While Arsène and Boram were defending Fort Mercator, Viers was as busy as a bee on caffeine honey.

Increasing his soul attainment was the first priority. Every day Viers tried to absorb as much as he could, as best as he could, but it was work done in months not days. While absorbing, the headache gradually became more intense. Viers knew his limits and stopped to do something else.

Although he had Mystic Star Shroud, Viers kept using his Insignificant Fate Arte. He was very meticulous against the yet-to-be-seen enemies but getting stronger was always the answer. Such was Viers’ way of thinking.

Now that he was a Level 3, Viers familiarized himself with his power spike. Even without any improvement, just his Level 3 Victa improved all of his Artes considerably. Of course, Viers wasn't satisfied. There were all kinds of improvements to be made on his Artes, water and soul both.

Paina, Farley, Clarissa, and Viers himself were on this. With the massive sample of Arte formulas from the people he soul searched, his Arte repertoire continued to become better and better.

The Unreality Field was a crucial feature that was unlocked at Level 3, not only did it serve as a protective measure, it also could affect one’s Artes.

“This is my Unreality Field…” Viers muttered with deep emotion when he first invoked the ability. It was a long journey prior to this point.

Viers’ body was coated by an aura of blue and green a few inches above his skin. The two colors didn’t mix, representing his water and soul affinities. The contradictory aura of life and death was being emitted from it.

Colors didn't indicate a person’s affinity so Viers’ cover couldn’t be blown by simply using the ability. At first the Field was only able to envelop a person’s body but it could grow outward as the Pathseeker became stronger and more proficient in using it.

Conventional Artes, poison, and the likes from Level 2 and below won’t hurt me now. Nothing is absolute though, since I broke Alan’s a while back. Hmm… maintaining it took quite a bit of concentration. I have to master this before I take on Level 3 opponents.

Upon higher mastery, Unreality Field could also be infused into Artes to bolster their effects. Viers wasn't able to when he tried, so too Alan, the Level 3 that Viers felled using a water Rasengan. They hadn't reached that level yet.

His soul Artes had been used and polished aplenty during his battles as Tanael while his water Artes didn't get enough love. Not only that, his swordsmanship training was also somewhat neglected.

Now that he was no longer in the safety of the Book World, the conventional thinking was Viers put his soul skills in the back seat and put his water skills to the front because he would use those mainly.

Viers also thought that way at first.

It was a given he would improve his water skills which had just received a crucial boost of water 5 affinity but why stop there?

With a smidgen of soul attainment he got from Aletro, Viers already had a plan.

Telekinesis. Telekinesis is the way! I’m going to be a fuckin’ Jedi!

Moving things without touching them in this world was uncommon but not impossible. While mainly this lay in the domain of a mind Pathseeker, but air and soul Pathseeker could do the same feat. However, Profound Codices could also allow someone to use telekinesis. As long as Viers could hide his soul signature from others’ detection, he should be fine using it as an excuse, which was entirely possible because of Mystic Star Shroud, Grand Soul, and Aletro’s skill trinity!

Others could also do something similar. For example, a water Pathseeker could make a water hand to grab an out-of-reach glass.

Ha! Even a simple Force Push or Force Pull could have great effect in a fight. Mwuahahahaha! I’m TOTALLY gonna Force Choke people I don't like! To keep the films in PG rating, even the bad guys don't burst someone’s head in a show of gore despite the fact that they are capable of it but nothing's gonna prevent me from doing that. Also also! Can I shoot lightning from my fingers using my soul energy? Not impossible! Not impossible at all! Souls are too versatile. Gwahahahaha! Wait a sec, this makes me a Sith rather than a Jedi, doesn’t it? …Bah, a trivial matter. Both sides are cool as hell, that’s what matters.

A brand new path was opened before Viers. He lacked the skill to pull it off in the past despite having the inspiration but now he had pried open the door using a crowbar that he bought at three and a half million spark shards.

One day, Viers would have his own epic BGM entered into a room just like Darth Vader.

That was not all. Viers realized his usage of soul was heavily focused for direct attacks and passed over the more sophisticated usage of it.

In 12 Miles Below, the MC and his allies learned how to perceive souls and it aided them greatly in combat. Made them able to predict the opponent's move by the fluctuation for their soul? …Something like that. Isn't this the soul sense concept in xianxia? Hell, Observation Haki is also similar to this.

Viers’ imagination was going wild.

What if I could-

But he hit the brakes.

Calm down, boy. Slow down a bit. Trying to do everything is a foolish way of thinking, even if there’re technically two of me now. Not that I won't try to acquire the ability in the future but my physical senses are quite sharp themselves. Well, only my hearing and sight when I use Euryale Sight. I’ve planned to sharpen my sense of smell but it always got shoved down the priority list… More is not always better. Jack of all trades and master of none is not what I want to be.

Viers narrowed down what he would focus on in his magical department. Ideally, his life would be long enough for him to be a master of all.

Artes and magical powers were nice and all but Viers was not going to do a pure-mage build; his skill with an edged tool would make his enemies feel like a fish on a chopping block in front of a sushi chef.

Viers created his own brand of swordsmanship, Suiten Mitsurugi-ryuu. It wasn't the best sword style out there, worse yet, it wasn't even particularly special. Viers’ history using a sword was two years at most. Calling him a founder of a sword style was laughable in the eyes of a true swordsman who lived by the sword. Viers didn't have a teacher and thus far all he learned was self-taught.

And yet no matter how rough his skill with a blade was, he had killed a lot of people and monsters using his sword arm. It was an undeniable fact.

What he did have was a ton of learning material. People that he soul searched had learned from various schools of combat, many used swords as their weapon. Viers distilled the ones he felt useful and absorbed their techniques. It wasn't a simple copy, he was slowly integrating them into something of his own. In particular, Blade of Justice Troy’s swordsmanship skill was a very good reference, as expected from a renowned sword School.

But it was not the most precious piece of sword knowledge in Viers’ Arsenal. In Stage 3, Viers recorded a phantom utilizing something called the Sea Universe sword style. It was only the first form but even with what little understanding of the sword he had, Viers understood it was something extraordinary.

For now, I’ll use it as the basics and slowly build my swordsmanship from there. Just watch, even this Sea Universe style will be absorbed into my Suiten Mitsurugi-ryuu.

Like the name, the Sea Universe sword style was water-based, Aletro gave a fitting reward for Viers but it wasn't easy. Unlike the matter of the soul, Viers didn't have a shortcut. To perfectly master that first form, it might take months or even years. Viers wasn't discouraged. Every day, he allocated a few hours of his time to repeatedly practice that form.

He knew to grow as a swordsman he would have to pay the price in terms of sweat, one swing of the blade at a time. To gain the necessary experience, ten days were far from enough.

He could copy and mimic the posture, steps, and others but he didn't know how effective it would be in real battles. He also felt he was missing something.

Ah, so I’m not like those ‘genius’ xianxia MCs that could learn something that took others a year to learn in one week. Shame, it would make my life so much easier. But hardships build character and all that. Not much of a loss then. Hmn… Does this have something to do with those xianxia novels becoming boring after three-k chapters? What a mystery indeed.

Clong—!

His arms burned with muscle sores as he dropped the training sword after swinging it a hundred times. The thing resembling a baseball bat made a dull sound as it hit the ground. The training sword was something he got from Troy's inventory ring, it was blunt but ten times heavier than normal swords. In fact, it could be used as a blunt weapon just fine. Viers couldn't even wipe the sweat from his brows and fell on his butt.

“Kin, water!”

Dia trotted closer with a big cup of pure water just as Viers finished, offering the cup to his mouth.

“Zeeeh… zeeeh… zhanks…” Veirs was too short of breath to properly speak. He chugged until the last drop.

Cling– Cling– Cling–

A clear bell-like chime resounded from nearby.

“Oooh! The thing is done, kin! Now can you tell me what it is?” Dia was getting excited.

Not far from Viers’ location, there was an intricate-patterned magic circle glowing yellow. Inside the circle, there were storage items of various shapes, rings, pouches, bags, and the like. The magic circle was called Lock-breaking Array. Its purpose was to slowly dissolve the locked storage items. Viers had a lot of them, donated by the kind souls from the Book World.

Before, Viers was having trouble opening just two rings but no longer. Lady Viper, unremarkable she might be, possessed this precious array through her own fortunate encounter. After a soul search session, it was now Viers’. Setting it up was a pain and costly but from now on, just leave the storage items inside the circle for a few days and the contents would be spilling out. Viers channeled the old enchanter’s soul to create this array. There were limitations but the array would work on conventional storage items.

Although it was among the better ones, even Viers’ Thousand Treasure Casket was categorized as a standard storage item.

On the downside, the storage items would be destroyed. Skilled enchanters like Izabella could make it so other people could use them again but for simplicity, Viers chose to break them down using the array.

In Stage 5, Viers opened a few with help of Izabella but there were still many that remained unopened. Because he was busy, he didn't have the time to soul search the small fries to the last scrap of memories either so Viers didn't know what he would find.

“Hahaha. It is called out-of-season Christmas presents. Shall we see what’s inside?”

“Presents? I like presents. Yaaaay!” Dia cheered.

Next up comes the loot!! Let’s hope there are cheat-level goods waiting for me. Hihihi!