The bonded blade

The ceremony: kindling, joining, sealing, and the seal.

1. What it is
2. How to get it
3. How it grows
4. Naming it
5. Traits
6. How it looks
7. Its story
8. Only ever yours
9. Passing it on
10. Releasing the bond
11. The Blade tab
12. For server owners

What it is

From Edge you can bond one weapon. A bonded blade is kept through death, never breaks, and nobody else can use it. It grows with every real fight, takes your aura’s colour, earns a name and a trait drawn from how you fight, and remembers its story.

How to get it

Any sword, axe, spear or the mace can be bonded, including the Bulwark Maul, Skyrend Glaive and Oathkeeper. The trident can’t.

1. Hold the blade and go to a ley crossing, where two ley lines meet.
2. Sneak and stand still to enter the breathing stance.
3. Stay still for ten seconds while the ceremony runs: motes rise into the blade (3 seconds), the ley lines light up and run to you (4 seconds), a ring closes in (3 seconds), then a column of light and a bell seal the bond.

Moving, taking a blow or letting go of the blade breaks the ceremony. You can have one bonded blade at a time.

Oathkeeper is the exception: it comes out of its stone already bonded.

How it grows

A bonded blade gains resonance from fights with it in your hand. Each tier also waits on your Aura stage. Resonance keeps building while it waits.

Tier	Resonance	Needs	What it gives
Bonded	the ceremony	Edge	Kept through death, never breaks, only yours
Named	300	Edge	A name, and blows with it draw 10% more aura
Awakened	1,200	Form	Choose one of three traits it offers
Soulforged	3,600	Sovereign, and a boss felled with it	Trait 50% stronger, 20% more aura from blows, its fullest look, and a free trait re-pick

Where resonance comes from:

Deed	Resonance
A foe felled	about 1 (more for a strong foe, less for the same kind over and over; a player counts once a day)
A boss felled	30 more
An art landing	0.6 to 1 (the Final Art 3), a bit more for extra foes
A finisher	2 (5 on a boss)
A stance broken / a perfect guard	0.4 / 0.5
An awakening	4
A duelist beaten	15
A breakthrough to Form / to Sovereign	120 / 240
A technique reaching Peerless	25

Each foe gives only so much through arts, finishers, stances and guards, so you can’t farm one tough foe. Training dummies, the practice arena and foes that can’t fight back give nothing.

Naming it

At Named the blade picks a name from its story (your element, your Way, where it was bonded, what it fights). On the Blade tab you can type your own (up to 24 characters), or press Suggest for another, then Name it.

Traits

At Awakened the blade offers three traits, based on the habits it sees most. Pick one on the Blade tab. Your first pick is free. Changing it costs 10 experience levels, except one free re-pick at Soulforged. A trait works only with the blade in your hand.

Trait	Drawn from	What it does
Well-Worn Verse	one art used far more than others	That art costs 15% less aura and recovers 15% faster
Closing Stroke	finishers	Finishers return 50% more aura and build 4 more momentum
Sundering Steel	stances broken	Blows, arts and slashes wear stance 12% harder (6% on players)
Riposte	perfect guards	For 2 seconds after a perfect guard, your next coated blow hits 15% harder (half on players)
Wind Step	Aura Steps	Aura Step costs 25% less and recovers 15% faster
Long Crescent	slashes	Aura Slash costs 20% less and flies 20% further
Inkbound Steel	your own techniques	Techniques cost 10% less and rank up 20% faster
Second Blaze	awakenings	Awakening returns 25% sooner and you stay spent 25% shorter
Mountainfeller	bosses and strong foes	Against bosses and Runebound foes: 10% more damage, 15% more stance wear
Gravewarden	undead	Coated blows hit the undead 12% harder
Last Light	kills at low health	Below a third of your health, take 8% less damage from foes
Moonwake	kills at night	At night, blows draw 25% more aura
Rallying Steel	kills beside allies	Your finishers give allied swordsmen within 10 blocks 5 momentum

At Soulforged each trait is 50% stronger. Against players, Mountainfeller and Gravewarden do nothing, Riposte and Sundering Steel are halved, and damage bonuses share the normal player cap.

How it looks

Bonded, Named, Awakened and Soulforged.

The blade glows in your aura’s colour, more at each tier: a beating vein of light (Bonded), marks running up the steel (Named), flickering tongues of aura (Awakened), and a white-hot edge with a ring and corona (Soulforged). It blazes while you’re awakened and goes cold in anyone else’s hands. On the ground it lights a pool of colour; a Soulforged blade sends up a thin column of light so you can find it.

Its story

The tooltip shows the tier, owner, resonance and trait. Hold Shift to read its story: when and where it was bonded, its past owners, its deeds (foes, bosses, arts, finishers, techniques, perfect guards, duels won), its favourite art, and notable moments by day.

Only ever yours

• Death: it returns to its slot when you respawn, even with Curse of Vanishing.
• Wear: it never breaks. At its last point it stays notched until you repair it.
• On the ground: it never despawns, and fire, lava, cactus and explosions can’t destroy it. Only you can pick it up. If it falls into the void, it returns to your inventory.
• In a chest: only you can take it out, and hoppers won’t move it.
• In someone else’s hands: it has no aura for them and returns to you. If you’re offline, you get it when you join.
• Crafting: anvils, grindstones and smithing upgrades keep the bond. It can never be used up as an ingredient or smelted.

If it’s away from you, the Blade tab tells you where it was last.

Passing it on

You can pass your bonded blade to one of your disciples (see Sparring and Lineage). Hold it in the breathing stance while your disciple kneels close in front of you, facing you. After eight seconds the blade passes to them with its tier, name, trait and story. The disciple must have started on Aura and have no bonded blade. If they are below the blade’s tier, the extra tiers wake as they grow.

The passing, and the blade passed.

Releasing the bond

On the Blade tab, click Release the bond twice. The blade becomes ordinary steel again and loses its growth. You can then bond it, or another blade, at a ley crossing.

The Blade tab

The fifth tab of the Aura page. Before you bond, it explains the ceremony and checks the blade in your hand. After, it shows the blade, its tier and resonance, naming, traits (glowing gold when a choice is waiting), its story and the release button.

For server owners

aura section: bonded_blades (switch bonding off; blades already bonded keep their protections), resonance_gain, bond_at_power (allow the ceremony anywhere), blade_traits. The weapons that can bond are the wildercord:bondable_blades item tag. Operator commands live under /wildercord aura blade (bond, resonance, tier, name, trait, release, pass <player>).