Daru closed the status window, still breathing heavily.
It only seemed like he wasn't affected by the initial tier of his sword on the surface, but that was only due to the "sealed" state.
Even he would be dejected if the unsealing process turned out to be extremely underwhelming.
Fortunately, his belief that his sword wouldn't fail him came through.
An S-tier sword was already a talent that couldn't be ignored by the Neo-Earth World Government and the Seven Sword Guilds.
Yet, from what he understood, his sword was one that would grant him more strength in combat the longer he wielded it.
Daru was still shaking.
He was on cloud nine, even though his exterior didn't reflect it much.
Only after a whole minute did he recover.
Taking one last deep breath to calm his overly excited heart, Daru resumed hunting monsters, testing his unsealed weapon's might.
Its weight was perfect for him, but what stood out was its underworldly sharpness.
Onimaru Kunitsuna could cut through the bones of the swordspawns without much difficulty.
This allowed him to save a significant amount of stamina in every battle, reducing the frequency of his rests.
He would now be able to hunt more in the limited time he had in the realm.
Still, with no innate sword skill, nothing much has changed except he now knows the true name of his sword and how promising his once-uncertain future was.
The dormant form of Onimaru Kunitsuna's advantages lay in granting him a chance to gain additional physical attributes with every Swordspawn killed and learning sword skills through observation, understanding, and diligent practice.
It would be unwise to simply stand there and keep relishing the glorious moment of the unsealing.
His sword wouldn't give him any free sword skills and attributes; he would still have to work for them.
And so, in the time he had left, Daru continued hunting both regular swordspawns and elites, managing to level up two times while watching and pondering the skills of the Swordspawns he encountered, noticing that it was certainly becoming harder and harder to level up.
But he enjoyed every second of the grind, much more so now that he had a choice to practice and learn sword skills from swordspawns.
Unfortunately, time marched ever forth, and he was inevitably kicked out some time later.
Daru then attended his afternoon classes and continued training for two more hours before calling it a day.
***
Nothing special happened in the next four days.
Daru merely continued attending lecture classes in the morning, followed by a five-hour grind in the Myriad Sword Realm, four hours of swordsmanship training, and the rest of his night studying.
He became more and more NeoNet-savvy the more he accessed it.
Despite the initial fear, he now found the forums quite useful, though it was undeniable that there was a lot of useless crap there as well.
He had outleveled the Fangforge Cavern during this time, moving to the next appropriate location: the Sunblade Savannah—one of the many locations scattered across the Valmaris Continent that would test the mettle of human novices.
It was equally close to the starter cities of Agaron, Botai, and Cameron, allowing the novice bladeborns from all three to finally converge and encounter each other.
The level of Swordspawns in the Savannah ranged from nineteen to thirty-two—the sweet spot for Daru.
He knew he would stay here for quite a while, and in time, other bladeborns would also be here.
He couldn't wait for that lively day to come.
Currently, it was his eighth day in the "server", as people in the forums called the Myriad Sword Realm, and time was about to be up again when, for the first time, he spotted a Swordspawn in the distance with the tag [Field Boss].
It was a rather small creature, only as small as his fallen brother, Bolo Bob, perhaps even a bit tinier in overall size.
It had black fur on the front with a generous portion of white at the back.
Despite the rather unimpressive appearance, it had a menacing, cold gaze, as though it would fight anything and everything that dared challenge it with its steel katana.
Daru looked at the swordspawn's nameplate:
==
[(Field Boss) Havoc the Honey Badger Lv. 25]
HP: 3,500 / 3,500
==
He had the urge to jump in, contemplating challenging it, when, suddenly, the nearby shrubbery rustled.
Another swordspawn then appeared, roaming close to the boss badger.
He was forced to be an observer for now, but he was all for it.
The spawn didn't seem to be the Havoc's underling, given that it was a level 30 [(Elite) Lurker Leopard], similar in appearance to King Carthur's statue, except it didn't have a cape and a crown.
Its weapon was also entirely different from the dungeon boss'—a saber instead of a greatsword.
While Daru was confident of at least surviving the Field Boss, he wasn't dumb enough to challenge two Swordspawns, both of which gapped him quite significantly in levels.
There were cases of different species of monkeys in Monkey Mountain attacking each other as though they were in a turf war.
He couldn't help but think something similar might happen. Maybe he could even play fisherman?
So, instead of leaving, he decided to stay for a while longer, watching from behind the trunk of a young acacia, heart racing in anticipation as the distance between the two shrunk, and shrunk further...
Havoc was seemingly only patrolling its territory.
On the other hand, the Lurker Leopard was passing through, intentions unknown.
Then it happened.
The two Swordspawns suddenly froze, turning to look at each other. Daru's heart raced faster.
Would the two fight?
He wouldn't mind watching…
This would be a prime chance for him to observe their sword skills, and, if useful, he would most definitely try to practice it.
Daru didn't want to learn useless sword skills like the Blader Bunny's straightforward lunge, after all, especially since some skills cannot be stopped once in motion.
Predictable attacks would only be a liability.
Sadly and coincidentally, only his Somersault Slash and King Carthur's [Holy Sword's Descent] proved useful among those he had seen.
It was quite unfortunate that he didn't know how to learn the latter.
He already tried jumping as high as he could and stabbing his sword on the ground, but not a single holy sword emerged.
Daru concluded for now that some skills can be learned and some cannot.
He could only hope that the sword skills of the two Swordspawns in front of him were among those he could obtain with the help of [Divine Comprehension].
Finally, after a brief staredown, Havoc waved his katana furiously as if showing his willingness to clash swords, then charged at the elite.