This is a daily reminder: You have 20 unallocated stat points
You gained lvl 5
Presence raised to 119
Mental Fortitude raised to 149
Soul raised to 178
Less burning again. It's like I'm still recovering and not actually worsening. I shrug, what's the worst that can happen? It's all just burning.
You gained lvl 6
Presence raised to 125
Mental Fortitude raised to 156
Soul raised to 185
It's the same as before. This is pretty manageable.
You gained lvl 7
Presence raised to 131
Mental Fortitude raised to 163
Soul raised to 192
Still no difference. I shrug.
You gained lvl 8
Presence raised to 137
Mental Fortitude raised to 170
Soul raised to 199
I have to know, after seeing the all hundred minor, there really can't be anyone else with the major two hundred soul boon. It just feels impossible.
You gained lvl 9
Presence raised to 143
Mental Fortitude raised to 177
Soul raised to 206
I felt even less burn that time, maybe it's the ratio thing.
200 Soul Minor Boon
You can form a new arcane core
Maybe when my reserves fill.
200 Soul Major Boon
You have gained a soul core
You know what they say about curiosity and cats
Pain, I fall with a great thud, pain. My chest burns, no soul fire has been like this…Last I hear is Thane footsteps on the stairs.
-----
My eyes open, I'm not in my room. I look around, it's a small room, there is a bed I'm in with a chair next to it. A desk is at the head of the bed. The door opens. Mags steps in.
“Good to see you're among the living still.”
“How long?”
“You were burning for five hours, then unconscious for another five, whatever you did your soul seems to be getting smaller.”
My eyes widened. My soul is down to one eighty. I look at my notifications, the arcane core formed and then there's this.
You have gained the skill [Soul Core] Basic 1
Soul Core - Immortal core to store soul
Basic - nascent Soul core, feed it your soul
Gain 0 exp
It feels full but it is also nibbling at my soul.
You have gained [Soul Core] Basic 2
Gain 0 exp
More of me is pulled in the core, my soul sense is watching it peal the top layers of my soul. My soul is down to one hundred seventy-three. I look wide eyed at Mags.
“My soul is disappearing into my soul core.”
Her eyes widen, she looks at me harder. What happens when it has my entire soul.
“I've never heard of a soul core before...”
“It was the major two hundred soul boon.”
“That should be impossible to gain.”
I just stare vacantly. My soul grows in two ways. My memories of everyday life expands my soul from the center. The soul I get from experience and eating are added to the outer layer. This core is stripping those layers off. Are they still intact? I won't even know till it gets to apprentice. Will there be anything left?
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“Is there a way to make soul mana?”
Mags looks at me with shock on her face. Perhaps not the best idea to ask a priestess. Then again who else would know.
“Do you intend to feed this core?” There is a real edge to her voice.
“If you have a way for it to stop eating my soul, I'm all ears.”
She glares at me, then sighs. She sits down into her chair. And looks at me with a studying eye. Finally she speaks.
“Arcane can be condensed into a soul mana, it's not a good idea to make. People who do tend to inevitably go mad. They think ‘hey I made soul mana lets meld it with my soul’. Then they find out their soul mana isn't pure but has fragments of memory. Just random memories. You will go mad trying to use such.”
“I don't plan to use it on my own soul. I just need something to feed to the core that isn't me.”
“Will you accept a geas to that effect?”
“I'll etch it into myself if I have too.”
“So you have [Soul Etching] too then.”
“Well if we're going to hell anyways, I also have [Soul Eater] and [Blood Drinker].”
“I have not heard of those two.”
“Anything I slay I eat its soul, I live their memories in my dreams. A consequence of using a unique pariah aura to kill a bunch of bleeding slavers. Blood drinker just seems to be my subconscious running wild and soul etching a rather stupid idea.”
“And the idea is?”
“Blood is power, I gain temporary stats from those I consume from, the consumed lose stats during that time. It is apparently a curse and my team seems excited to have a supposedly safe way to level [Resist Curse].”
She starts laughing.
“Only a ten year old would come up with such impractical nonsense.”
“You don't believe me.”
“Oh no, Sara I do.” O, that's not good, she knows my name, “Yes of course I know your Sara Maxwell. We already established that.”
Did we? And get out of my head.
“You're the first to think I'm ten.”
“Dear, I can see the level of development you have under your illusion. Ten the youngest I can think of for that.”
I blush, I'm not much of anything, but there is still something. I haven't been keeping track. Much.
“So then?”
“Right, you are to place a geas of these words into the center of your soul. I will never use soul mana to bolster this soul. Now then do you need any help with that?”
“I never casted a geas before, can it be done with competent mental magic?”
“If it was targeting another no, but since you're aiming at yourself eh… fifty-fifty chance, it's like a vow, it's a higher chance if you mean it.”
I close my eyes and sense where the center of my soul is. I speak the words.
“I, Sara Maxwell the [Voiceless] vow to never use soul mana to bolster my soul.”
There is no struggle, it sinks to the very core of my being. It burned through all my mana cores and reserves to do it. The aura in me shudders. Perhaps I shouldn't have invoked my title.
“Good now then to—”
I then engage my [Soul Etching] to carve it in, tracing over the words. It burns.
You have gained [Soul Etching] Apprentice 1
Apprentice - you can etch ever more powerful, unique things into your soul
Gain 20 exp
-----
I open my eyes again and check my notifications. My eyes widened. The soul core grew again. Mags is waiting in the chair.
“How long.”
“You lost a full day. If I had known you plan to etch it I would have told you to wait to recover. What are you down to now.”
“One sixty four. My blood drinker is greyed out.”
“You said you etched it, didn't you?”
I nod.
“Was it after you hit a hundred sixty four soul?”
I nod.
“Then there is your answer, your core ate that layer so it's no longer etched.”
I need my earrings from my room.
You have gained [Soul Core] basic 4
Gained 0 exp
My body burns.
-----
Sara opens her eyes again. She glances around frightened. She looks at her status screen and pales at the number listed there. Six. Her reserves of arcane have diminished. There are skills on her status screen that are greyed out, she doesn't know what to think on that.
She leaps out of the bed, she is not used to her weight anymore. She lands lightly. She runs to the door and opens it. She sees Thane and Mags.
“You're awake Sara.”
The girl nods.
“How do you feel?”
“I don't know, I feel like there is a big part of myself that's missing.”
Thane gets on his knees to look at her at eye level.
“Thats to be expected, your an inherited, and you've lost those memories, tell me what is your earliest memory.”
Sara squints her eyes shut. Then opens them and gives an answer.
“I remember my father asking me if I had heard a voice yet?”
“So when you were five.”
Sara nods.
“Well then Guildmaster, I need to talk to my patient.”
He moves to the side.
“Alone.”
He gives Mags a mean look, Sara flinches from it. When he notices her cowering, he is shocked. He leaves the room.
“Do you still remember what you asked me before you blacked out?”
“I wanted to learn how to make soul mana.”
“Do you still desire that? Ever since your last soul shedding your soul hasn't quivered at all. It's possible your soul core can only take memories that weren't originally yours. You'll stop progressing but you could live a full life.”
The girl stares at the floor. She sees her toes, with clear nails.
“You're human again, fully.”
The girl looks up, “I don't care about a full life or even my humanity, I've made promises. I may not remember all the reasons behind those promises but I made them. I intend to keep them.”
There was nothing more Mags could say to that. The steel that managed to etch that vow into the girl remains.
Mags places a hand on the girl's chest. She forms the soul mana into the girl. The girl falls to the ground and writhes. Her body wants to reject such vile mana. A soul of six battles mana from the soul of an eight hundred thirty-four. It's not a winning proposition and yet the soul mana can not change the girl's soul. The vow may not have been able to hold off such an infusion but this was carved and seared into the girl's soul. There is no purchase for the soul mana. The girl continues to wrestle with this impossible battle.
It's hours before the girl stops convulsing, for the girl it's been a month. She sits up and Mags feeds her.
“It's my mana now but my soul sense is not enough to understand it.”
Mags is about to ask her what she intends to do when the girl clutches her left eye.
“Fool girl, what good is the soul mana I put in you if you're going to spend it on a mana sight?”
The girl is breathing heavily. Her arcane sights turn on, cat eyes. When she finishes finding her breath the girl looks up at the priestess.
“Again, I can now see both parts of the process now, I won't fail again.”
Mags frowns but the glare from the child breaks her down. A new glob of soul mana enters the girl, when it joins the current glob, they unite. It is no longer the girls' mana. The battle begins again and the girl writhes on the floor.
Mags continues to provide for the girls' needs. Her healing magic is enough to sustain a person for months on just mana alone. It's three days before the girl settles. She sits up and takes food and water.
“You need to sleep, Sara.”
Sara ignores Mags. She is locked in her focus moving her arcane as she had seen to join the blob of soul mana that is burning down from her mana sight. In another three days, the blob is almost gone. Then it grows. The girl looks up and beams a bright sunny smile before she promptly falls unconscious.
-----
“The conversion rate sucks.”
Sara is rather out spoken.
“What did you expect, your soul is six, and the skill is a basic one at tier four. You got no mana reserves, frankly I don't understand why you're not using your permanent core. Its store is much larger.”
The girl rolls her eyes, her impertinence seems to grow every day.
“I am trying to ignite my other arcane core, then that's even more mana.”
“Until it becomes aspected, at least turn off your soul mana sight.”
“You said you couldn't tell.”
“I can't see the dot but I can sense the soul mana disappear out of you.”
Sara just sticks her tongue out at Mags.
-----
The girl is rolling around clutching her right eye. Mags is doing her best to ignore the brazen child.
“Alright I did it, now it's in both my eyes."
“I thought your goal was to ignite your second arcane core.”
The girl clutches her chest even as she gives a toothy grin at Mags. Mags just rolls her eyes.
“Alright so you achieved your goal, I still don't understand why.”
Sara is just staring down at her chest, then she looks up and nods.
“I need to be able to see soul depth. I figure if I am to pull my soul out, I should try to at least get it back into proper order.”
Mags is shocked at this, the girl is an inherited, their soul memories always distorted by whatever process brings them here. What does it even mean to reorder the memories?
The girl hooks all three of her arcane sources to her soul core and she begins to remember.
