One thing I kinda feel like complaining about is the increasingly lengthy status screen I now have. 'Status please and thank you!'
** DING **
Name: Zane Fair Prayoga
Specification: Male. Human. Argead.
Level: 27 (340,149/352,000)
Hp: 13,446 / 13,446
Mp: 17,940 / 17,940
Sp: 11,172 / 11,172
Str: 959
Con: 1,441
Dex: 1,433
Int: 840
Wis: 402
Wil: 488
Cha: 132
Ap: 0
Syscred: 49,841,787,679
Fp: 26
Titles: [Mind as old as Time], [Memories of Forever, Forever lost], [Pioneers of Magic], [Prodigy Mage], [Spell Dilettante], [Pristine Peddler], [Dungeoneer Pioneer Smuggleer], [Phantasmic Dungeoneer], [Title Progenitor], [Depthblazer 4], [Spacial Notice]
Traits: Adaptable, Metamorphosible Mana, Immortal Mind, Memory Vault, Dungeon Phantasm, Dungeon Transceiver, Soul Hearth, Devourling Constitution
Skills:
All-Weapons Proficiency 28
All-Armors Proficiency 24
Amputate 8
Artificial Infusion 23
Battle Command 3
Charge Strike 5
Chop 4
Cleave 6
Deception 14
Dodge Roll 36
Evasion 38
Fear Resistance 12
Fire Resistance 14
Harvest Fauna and Fauna 7
Heat Resistance 14
Inspect 41
Intimidate 39
Lapidary 9
Leap Strike 8
Mana Manipulation 55
Mana Sense 37
Mental Resistance 5
Pain Resistance 24
Parallel Thoughts 4
Parry 43
Pierce 7
Poison Resistance 17
Rapid Strike 5
Shield Proficiency 24
Sidewinding 11
Slash Smash Stab 19
Sneaking 42
Solid Strike 3
Soul Sense 24
Spatial Intuition 4
SYMPHONY 31
Taunt 33
Teach 14
Tracking 29
Unarmed combat proficiency 40
Vicious Smash 3
Visualization 48
Knowledge Pack 0000000 0
Map Interface 0
Shared Map (2/4) 0
Cantrip Spells
Coat - Intermediate
Disinfect - Advanced
Distill - Basic
Ignite - Basic
Light - Peak
Mend - Advanced
Soften - Intermediate
Unsoil - Peak
Apprentice Spells
Condense Water - Peak
Conjure Flames - Basic
Lesser Heal - Peak
Magico Disk - Peak
Mold Earth - Basic
Wind Arrow - Peak
Novice Spells
Arcane Vaults - Early
Conjure Trilattic Swarm Armor - Advanced
Knead Bone - Basic
Latent Coating - Early
Novice Repository - Advanced
Pocket Suspense - Early
Shape Stone - Intermediate
SmartMines.exe - Early
Spider Climb - Basic
Will-o'-Weal - Basic
Will-o'-Woe - Basic
Quasi-Inventory - Basic
Journeyman Spells
Animus Incision - Advanced
Beam Torrent - Advanced
Blink - Peak
Conjure Weapon - Basic
Micro Flight - Intermediate
Shrink Touch - Early
Splash of Verdance - Early
Vermillion Lord of Storms - Intermediate
Expert Spells
Detect Karmic Threads - Early
Eight Storms Lightning Dragon - Early
Haste - Early
Invaseviction - Basic
Snatch'a Soul-inator - Basic
Ten Tides of the Boreal Sea - Early
Twelve Fragments of a Scorched Star - Early
Master Spells
Fashion Core - Basic
Now that I'm looking at it with a calm mind—not drowned in adrenalin and experiencing battle high. These are pretty basic weapon Skills, some would consider them; mundane. non-magical! Boring even… Yet, I believe there is a way to combine them into one multi-purpose weapon skill, a higher tier skill so to say, let's put figuring that out on my unwritten todo list. The same goes for upgrading all those basic Spells to Peak Mastery, because it is just so much more awesome to see the text Peak displayed instead of Intermediate, or Early.
Hmm~, speaking of Traits. I wonder how that soul in my Soul Hearth is doing. It has been a while after all; without further ado, I delve into my Mindscape. Finding out the moment I arrive, that the space within has grown by at least 50 times the previous size—and not because I can see the end that disappears into the horizon, which indicates a curve. But more from a sense of sorts; something like proprioception, which is how you can feel where your limbs are in relation to yourself—only that this sense works on something much deeper inside of me than mere physical sense. I'll make an educated guess and assume it is soul related.
Unhurriedly, I walk into the only massive building standing within this vast—Territory? Or landscape? Maybe a Subspace—and find myself stopping by the entrance, staring at the inside in awe; there is more than the one soul I remembered residing within! Generously spread out within the large building are souls of various sizes and colors. One in particular stood out, its color brighter, its size easily the largest among all others present, to my intuition; its existence feels so much more when compared to all the others. 'Inspect.'
** DING **
Regular Soul (Dungeon Core Fragment)
Hmm… are there irregular ones? Targeting a few smaller souls. 'Inspect again, thanks!'
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
** DING **
Infant Soul, cracked (Spear Scorpion Fragment
Infant Soul, torn (Ice Elemental Fragment
Regular Soul, chipped (Acorneer Commander Fragment)
Infant Soul, torn (Flail-tailed Macaque Fragment)
I stand corrected. Infant souls and regular souls, not irregular. Sounds like different stages of development. Maybe there is something like a fetus soul or some kinda mega soul or something. Who knows! Maybe there is also an irregular soul? Their prefix; chipped, cracked, torn and ruptured seems to refer to their condition from least damaged to worst, as it was easy to visually notice how damaged the souls are respectively.
In total, I found there are maybe hundreds of souls from random enemies I have slain; all in various states of damage, and all, from what I can observe—besides the Dungeon Core Fragment—infant souls. I actually do not remember when exactly, but since Soul Sense stopped leveling up due to a Threshold, I had stopped using the skill. And that in turn meant I did not notice any lingering souls claiming sanctuary within my Soul Hearth. Very foolishly inattentive of me as that could have been dangerous, but then again; most people live fine without perceiving errant souls, so it's probably fine.
As I stare at the plethora of different manifestations of souls; some an ethereal fire, some a nucleus of light, others a translucent seed or an illusionary egg, and much much more. A memory of my past conversation with The System surfaces; Give her a sip from the Ladle of Lethe, a pure soul serves plenty of purposes. Be it the crafting of an ego weapon or tool, the birth of a divine pill, or the coronation of a sovereign spell, to name a few. For a soul is the purest and most potent form of energy there is, so much so, as to be capable of thoughts for learning and experiencing growth. Keep it here until needed and it'll remain uncontaminated whilst lasting thy current lifetime.
That made me remember the Goblin Dungeon back at Rumah, and my quest from The System, the battle with an ogre within the outer perimeters of my Mindscape, as well as the servering of a lady's soul from the Dungeon Core. I think I never got her name, I've forgotten… but Ladle of Lethe, huh? Ego gear, divine pills and sovereign spells too. I like the sounds of all three, and therefore feel that understanding more about the uses of souls may be a promising venture.
Feeling slightly experimental, I wrap my hand with mana; Manipulating and altering it in ways I have since The System's quest known, ways that allow me to touch souls with my bare hands. Then, I grab a nearby soul—formerly a macaque—bringing it closer to my eyes to give it a thorough observation. This one is in the shape of a nucleus, where a bright yellowish sphere of light is engulfed by a larger, more transparent one. The whole soul fits nicely within the palm of my hand.
I give it a few experimental pokes… Now what? I stretch it and fidget with it using both hands. The soul refuses to be separated, and always returns to its initial shape when released. This thing is energy, very potent energy? Well, I don't see it… Tossing it back onto its previous spot, I exit my Mindscape with a slight nudge of my thought.
'Please show me the price of purchasing Ladle of Lethe.'
** DING **
Ladle of Lethe. 3,900,000,000 Creds
'Inspect'
Ladle of Lethe - Master Rank. One man's curse, another man's boon. Conjures a ladle brimming with water from the River Lethe, its presence heeds comprehension onto a soul, be they sip and forget or may they linger and wane…
That is the extent of any description I can get out of The System. Price and what I assume to be its Early Mastery description. That price tag is definitely within my current means, 'purchase!'
** DING **
Master Rank spell learnt Ladle of Lethe
I re-Inspect the spell and all I got was that the spell costs 300 mana per Ladle, which is quite cheap cost-wise for a Spell that supposedly summons something out of literally; a river in the—apparently real—Underworld. I was about to cast the Spell, but a hunch tells me now is not quite the time. It actually felt ominous! Deathly enough to stop me that exact instant, no questions asked... I stare blankly at the midnight sky for a moment after the experience, it's not even one hour past 0 o'clock… thus, I probably spent about 10 minutes blankly watching the stars before remembering to return into my Mindscape. I've bought it now, and I don't really have anything else to do bar another Quagxyte attack, so no time like the present to test the new Spell.
Holding on to the same Macaque soul, I cast the spell. No foreboding feeling of my imminent death stopped me this time; the mana I spent traveled into a mysterious place before the handle of a Ladle—dark as vantablack, gradually rose up from out of an even darker hole. When about 80 centimeters of the pitch black handle comes out of the impossibly dark void, the whole thing stops rising. And after what felt like 30 minutes of silently staring at it, but is actually probably only a minute or two, my hand reaches out to grab the middle area of said object. Before gently pulling it up, revealing another 20-ish centimeter of the handle that is attached to a similarly dark hued cup about the size of a circular soy sauce dish. If not for feeling the gentle sloshes of liquid caused by the movement of my hands, I would think the Ladle cup empty.
Slowly I brought the ladle closer towards the Macaque soul. Curious how a sphere of light would achieve the act of drinking something off of a Ladle; instinctively, maybe due to the Spell itself, I just know that a tiny edge if the Ladle's cup itself needs to touch the soul. And so it did, still following a vague instinct of how the Spell works, I gently tip the liquid into the Macaque; where a clear liquid spirals forth into the nucleus and dissipates into nothing, disappearing along with the yellowish tint of the soul. 'Inspect!'
** DING **
Infant Soul, torn (Pure)
Cool! But it's still damaged—torned. So I return it to its previous spot once again and got to work purifying all the souls, leaving the former Dungeon Core part Human for last. Or maybe for the unforeseeable future, I'm still internally debating the moral implications of formatting a former Human's soul. Is it—she, still Human?
By my account, there are a total of 454 souls; 416 Infant and 38 regular souls, all in various states of damage, beside the one—soul untouched—former Human. This means they are much smaller than they should be, which is the reason for my previous miss assumption of all but one being Infant souls. I still do not know what's the difference between the two anyways.
Thus, I spend hours within my Soul Heart, fiddling and experimenting with the various pure souls found within, I cannot seem to make use of these so called potent energy! It's like playing with a squishy-rubber; squish it, stretch it, form it however you will and it always returns into its previous shape. I was still busy experimenting on the souls when I heard the chime of a VICOS message—and promptly exited the Mindscape. This might be an SOS for Quagxyte attack.
Kirana: Zen, please standby!
Zen: Sure!
True to my prediction, it is one. I keep my distance, keeping track of the battle with Mana Sense. Kirana and her team, along with about 50 of our elite combatants are currently down there to experience fighting those annoying monstrous pests… and they're doing pretty darn well! Already making use of some of our newly prepared wands and being a bunch of elites. I relax at the sight of them methodically slaying the simple minded enemies. People can be seen withdrawing from any significant damage to be healed, while others take their place. Latent Coatings are liberally applied, and I'm sure I noticed a few melee fighters flashing around.
So, feeling relieved but still responsible for keeping watch, I lean back and lift my hands to the back of my head to lay down comfortably on the rooftop, only to find a piece of soul still being held on my left… How did that get here?
