Stray Soul

Oh, hello there! Didn’t see you coming in. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it? Anyways, how are you? How are you feeling? Anything interesting lately?

Oh me? Well, my body is decomposing as we speak, I feel like shit, and I just lost my magical tree branch because of some elven bitch, that I swear was going to kill me, decided to bully little old me!

And yes, the only reason I am saying the part about how she was going to kill me is because I don’t want to be labelled as having run off because I was scared of a woman.

That’s just not something acceptable.

Continuing to run as fast as I could for a few more minutes, I started slowing down and eventually stopping completely as I had run out of my mana reserves, and I just couldn’t keep up with my spending.

Mana Points: 52/370

“...Did I even last 10 minutes?... I really need to get more intelligence...” I muttered as I laid down, focusing on my senses to make sure nothing was coming near me but, thankfully, that elven lady hadn’t decided to follow me and hunt me down... hopefully.

But even if she is not hunting me down actively, I am still not in a good position as I am approaching the goblin domain, which I was hoping to keep out of as I don’t have a particularly good relationship with them after one of them decided to blow my brains out.

And I can’t be sure if they’d do it again or not, hell, they might even want to finish what that guy started and send a hunting party after me!

But its not like I can just go back and hope the elf has fucked off, for all I know elves were always there and I just didn’t encounter them, so they might be inclined to post a guard or two at the tree to defend it from my undead ass.

But what do I do then?

I can’t go further north or east, or I’ll be hunted down by goblins.

Can’t go south as I will be hunted down by elves.

Going west might be a good idea, but I am not sure of my prospects of finding a good supply of corpses there, there might as well be a just a desert a few kilometres west, and I wouldn’t know a thing!

Then I’d have to go north or south anyways.

Hmm... what to do, what to do, but whatever I choose, there is one thing I am sure of, and that is that I need to leave this forest.

This place is mostly safe, don’t get me wrong, but the existence of not so friendly sapiens is a problem for me, because if I am not on their radar now, I’ll be one day when I get strong enough, and I don’t want to try my luck with fighting against the forces of an elven baron or a goblin warlord.

So, whatever I choose, it will be my last decision in this forest, or at least this part of it because without humans to do slash and burn farming, I’d bet this forest is large as fuck.

“But if I don’t plan on being here for a long time anymore... there shouldn’t be any problems with grinding a bit now, should there?” and there shouldn’t be as far as I am concerned.

The whole reason for me not killing everything that entered my sight in the first place was that I was planning on staying in this forest for a long time, so if I started killing everything that entered my sight for even the most miniscule amounts of exp, I’d just exterminate most life from this forest in a few years.

But as I am basically just passing through the forest at this point, I see no reason for me to not kill the occasional critters I come across.

Of course, I won’t be going after pregnant animals, hunters code or whatever, nor will I be changing my course too much to kill a random rabbit I see in the distance.

If its on my course, its fair game. If it’s not, it’s not.

Simple as that.

Resting for some time, I pulled my mana counter up to see how much mana I had.

Mana Points: 93/370

Not a lot... but it will do to get me started, if I am lucky, I should be able hunt down a few critters the rest of the day and get a few more points of intelligence and wisdom to increase my reserves.

Then I started walking towards up stream, to north, because, while the goblins were a threat, they were at least a threat I knew, and I was confident in either avoiding or scaring them away.

Like what they say, the evil you know is better than the evil you don’t, and I don’t know anything about the elves south or whatever’s west of me, there might as well be a demon hiding west and south that will eat my soul or something.

You may call me crazy or paranoid, but at the end of the day I’ll be the one that will be living!

Starting walking towards north, I let my lesser souls, which I set up off camera like all those Minecraft youtubers, take control of my body while I just continued tinkering with my mana cloud and soul like I normally do, only taking control of my body back when they spotted something.

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated Rabbit (Z) level 10!

5 exp gained.

Congratulations! You have levelled up and become level 15!

Quickly opening my stat window, I put 3 points into intelligence and the other into wisdom, bringing both to 30, but not really as I had +10 intelligence and only +6 wisdom, so I effectively brought my intelligence to 40, and my wisdom to 36.

Resting for a few hours and waiting for my mana to fill up, I got up and once again gave the control of my body to my lesser souls, then when they spotted something, I decided if it was fair game or not and continued my day.

And as the day progressed, I killed a few more critters who were unlucky enough to come across me.

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated Mole (Z) level 10!

Congratulations! You have defeated Rabbit (Z) level 14!

Congratulations! You have defeated Big Rat (Z) level 12!

Congratulations! You have defeated Lynx (Z) level 14!

Congratulations! You have defeated Red Bird (Z) level 14!

Congratulations! You have defeated Snake (Z) level 12!

38 exp gained.

Congratulations! You have levelled up and become level 16!

All points into wisdom.

Rest.

Start walking again.

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated...

*ding*

Congratulations!...*

*ding*

*ding*

*ding*

...

*ding*

Congratulations! You have levelled up and become level 17!

Towards dawn of the next day, I had reached level 17, which may leave many of you wondering why I hadn’t done this before if levelling up was this easy.

First of all, no, it’s not!

The only reason I am fine is because I cannot be killed by beasts this weak, and though other beings would experience exhaustion after hunting for all night, I did not.

No matter how many times something took a bite out of me, scratched me, made me bleed, it didn’t matter, I would be fine.

But if I didn’t have a layer of thick branches covering my being, and a thick skin and an overhaul strong body, I’d have had to change bodies at least 4 or 5 time by now, which costs time as I need to rebuild my mana cloud network for every creature I possess.

So, instead of 2 levels a day, it would be a level every 1.5 days, so 2 levels in 3 days.

And remember that, this wouldn’t even be possible if I was a normal, living, being.

And the second reason as to why I didn’t do this is, as stated at the start of the day, the only thing grinding like this would lead to is the destruction of the local ecosystem, which I am not worried about as I am trying to get out of this forest as fast as I can, so a few dead here and there is not a problem, but it would be if I just killed everything in just one area.

And of course, we shouldn’t forget the fact that my exp requirement to level up increases with every level up, look here.

Name: William Race: Stray Soul (Chimeric Creature)

Level: 17 Exp: 0/50 Rank: H

Health Points: 0/198 Mana Points: 75/400

Strength: 0 (11)

Vitality: 0 (19)

Agility: 0 (13)

Intelligence: 30 (10)

Wisdom: 34 (6)

Charisma: 0 (7)

Free Stat Points: 4

Skills: Ethereal Body (S), Mana Sense (Z), Bind (Z), Soul Sense (H), Soul Manipulation (H), Mana Control (Z), Mana Strengthening (Z) + (Sprint, Dash, Harden)

Titles: Reincarnator (S), Otherworlder (A)

Quests: Meddling with the Unknown (S), What Lays Beyond? (C)

Exp required to level up was a mere 30 3 levels ago, now its 50! It’s gone up by 20 in just 3 levels, and this is going to start going up exponentially!

So, while it takes like 5-7 animals for me to level up now, tomorrow its going to be more like 15-20, and then 30-40, 50-70, and so on!

Not sustainable, I don’t want to leave a desolate wasteland behind my wake, so in the place I go to, this won’t happen!

...Probably... unless I have to leave that place for a reason too!

Anyways, I should just spend my points...

Then I quickly put all 4 into intelligence.

And while I am keeping my wisdom and intelligence basically the same, I swear that wasn’t my goal! I am just putting points as I see fit, and I do not have a body to all my stats go into wisdom and intelligence by default!

...Maybe I could put them into charisma, but I don’t know what charisma does, and I don’t think I will rizz up anyone as a stray soul, so no reason to dump points there when they could be more useful elsewhere.

As I laid a bit into the forest, parallel to the river, for a moment I felt something watching me, and quickly got up and spread out my branches, focusing my eyes everywhere, but as fast as the feeling came, it went away.

“...Marco!”

...Silence.

Well, there is only 3 possible things that I can see.

1, I somehow got trauma from seeing a woman, which is fair.

2, this world has not developed into a polite society where saying polo after marco is expected.

3, if there was something there, it didn’t hear me because I am a fucking hog covered in bushes and have neither the capacity nor the knowledge to speak a spoken tongue from this world.

4, the mystery option, something is actually stalking me, and I am about to experience a very gruesome death.

Looking around a bit more, I decided that the reality was somewhere between the first and the third option, but not being able to detect anything after half an hour, I gave up and just rested.

After a few hours I got up and continued my grind, which actually feels weird to say as this is not a game and real life, and I am killing innocent animals for not much of a reason but... damn the consequences!

...At least for now.

Continuing the day, I hunted more and more animals, but had a hard time gaining exp as I needed to hunt more and more to get a fraction of what I achieved yesterday, which just proved my point.

But other than having a hard time levelling up, that weird sense of being watched continued throughout the day, and I took care to always have at least half of my mana reserves full, just in case I needed to bounce away or fight, not that I was sure that something was watching me, but just to be sure.

And as the night came, I was finally able to level up and become level 18!

And then I put all of my points into intelligence, because I felt like I needed more mana for the night.

And then I just rested, because I was worried about that weird sense of being watched.

As the day progressed, that feeling turned from a momentary feeling to something that lasted for a few seconds to now something that was constant.

I didn’t know if it was the elf, or something else, but I just couldn’t risk being caught up with a low mana reserve when whatever that gave me that feeling confronted me, I didn’t think I could do much more than escaping against something that had a scrying skill or spell or whatever, but I could at least try, and try I would.

As the moon rose up the sky, I sat there with a full mana reserve, waiting, scanning the forest with my eyes that I had gotten from the hybrids, which were by now mostly useless, but they could still see things in the night, so continue to use them I did.

Before long, that feeling of being watched disappeared and in its stead came an uncomfortable silence, silence that would exists only moments before something happened, and something happened.

From the direction I was facing, I started hearing soft thumping sounds, coming closer and closer and closer, after a few minutes of agonizing wait, I saw it.

Out of the forest, sliding came a gigantic lizard, its scales a pale white that also seemed harder than stone, but it felt... weird.

As I continued to look at what was going to be my end... it clicked.

It wasn’t living.

It was undead.

Slowly from the darkness of the woods came more undead, who were from species I recognized.

Deer, terror birds, wolves, hogs, and the biggest of the river bugs.

There were a few other species I didn’t recognize immediately, but I assumed they were just common species native to this world that were used to fill in the ranks of... whatever was leading these undead, they weren’t the main attraction, the lizard was.

But I didn’t have to wait, wondering who the perpetrators were for long as out of the woods came a dozen or so goblins, all wearing leather armour or draped in the hides of beasts, and from behind the pale lizard came a goblin whose armour had parts that shined under the moonlight, metal, probably iron and hopefully not steel.

But something caught my attention while looking at it, in its hands were a medallion that seemed to lightly pulse with a darkness darker than the night itself, seemingly a blackhole that ate whatever light came near it.

Closing the medallion, the goblin put it under its armour, raised its hand, and pointed it towards me, and the pale lizard, which was probably the closest thing I’d ever get to a dragon, started moving towards me, while everyone and everything else just waited.

Yeah... maybe coming into the goblin territory wasn’t the brightest of ideas.

But... but, there was a chance I could seize and get out of this... relatively unscathed.

Staring at the pale lizard marching towards me, I was sure it was an undead.

Then I got up, and started marching towards it, after all, I was the master of souls in this part of the forest.

And undead were my property.