Spoiler: Spoiler

The first chapter is bit of an info dump. I'm sorry about that but I need to do this so there will be less confusion later on. I also don't want to constantly disrupt my story to explain something.

I hope you enjoy!

I’m limping through the empty streets. it's already past midnight, a time where everybody is sleeping at home. Home a warm place to be together with your family.

I sigh…

Home is not a warm place for me. I am the eldest son of a noble family. You would think that by being the heir I would have a fantastic life, everyone doting on me and trying to give me a favourable impression. No such thing. I’m too weak, a failure. You see everybody of the Western-Continent follows a certain system to gain power; Soul augmentation. This system, cultivation method or whatever you want to call it allows you to gain power beyond imagination. If you are lucky.

When children become 10 years old they will go to mana rich places. In such a place they will use meditation techniques which stems from the ages past. Everyone knows how to do it because it’s very easy to perform. These children will imagine their soul absorbing mana. After doing this for a few hours they will be able to start feeling their soul and when that happens they will cut of a tiny part of their soul by using the absorbed mana. This tiny soul shard will then get fed with mana from the environment. Since this cut of part is still your soul you will be able to keep a certain connection with it. Nobody ever failed at this process. I didn’t fail either. There is however one big problem. The power of this soul shard will be variable. What happens is that this soul shard will absorb the mana for a few hours and then evolve into its initial form.

There are many forms for soul shards. The two general forms are object shards or beast shards. The strongest form is however a warrior shard. Warrior shards are the combination of both beast an object. To give an example would be a Werewolf warrior. This werewolf will be equipped with armor and weapons and is the combination of a werewolf shard, armor shard and weapon shard. Warrior shards are rare and only 10% of all the nobles manage to acquire one. However having a warrior shard still doesn’t make you special. What truly makes someone powerful is Shard fusion. That means you can fuse with your soul shard and change yourself into that werewolf warrior. Not only does that give your power output a huge boost, but it’s also much more efficient than having to use raw mana infusion to materialize your soul shard as some kind of familiar. By fusing you only need to use 1% of the mana output someone else, that can’t fuse, needs to materialize their soul shard. The good thing is around 80% of all people can fuse with their shards.

Now you should understand why I’m limping back to the dorms and why I’m not allowed to go home if I don’t ask for special permission. I can’t fuse. When you cannot fuse you are useless. But that’s not the only thing, if I had a warrior shard I would still have been seen as an asset in war with short burst but high damage potential. I stumble and fall face first into the ground. Tears start forming in my eyes. I try to hold it back, but I can’t. ‘WHY!?’, I scream, ‘WHY DO I HAVE SUCH A TRASH SOUL SHARD’. In my hysterical anger I accidently pour mana in my shard. A somewhat ethereal slime materializes before me. This only makes me even more angry. I scream, I scream myself hoarse, I scream until I faint in the dirt and I let the sweet embrace of darkness take me.