NOVEL NEXT Chapter 42: Soul Collector
Roland
Roland looked down at the camp of the undead in wonder, the hundred or so frozen or burned zombies, the six wolves he could spot, four frozen, two with holes in their heads and hearts. Most disturbing of all, however, were the dead zombies and skeletons which had apparently started charging up the hill and then just died. The latter two wolves he was pretty sure had been killed by the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, but the frost and fire, the mass destruction, that had to be from the Heavenly Spark Soul King.
From the appearance of the battlefield, the Heavenly Spark Soul King had started the invasion by himself, destroyed almost the entire force, and then been captured. There was a section on the hill covered in both wolf blood, the blood and brain matter of two of the invasion force’s generals, and a slightly more pink blood that almost gave Roland an erection when he got close to it. The Mistress of Oaths and Deception had seemingly then saved the Heavenly Spark Soul King and they’d both just walked away, found the invasion force leader somewhere else, and then the Mistress of Oaths and Deception had made the type of tricky deals which gave her her name, getting the leader in position for Roland to easily kill.
Roland had gotten a good sense of the invasion force leader. While very much an early F rank, his aura had been much stronger than any of the F rank beings Roland met inside the tutorial’s challenges, with a strong feeling of weight and darkness, yet the Mistress of Oaths and Deception had handled him with ease, even while she herself was only G rank.
If what she’d said was true, and she and the Heavenly Spark Soul King were human up until recently, it was quite obvious she at least had received quite a bit of training. Given how he had seemingly been captured, however, without even having the chance to run away, the Heavenly Spark Soul King had likely not. He was just far more powerful than any G rank had the right to be, with at least a cold and fire Law Egg at high grade each.
Roland walked up to the so-called Pillar of Conquest and placed his right hand on its surface, causing a System message to pop up in front of his eyes.
You have touched the Pillar of Conquest of one of the invasion forces into your world.
The process of conquest will take half a day, during which time you must protect the pillar from the original invasion force as well as any other challengers.
Would you like to begin the process of conquest?
Yes/No
Roland accepted and then the Mistress of Oaths and Deception walked up to him. “Head back and continue to hunt with your party.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, all the undead leader’s artifacts held in her other arm. “Our best protection now is secrecy.”
Roland nodded to her and then headed back, finding himself wondering why she didn’t want him to meet the Heavenly Spark Soul King, the man she wanted him to refer to as Guardian. Was it to keep up an air of mystery about their master, because the Heavenly Spark Soul King wasn’t quite as impressive in person as his obvious power would suggest, or maybe just because it was a needless risk? He probably wouldn’t know until he finally met the man.
What he was sure of, however, was that, without the two monsters, he and the rest of his people in the area would have been killed by the invasion force within the next couple of months.
* * *
Mila
Mila covered herself with her Law Egg of Obfuscation and then headed back to the cave, taking her time to obscure the tracks which had allowed her and Aalam to find it in the first place.
Then she headed inside, making sure all the arrays other than the offensive one Aalam had destroyed were intact, and sat down on the throne to wait for Aalam to wake up.
It took about five hours, with Mila’s Soul stat increasing by 2 during the time as she meditated on her Laws, but not much had changed with Aalam by the time he woke up.
His dark blue hair had fallen off to be replaced by hair the same color but maybe a little darker. His amber, almost orange, eyes were a bit brighter, a bit less natural looking. But the truly noticeable difference was his aura. It hadn’t grown stronger, his Aura stat no different than before, but it felt more solid, harder to affect. The feeling of increasing lust from being in his presence was more potent and there was now an additional urge to bow in deference. Most important, the many Laws in his aura, previously a chaotic mess, felt more ordered and controlled, his new race seemingly giving him much higher natural affinities with all Laws.
Awakening your third racial ability as a Strong Soul Incubus Prince (F-Epic).
Please choose from the following three selections.
- Soul Collector (Epic): Gain a unique small size soulstructure for long term storage of deceased souls
- Passive Daoist (Legendary): Gain insights into Laws more easily through meditation, but less easily through combat.
- Lord’s Aura (Heroic): Increase the effectiveness of the Aura stat by 50%.
As soon as he woke up, Aalam also got to choose his third racial ability, and, as with most of his decisions since entering into his berserker state, he made it almost instantly, choosing Soul Collector. Then he fell unconscious again, and this time he was under for almost ten hours.
Roland’s invasion quest even finished before he woke up.
Destroy the Invasion I (F-Epic) Completed!
Personal completion percentage: 100%
There were no escapees among the invasion’s forces.
You solo-killed the leader of the invasion.
Calculating.
Rewards:
All stats +6
Three choices of F rank skill orbs up to Epic grade
Three choices of F rank artifacts up to Epic grade
“What?” Mila even spoke out loud as she used her authority as Aalam’s chamberlain to block Roland from personally selecting his choices.
Then she sent the System message over her bond to Nana Xara and asked, “What’s going on here? Why are the rewards so low?”
Nana Xara started laughing on the other end and Mila realized what her answer would be even before she said it. “Low? Mila, those rewards are incredibly high for what you just accomplished.
“Legendary grade rewards from the System are extremely rare, requiring you to do something outrageous. Do you remember what you and Aalam had to do to get Legendary grade rewards back in the tutorial?” She could almost see Nana Xara’s smile. “You had to kill D ranks as G ranks. That’s not something which is normally ever done.”
“The reward for killing Aalam is Legendary,” Mila sent over defensively, again realizing what Nana Xara would say immediately after.
“And he’s incredibly abnormal.” Nana Xara started laughing again and Mila felt like a bit of a fool. She’d gotten too used to getting the best of the best rewards each time she and Aalam did anything.
Destroying the invasion force had been more difficult than some of the challenges in the tutorial, but that was only due to her and Aalam being underleveled for the task and Aalam rushing into things like an idiot. The true challenge actually wasn’t that hard.
“Do you have advice about what I should pick?” Mila sent the contents of both lists over the bond.
“Unlike Aalam, you will want to go for Legendary grade skills, so for one of the artifacts I would choose an F rank Epic grade Orb of Skill Combination. Depending on the classes you choose, you might have another way of performing skill combinations, but it’s probably a better route to just use the stones, as you don’t have too much need for other artifacts given what you’ve received from the undead.
“Then it just boils down to what type of skill you want and the other two artifacts don’t matter too much. My advice would be to choose two of the Epic grade ingredients Aalam would want for improving the Left Hand of the Runescribe. From that list, the rarest would be a Contained Life Essence and a Contained Time Essence.”
Mila immediately chose those three artifacts, but they didn’t appear near her, so she was pretty sure they appeared near Roland instead. He had no way to contact her, however, so she just sent him a message telling him the artifacts and the soon to come skill orbs were hers and not to use them.
“Do you have advice on what skills I should get? I’ve got three skills now, but it sounds like I’ll have room for a total of 12 at F rank. I wasn’t expecting to have so many.”
“With Aalam’s choice of race,” Nana Xara sent, “I’m pretty sure what plans he has for your second class, and I don’t see any issues with taking it, though it will be your choice. That class will work a little different from normal, though, so it won’t give you any extra skill slots for yourself. It will, however, take your Exemplary Servitor skill, leaving you four slots to fill on your main class.
“One of those needs to be a charm skill for your class to work properly, but I have a good option prepared, and another needs to be a disguise skill, but you’ll get that from your class, so that only leaves two slots. Normally, I would recommend a detection skill and a movement skill, but the other class should cover the detection skill if what I’m guessing is correct.” Nana Xara sounded contemplative. “Given the way you fight, however, speed isn’t really as important as the ability to distract and hide, so, for your final two skills, I would recommend a skill to complement your path of illusions and another to complement your path of shadows, the latter also ideally a movement skill.
“Since there is an inheritance on this planet, it will likely have some skill orbs usable by both you and Aalam, meaning it’s more likely than not the inheritance of a thief or a craftsman, with a thief more likely. Thus, my recommendation is to go for an illusion skill.”
Mila thought about it. Given her bloodline and how Aalam had upgraded their soulstructures, she was pretty sure she knew what the class line he wanted her to take for her second class would do, and she was still thinking about it. But that didn’t stop her from taking it into consideration when choosing a new skill, so they spent the next half hour or so going over her options. Then she chose the skills Illusion Steps (F-Epic), Second Self (F-Epic), and Blur (F-Epic).
It was a bit later that Aalam woke up and Mila finally got the chance to confirm the effects of his third racial ability, having wanted to avoid the topic of lust filled souls with Nana Xara. “Aalam, does your new ability effectively work as a refrigerator for souls?”
Aalam looked perplexed for a second, probably by her analogy not being technically correct, his ability likely more like an ice box than a refrigerator, but, instead of going into a long explanation about the nature of heat pumps, he instead just nodded.
“So we can stock up now and I don’t have to go hunting every couple of days?”
He nodded again.
Mila sent the slowly degenerating soul of the last general over to him for safekeeping. Then she quickly explained the results of taking over the Pillar of Conquest and left to put everything in order back in Eshna.
She would go take the rewards from Roland before he used any of them, hunt enough souls to last for a month or so, and then enter into secluded cultivation with Aalam. There she would upgrade her race to Strong Soul Succubus Princess, which her bloodline allowed for even though she didn’t meet the prerequisites, and finish mastering her skills like Aalam was working on so she could gain her two classes and finally make it to level 1, the first true step on the road to power.
