Working smarter not harder doesn't mean pulling harder to get it out. It means chipping away at the problem, literally. If you cut the stone around the sword, either to enlarge the crack or remove the piece of stone with the sword in it, you can get it out with slightly more effort cutting the stone, but none of the brute force effort required to pull it out. Which also eliminates the risk of breaking the sword. These days it's so easy to cut stone with power tools, it's not like in the old days where that would be a slow process that would take months if not years. A stone cutting chainsaw can do it in minutes.