yuri all right?"

"We\'re fine. Big Blade is the master of their city, he can decide who can enter and who can’t. I saw him do it when Yuri told him you will come for us."

"Don\'t worry. Of course I\'ll come for you, even if it means I need to burn the city to the ground!"

"Take your time to prepare. That man isn’t doing anything to us yet. I have a skill I can use to kill myself. Souls can’t leave this cage but at least he can’t do anything to me like that."

"Won’t take long!"

I began to send messages to Hawk and the others. There\'s a good chance that we need to break down the city for real.

Big Blade huh? You bastard overdid it this time.