Soren decided not to think about it right now. It would do him no good to think about that right now as it wouldn’t help him in any way. Instead of thinking about the depressing thoughts like that, he wanted to focus on the present.

“Let’s go back to the cave now. We can wait there for the entrance to open.” Smiley said as he looked at the time.

Soren nodded and they started walking back. They both soon matched their pace and started walking shoulder to shoulder.

Soren still had some questions he wanted to ask, so he simply bugged Smiley while on the move. The questions were mainly related to the breakthrough to Rank 1. Most of what Smiley told Soren was something that he already knew from the Liston Family’s Information Center, but some of the details were missing which Soren got from Smiley.

Smiley also gave Soren all the information he had on the Liston Family while trying hard not to show the obvious annoyance on his face. He just wanted to go inside the cave and take a nap right now, away from this curious devil.

But Soren took full advantage of their time together and asked away whatever questions he had in mind, and at the same time, he tried to feign ignorance towards the pissed off expression of Smiley.

……….

They both walked inside the cave and took a seat on the rocks that they were sitting on before. Smiley also took a breather and simply adjusted his posture to be more comfortable; it was obvious he was getting ready for his nap. The other members also didn’t ask or inquire regarding what they talked about or why did it take so much time; it was none of their business.

“Can we trade?” Soren opened his mouth as his voice echoed in the cave hall.

Everyone opened their eyes and looked at him; of course, except for Smiley. He just continued on with his eyes closed, not caring at all what went on inside the cave. He had been annoyed enough by this little devil for one day.

“Go ahead,” It was Tera who answered.

Soren took one look at everyone and said, “I need an item that will boost my Spell Casting ability. I would prefer if it boosts the ‘Intelligence’ stat.”

Soren asked for one of the things that he wanted the most right now. The enhancement artifacts he had with him right now had increased his ‘Spirit’ quite a bit, and so, he needed his ‘Intelligence’ to catch up to that. Previously, he was planning on selling the cultivation technique—‘Steel Skin’ for Mana Crystals, but after thinking about it, he decided to use it for the trade. He wasn’t losing anything here as Isaac had already recorded the technique and he could still use that for reference.

And if he didn’t get what he wanted here, he could just go with the original plan and sell the technique book in the town.

…

Soren didn’t receive any answer for a while. He looked at all the members one by one and finally stopped at Smiley. Smiley seemed to be in deep sleep right now as he didn’t react at all on Soren’s voice. But maybe it was Soren’s imagination, he felt that Smiley’s body had tensed up the moment he looked at him; seemingly afraid to make any movement that might give him away and drag him into this conversation.

“What will you use in exchange?” Suddenly, a feminine voice echoed in the hall; saving Smiley from his predicament.

Soren looked at the source of the voice and found that it belonged to Wood. He had actually kind of expected this. The reason behind this was: What he asked for was something that would be quite important to any Spell Caster, and from what he could tell, Smiley and Tera were both Spell Casters; he wasn’t sure about this but he had made some conjectures on his own from the little information that he had.

He was expecting something only from Wood or Hound, and it turned out exactly like that.

“I’ll trade this Cultivation Technique book. It’s a defense-oriented technique and it focuses on three stats: ‘Resistance’, ‘Strength’ and ‘Vitality’.” Soren took out the cultivation book from his backpack and showed it to her.

Wood looked at the book and shook her head, “….It’s not enough. Do you have anything else?”

Soren was already prepared for a reply like that. Generally, the cultivation techniques were not the best thing to use in a trade. Initiators usually chose their development path during the early levels, so a cultivation technique that didn’t focus on their chosen stats was not really a favorite during trades like this.

He thought for a bit about what to use instead and finally decided on one thing. He took off the silver ring he was wearing on his right index finger and showed it to Wood.

“This ring increases the ‘Agility’ stat by 2.10. Is this enough?”

Wood heard what Soren said and after thinking for a while, she finally nodded her head. She then lifted her right arm up and released her Soul Form; it was a sword made of wood. The sword was not that long, only about 20 centimeters in length. Its surface looked like a polished wood which made it a little shiny, but overall, it looked like a common wooden sword that someone would use for practice.

Of course, just because it seemed like a wooden practice sword didn’t mean that Soren would underestimate it; every Soul Form had their advantages and disadvantages, and there was no Soul Form which was deemed useless—it just depended on the user.

…

The sword floated in front of Wood as she tapped her right index finger on its hilt. A very dim silver light shone where she tapped her finger and the next moment, she had an earring in her hand. Soren was staring at her every action intently, trying not to miss anything. He knew that he still had many things to learn about and he didn’t want to miss any chance to learn something new.

The fact that she took out the earring from her Soul Form didn’t actually surprise Soren as he had already made up his mind to accept almost anything he saw with an open mind. He was determined to learn, so first of all, he had to accept the unexpected and then move on to understand it properly.

“This is an earring which will support your spell casting and will also give a boost of 3.00 to your ‘Intelligence’ stat,” Wood showed the earring to Soren and explained its effects in a calm voice.

This earring was not a pair and was only for one ear. It had a fairly simple design: a long blue metal with a black snake revolving around it; its mouth opened at the top which seemed like it would be used to bite the wearer’s earlobe. Soren saw the earring and even though he had an open mind about everything, he still felt weird; one thought went through his mind.

Is almost every enhancement artifact made for women? I already had the heart pendant and now this….

But still, that thought didn’t cloud his rational mind; no matter how it looked, the fact that the item would provide a significant boost to him didn’t change.

Soren nodded and got up from his seat to make an exchange.

“The ring is not enough; I want both the ring and the cultivation book.” Wood suddenly said which made Soren stop in his tracks.

He looked towards Wood and after thinking about it for a while, said, “Then the earring is not enough; add something else.”

Wood simply replied, “Are you fine with taking Mana Crystals?”

Soren fell into silence for a minute and then finally nodded after thinking it through. Though the problem was—he didn’t know how much these things cost. But this was also a chance for him; a chance to know the worth of these things.

Seeing that Soren agreed, Wood also got up from her seat and walked towards Soren. While walking, she once again tapped her finger on her Soul Form and this time, she took out a red pouch.

Soren was already walking towards her with the book and the ring in his hand. He saw Wood taking out the crystal pouch like that and confirmed his previous hypothesis. She had some kind of space storage spell or a storage item that could be attached to the Soul Form.

While thinking about that, Soren met her in the middle of the cave and exchanged the items with her. He didn’t say anything about the amount of the crystals as that would only expose his inexperience; he was using this chance to learn so he was willing to take a loss if he had to.

The whole cave once again fell into silence as they both returned to their respective seats after making the exchange.

……….

After sitting down, Soren put aside the earring and first opened the red pouch; there were 10 Middle-Grade Mana Crystals sitting inside that pouch. The amount was not totally unexpected and was in the realm of his guess. But he knew this was not the actual value of the cultivation book. This was just the surplus that Wood owed him after the earring.

Soren made some calculations based on what he knew so far and made a guess about the price of the book; it came to be around 1500 Low-Grade Mana Crystals. Of course, this was a guess he made on the basis that the amount Wood gave him was fair.

After he was finished with the crystals, Soren focused on the earring. At first, he was lamenting on the fact that he got another feminine item that he had to wear, but after he took a good look at the earring, his opinion changed. The earring did not look feminine in any way; instead, it had a menacing look because of the black snake that was surrounding the long blue metal.

Soren looked at it for a while and then decided to wear it without any wait. This was the first time he was going to wear an earring so he was slightly anxious. Not because how it would look but how much his earlobe would hurt after wearing it. This thought was actually going through the person’s mind who had already suffered from multiple deep cuts, broken bones, stab wounds, mangled flesh, etc.

…

Soren held the earring in his right hand and mulled about which ear he should wear it on. Finally, he decided on sacrificing his right earlobe.

The process went on smoothly and Soren pressed the snake’s mouth at his earlobe. A small clicking sound came as the earring fit onto Soren’s earlobe. A little drop of blood dripped out of his earlobe as the snake bit into it. Soren then rubbed his sore earlobe to ease the stinging pain and then gently moved his fingers on his earring; the metal felt cold to touch while the snake had a rough surface. He didn’t know if it was the earring’s effect but soon after wearing it, he started feeling a cold sensation spreading throughout his body which made his mind feel refreshed.

Once the feeling passed away, Soren opened his status to check the changes.

Status: Healthy

Rank 0: Layer 9 [CP - 5%]

Name: Soren Farrow

Species: Human

Attribute: Darkness & Ice

Health: 100%

Stamina: 100%

Mana: 100%

Strength: 3.26

Agility: 4.00

Vitality: 6.91

Intelligence: 8.35 (+3.40)

Spirit: 8.02 (+3.40)

Resistance: 3.75

Spells:

Spell Vessels: 2/5

Innate Spells:

Innate Skills:

Create Undead: Low Tier [3/3] – Level 10/15. Mana Cost – Average. [Rank 0]

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Dark Gravity [3/3] – Level 1/10. Mana Cost – Extremely High. [Rank 1]

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Dark Bolt – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Ice Arrow – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Dead Rising – Level 3/10. Mana Cost – Low. [Rank 0]

------------

Acid Needles – Level 1/10. Mana Cost – Very High. [Rank 1]

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Shadow Chain – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Cold Touch – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Spark – Level 10/10. Mana cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

------------

Fireball – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Average. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Mana Manipulation – Level 3/15.

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Equipment: Common Staff; Spirit-Pendant; Survival Kit; Sidearm Gun [GX 100]; Snake-Earring.

Items: 85 Beast Cores; Common Clothes.

Mana Crystals: 16,260 [Low-Grade].

He could feel the effect of the enhancement artifacts very clearly. Not only from the ones he was wearing right now, but also from the one he traded off; he could clearly feel the negative effect of his ‘Agility’ decreasing after he removed the ring.

His status didn’t have any big change from the last time he checked it, apart from his new spell and that his injuries were all healed now. He also noticed another thing which he had neglected until now. Before when he learned the magic language ‘Enfari’, it increased the spell mastery of his spells by a few levels, but after observing his new Spell Vessel, he confirmed that it happened only because the spells were of Rank 0; the lowest rank.

At this rank, the spells were pretty basic in nature and such; one could understand a lot of it just by knowing the ‘Enfari’ language. But this effect decreased a lot as the Rank of the spell went up. It could be easily seen through his two Rank 1 spells; even though he had learned the magic language, the spell mastery of those spells was still at Level 1.

One other thing he confirmed through this was that the language ‘Enfari’ gave the user a basic understanding of a spell, so it meant that he would have the lowest mastery of Level 1 no matter what rank the spell was. It was different from the time when he had to practice hard to just increase the mastery level from 0 to 1 and properly cast the spell. With the language, he could cast the spell without any worry of a backlash from a failed casting; unless he made a mistake himself that is.

………

Soren didn’t have anything to do right now as they had to wait for the entrance to open, so he thought to do some cultivation. But he couldn’t do that inside the cave because of his unique method. So, he had no choice but to go outside and hunt some Beasts to cultivate. They had to wait in the cave for 2 days so he had enough time to cultivate and also test his new spell—‘Dark Gravity’.

He didn’t test it before as he was on the move at that time and it was dangerous to move in the jungle when he was out of Mana. But now, he didn’t have to worry about that as he could just hunt some Beast and test the spell on it and then rest there to recover his Mana. Making up his mind, he got up from his seat and walked out of the cave without informing anyone. The others also didn’t care about it as they were busy doing their own stuff; Hound and Tera were cultivating, Wood was studying the cultivation technique—‘Steel Skin’, and Smiley was sleeping in a sitting position with light snoring sound coming from his mouth; this time, he didn’t seem to be pretending.

Soren went out of the cave and once again felt the blinding light in his eyes; his eyes had gotten used to the darkness, after all. After getting used to it, he thought about which direction to go in. He wasn’t planning on moving too far so, he just chose a random direction.

He was hoping to quickly find a Beast and use his spell on it. But it seemed that he was out of luck as he couldn’t find a proper test subject even after moving about half a mile away from the cave. Soon though, the realization dawned on him; it was not that he was unlucky but that most of the Beasts in this area had already died or ran away.

The commotion caused by the Vestige and the hunt from the Rank 1 Beast had resulted in this situation. Soren sighed as he realized this fact; he didn’t know who he could blame for this.

Confirming that he wouldn’t find a strong Beast in this area, he started to look for the weaker ones. He only had to test his spell now; a weaker one wouldn’t be optimal for the data but he had to make do with it. He looked around the cave for a long time but still couldn’t find any Beast on which he could do the test. Finally, he decided to move farther and then try his luck. Again, he chose a random direction and started moving.

He didn’t have to worry about being lost as he had Isaac who was constantly giving him navigational ‘advice’; of course, it was not just advice and pretty much Isaac telling Soren which direction to go in, which Soren would never admit. Isaac was also responsible now to keep watch over the surroundings as Soren moved which made his life a lot easier; again, which he would never admit.

…

After moving about a mile away from the cave, Soren finally found his prey; a test subject. It was not the ideal subject as its level was only Rank 0: Layer-6 but Soren had no other option here.

The Beast looked like one of the big cats. Its features were very similar to a cheetah but it had some major differences. Soren knew this Beast’s name was ‘Garatee’; its main features were its tricky movements and its sharp fangs.

It had a brownish yellow skin with white dots spread all over. Its eyes were like two slits through which it discerned its surroundings. It was not the fastest amongst the same level Beasts but it used its flexible limbs and its long tail to quickly change its direction while moving, and became a headache for its enemies.

Soren was a little surprised to find this Beast here as it was quite a rare Beast to find in this area. Its potential was quite high and its high Mana aptitude also put it amongst the best. But it didn’t matter as Soren only had to test his spell and didn’t really care about who or what his test subject was.

And as such, the battle started.

Soren was around 30 meters away from the Beast right now and the current range of his spell was around 20 meters; he had to get closer to cast his spell. Soren thought about it and decided to take the simple route and just moved forward.

The Beast had already noticed Soren and was constantly growling to warn him. Through its instinct, it had sensed that the opponent in front of him was not an easy one. If possible, it wanted to avoid this fight, but Soren didn’t want that. So, this fight was inevitable.

Soren moved closer to the Beast and very soon, their distance became around 25 meters. The Beast also had realized by now that it really had to fight in order to survive this day; and such, it moved. It quickly dashed towards Soren in a straight line but obviously, it was not going to attack head-on.

Soren also knew that but he was not concerned, and the reason behind it was—his eyes. His ‘Powered Vision’ grew and developed together with him so as he broke through Layer-9, it also caught up with him. The Garatee’s movements were extremely clear in Soren’s eyes; he had even predicted the direction in which the Beast was going to turn, based on its physical movements. And so, he made his move.

Soren lifted his right arm and aimed at the place that the Beast was going to turn towards. The Beast was already under the spell range and so the test began.

Soren felt his Mana draining away as he finished casting the spell. He then set the epicenter of the spell at the place he had already decided on and activated the spell.

The Beast had also turned at this point and had entered the area where Soren had activated the spell. The gravity in that 7 meters circle surrounding the epicenter suddenly increased exponentially. The Beast abruptly stopped in its tracks as it felt its weight increasing; it increased to such an amount that it couldn’t hold up and fell on the ground with a dull sound; its leg bending under its own body weight. Inside that high gravity area, it felt its bones creaking as they were about to give up. It made a loud roar as it felt its bones slowly breaking under the effect of the gravity; even the roar took all its energy.

But the spell wasn’t finished here; one final effect was still left. At this point though, Soren was just hoping that the Beast doesn’t die from only the gravity effect alone; that wouldn’t give him any chance to test the next part of the spell—‘Dark Tendrils’.

The Beast didn’t disappoint Soren as it struggled to survive under the increased gravity. But it was obvious that it wouldn’t last long as its blood flow was also slowing down under the spell's effect.

The next stage began after a few seconds of the first stage. Suddenly, the area of effect turned dark. Black colored tendrils slowly floated out of the ground and covered the whole circle; it covered every part of the circle and that also included the Beast. The dark tendrils slowly entered the Beast’s body as it tried to struggle, but couldn’t do so under the gravity’s effect. Slowly, the Beast started to wither under the ‘Darkness’ element’s effects. It didn’t long last and died very soon; its body looking like a decayed corpse.

Soren stared at the whole process from start to finish, without batting an eye. His face was calm but his heart was beating hard with excitement after seeing the effect of his spell. After the process was finished and the Beast had died, he turned around and started walking back to the cave; ignoring the Layer-6 Beast Core.

The spell test was over.