Inside the orbital, Tom and Kael were already waiting.

The interior was lavish in the way only an Ascender’s private vessel could be. Kael stood with his arms crossed near the window, his expression as composed as ever.

Tom, on the other hand, looked like he was about to burst.

The moment the door slid open and Moon stepped through, Tom moved with surprising speed for a man his apparent age.

He grabbed Moon and pulled him into a crushing hug.

"Moon! My boy! My absolute beautiful talented boy!"

Moon’s arms were pinned to his sides. The hug was tight enough to compress his ribs.

"Tom. I... I can’t breathe."

"Bah! Nonsense! Breathing is for the weak!" Tom held him for a full second longer just to make a point, then released him with a hearty laugh.

He stepped back and clapped both of Moon’s shoulders. "Look at you! Look at this face! That little scar suits you, by the way. Very rugged. Women love a man with a scar."

Selene coughed politely behind Moon.

"Speaking of which." Tom turned to Selene and Yara, his smile widening. "Young lady! Congratulations on your third place. And this lovely young lady must be Yara. Welcome, welcome!"

He gestured broadly toward the interior of the orbital.

"Sit! All of you, sit! We have things to discuss, and more importantly, we have things to celebrate."

The four of them settled into the comfortable seating around a luxurious table filled with all kinds of pastries and exotic fruits.

Kael nodded at Moon and Selene as they sat, exchanging brief pleasantries. Tom himself remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back, practically bouncing on his heels.

"Now." Tom’s eyes sparkled. He turned toward the orbital’s interior corridor and snapped his fingers. "Bring it!"

A subordinate appeared from the back of the orbital, pushing a wheeled display trolley draped in deep red velvet.

The cloth was elegant, those used in museums or high-end auction houses to reveal powerful artifacts. The subordinate stopped the trolley beside Moon and stepped back calmly..

Tom waited a beat for the suspense to build in their faces, then grinned.

"This." He gestured grandly. "Is a gift for your performance today. Consider it both a reward and an investment in your continued ridiculous success."

He gripped the velvet cloth and pulled it off with a flourish.

Beneath it sat a weapon.

A sword.

It rested on a polished stand, its blade gleaming under the orbital’s interior lighting. The metal had a deep, almost black sheen to it. Powerful runes were etched along its length adding to its power.

The hilt was wrapped in dark leather, and the pommel bore a small spirit crystal.

Moon stared at it for a long moment.

His current sword was a decent one.

Solid, reliable, and a little broken during the fight with the pavilion spirit.

This was something else entirely.

Tom’s grin widened as he watched Moon’s reaction.

"That’s right. A Second Order, B-Rank sword. Forged by Master Veylin himself, one of the best smiths in the kingdom. Took him a a month to complete from planning its design, gathering the resources and forging it. I commissioned it as a backup for one of my own projects, but the moment I saw you fighting today, I knew exactly who it belonged to."

He pointed at the blade.

"The runes etched into the metal allow it to channel elemental mana from the wielder. The design allows it to conduct any element without the need for an elemental core of that specific element.

It’s a new advancement in blacksmithing, that Master Veylin himself managed to create himself, just recently!"

Moon’s eyes widened in shock, he had been looking for staff or sword that could allow him to conduct his lightning element, but it was almost impossible to find. Lightning cores were incredibly hard to acquire, not to mention a second order lightning core.

This sword had solved that problem for him completely!

"When you push lightning through it, the blade conducts it, albeit at a slightly slower rate than if you had a lightning core. "

Moon shook his head instantly, he couldn’t care less if it was a little slower. It made sense, a discovery of that grandeur wouldn’t come without its cons. Still, the benefits of this weapon completely outweighed the small delay it provided.

"The delay doesn’t matter...that’s totally fine. Thank you."

Tom grinned, watching the look on Moon’s face. He knew that the boy would love the gift, he had been planning to give it once he became a Surpasser, but the boy was advancing at a terrifying rate, he needed to lay out his ace cards early on.

"Same with fire, earth, wind, water. Any element we know really, if you’ve picked that up. Whatever element you feed into it, the blade enhances. The damage scaling is roughly twenty percent above a standard B-Rank weapon when actively channelled."

Moon picked up the sword carefully. The weight was perfectly balanced in his hand. The hilt fit his grip as if it had been measured for his hand specifically.

He pulled the blade slightly out of its scabbard. The runes along the metal pulsed once in response to his mana, recognizing his signature and synchronizing.

It was now his. And his alone.

"And the crystal in the pommel?" Moon asked.

"Helps with channelling your spiritual energy. It also holds a backup pool of about a thousand units. It’s the spirit crystal of a C-Rank spirit. You can draw from it in emergencies when your own reserves run dry. Refills slowly from your ambient spiritual energy, but you can also top it off manually."

Moon weighed the sword in his hand, feeling the way it responded to him. Then he looked up at Tom.

"Are you sure about this? This is too much, its at least worth tens of millions...besides, you know that I’m not a swordsman, but a mage. Why give me a sword? Isn’t the third representative of the glassy group a swordsman variant class? He would benefit more from it..."