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After an hour or two of Professor Sageira explaining parasitic or symbiotic soul weapons and me asking a whole load of questions, things boil down to this, as far as I can understand.
Parasitic soul weapons are the bound souls of unwilling, hostile, or malevolent people bound to a weapon, armor, or trinket. Almost always, they feed off the wielder in some way. The souls for these soul weapons are usually taken from prisoners or the dregs of society, so it is no mystery why the wielder being in contact with such a weapon would be bad for health in general.
However, the advantages of using such a weapon are enticing, and for good reason. The first advantage is the increase in power, be it physical or magical. I have witnessed firsthand how it transformed a seemingly ordinary knight into a powerhouse capable of reaping soldiers like wheat and treating other knights as if they were mere children in a fight.
The next advantage of parasitic soul weapons comes in the form of self-repair. Some parasitic weapons might be able to repair themselves by feeding on their wielder's energy, blood, or that of their enemies. I was unable to confirm this as we did not fight to the point of damaging our weapons. Kind of hard to do when we both cover our weapons in aura.
Another important advantage is termed by scholars as Dark Knowledge. The trapped soul might hold ancient knowledge, such as lost battle techniques, forbidden magic, or insight into enemy weaknesses. But that is only for weapons that had either lived for a long time while being passed from host to host and managed to form an ego from what is left of the ravaged soul during the bonding process to the weapon, or the soul bound to the weapon was a powerful one and managed to keep its ego intact. Professor Sageira thinks that this is unlikely as the sword is too new, and the 'soul imprint' on the sword (whatever a soul imprint is) is too minor to have housed a powerful soul.
All these upsides are fine and dandy, excellent even, but the downsides are downright… how do I put it… fucked up.
As for the price the wielder would need to pay for all these wonderful gifts? The first price is the constant drain. The weapon may sap the wielder's strength, lifespan, and, most of the time, their sanity. From what Professor Sageira describes, it is like the wielder experiences dementia that rapidly gets worse the longer they hold on to the sword. She even told me that when she did an autopsy on one such wielder, their brain was shriveled to the point that she was surprised that the wielder was still walking around.
But worse than that was the corrupting influence of most parasitic weapons. Even if the weapon did not have a complex ego, there are still the raw emotions the person was experiencing when in the process of being sacrificed to be bound to a weapon. Fear, hatred, despair, guilt, shame, regret, loathing, and many more, all these raw emotions may erode the wielder's personality, making them more aggressive, violent, or deranged if they hold on to the weapon for a long period of time.
Another hallmark of particularly powerful parasitic soul weapons was the need for sacrifice. Some parasitic soul weapons may demand fresh souls or blood, forcing the wielder into constant violence to keep their weapon at full power. But this was in the vanishing minority. Few forbidden magic users dare make this kind of weapon, least the one they bestow the weapon kills them, or they kill someone dear to them on the demands of the weapon.
Eventually, we come to the final price a wielder would pay if they hold on to a parasitic sword for too long, their soul. After the soul weapon is done eroding the wielder's mind. The soul in the sword devoured the wielder's soul, essentially making the wielder into a weapon-toting puppet whose only reason to live is to kill.
Symbiotic soul weapons, on the other hand, are quite different in some aspects but share the same concept as parasitic soul weapons. The main difference is the willingness to sacrifice and the strength of their convictions. If the sacrifice is not 100% willing, the symbiotic soul weapon will work fine for the first few months or years, and then negative emotions like resentment will start coming from the weapon. Eventually, it gets so bad that the symbiotic soul weapons turn into a parasitic, and the only thing that can be done is to destroy it.
Another way a symbiotic soul weapon can go awry is if the sacrifice is 100% willing, but their conviction is not strong enough. The resulting symbiotic soul weapons are lackluster to the point where normal enchanted weapons would perform better. This is because, without strong conviction, the sacrifice's will cannot endure the soul bond, causing the weapon's power to become directionless—little more than a sharp mana stick.
That is why symbiotic soul weapons are so incredibly rare; they are incredibly difficult to create and even harder to find someone who is completely willing to bind their eternal soul to a weapon with a strong conviction, whatever that conviction may be. Whether it be the conviction to dedicate their soul to the protection of their family, kingdom, or in the service of a god.
Another reason that symbiotic soul weapons are so rare is that they were discovered around shortly after the first parasitic soul weapons first appeared and started wreaking havoc all over the place, thus giving symbiotic soul weapons a bad reputation since they are from the same branch of magic. This made the masses fear what they did not understand, and a purge started where any weapon or armor that had so much as a speck of magic was hunted down and destroyed.
To date, there are only five known surviving symbiotic soul weapons, and three of them belong to the Zagraf Theocracy, but that is to be expected of religious zealots to dedicate their souls to their religion. As for the other two swords, they belong to the kings of other nations.
As for the perks of having a symbiotic soul weapon, they were mostly the same as parasitic soul weapons but much less potent on average. It also did not have all the nasty side effects like your mind being eroded or corrupted. The only price the wielder needs to pay is his mana… and maybe to bear with the voice of an ancestor/saint/sage/great warrior that is bound to the weapon, telling you what it was like back in his/her days.
As for the sword I captured during the fort's defense, Professor Sageira suspects they are trying to mass-produce symbiotic soul weapons without having to pay the price of sacrificing someone like a saint.
"Well, that sounds dangerous, have you told anyone from the kingdom yet?" I asked.
"Nope, that is for them to discover. I already dropped a few hints, if they cannot pick up what I am putting down, that is too bad." she said with a shrug.
"Hold on a minute, didn't you have a deal with the kingdom to prevent disasters like this from happening? Why did you not at least tell them what we are dealing with?" I asked.
"Mainly because this is a mortal problem and still within mortal power to control. If I or any other dragon intervened every time a mortal did something stupid, we would not ever have a day of rest, and mortals as a whole would not have learned anything without feeling the metaphorical pinch. So unless there is a tear in the fabric of reality, it is not my problem, it was just something interesting to see and keep track of mortal magical progress." she explained.
All I could do was sigh… I guess this is the difference in perspective between people with different power levels and lifespans. Her thinking is on a much longer time and power scale.
Soon after our talk, I could see people slowly start leaving the event, so I said my goodbyes to Professor Sageira and made my way to join up with Dad, from there, we were led to accommodations within the royal castle.