Alright. Time to return to normal. Maybe not so normal, but what is normal for us.

So first things first. I moved HomeBase. Not near the Hero’s country, but instead near the Narra Kingdom and United States border. It was an ‘incase of an ICBM’ protection.

I made a little spell that could track flying objects. But sadly, it has limited range. So I parked HomeBase in a location where any sort of missile would be caught by the spell, I’d get the alarm, and I can use the Numeron Code’s teleportation and flight to stop the missile before it hits anything.

Second, the adventuring tournament. Since the main qualifiers were already held, the Hero’s country is preparing for the secondary qualifiers. … what? Did you think there would just be one set of qualifiers?

Well, maybe you did since that was the case last year, but in these individual tournaments, they are held in two sets. The primary qualifier is what leads to guilds recommending adventurers to the secondary qualifiers. I took care of that part this time. But there are still the secondary qualifiers, and they will cut down the number of adventurers down to 32, who will take part in the final tournament.

For reference, 128 were approved from the Factory qualifiers.

But now comes my part in all of this. Well, I won’t be doing that much, but different HomeBase employees will.

See, people want entertainment. And what better than seeing people kill other people. … okay, they don’t kill each other, but you get the point.

So, first off. Wendy and the Hero’s country wanted me to edit down the qualifiers of the people who were chosen for the secondary qualifiers. Luckily my monsters and Tahlia already took care of that part. They were already available on the Internet, but we did also plan for public podcasts in the Hero’s country, since having access to the Internet is still rare.

They also want us to film the secondary qualifier fights, edit them down and make them available. So that was our part in this all. I sent them a few dhampirs I hired to be camera operators, and they’ll tell them where to film. They are the best choice as our old dhampir students are properly leveled where they don't easily get injured by missed attacks and such. Sure they are generally only in the 30s or 40s, but still. True Blood Magic is a broken skill and it gives an absolute ton of status points for each level. And they only need to drink blood for sustenance, so they don’t need to worry about lunch breaks.

We will also stream the finals, but we’d be watching them anyway, so that is no problem.

As for our reward for doing all of that. Well, the official reward. In truth, it is something Wendy promised us a while ago, but this way they managed to write it as the ‘cost’ of hiring us.

Wilma and I get to appraise and hold the Demon's Pride and Fall.

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It wasn’t just the two of us. Alice, Lua and Janina, her scale copy, also came along.

Alice was here to release the sword from its eternal crystal. Lua was here to make a new one after we are done. And Janina is here because she wanted to.

The vault where the sword was held was in a hidden treasury of the Adventurer’s guild. Is what they want to tell us, but I know the truth. The hidden treasury is shared between the guild, the Sage’s tower and the Church. All of them have their own path to a section of the vault, and a representative from each is needed to unlock the deepest part, where Demon's Pride and Fall is held.

Wendy had gathered all the people needed to unlock the inner vault, so we just followed her all the way there and were let in. And yes, I appraised everything I saw inside, not just the sword we came here for.

They had some interesting things. Like the robes of both the Saint and the Great Sage. They were really nice, but nothing we couldn’t have made like half a year ago. Even the staves of both the saint and the sage were here, confirming that the one held in the staff in the Church is a replica.

But soon enough we reached our true goal. The Demon's Pride and Fall. A bastard sword with multibar construction, where the core metal was different from the edge metal. The edge seemed to be standard adamantium, which checks out with what the System appraisal results told us. But that core metal was the messy part.

It is a void uranium and orichalcum alloy. And not one that is easy to make. Yes, we can make it, but it is a pain. It has a tendency to explode while alloying it. Or while forging it. Or when basically doing anything with it before it is set into its final shape.

But after you’ve finished shaping it, you have a metal that is amazing at holding huge amounts of mana.

I used Appraisal on the sword, and got mostly the same details as I did from the System record. I got a few new things about construction and so on, as those weren’t written in the Appraisal section of the System records but instead in the physical characteristics records. But still, Appraisal got me nothing I didn’t already know.

Alice then went to work getting the sword out of the Eternal crystal, meanwhile I pulled a card out of Storage. See, the sword has protection. Hero’s Sword. It can only be used by someone holding the ‘Hero’ title or one of the ‘Hero’ race. We don’t have either.

Well, we didn’t until I made a workaround. Dark Job. A simple equip spell that would make the class race of anyone equipped with it whatever I declared when I activated the card. So I declared myself a Hero so that I could hold the sword.

I also used a copy on Wilma, as she also wanted to hold the sword. And after Wendy asked about the card, I also activated one on her. Should have probably made it an AoE card instead of an equip card.

Soon enough Alice had the sword free, and Wendy was the first to hold it. She held it like it was a sacred piece, which admittedly it is. After a bit, she, somewhat reluctantly, handed the sword to Wilma.

Wilma didn’t need to hold it for all too long. She just felt for the balance of the blade, as well as how well it received mana. She then handed it to me for the Storage inspection.

As I held the blade, I quickly felt the +5000 to Strength and Magic. It really is crazy this sword can give those stats to anyone, no matter their level. Well, anyone who is a Hero.

But still, it felt the same as the Factory replica I made using the System info, so I moved onto why I even bothered with this. I took the sword into Storage, which got a quick gasp from Wendy. I know she trusts me, but seeing the sword disappear was still too much for her.

I let Tahlia do her work, and after she told me she was done, with a message that seemed somewhat off as the usually punctual and well spoken Tahlia seemingly rushed the message, I took the sword out and handed it back to Wendy.

She, Lua and Sepher White then moved to seal the sword again.

Meanwhile, I took a look at the Storage analysis, and quickly realized why Tahlia had rushed her message.

What kind of bullshit is this!?

I didn’t want to show anything on my face, so I tried to stay calm, but at least Janina noticed my abnormal mana circulation, which quickened with my heartbeat. Blame my mana circuits for almost perfectly following my circulatory system.

I just took her hand and squeezed with a bit of strength. A bit too much, as I felt Janina’s hand be slightly crushed under mine. I forgot that this is just a scale copy. She can’t take my strength like the real Janina can.

I stayed calm and tried to look interested in everything else, but in my mind, I was making sure I had the person I wanted to yell at ready to be yelled at as soon as I got into the Factory. Or the System parlor. Either is really fine. I just want to call them dumbasses and ask them how they missed something like this!

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After we got out of the vault, I thanked Wendy for the showcase of the sword, promised her that her new sword to replace the temporary one she still had would be ready soon-ish, and teleported us back to HomeBase.

I then took all of my girls who were with me into the Factory.

“Laura.” I called out as soon as we materialized. “Did they come or what?” I asked her, still staying calm. This isn’t her fault, I’m not going to yell at her.

“Tamaki is here.” She confirmed.

“Well, one out of three isn’t terrible. And at least he had the sensibility to be the one.”

I teleported us over to where the Hero’s System Support was, and prepared to call him a moron. But it seems like Laura already told him, as he was already on his knees, ready to apologize.

“I … I swear. We didn’t know. We never could have! You saw the results! Only you could ever have seen that!” He began speaking before I could.

“Yeah, I know that part.” I told him. “You couldn’t see the truth without Storage. Without my Storage. Not with Appraisal, Analysis, Storage or another Unique skill. But it was right there!” I slightly raised my voice for the last part, as I was honestly annoyed at how useless we all are. Not just Tamaki and the rest of the Goddess. This is on me as well.

“... Brian.” Wilma carefully spoke up. “What is wrong?” She asked.

“Gaah. Of course you didn’t notice either.” I said. I quickly produced a Factory replica of Demon's Pride and Fall, without even removing the ‘Hero’ protection it has, as I didn’t need to. Wilma caught it and looked at the sword again.

“Look at the pommel.” I told her.

Wendy did, and as she did, it seemingly began sinking into her. The pommel had a spiral shaped carving, one that had then been inlaid with a dark material. And since the pommel was made of orichalcum, the golden material combined with the dark inlay made an almost identical replica of something we knew all too well.

“Brian… is this really just like the one they had? You didn’t … mess with it, right?” Wilma asked.

“Yeah. That is how it is. How it has always been!” I yelled out, as I felt like punching my head into a wall.

“... can someone fill me in?” Alice asked. “What does that spiral have to do with anything?”

“Can’t you tell what it looks like?” Janina asked, having noticed the similarity.

“... it does kind of look like the back of Brian’s cards, now that you mention it.” Alice realized. “But that could be just a coincidence.”

“... it is literally our makers’ mark, Alice.” I reminded her. “We either carve, stamp or etch that design onto every weapon or tool we make. I just didn’t think about it since we’ve never inlaid it like what was done on Demon's Pride and Fall.”

“... so … you made the sword?” Alice asked.

“Yeah.” I confirmed. “Wilma and I did. And the info is locked so that only the skill Storage, held by the individual Ami Brian Wood can see it. The sword was made by me. And Wilma. And not past us. The current or future us. The makers are Ami Brian Wood and Ami Wilhelmina Wood.”

“How is that possible?” Alice asked.

“I think we’d all really like to find that out.” I told her, as I used Telekinesis to raise Tamaki off of the floor. It isn’t his fault that we are in this mess and he apologized. Sure I didn’t get to yell at the Goddess for being useless, but I think they get the message.

“... Tamaki. Can you please look into time travel for me?” I requested. “How does Time Travel affect this world? Am I going to create a split timeline or something if I travel back in time? Or will we create one if I don’t travel back in time?” I asked. “And contact Ibu as well. I need to see his coin making device. Because I’d put every copy of Blue-Eyes on the fact that it also has the HomeBase mark on it.”

Name: Demon's Pride and Fall Title: The Hero’s Holy SwordLegendary SwordDurability: UnbreakableMana 0/15000 A Hero’s Sword: Can only be used by someone holding the ‘Hero’ title or one of the ‘Hero’ race. {Or its creators, Ami Brian Wood and Ami Wilhelmina Wood.}Strength Up: +5000Magic Up: +5000Penetration 90% - Attacks with this sword ignore 90% of the target's defenses.Against the Odds: When fighting a stronger opponent, you gain +5000 Strength, Defense and Magic.Protector of the System: Grants the following abilities when fighting those who have been declared an enemy of the world.

-  Absolute Penetration - Ignores all of the target's defenses.

-  Absolute Immunity - The Wielder cannot be affected by any skills of their enemy.

-  Unified Power - Strength Up, Magic Up and Against the Odds are applied to your companions.

Description: The legendary sword wielded by the Hero whose name was forgotten by the world. It is said that the name of the sword was given to it by the Hero.

{The sword was made by Ami Brian Wood and Ami Wilhelmina Wood.}

The sword is made from orichalcum, adamantium and void uranium, making it extremely powerful, as well as unbreakable.

The sword can only be wielded by those carrying either the title of Hero, or those with the race of Hero.

The sword will show all of its latent power when facing down an enemy of the world.

{Information in {} may only be appraised by the unique skill Storage held by Ami Brian Wood.}