Ethan stood in the center of the room, the residual chill of the sword-integration still humming in his nerves. "What happened next, Crul? The history—it just stops. Did they reach the pinnacle together?"

The amethyst interface flickered, a somber violet hue washing over the holographic displays. [Compiling the final suppressed logs of the Ancestor’s romantic history, Master. Be prepared. The path of the sword is rarely paved with peace.]

The images flooded Ethan’s mind. He saw Lord Amethyst and the Sword Saint—the woman whose very breath seemed to sharpen the air around her. Lord Amethyst had reached the mid-tier of the absolute peak, while she stood at the very summit. Their rivalry had transformed into a wildfire of passion. For one hundred days and one hundred nights, they trained without rest. Their bodies moved as one, their souls intertwining in a resonance so perfect it defied the laws of cultivation.

With the help of the Amethyst Lineage’s stabilizing power, she did the impossible: she ascended beyond the known limits, reaching a state of existence that hovered above the world.

"They made it," Ethan whispered. "They reached the top."

[They did, Master,] Crul replied, the voice sounding unusually heavy. [But tragedy followed greatness. A woman of her caliber, a being who reached the peak of the sword, could not tolerate sharing her world. Her path was one of absolute destruction of obstacles—she did not negotiate, she did not compromise. She was the blade personified.]

The vision shifted. Ethan saw the moment the illusion shattered. Lord Amethyst’s other wives—the women who had supported him since his humble beginnings—appeared. He had never explicitly lied, but the Sword Saint had believed she was his entire universe. The betrayal she felt was not a mere heartbreak; it was a cosmic fracture.

She went into a transcendental rage, attacking Lord Amethyst with a ferocity that shook the foundations of reality. Lord Amethyst, despite his immense power, was no match for her. She had ascended to a realm beyond Absolute Celestial Unity. Her strikes didn’t just cut flesh; they tore through the fabric of time and space.

Yet, at the moment of the final blow, she couldn’t bring herself to kill the man she loved. She vanished into the void, leaving Lord Amethyst broken and bleeding in the ruins of their paradise.

"Where did she go?" Ethan asked, his heart tight.

[Centuries later, a crater was discovered on a distant, desolate planet,] Crul narrated. [It was a bottomless void that radiated a terrifying Sword Intent. Anyone who gazed into it would instantly gain profound insights into the way of the blade, but they would also feel an overwhelming, soul-crushing sorrow. Rumors spread that it was the Sword Saint’s tomb—that she had committed suicide, unable to bear the pain of her shattered devotion.]

Ethan saw the image of his ancestor, Lord Amethyst, standing at the edge of that crater for decades, his hair turning white, his eyes losing their luster. He had searched for proof, searched for her soul, but he found nothing but the cold echo of her power. He fell into an absolute spiral of depression from which he never recovered, his heart becoming as hollow as the crater she left behind.

Ethan took a deep breath, the steam of the bath long gone, leaving him shivering. The legacy he carried wasn’t just one of power; it was one of monumental loss.

"So that’s the price of the sword," Ethan muttered, clutching his chest. "Absolute conviction leads to absolute loneliness."

[Correct, Master. The Heavenly Sword Pavilion follows her teachings, though they likely only have fragments of her true intent. You must be careful, they will either worship you as a god or hunt you as a demon.]

Ethan looked at his reflection in the mirror, his amethyst eyes harder than before. "I’m not my ancestor. I’m going to find my family, and I’m going to keep them. I won’t end up staring into a crater for eternity."

["I hope you can, Master,"] Crul replied, the violet light of the interface pulsing softly. ["At the very least, perhaps you can vindicate the soul of Lord Amethyst by succeeding where he failed."]

Ethan tightened his grip on the edge of the tub. "That place... that crater. Where is it? Is it on this planet?"

["No. It is in another world, across the stellar sea. It is far beyond your current reach, Master. Do not trouble yourself with it; even with your current growth, the distance is an insurmountable wall."]

"I know," Ethan muttered, staring at the ceiling. "I’d need to be able to move through the void of space. Or... I’d need a Feral. Crul, is it difficult to build a Feral? It looks so small compared to these massive kingdom ships like the White Rhino."

["Hahahaha...!"] Crul’s laughter echoed with a mechanical, mocking edge. ["Ethan, you are truly amusing. You think the Feral is weak because of its size? Those kingdom ships could fire their main cannons at a Feral for a thousand years and they wouldn’t even scratch its hull."]

Ethan sat bolt upright, water splashing. "Seriously?"

["Size is a symptom of inefficiency, Master. These kingdom ships are giant because the materials of this planet are weak. Their hulls cannot contain high densities of spiritual power, so they must spread their runic arrays across a massive surface area. It’s like programming with millions of individual lines of code just to perform one task. A Feral? A Feral is like a high-level function. A single rune on a Feral does the work of ten thousand on these ’giant’ ships. They aren’t even in the same league. The Feral was the ultimate symbol of the Amethyst Realm—the peak of stellar engineering."]

Ethan’s eyes sparkled. "I want to learn that. How can I learn... Runic Engineering?"

["The locals call it the Path of the Inscription Master, but I like your term better. It sounds... industrial. Powerful."]

Crul paused as a series of complex diagrams flickered across the display. ["You need training. A lot of it. I can assist you just as I do in combat—helping you memorize patterns and stabilize your output—but I lack the advanced database. You see, Lord Amethyst had a wife who was a monstrous genius in this field. In fact, the only reason she agreed to marry him was because he provided her with unlimited resources for her experiments. You could call him a ’Sugar Daddy’ who bought her loyalty with wealth. She was the one who created the Ferals, but Lord Amethyst never cared for the blueprints. He only cared for the results. When the Amethyst Realm was destroyed, those master blueprints likely vanished with it."]

Ethan slumped back, disappointed, but Crul continued.

["However, we can start from scratch. You must gather every book, manual, and runic scroll you can find. At this low level, the runes are basic enough that I can help you synthesize and optimize them. Lord Amethyst wasn’t a total stranger to the craft; he just wasn’t a specialist. If you feed me enough data, we can rebuild that lost science together."]

Ethan grinned, a plan forming. "A spy, a swordsman, and now a Runic Engineer. I’m going to be the most expensive ’tool’ the Princess ever bought."

["Precisely, Master. Now, get some sleep. Tomorrow, the Captain begins your ’Mental Conditioning.’ If you can’t survive his psychological pressure, you’ll never survive the drawing of a rune."]