Sustenance

Ning stepped back and looked at the rusty-looking sword that floated up and down the beach on the water.

"What is going on?" he wondered. He tried once again, and it once again appeared so very heavy.

"Why the hell is this rusty sword so—" Ning paused. He looked closer and noticed something that he hadn't noticed before.

"Wait, is that rust?" he thought. The sword had a rusty color for sure with a cracked surface, but now that he was looking at it, that didn't look like rust at all, more like… well, he couldn't tell.

The closest thing he could think of when seeing it was dried mud. 

"Is this sword made up of mud?" Ning wondered. "Why is it so heavy?"

He wondered if it was like with Qi artifacts, where it had to be refined before being properly used.

"I'm too hungry to care right now," he thought. He brought the fruit next to the sword and tried to cut it open.