"Figure it out yourself, huh..." Aiden muttered, his gaze alternating between the Death Scythe lying beside him and the Ethereal Zephyrix napping on his aurora.
Not wanting to confront his thoughts right now, Aiden picked up the Scythe and performed some basic slashes and thrusts with it.
For a few minutes, he shadow practiced with it in different ways.
Trying to wield it like A spear, A sword, A greatsword, and any other weapon's basics his father had taught him.
But within half an hour of swinging it around, Aiden realized something that he had felt in the last moments against the bear when he thrusted the weapon into it, too.
"It is... abysmal of a weapon. I'd be better fighting bare-handed than this."
He held the Death Scythe with his arm held out to his front, his eyes going over its entire length in disappointment.
His breath was ragged, his chest heaving up and down slowly, yet his gaze was fixed on the so-called weapon that his possession transformed into.
The Scythe had so many things wrong with it that a weapon needed to have to be even considered a weapon.
I bet Father would have died laughing if he saw this as the weapon I manifested.
"It's unbalanced. The blade is facing inward, making it useless for slashing away enemies unless I want to pull them closer, which is the last thing I want to do. And thrusting? With a curved tip facing me?"
Aiden sighed, letting the snath of the scythe slide through his palm until the blade rested on the dirt.
"It's a farming tool. A glorified gardening instrument. That's what it is."
He was genuinely frustrated. All of the techniques he had learned prioritized keeping yourself safe while dealing with the opponent.
Scythe didn't do any of those. If he had to attack an opponent with it, he'd have to hook them closer to him, exposing himself in the process.
"Arghhh..."
Aiden scratched his hair in annoyance, feeling hopeless.
Harbinger of Death might become Harbinger of his Death, if he didn't figure out any other way.
Sighing, Aiden decided to perform exercises while keeping his mind occupied with finding a solution.
He started with push-ups, doing as many as he physically could.
'Char, can I change the weapon I manifested? Like manifest it into something else?'
[...No. It manifests into a weapon that fits the wielder's soul the best according to their truest desire. After it manifests, it is immutable in its identity.]
Aiden pushed himself harder, his hands trembling as he neared the point of failure in his push-ups.
[You are stuck with Scythe, Host.]
Aiden let out a groan, pushing his limits further. His chest burned as his body moved at a snail's pace, but he was certainly coming up.
His mind was diverting some of its focus to maintain his form properly, but he paid attention to Char's words.
[However...]
'However...?' Aiden's ear perked up at that word, making him lose control of his position.
[However, the weapon is immutable in its identity. It will remain a Scythe, no matter what, but it is ultimately constructed from your Mana and the energy of the Legacy. If you can force the Mana structure, you might be able to change the trajectory of the blade.]
"Haaa..."
With a grunt, Aiden collapsed face down, not being able to complete the last repetition.
He rolled onto his back, tired, and stared at the misty, foggy sky with his mind racing.
'Change the trajectory of the blade, huh...'
Aiden got up and threw the Scythe onto a nearby tree using its snath as a makeshift hanging bar to perform pull-ups on.
'If I could turn the blade vertically to align with the snath, it'd resemble a War Scythe. A Glaive, sort of?'
The moment Aiden grabbed the Snath, the instability of it not being a supported beam was glaringly prominent; even so, it didn't matter.
The notion of transforming the Death Scythe into something viable for combat was what his mind truly focused on.
'...That might work. If I can get the blade to align with the haft, it'd improve its utility by miles. Not the best, but still way better than a farmer's tool.'
"Hnggghh!"
Grunting, Aiden muscled his way up the Scythe's snath and sat in a squatting position on it at the top, balancing himself and analyzing the Harbinger of Death's tang.
The Crimson Blade was attached to the obsidian handle directly, without any tang.
He couldn't simply remove the blade and reattach it in another way.
He couldn't bend it as well with force. Whatever the metal or magical substance it was made of, he had felt it firsthand how brutally fantabulous its quality was.
It sliced through the Serpent's metallic tough scales with ease.
It cut the crystallized pine trees like butter.
It got embedded into the Bear's jaw without any problems, despite being worse for thrusting than a sharp stone.
It was of the utmost quality, wasted on being a Scythe.
A Scythe of all things.
'Then only Mana training would get me anywhere, huh...'
The thought passed through Aiden's mind, taking his gaze towards the Sleeping Radiantly Ethereal Ice Phoenix, Zephy.
'Guess I am stuck with this Scythe for some time then.'
"Huoo!"
Aiden jumped off the "makeshift bar" of Scythe's snath with a thud.
Snow crystals flew away from where he landed, the exposed soil dampening beneath.
"I guess I can't do anything about it right now."
With a jerk, Aiden pulled the Scythe out of the crystallized trunk.
He twirled it in his hands, feeling its anatomy and weight distribution again.
It was top-heavy and borderline unwieldy, making it difficult to be useful in an actual fight that lasted even a few minutes.
"And this thing is supposed to be great at reaping souls, huh?" With a chuckle, Aiden scoffed.
He wrapped his hands around the snath and began moving his feet. It was a sufficient weight to provide some resistance, assisting with his footwork and agility.
Attempting to swing it again, Aiden planted his right foot firmly in front of him, and, rotating partially with his hips, chaining his entire body, generated enough force to slice cleanly through two trees at once.
Thud-!
"...It's sharp. I'll give it that much, at least. Getting struck even once would be lethal for most creatures, I feel."
Looking at the edge of the Blade, Aiden murmured in reluctant awe. Despite all of its downsides, it had one upside.
An extremely lethal advantage.
He ran one of his fingers on the blade of the Scythe, and despite it being his possession, he could feel the blade trying its utmost to slice apart his digit, but failing to do so.
Gripping the snath once more, Aiden practiced some of his footwork and techniques till he couldn't anymore.
"Haah... Haah..."
Gasping a cloud of frost smoke and a drop of sweat frozen on his brow, Aiden rested the Scythe down on the ground as his gaze fell back onto the grotesque, charred body of the Glacial Bear.
Despite being electrocuted and burned, with quills embedded in its body, a broken jaw, and no eyes, its horn was still emanating a non-negligible amount of light.
And with the night almost up, that light...
"It could act as a torch."
With that thought, Aiden moved to harvest the horn, suppressing his will to gag at the horrifying carcass of the Glacial Bear.
'...I'll need to do something about these bodies.'
Slicing apart the "torch" in one clean swing, Aiden cut the serpent's meat to cook for dinner before making his way towards the cave.
...Not bothering to interrupt the slumber of the Ice Phoenix, because it benefitted him if he stayed in that form.
At least, till he figured out a way to dispose of the carcasses of the beasts.
***********