“How do I eat this though?” Rakna deadpanned as he inspected the frozen heart, bigger than his own head. He knocked on it with his fingers and winced at how cold and hard it was. “It would be easier if I could use the Volcanic Star to thaw it…” He muttered.

“{Why don’t you just chop it into pieces and swallow them?}”

“Higure, while I don’t know how exactly my digestive system changed ever since I turned into a werewolf, or how my Nirvana Skill processes hearts, I’m really not eager to put something like this in my stomach. In pieces or not.”

“{Well, it was a suggestion…}”

Rakna mused then thought of the fireball spell that one of his accessories allowed him to use. He might be able to use it to defrost it. But that still remained a pretty inefficient method. It could also damage the muscle itself if he wasn’t careful.

“Do I seriously have to wait…?”

“{I still think the chopping to pieces idea is the best one,}” Higure interjected meekly. “{And, who knows. Perhaps you can eat it like ice cream too.}”

Rakna sighed. “I’ll guess I’ll try,” he said, ignoring the lioness' second remark, and activated his dimensional sagacity. The threads filled his vision once again and he concentrated on the ones swimming around the heart. There were exactly seven of them coming out of it and they were all crimson red.

“{I see that you’re already making good use of my eyes.}”

“Well, I try. Why don’t you explain it to me a bit more, since it’s your power?”

“{Of course. My Cross Sight shows you what we Dusk Lions commonly refer to as the Threads of Thanatos. Where they grow is where a weakness is located; also called Focal Points. You just need to insert a tad bit of sharpened mana and it will make it shatter. It even works on intangible things like magic, illusions, and spirits.}”

“Uh, so mana is necessary for this to work?” Rakna asked.

“{Yes and no. Focal points are vulnerable to both physical and energy-type impetus. But they are considerably easier to exploit with mana because not only does it do more damage but you can also directly deal the blow by grabbing the thread instead of aiming for its root.}”

“I see…” He whispered and channeled the dregs of mana he had left to his hand. Then, he tried to grab one of the heart’s threads, and unlike before, he was actually able to touch it. He then sent a minute pulse of mana and the heart was split into three different parts with a crunching sound.

“{Yes, exactly like that. However, while it is easier to grab the threads, especially in a fight, the potency is greatly reduced compared to if the root had been targeted. In this case, if you had used your claw, like with the boulder yesterday, this heart would have split into at least four or five pieces. Do you understand thus far?}”

“I do,” Rakna nodded as he repeated the same thing on the three new pieces, this time experiment with only his claws. “Though, I’m curious about one thing.”

“{What is it?}”

“Are focal points something that can be used by anyone?”

“{No,}” Higure replied instantly. “{You need a Dusk Lion’s talent; the Shuttle Specter. It converts your body and internal energies into a natural weapon against dimensional gaps, which is what allows you to jump through Enthymio’s layers and make use of focal points with Cross Sight.}”

“Good to know,” Rakna said and swallowed the first piece of the heart, suppressing a shiver at how cold it was as it went down his throat. “By the way, why do you call it Cross Sight? Is it just your preference?” He asked as he reached for the second piece.

“{More or less. Cross Dimensional Sagacity gets old. But that’s only half of the reason. I believe that you have yet to see what your eyes look like while you use that ability, have you?}”

Rakna raised an eyebrow. “Trii, mirror,” he instructed and it appeared right next to him. When he turned toward it, he jerked in surprise. The occasional changes between purple, red, gold, and the feral appearance were already enough in his opinion but this was even worse.

His pupils, now narrowed to daunting slits after assimilating Higure’s heart, had been duplicated somehow and were overlapping each other, forming a cross-shaped pupil encased in his irises. He blinked and turned off the skill. When he looked again, they were back to normal.

“My eyes are really becoming something, huh?” He commented dryly as he swallowed one of the two last pieces of his ‘treat’.

“{Well, more often than not, eyes are easily affected by skills and the flow of mana in particular so you could say it’s not odd for people to have visible changes the more they delve into magic.}”

Rakna grunted at that and sat cross-legged with his eyes closed after ingesting the last piece of the drake heart. He felt the familiar process initiated by The Scavenger and patiently waited. As he expected, it took more time than usual and he finally finished absorbing the power after around five minutes.

He had been prepared to suffer a backlash because of the high-level heart but there was none and his body felt stronger than ever. His senses had also been expanded by a tremendous magnitude but there was no headache.

However, it seemed that even The Scavenger was unable to fix his crippled state and for the first time since he became a werewolf, he felt full. It was as if he had eaten the most complete meal of his life. As he thought that, he inspected the system prompt displayed under his nose.

❮ ◈ ❯

Heart of Lv.200 Green Drake absorbed. Absorption Factor = 8.5%.

First Ascent STR, END, SPD – Increase of 50%, 60%, and 30% respectively.

+12.75 Strength => +19.1

+13.6 Endurance => +21.8

+11.05 Speed => +14.3

+8.1 Dexterity

+7.65 Intelligence

---

Warning! Internal Force Surcharge! The Scavenger has entered Overloaded State! The skill will become dormant for two weeks. Its healing properties will be retained but there will be no increase in attributes. If the Host tries to force it, detrimental results are to be expected.

❮ ◈ ❯

“Well, I can’t really be mad at this,” Rakna uttered. “It would be logical for the System to limit abuse of skills like these,” he said to himself and opened his status.

❮ ◈ ❯

Name: Rakna Xiorra

Age: 17 | Level: 39 (126/390)

Path/Race: Nine-Tailed Werewolf

Affiliation: Throne of Glory

Titles: Legendary Slayer – Wolf King – Divinity Slayer…

Potential: S+ | Host Rank: I

Attributes:

STR: 9.85 => 28.95 | END: 5.95 => 27.75

SPD: 17.75 => 32.05 | DEX: 18.5 => 26.6

INT: 15.1 => 22.75 | LCK: 9

Available Attribute Points: 48.6

Available Skill Points: 2

Statistics:

STA: 1/163.1 | MP: 4/247.5

SWI: 129.6 (119.6 + 10) | AGI: 175.25 (105.25 + 70)

SEN: 591.18 | ATC: 147.1

ATT: 208.3 + 10% Cold | DEF: 162.2 (132.2 + (L)30)

MA: 97 | MR: 2.18/min

❮ ◈ ❯

He almost wanted to laugh at the tremendous rise. The only thing he was sad about was the fact that he couldn’t suitably experience this boost in power because of his condition. He could feel for sure that his strength was much greater, but his rock bottom stamina appeared to stop him from accessing it properly.

“{Careful, Rakna. It almost sounds like you are disappointed by the outrageous shortcut you have been gifted.}”

“I’m not. And what did I say about reading my mind?”

“{I wasn’t. Your thoughts were spilling out a bit.}”

“Right… I’ll have to work on that,” Rakna mumbled. “Though, I’m a bit confused. More so after this; I don’t understand why Soul Drain allows me to recover mana stamina but not pills, potions, or even hearts.”

[I have a theory,] Alexa spoke. [The main difference between those is that Soul Drain directly uses your soul as both the pump and storage. Since anything that occurs within your soul is dissociated from the physical plane, it must have bypassed your crippled state and then backtracked into your mana pool and cells. But that’s pure speculation. The soul has always been a mysterious concept.]

“I’m not sure I understand what you just said… but essentially, thanks to Soul Drain, my very soul becomes a substitute to store and channel internal forces in my body’s stead, is that it?”

[Not exactly but it’s a 79% accurate summary.]

“I’ll take it,” Rakna deadpanned and stood up with a grunt. He popped his joints and flicked his hand as a skill card appeared in it. He looked at the back and read the incantation.

“[Three Steps Echo Through the Earth. The First Snaps. The Second Dashes. The Third Crashes. In the Blur of Three Steps; Merge as One; They Flash.]”

With that, the card turned into motes of light and entered his chest. He instantly grasped the skill’s basics through instinctual feedback. “Well, testing will have to wait. I prefer saving the meager mana I have for now,” he said and left the training room with a sigh.

He returned to the empty lounge room and sat down on a couch. He had confirmed Evelyn’s absence earlier. She had probably woken up and left while he was talking with Old Wang or while he was making his way back.

“{So, what will you do now?}” Higure asked curiously.

Rakna wordlessly pulled out a book from his storage and flipped to the first page. The title written on the cover read ‘Night Fall – A Love’s Shadow’. It was a novel. A romance one to boot.

“{…seriously?}”

“Yes.”

“{Can’t we do… something more thrilling? You could go to the fields and use Soul Drain on a few weaklings and train? No? Please?}”

“Relaxing is as important as training,” Rakna retorted and flipped to the second page. “Regardless, I can do more than one thing at the same time,” he added as he manipulated his soul power from the back of his mind, making it circulate through his pumping Soul Core. He simply meant to use it as an exercise to perfect his control.

“{How distressing… Here I thought I would get to see interesting sights with you as my medium.}”

“Didn’t you say you lived most of your life in seclusion? I’m sure you can bear a few days of calm and simply relax. You can see what I see, right? Then read with me, you might like it.”

“{…}”