Cultivation Through Artifacts

Khal followed Noelle through the silver door and soon found himself inside a huge open space, filled with hundreds if not thousands of cases, each with a different size and shape.

"Welcome to the Treasury Room. Here only the staff or people with a Golden Card such as yourself are allowed to enter." explained Noelle as she turned around to face Khal, "You can go and look around freely, and if you found an item to your liking, you can use that card to trade for it."

"I see, thank you." smiled Khal and began to walk but then as he realized something suddenly stopped and asked, "Can you please show me where can I find long-range weapons?"

"Sure, please follow me." nodded Noelle and brought Khal to a section in the far right back of the room.

"Here we are. However, because long-range weapons are not so popular among Cultivators as they prefer swords and daggers more, we only have a few in our stock. I hope this won't be a problem for you."

Khal shook his head and was about to say no, but suddenly a voice sounded in his mind, cutting his voice off.

[Notify! 'Ember Core' has been found!]

"Eh? An Ember Core? Which one?" Khal immediately began to scan the cases before him, but as he couldn't tell which one had the Ember Core by a single glance he had to do something else.

Just like the first time he obtained his Devil Fangs, Khal activated his Magnetism ability manually and watched keenly which weapon was about to move.

And just as he thought, one of the cases in the rear began to shake gently, causing Khal's mouth to curve into a slight smile.

"What Tier is this weapon?" asked Khal as he walked next to the case, surprising Noelle a bit as he didn't glance at the rest but chose to ask about that weapon right from the start.

"Umm... That weapon is called the Soul Piercer, a quite hard to use but powerful bow that was crafted by a 7 Star Blacksmith. If I am right, it was crafted from Fox Steel and it reached the Legendary Tier."

"Legendary Tier?" exclaimed Khal with shock, as he wouldn't have expected that it will be a High-quality weapon.

"Yes, it is, but once again, it's a weapon that is extremely hard to use. Once a man tried to use it, but failed to even pull its string."

"And where are the arrows? I can only see the bow itself but no arrows," asked Khal as he inspected the weapon in the half-transparent case.

The bow was dark red in color and had complex engravings etched into its surface akin to ancient markings. Its string was long but thin, made of orange-red fur with steel trimmings that had a blood-red hue.

"There are indeed no arrows for this item as this weapon does not require one."

"Huh? What do you mean it does not require one?" asked Khal, seemingly confused by that statement.

How could a bow not require an arrow? What was the logic behind something like that? It was almost like saying a sword's hilt didn't require a blade or a car didn't need wheels! It was complete nonsense!

Noelle understood Khal's suspicion clearly thus began to explain quickly, "As I said, the bow was crafted from a very rare metal called the Fox Steel. I wonder if you ever heard about such steel before."

"Yes, I did." nodded Khal as he could remember Bazz once mention Fox Steel when he taught him about different kinds of metals.

Fox Steel was an extremely rare and hard to forge metal that was capable of consuming the Soul of the dead and seal it inside of itself.

"Well, then I hope you also know that through your Essence, the sealed Souls can be extracted from the Fox Steel and shape it at will. Of course, the process is extremely hard and dangerous, but once mastered, it can be a lethal weapon."

"Dangerous? Why?" asked Khal as he didn't understand why would a shaped Soul be dangerous. In his opinion, it wasn't hazardous at all as souls couldn't kill, right?

However, Noelle just smiled upon that innocent question of his and asked, "Why do you think the weapon was given the title of Soul Piercer and not something else?"

When Khal heard this he realized something and his eyes widened, "You mean, the extracted soul's can... Kill?"

"Exactly." nodded Noelle but then proceeded on saying, "However, because it's hard to extract much less shape the soul from the Fox Steel, if you fail to control it and it accidentally touches your body... You can be considered as dead."

'...'

Khal remained silent and shifted his gaze at the weapon. After a moment of silence, ha glanced at Noelle once again and gave her his card, "I want it."

"What? Are you sure? I just told you it is extremely hard to use and if y-"

"I decided already. Also, you said you need Essence to shape and control the soul, right?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"Then you don't need to worry, I will be perfectly fine," said Khal and after giving the golden card to Noelle he picked the case up and walked toward the exit.

On the other hand, Noelle just stood in one place like a complete idiot, unknown how she should process all the things that happened.

Only after several minutes later did she glance at the card in her hands and frown, "Does he have a death wish? That bow... Not even a Cultivator on the Eighth Stage was able to use that properly, how does he wish to use it then?"

Among great worry and regret that she was unable to stop Khal from choosing that weapon, Noelle put the card away and sighed.

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After getting his new weapon, the Soul Piercer, Khal decided to go back to Blade Mountain and try it before doing anything else.

Opening the space crack and stepping through it, Khal walked inside the cave and put the case inside his hand down.

"Let's see..." opening the case's lid, Khal took out the bow and held it in his grasp.

"Not heavy nor too light, it has a perfect weight," exclaimed Khal and put his fingers on the string attempting to pull it, but found himself unable to do so.

"It's really stiff. Almost like it's not a string but a rod." thought Khal and channeled a bit of his Essence into the weapon.

Immediately after he did, the string loosened a bit but was still as stiff as a rock.

"So I need to channel Essence to be able to pull the string back, huh?" thus Khal poured more Essence into the bow, almost half of his 820 units of Body Essence, and immediately after that he was able to pull the quiver back.

But what made Khal surprised was that even after pouring close to 410 units of Essence inside the bow, he was able to pull the string back only an inch!

An inch and no more at all! It didn't even budge no matter how hard Khal tried to move it, causing Khal's complexion to turn into shock.

"Just how should a normal Cultivator use this weapon?" thought Khal as he knew that normal Cultivators didn't have 410 units of Essence much less 100!

Thus, this weapon was simply a great joke for normal Cultivators, right? A weapon that was created just to watch and collect dust without the chance to use.

"Well, maybe things will change once I break it." thought Khal and summoned his Devil Fangs.

"To obtain an Ember Core one first needs to destroy the Vessel right? Then I will slice this thing up and obtain it's Core!" without hesitation, Khal swung his weapon, its edge already covered in silver light.

BOOM!