You did, you actually did

You waved the sword around a bit, marveling at the fact it was neither exploding, or melting. You swung it a little faster, feeling it moving through the air, it felt different. The waves of warmth that radiated out with each movement got stronger. Not hot, not yet at least, more like the feel of the sun on you, which it was on your back at any rate, the warmth from the sword was focused on your front.

Closing your eyes you moved into your forms. Holding yourself up with your wings while imbuing was a little more taxing than you'd expected but it faded into the background as you moved. The sword moved, it was strange only being able to conceptualize it like that but this is what it did. Every other time you'd swung a sword you'd been doing that, swinging a hunk of metal of a stick, but as you cut through the air with the sky metal it felt natural.

Moving faster you threaded your magic throughout your body. The sword in your hand never felt like it was dragging in the air. The hilt never got warmer or suddenly felt lighter from the blade melting off. When you finished your set of forms you opened your eyes, slightly worried you would see a bladeless hilt but it was all there, the glow from it seemed entirely gone, the flecks were back to their slightly darker than the rest of blade.

After years of not being able to do this having a sword imbued in your hand and not all over the ground. You couldn't help but smile. Who'd have thought you'd ever be able to do this. And who'd have thought spending all that time trying to limit your magic to not melt a sword would be wasted. You looked at a cloud drifting towards you and on a whim swung your sword at it.

The cloud didn't change in anyway. Something you breathed a sigh of relief about. You have no idea what your sword could do. It moved without air resistance but beyond that you've not a clue what it can do. Looking down at the academy far below you then at the sword you considered what exactly imbuing does. Asune's blade moved fast and extended its reach, Ana's could produced blasts, Stephanie's was a bit of both. It didn't seem to be all that consistent.

Before you'd come to the academy your teachers had told you imbuing was something you'd learn as you did it. That it didn't just do one thing suggested it, like a lot of other magic as dependent on personal opinion. But not just that. There must be some component of nonself-consciousness at play, otherwise you could have been taught about it's effects even if you couldn't do it, your teachers didn't want their understanding to colour yours.

Which left a slight issue for you. How do you find out what this does? Well the obvious idea is to just hit something, preferably not something alive. If there is one bit of magic you feel confident in it's your disintegration. You don't really want to test if you've made a disintegration stick on something alive.

Landing in the area you go looking for a training dummy in the equipment shed. Stephanie brought some out a while ago, though she seems to prefer live targets, in the form of other students. It is easy to find, since you'd so recently gotten intimate with Asune behind it. The door is unlocked, probably for the sake of a student who might need to get an iron sword out to practice with.

Inside you see a surprising array of weapons. Not just swords of numerous design but spears, halberds, axes even a few maces. But your target is easily located, leaning on a wall is a collection of dummies. You grab one, trying to not let your sword touch it, until you are outside.

Setting it up away from everything else you take a moment to think about what you are about to do and the chances that the dummy might explode. For safety you wrap the area in a few shields then get ready to swing.

Your sword slips through the air as if there was none and touches the wooden shoulder of the dummy.

And sails right on through it, cutting a diagonal slash through the wood as if there hadn't been anything there. No resistance of any sort. But that isn't the strange thing, it's just an extention of how it moves through the air. No the strange thing is that despite having been cut in half the dummy shows no sign of being touched much less bisected.

You push the upper half what should be two no long connected pieces of wood with your stump and the single dummy leans back. Did you miss?

You swing again, moving closer to to be safe. Once more the dummy is unaffected. To be entirely sure you are hitting the thing you hold your sword out and walk it into the dummy until the cross-guard hits the wood.

"Huh." You wiggle the sword left and right but don't feel any change. You wiggle it up and down and the same thing happens. "Well, that's," you don't know how to finish the sentence as no matter how you shake the sword neither it nor the dummy seem all that invested in accepting it's presence inside it's chest, "confusing." You decide to settle on pulling the sword upwards, the flat of the blade moving through the wood without any issue. You look at the ground and poke it with the sword. It sinks into the ground on the point but when you try to move the flat of the blade through the ground there is resistance. Not much but at least there is some.

Pull the sword free your kick some dirt into the hole in the ground you'd just made. So it doesn't affect wood? You remember your training as a kid, disintegrating the occasional tree. Maybe that is why, or maybe Sarean used a spell that prevents the sword from being a threat to her. You check over the blades magic but can't see any. Not even your own that you know is in it.

You imbue a bit more and the fleck glow then fade as you cut the magic off and wave the sword around inside the dummy a bit more. You pull the imbument out of the sword, feeling a bit of a rush through your arm as you do so. Hadn't been able to unimbue something before so good to note that feeling for the future. You swung the flat of the blade against the dummy and it hit, unable to glide through. You reimbued and glide it did.

You blink a few times trying to think of what was going on. You got nothing. Imbuing a sword that lets it move through wood but not dirt is, kinda pointless. You look at your stump, unless it's organic matter.

Well already lost a hand what's a bit more of your forearm. You raise the sword ready to swing it at your forearm. "What am I doing?" You ask yourself, lowering the sword away from yourself. You think this the point where you should ask someone for advice. Can't be Asune, she'll insist you find out how the imbument works by having you use the sword on her, Vatarie will probably suggest the same thing though in a duel rather than a 'hurt me Christopher'. Ana might help, though you aren't sure how much help she'd be, not really the teaching sort in your experience. Stephanie is the obvious choice but you aren't sure how much she'd help, she does want to win the duel after all.

While you think you go back to swinging your sword through the dummy cause it's fun. You should test it out on metal before anything else. Going back into the shed you put the dummy with the others and find one of the poor iron swords you'd been training with. Poke it with the tip of your sword causes it to be knocked onto the ground. Well it doesn't pass through metal, so you can still use it as a sword at least.

You put the sword back in place and look around just to be sure it wasn't only that dummy you swing the sword through the other ones. Passes through without issue. You need someone to teach you that isn't going to, a) demanding you cut them, b) insist on a duel and possibly cutting them, c) not teaching you correctly to ensure they win a duel or d) probably not be that good of a teacher..

"Lord Christopher?" Green calls out from the training arena.

Huh, that worked out rather well. "Here." You call back, heading over to her. Mary sounds like the perfect woman to ask for some help. Wait, wasn't Green supposed to get you in the afternoon? You look up at the sky and see the sun has moved a lot further than you expected. How long were you swinging a sword around inside a dummy?

"Getting some practice in?" Green asks eyeing the sword in your hand. "Is that sky metal? Where did you get a sword like that?"

"Long story, well more boring than long. Mary's ready for me to help heal the wounded." You brushed off the questioning not seeing it as all that important honestly.

Green raised an eyebrow, "Quite a sword for a boring story." She turned away and walked to the academy's entry. "But I won't pry. Should have some secrets of your own."

You had nothing to say in response to that. You hopefully now know better than to fall into the probing of Lady Demise's family. Green takes you to carriage that is waiting. You could duck into the academy to check on the others. Mary would probably be will to wait, given that you are kinda important to the whole, you healing her soldiers things.