Blade and Poetry

Karajan dropped me off at the apartment and lent me his light coat.

It was already midnight, and the corridor of the apartment looked empty. I walked up to the second floor under the dim light, wrapped myself in Karajan's coat, and planned to go back and pick a place to destroy the blood-stained clothes next to me.Just as he was about to fumble and reach out to open the door, he saw an unexpected person.

Odgo leaned against his door next door, crossed his legs, and held an open book in his hand.Seeing me coming, he put the book down.

"Vicente, I knocked on the door of your room at night and sent you Dieshu, but I didn't reply. It stands to reason that this period of time in your schedule should be blank..." He frowned He looked at me with a frown, but became hesitant to speak, "Anyway, let's talk in the room first."

After entering the room, I immediately wanted to take off the coat, but considering the blood on the shirt, I pinched the sides of the coat and wrapped it inside.

"Are you still going to practice the knife?" Odd sat beside me and said.

I answered vaguely.He said again: "You seem to be wearing the coat that Professor Karajan wore in the morning?"

"Uh—" I thought to myself that it was not good, so I could only slightly nod my head.

The two of us stared at each other, each waiting for the other to say something.I saw that his forehead was even sweating, and suddenly felt that our understanding might have made some terrible mistakes, so I added in a low voice: "...It's not what you think."

After saying this, both of us jumped out of the tense atmosphere at the same time.Odd sighed and said, "I know."

Then he pulled the sides of my coat open, revealing the blood-stained lining inside.It looked even worse in the light, with the rust red covering the entire front of the shirt much larger than the original color.

"I didn't know who would teach you after you came out of the Sean family." Odd loosened my clothes and said, "I didn't expect it to be Professor Karajan. His background seems to be similar to that of the upper class of Columbus. Unrelated?"

I shook my head and answered with the one I could answer: "Karajan is not from Columbus, he seems to have revealed this."

"You don't need to say any more, it looks like you've been asked to keep it a secret." Odd pondered for a moment, then quickly said reasonably. "It's just that I've never seen you in such a desperate state..."

"Now you see," I said to him, sinking feebly on the couch, "no, I'm dying—cough! cough! Odgo help me, I'm missing a few life-saving medicines in my medicine chest— "

He cooperatively raised the book in his hand again, "What does Mr. Vicente want?"

I looked at him with half-closed eyes, "I want three drops of bamboo juice, a spoonful of boiled pillow grass, a quarter of a bushel of red bell fruit, half a pint of mango wine, and two pieces of cheesecake."

Odego was still pretending to be taking notes with a pen at first, and finally threw the book directly towards me. Fortunately, my hand caught it first.I heard the sound of his door being opened next door, and took advantage of his time to leave to flip through the book.A stack of folded papers in the book fell out with my movements.

That's the design report for our magic circle - it turns out Ord came to see me at night to discuss this.

Professor Lane corrected several impractical mistakes for us.The final comment reads: "A very novel idea, but not very practical. Due to its complexity, it is difficult to expand the magic circle in a large area. It is recommended to reduce and replace some of the magic patterns to achieve the purpose of simplification. Can be carried out Further in-depth research at a later stage."

I jumped down from the hammock, pulled out the medicine box under the table, filled half a glass of water into the enamel fire cup, and picked up several herbs; they immediately rolled up in the cup, and gradually melted into a snow-green colored juice.

I decided to wash off the blood on my body first, rushed into the bathroom and took off my shirt.But to my surprise, although the body was still in pain, the deep knife marks that should have been there were gone.My entire upper body was extremely clean, except for a pale pink oblique scar on my left chest.

I took a hot shower full of doubts.On the way, I heard the door on Odd's side rang again, and he should have come over.I wiped my hair and changed into my nightgown. Sure enough, as soon as I opened the door, I saw him sitting on the edge of the glass coffee table. The last two.

"Thank you so much. It's hard to beat that." I stare at the cheesecake and mango wine. "I'll get my knife and plate, and my new glass."

The cake was just taken out of the freezer, and it was still steaming; the mango wine was heated and was still warm, with a very low alcohol content, so it was basically hard to get drunk.Odd and I discussed the issue of the magic circle while enjoying supper. Finally, after zero o'clock, the food was emptied, and the two of us sat crookedly on the sofa.

"I'll go first." Odd looked quite sober on the outside, but the frequency of his steps betrayed him.

I sent him to the door at the same speed.

Aude suddenly said before opening the door: "He is very good to you. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe that he would do so much for someone. But are you sure he is really trustworthy? Do you remember serving Your Rosalind—you depended on her and trusted her so much when you were a child, she was the only one besides your grandfather—she used your key to steal your father’s relics, and even cast amnesia on you who saw the whole process... "

I realized that when this guy had a drink, no matter what kind of drink, he was a lot more talkative than usual.

"My memory, no matter what, was retrieved after Mrs. Sean made a big fuss back then. Although my father's relics did not come back with the memory, it's a pity...but that's all in the past. And Karajan, I don't know, little Odd." I leaned my back against the wall and looked down at the wooden floor.The floor seems to have been spreading forward along my gaze, to the window, and then out of the window; to the top of the tall building filled with moonlight, and then to the grassy slope full of fly ash. "I just thought - when I look at him, I feel like I'm seeing myself."

The third grade classes are almost over at this time.I woke up from the bed very early, compiled my experience about my sword and sword spirit in a notebook, and picked the time after class to find Karajan.There was no one in his office—when I walked out of the literature building, I found him sitting on the grass outside the building, as if he was reading some book.

"Karajan!" I shouted to him from a distance.He raised his head from his book and gestured for me to come over.

Although it is summer, these days are extraordinarily cool.There were many students sitting scattered on the grass slope, and some students poured out of the building with the sound of the big bell.Karajan made me sit next to him.We started reading my notebook together under the sun, and the wind blew the pages from time to time.

"The appearance of my knife can only last for 10 minutes, and it will take about half a day to release it again. If this time limit is exceeded, the arm will become weak, and then the knife will disappear involuntarily." I said to him.

This time is indeed too short.Because the magic power required to release the sword from the body is limited, generally speaking, there is no problem even if the sword holder holds it in his hand all day.I think this should be the "side effect" that Karajan mentioned, and he affirmed my statement.

"At this point," Karajan said, "the time you can release the knife will become longer and longer with practice. You can try to control your body at that critical point repeatedly, although the feeling is not very good. joy."

"Pretty unpleasant." I nodded, remembering how I felt. "Also, about the camouflage of my Soul Blade - it's hard to describe, it looks like a petal at first glance, but it burns violently when it touches the real thing. I burned half of my thick mattress this morning, It took a lot of Wetting Charms to save the other half—although it didn't help much."

Karajan smiled. "Remember what I said 'consolidating the foundation of magic is also helpful for you to learn swords'? This requires consideration of the subtle control of magic power. Special case sword soul like you, learn to sense it, and then concentrate the magic power Beneath its surface. The release is never over. Do you think my Katana is a flame?"

I opened my eyes wide, trying to say something, but the words stuck in my throat.

"I'm similar to you." Karajan smiled and raised the hand that was between us before.The short knife emerged in his hand; he held it under it with his other hand.I looked carefully, and there was something like floating sand leaking down his fingers, and then disappeared among the grass and dirt.

"Get your Wetting Charm, or Quenching Charm, or water glass ready." He looked around suddenly, then narrowly squeezed his right eye at me.Then, at the place where the floating sand fell just now, a group of white flames sprang up and burned.

I frantically stopped the fire from spreading further, and found that Karajan had been quietly watching from the side, and suddenly realized something.

"Referring to your control over magic power, can you retract it freely? For example just now—"

"It's hard to do. Occasionally." He looked at me and said, "A small amount like just now should be fine."

I got into a heated argument with him.But because of the physical exhaustion of the day before, and today's casting and research on the knife, I was extremely tired, and my head couldn't help falling down bit by bit.Karajan probably sensed my difficulty and suggested that I take a rest here.

"But before that, considering the convenience of contact during the holidays," he suggested, "will you make an oath with me?"

He was still sitting, holding the book about magic in his hand, and I lay on my back on the soft grass next to him, the soft grass was blown by the wind, brushing my cheeks from time to time.I held his hand in this position and said a spell, and several rays of light met between our fingers.His butterfly rested on the back of his hand, like a fiery red nymph, very beautiful.My white butterfly disappeared into the air as I withdrew my hand.When it spread its wings, I seemed to see that the tips of its wings were also stained with a similar red.

I half-cover my eyes, and the blue sky leaks through my fingers.I listened to the laughter of the nearby students, and soon fell into a deep sleep under the sun and sky; the last moment I felt was that someone lifted my head slightly and stuffed something soft in my mouth. under the head.

I awoke to find myself on top of the coat that I should have returned to him.He heard my voice, tilted his head, smiled at me and said, "Are you awake?"

I slept less than two hours.Although we both missed lunch, neither of us had the heart to eat it.He ended up saying a few words to me and saying goodbye to me.

"See you in autumn," he told me.

This is the last time I see him this summer.I opened my notebook when I got back to the apartment, only to find long paragraphs of text added to the last page.I immediately turned it to the first page; from the first page to the end of my writing, Karajan has carefully annotated.In his last words, he detailed the new training method, and there is also a passage that says this:

"During the ceremony that night, because of the fire at the end, I missed the best time to start a certain part.

There are three 'nodes' in your thread, so to speak, and each time the magic runs to a node, it stays there briefly, where a small amount of storage is done.Those three knots are like a time bomb, which is fine for you to cast magic, but it will be detonated when the soul of the sword is overdrawn, releasing a large amount of magic power that the caster himself cannot bear, which is difficult to control—it will bring to destroy.I have dissolved the knot on your left wrist during the ceremony.But there are still two places that still exist on your body, and the exact location cannot be confirmed.

But it is only possible to reach the so-called limit of 'excessive overdraft'.Conditions such as extremely large mood swings, physical consumption when dying, etc., may theoretically cause the festival to be detonated.

I was going to say it will never be detonated, but decided to mention it to you anyway.Anyway, I hope it never happens to you. "

I closed the book and released my knife just before bed.Its blade was longer than my arm, and it was sharp.Unlike Coleman's straight Serentian, Charon's shiny blade was wider near the point.Because the sword soul was not being released, the line running through the blade only showed a faint dark golden color, flowing slowly under the light.

According to what Karajan said, he was going back to China during the summer vacation, and there was something waiting for him to deal with; and I accepted Ode's invitation to stay at his house for a summer to study and improve our magic circle.

The carriage sent by his family has a new roof, which is very beautiful.I sat in the wing-drawn carriage with him and watched their wings flutter above the white clouds through the window.

After bumps along the way, we finally came to the seat of his family - Ward.