"You're back."

The Fragment narrowed his eyes at Kyle as he entered the room.

"It hasn't been two months yet. Your cloak and boots haven't worn out, either."

"There's no point in killing and eating any more of them."

Striding into the room, Kyle tossed off his cloak and carelessly kicked off his boots. Then, with the air of someone following a familiar routine, he raised both hands and requested,

"Meat, a bathtub, fresh clothes."

The rewards appeared as requested. Kyle stripped off his shirt as well and plopped down on the floor. Drool trickled from his mouth at the sight of a dozen or so plates piled with enormous hunks of meat. The Fragment shook his head with a disbelieving laugh.

"Are you really a young nobleman of House Alastor?"

"Anyone would end up like me after being cooped up here for four years, noble or not."

Utterly unashamed, Kyle reached barehanded for the bone jutting from a hunk of meat. The Fragment heaved a sigh and pressed a hand to his forehead.

"At least wash your hands before you eat."

"Hmm. True, I'll be leaving now, so I should correct the habits I've picked up here."

Nodding, Kyle got up and thoroughly washed his hands under the bathtub faucet.

"Four years..."

To a being like the Fragment, anything less than a decade scarcely registered as time passing. These past four years, however, were an exception.

It had been five hundred years since he took up residence in the Sword Tower. For most of that long span, he had merely existed. But the last four years... They had been busy, exasperating, and full of one surprise after another.

"You've grown so much."

The Fragment murmured as he gazed at Kyle. The boy tearing into an enormous hunk of meat with his bare hands had grown by leaps and bounds over the last four years. He now stood on the threshold between boyhood and manhood.

In truth, only his face still looked youthful. His body already belonged to a young man. He stood over 180 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders and a frame packed with muscle, without a scrap of excess fat. Those supple yet solid muscles looked as though even a blade would fail to pierce them.

Indeed, nothing short of an exceptional sword would be able to leave so much as a scratch on Kyle's flesh. That was only natural, considering he had built that body by eating residue and byproducts for four years.

"..."

His physique alone radiated the danger of a wild beast one dared not provoke, yet his eyes were utterly calm and still. The Fragment quietly studied the golden eyes beneath his tousled red hair.

'Hmm...!'

Calm, still, and unfathomably deep. Four years in the Mudflats had instilled the abyss of the deep sea in Kyle's eyes. From one perspective, they were as brilliant as gold; from another, they possessed the nature of chaos, with all manner of things mingled together. Looking into them, the Fragment could only swallow hard.

'He's already leaving humanity behind...'

Considering how much residue and how many byproducts he had eaten, such a transformation was only natural. Yet the fact that he had achieved so much in a mere four years sent a chill through the Fragment. Even among the adult Alastors who had experienced the higher levels, very few had strayed that far beyond human standards.

At only fifteen, the boy had crossed humanity's limits of his own volition. The Fragment could no longer call Kyle a little boy.

"Why are you staring so hard? Don't tell me you've fallen for me."

Kyle grinned around his mouthful of meat and cracked a joke. His voice had changed over the past four years, but his shameless manner of speaking had not.

"Don't say such revolting things."

The Fragment clicked his tongue and shook his head. Kyle wasn't the only one who had changed.

At some point, Jormungand had materialized. Born a lightning spirit, he was no longer one, but a spirit unique to Kyle. Wreathed in murky violet, he was swallowing a hunk of meat whole.

Spirits ate mana, not food. Their forms reflected the nature of their elements; they could not take on physical substance like living creatures.

That was how things were supposed to work, yet this spirit had materialized and was chewing meat as though it were perfectly natural... To the Fragment, that spirit was every bit as astonishing as Kyle.

"If there's no point in killing and eating any more... then your body's development must be complete. Are you leaving now?"

"Have you finished the cultivation method?"

"I finished it long ago. I simply didn't give it to you because you weren't ready."

"No wonder your desk has been empty since my last visit. Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked."

With a chuckle, the Fragment raised a finger. A fist-sized crystal orb dropped out of thin air.

"What's that?"

"The cultivation method."

"It doesn't look like a book."

"It's too abstruse to set down in writing. So I stored only its principles."

The Fragment pushed the crystal orb resting on his palm toward Kyle. It floated over and stopped in front of him.

"A cultivation method solely for you, the like of which has never existed in this world and will never be created again."

"What's it called?"

"I haven't chosen a name. Name it yourself."

"Hmm. I originally called mine the Primordial Chaos Circulation Method. I'd rather not use the same name... I'll take a look before I decide. How do I learn it?"

"Pour your mana into the crystal orb," the Fragment said.

"The orb will respond naturally and guide your mana back into your body. The principles of the method engraved within it will then be imprinted on you, and you will gradually come to understand them."

"So I can't master it as soon as I begin?"

"I've completed the method, but mastering it depends on you. If your standard for 'mastery' is exceedingly low, you might understand and master it the moment it's imprinted on you."

"Then I won't be mastering it right away."

Smiling, Kyle took the crystal orb in both hands.

"Even I don't know how high I've set the bar. And as I go through life, it might keep getting higher and higher."

The instant he poured mana into the crystal orb, brilliant light burst from within it.

There was "information" in the light piercing his eyes. The nature of mana, the laws of circulation, the fusion and separation of elements. Principles for governing the world's many kinds of mana flooded Kyle's mind.

It was a truth that made no distinction between mages and martial artists, far too vast and abstruse for a human to absorb and embody. Wingless humans could neither understand how to move wings to fly nor know what it felt like. The information the crystal orb conveyed belonged to that same category.

But Kyle understood. Mana of every nature already dwelled within his spiritual root, and he had been certain that his intricately interwoven, interconnected circuits would allow him to guide that mana harmoniously through his body and create a cosmos.

He stared into the light without blinking once.

Mana flowed out of the crystal orb and into Kyle's hands. It raced through the malformed circuits he had spent four years forcibly expanding and connecting.

There were no blockages. No breaks. Kyle's countless circuits were all connected, forming a single path. As the mana flowed and circulated along it, each full cycle took a different route and direction.

'This is...'

Kyle's eyes quivered.

'The path of the sword.'

He closed his trembling eyes. Hundreds of lines traced themselves through the darkness. Thrusting, slashing, blocking, deflecting, countering. Every trajectory of flowing mana felt like a path of the sword.

The force resting in his energy center before surging outward explosively was the drawing of a sword. Flowing gracefully through his circuits, it rose to his middle energy center in an upward slash, fell in a downward cut, then veered sideways into a thrust. Finally, it returned to his lower energy center, where the mana condensed and the sword was sheathed.

"Ah..."

An exclamation of wonder escaped Kyle's lips. This was delightful. The method wasn't merely a technique for accumulating mana. The very act of manipulating mana was synchronized with wielding a sword.

If he moved mana as naturally as breathing, he could wield a sword just as naturally. Dark violet aura blossomed from Kyle's body.

Every element mingled within it, yet it was bound to none. Because it contained everything, it could become anything, its inherent harmony forming a world, a cosmos.

That chaos circulated through Kyle's body.

CRUMBLE!

The crystal orb collapsed into powder.

Kyle slowly opened his eyes. Deep within their golden depths, the thousands of newly imprinted paths of the sword shone like stars.

"Well?" the Fragment asked expectantly. "Do you like it?"

"..."

Rather than answer immediately, Kyle looked down at his hands. He felt sword aura dwelling in each fingertip. A thrill coursed through him, as though his very being had been reborn as a single sword.

"This is a sword art as well as a cultivation method."

The Fragment's eyes wavered at his answer. He had designed it with that in mind, but to think Kyle would grasp it the moment he began.

"I thought you were something like a mage. But you're well versed in the sword, too."

"You're an absurd fellow..."

The Fragment shook his head with a disbelieving laugh.

"To think you'd see through its subtleties the moment you began..."

"I definitely can't call it the Primordial Chaos Circulation Method."

Chuckling, Kyle let the remaining powder fall from his hands.

"Since everything mingles to form a single sword, I'll call it the Primordial Unity Sword Scripture."

With that, he rose to his feet.

"How about a spar?"

"I'm not a swordsman. Nor do I want to be one."

The Fragment's face twisted.

"I'm not versed in sword arts because I'm a swordsman myself. My original self took considerable interest in swords... and the Sword Tower, where I've spent five hundred years, was full of sword-crazed lunatics. I've never wielded a sword as a swordsman myself."

"So you know the theory inside out. Doesn't that mean you might be pretty good with a sword?"

"Say what you like. I have no intention of taking up a sword. Swords are tiresome, accursed things."

"But you made a cultivation method for me."

"That was to fulfill our bargain."

After such a firm refusal, Kyle couldn't very well keep pestering him. Swallowing his disappointment, he picked up his wooden sword.

Lucia had given it to him four years ago. It had served him well without breaking, but it was finally reaching its limit. Kyle quietly studied the wooden sword, which looked ready to snap at any moment.

'This will probably be the last time.'

Kyle slowly activated the Primordial Unity Sword Scripture and swung the sword. Sword aura formed in an instant, tracing a path through the air. The Fragment narrowed his eyes as he watched the impromptu sword dance.

Kyle's insight into the method's subtleties was astonishing, and so was the sword dance unfolding before him. Even if it had been imprinted through the crystal orb, this was still a cultivation method he had only just learned. Yet he was performing the method and the sword art together as though he had known them since birth.

The flowing sword dance came to an end.

CRACK!

Already at its limit, the wooden sword reached the end of its life with that final dance. Kyle briefly mourned the broken weapon.

"You asked me to grant you a favor in exchange for completing the method. What is it?"

"I told you then. I'd tell you when I judged you ready."

"So I'm still not ready?"

"Correct."

"Just how enormous a favor are you planning to ask?"

Kyle chuckled and approached the bathtub. He had eaten and received his cultivation method; now it was time to bathe. As he sank into the hot water and relaxed, Jorm shrank to the length of his forearm and wriggled into the tub as well.

"Why not bathe after you leave?"

"There's still one more thing I need to do out there. I'll check it out before I leave."

["Eek?!"]

Jorm, who had been splashing his tail in the warm water, turned toward Kyle in horror.

["M-Master, weren't we leaving right away?!"]

"I said we'd return to the room. I never said we'd leave."

["Why? Why?! What else are you going to do out there?!"]

"There's something I'm curious about."

Jorm shuddered at the reply. From his seat on the sofa, the Fragment also stared at Kyle in puzzlement.

"What are you curious about?"

"The end of the Mudflats."

"The end...? I told you before. There's no point in going to the end of the Mudflats as you are now. You aren't ready for the next level."

The end of the Mudflats connected to the seventh level of the Floor of Asceticism, but Kyle had never been there. He hadn't felt any particular need to move on, nor was he ready to maintain an aura shield all day long.

"I'm curious about the opposite end."

The Fragment's expression hardened at Kyle's answer.

"At the outer end of the Mudflats, a giant hand scoops up the sea to create the incoming tide. Then what's at the inner end?"

"..."

"I'm curious how far the sea flows in from outside. What's at the end of it. So..."

"So you want to see it with your own eyes?"

"Yes."

"Don't."

The Fragment heaved a sigh and pressed a hand to his head.

"If you're truly determined to force your way to the inner end, then I'll be just as determined to stop you by force."

"Even if I'm only going to look?"

"There's nothing there. No... there is something. But you can never reach it."

"Why?"

"Because an artificial infinity operates within. Even if you ran with all your strength, you'd never reach the inner end. If you truly wished to get there, you'd have to overcome infinity. But you cannot do that now."

It was a cryptic answer. When Kyle tilted his head, the Fragment sighed again and elaborated.

"Just as the incoming sea cannot reach the inner end, neither can you. If you try to force your way there... you could end up drifting endlessly in the midst of infinity."

"What happens then?"

"You'd live endlessly within infinity, never aging, never dying. Even if someone outside observed its interior, there would be nothing but infinity wherever they looked. You would have to escape on your own."

"Then I could keep swinging my sword forever, without aging or dying."

Kyle cupped water in both hands and squirted it at Jorm. At that deranged answer, the Fragment's jaw dropped.

"You... crazy bastard. What's the point of spending your entire life swinging a sword with no one to fight?"

"Wouldn't it be fairly enjoyable to focus purely on the sword, all alone, without an opponent? And after swinging it long enough, I might be able to escape on my own."

"Crazy bastard...!"

"That's the first time I've heard you call me a bastard instead of a fellow."

"If you try to force your way inside...! I will stop you, and I mean it. If you end up adrift in infinity, you won't be able to keep your promise to me!"

"By stop me, you mean subdue me, right? With a sword?"

At that guileless question, the Fragment finally lost patience. He leaped to his feet, strode over, and dealt Kyle a heavy blow to the head.

"All right, all right. I won't go, so don't get angry."

"Huff... huff..."

"I was curious about what's inside, so I thought I'd take a look. But after all that, I suppose I can't go right now. Besides, I'm more curious about what's outside."

Kyle rubbed his aching head and smacked his lips regretfully.

After finishing his bath and changing into fresh clothes, Kyle didn't leave immediately. Instead, he sat in the room for a while, thinking.

"What are you doing? Why aren't you leaving?"

"It feels wrong to return empty-handed after four years. I want to bring some presents."

"Hmm. I don't understand human emotions very well... but I imagine your family would consider your return in one piece a gift in itself."

"I'm sure they would. But wouldn't they be even prouder if their precious gift of a son and grandson came back with actual presents?"

In particular, he needed to make up for four years' worth of lost favor with Julius. From now on, he would have to concentrate on building up the internal energy in his energy center.

"And this served me well here, too. I want to repay her."

Kyle spoke as he looked at the fragments of the broken wooden sword.