Cerberus Blackborn

Chapter 3

A disappointed look briefly flashed across Circe's face before it was replaced by the usual cheerful look she always had.

Julian handed the bracelet to Circe and the backpack to Cerberus.

"What is this?" asked Circe as she put on the bracelet on her right arm.

"Why don't you input some mana and find out," said Julian with a cheeky look. He knew his daughter well enough to know that she was disappointed by the gift but was because she didn't know that the bracelet had another purpose other than looking pretty.

Circe obeyed and input her mana into the silver bracelet. The silver bracelet glowed with a silver aura and hummed before transforming into a 3-meter long silver whip. On the silver whip were faint rune etchings which blurred and vanished a few seconds after the whip but not fast enough for Cerberus to not know what they were.

He had seen such similar rune etching on one of his father's weapons and when he had asked his father a while back, he had said that they were demon runes.

Demon runes were the written language of demons which every witch and warlock learned while growing up and was one of the requirements for one to be admitted to any of the Academies that housed the supernatural. Cerberus as well as Circe knew basic rune language just as much as any other magical child would however due to Cerberus' great interest in magic, he had asked for more extensive knowledge on runes which his father had been more than happy to provide which resulted in him being more knowledgable in runes as well as other magical subsidies than his peers.

Circe knew this as well but didn't take it heavily to heart as she always knew that her brother was destined for great things. Though sometimes she wished that she could become closer to Cerberus than the way they were but it had been a treacherous and troublesome path just getting this close to him. But despite that she didn't despair and even now as she stared at his cold face, she strengthened her will to get closer to him at the academy no matter what it took.

"So what do you think of my gift Circe. It is a specialized weapon made by the famous blacksmith Mr. Bernad himself and I personally engraved the runes on the weapon myself which means that this whip is a high-quality weapon"

Circe's face continued to light up as Julian continued his description

"But the best part is that because I used an extremely rare artifact in the form of the heart of a nine-headed hydra, the weapon has been engraved with the capability of growth"

The house was suddenly filled with the joyful screams of Circe when she had what her father said. Even Cerberus was slightly surprised. After all growth-type weapons were rare items especially one's of high quality like the one given to Circe.

Growth-type weapons were weapons capable of developing an ego, basically becoming self-aware like a living person. An example of such a weapon was the sword of King Arthur of Camelot which was currently in a museum in England stuck in a rock in a museum. The sword itself could be considered a living creature as it was able to choose who would wield it.

Growth type weapons were quite picky on who could wield them which was what made them even more desirable but in exchange for meeting the requirements of the weapon, the user gained almost unparallel power compared to their peers which was how even an ordinary human like King Arthur become powerful enough to slay dragons and demons, powerful entities even among the supernatural.

Now you might be thinking, if such powerful weapons exist then why didn't everybody have them?

Well …. Because growth-type weapons were extremely powerful, there were some universal laws that imposed restrictions on their existence hence the reason why the weapons imposed incredibly ridiculous requirements for one to wield them.

An example would be the artifacts (Excalibur, Flora's necklace, and Hercules' cape)

Excalibur requires one to be a descendant of the Arthur lineage while also possessing the purest of souls....

Flora's necklace required one to have an almost infinite affinity with nature….

Hercules' cape required one to never be afraid even in the face of death….

These were just some of the growth artifacts in existence and some of their initial requirements. Now one might look at the requirements and assume that they can be easily accomplished but if one was to look deeper, they would understand how extremely difficult they truly were.

For example, take Hercules' cape. The cape required one to never be afraid even in the face of death which might simply be enough but if you look at the underlined phrase 'never' you would understand that the artifacts were essentially asking you to have never experienced fear in your entire life in order to qualify for the artifact. Now let me ask you, who here has never experienced fear. Be it in the form of a nightmare or an actual event, every living thing experiences fear. Even newborn babies show fear when they are born as they are essentially brought into a new unfamiliar world which is also the reason why they cry.

This requirement essentially makes the Hercules' artifact almost impossible

to acquirable.

Of course with such ridiculous requirements it became impossible for people to acquire growth-type weapons however around a hundred years ago, a certain mage managed to find a way to bypass the heavy restrictions of the universal laws. He discovered that it was much easier to create an infant growth type weapon and slowly raise it to maturity rather than trying to acquire an already existing one but even with that little discovery came some difficult conditions that needed to be fulfilled in order for one to create such a weapon

One of those conditions was that the weapon had to be made with a suitable material capable of harnessing the power of an ego/soul which greatly narrowed down the available materials that could be used with each usable material being extremely expensive due to either their great mana conductivity or rarity.

Another condition was that the organs of a mythical beast had to be used in the development process. This was another difficult condition because mythical creatures were extremely strong and just hunting one of them would result in the loss of hundreds of witches and warlocks. Circe's artifact had been made with the heart of a nine headed hydra which was one of the weaker mythical beasts but was difficult to deal with due to its high regeneration capabilities as well as its ability to spit deadly poison. Cerberus couldn't even imagine how many mages, warlocks and witches had died in order to obtain its' hearts.

And the final condition, which was more like a rule, was that the weapon would only show power a few levels higher than the owner and nothing more.

For example, in Circe's case, even with her new artifact she wouldn't be able to fight dragons since her own magical capabilities were extremely weak in comparison to such a mythical beast. Unlike Excalibur's case which granted the owner the strength and power to easily slay a mythical beast.

In short, the created growth type artifact is displayed in correspondence with the user, and hence the weaker the user, the weaker the power of the artifact displayed, and vice versa. So the potential growth of the silver artifact was basically depended on Circe herself.