Lynn shut the door and lifted the silver-violet Black Moon relic from its box.
The belt was a little over a meter long, its silver-white surface traced with elegant, deep-violet patterns.
At its center was a silver buckle, slightly darker than the belt itself, decorated with the same violet lines, and in its middle gleamed a jet-black crescent moon.
The material was supple yet not at all like cloth, its texture closer to some kind of flexible metal.
Looking carefully, Lynn finally spotted, on the inside of the belt and nearly invisible, a line of writing imbued with strange power: the characters of the Black Moon.
To an ordinary wizard, the text would be indecipherable gibberish.
But with the aid of his Insight gift, Lynn concentrated on it for a moment and understood its meaning:
"Fourth-Generation Purple Swallow Combat Robe."
So… a component of some kind of advanced battle robe?
From Daphne, Lynn had gradually learned bits and pieces about the Black Moon Academy and its relics.
Though the academy had fallen more than ten thousand years ago, its creations had not become obsolete. In many respects, they remained ahead of the current age, at least within the territory ruled by the Silver Ring Academy.
Because of the Black Moon Academy's extreme isolationist policies, their constructs were all designed with intricate security measures, bound to the mysterious Black Moon script. According to Daphne, just as no one had ever deciphered the script itself, no one had ever broken those safeguards either.
Not every artifact bore such protections, but anything worthy of being called a Black Moon Relic certainly did.
So after inspecting the belt, Lynn did not attempt to dismantle it. Instead, he entered the deep sense state of his Black Moon Physique.
The ordinary sense state meant releasing the Physique's innate perception. The deep sense state meant doing so while simultaneously maintaining the peculiar mental frequency Daphne had once taught him.
That unique and complex wave made his Black Moon perception undergo subtle changes, sharper, more hidden.
Sometimes, Lynn even felt that with this mental frequency, the Black Moon Physique was at last in its complete form.
But whether that was true, he had no way of knowing.
It was the price of having given up the Black Moon Tower Spirit. Yet Lynn felt no regret.
He drew a steady breath and reached for the belt.
With the flow of magic, the masterless relic stirred to life.
The usual next step was simple: mark it with a spiritual brand, as the Association had discovered, and claim control.
But Lynn did not follow convention.
Instead, he focused on the ripple of spirit within the belt on that same sense of control he had once felt from Daphne's relics.
This time, he did not suppress it. He followed the thread and seized it.
Hum
A strange transformation occurred.
The black crescent moon on the buckle suddenly expanded, spreading into the full round of a midnight moon.
As though guided by instinct, Lynn fastened the belt at his waist. The strap extended and tightened of its own accord, adjusting perfectly to his size.
At the same time, a message poured into his mind:
**"Fourth-Generation Purple Swallow Combat Robe: maximum authority unlocked. Welcome, Black Moon Saint-Son.
Warning: Missing components detected. Functions severely compromised…"**
The message wasn't long, but the weight it carried left Lynn utterly speechless.
Black Moon Saint-Son… maximum authority… Could this be because of the Black Moon Physique?
The tower spirit had once said that the Black Moon Physique was the most important secret art of the Black Moon Academy.
Lynn had assumed its importance lay in being the pinnacle of body–soul balance techniques.
But now, it was clear the tower spirit had withheld something. The Black Moon Physique still held secrets he had not been told.
Including the power to control Black Moon relics.
After a moment's thought, Lynn followed the guidance transmitted from the Purple Swallow Belt and activated it.
A faint glow flashed across the belt.
At once, he felt lighter, as though walking on the moon.
Just as the White Robe had described, the belt reduced his body weight, greatly increasing his speed in flight or evasive maneuvers.
But now, with maximum authority, Lynn realized the Purple Swallow Belt's ability went far beyond that!
With a mere thought, his body lifted into the air and then dropped swiftly back down.
The belt could freely adjust the degree of weight reduction, and even increase his weight when needed!
What's more, with full authority, Lynn could now perceive the complete structure of the artifact.
He quickly understood: this belt was the core hub of the Purple Swallow Combat Robe.
Its seemingly extraneous parts were actually connectors meant to link to other components of the robe.
The belt even possessed a function to sense and summon its missing pieces, but perhaps because they were too far away, Lynn felt nothing from them.
He removed the belt, pondered for a moment, then shut off the Black Moon Physique's sensing.
This time, he tried the common method known among the Association for handling relics.
Moments later, the Purple Swallow Belt activated again.
When he fastened it around his waist, it no longer adjusted itself automatically; he had to secure it manually.
The weight-reduction ability was also fixed at a constant value, unable to be adjusted.
Lynn faintly realized this mainstream method wasn't the true way of wielding a Black Moon relic… it was more like exploiting a loophole.
Compared to the airtight secrecy woven into its design, Black Moon relics seemed to have surprisingly lax protections regarding basic use rights.
In fact, some relics had no threshold at all, and an ordinary wizard could simply pick one up and use it.
The true safeguards lay in the secrecy mechanisms and the mysterious maximum authority he had just unlocked.
These weren't ordinary enchantments. They seemed to be the fundamental logic of Black Moon creations.
They existed outside the framework of all knowledge Lynn had encountered so far, unrelated even to spell formations.
They were built entirely upon the Black Moon script and tied inextricably to the Black Moon Physique.
In truth, both the Physique and these relics were bound to that enigmatic language.
Over the next few days, Lynn continued experimenting with the Purple Swallow Belt, but gained nothing further.
Meanwhile, he waited for a message from Daphne.
But the ever-persistent Nelson, who had always found excuses to bother her, suddenly vanished. He did not approach Daphne even once during this time.
Two more days passed, and the time for his compulsory mission arrived. Lynn set aside the belt and prepared to head out.
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