NOVEL WEB Chapter 100: Consumed
Evelyn planned to take advantage of the 'dormancy' of the potent soul fragment, and slowly siphon off the soul power it contained until it was weak enough for her to wipe off in one go.
Of course, the entire process had to be carefully carried out in one go, and she couldn't just do it a little at a time. That would be far too risky, and could lead to the fragment being triggered accidentally at any point.
Disconnected from its 'owner', the piece of course had no ability to think of feel on its own, and remained unaware of Evelyn slowly siphoning more and more of its power as her own soul pool replenished, while the fragment grew weaker.
Most of the soul power was lost in the process of conversion, and Evelyn only obtained a tiny fraction of what the soul fragment actually contained. But this was also already equivalent to multiple level ups.
Even better, these were stats she was getting in addition to what she would get upon leveling up, just like her starting bonus stats that had put her leagues ahead of any peer.
And it even helped her heal from her overexertion from the two trips into the Searing Soul's array.
Soul Value: [324] / 1,546 → [354] / 1,576
Soul Value: [354] / 1,576 → [384] / 1,606
As the pain she had been feeling in her soul was slightly reduced with her recovery, Evelyn could feel that the rate at which she was stripping off the fragment's power only grew more efficient.
Soul Value: [384] / 1,606 → [414] / 1,636
Soul Value: [414] / 1,636 → [444] / 1,666
At this point, the soul fragment had already lost most of its potency, and Evelyn could begin examining its 'contents' as she continued to siphon off its power.
Soul power, much like spirit power, could not do anything on its own. When it was without any direction, such as the spirit power contained in spirit stones, it was simply ripe for the taking by anyone who wished, and served no actual purpose by itself.
So it was obvious that if someone wanted either soul power or spirit power to do something, they would have to make sure they left 'instructions' behind. For spirit power, that was the 'circuits' and 'arrays', but there was no such thing for soul power.
This was because 'soul power' was much harder to interact with. Most people could not even directly manipulate their soul power, after all. This would never have been the case if it could be manipulated with arrays. At most, they could only 'measure' roughly how much soul power someone had, but would never be able to do anything to that soul power.
And it seemed that, even for a peak existence like the one who had left that fragment inside herself, this fact remained true.
Which was why it had left an actual fragment of its own soul inside her in addition to the soul power.
The difference between soul power and this fragment of the soul was the same as that between donating some blood and cutting off a piece of flesh. Soul power would replenish by itself with some time, leaving no lasting effects, but even if cutting off a part of the soul 'healed', it would forever leave a scar.
Of course, Evelyn wouldn't 'care' for the injuries suffered by the person who had planted such a thing inside her. What she focused on, however, was what this fragment contained.
Evelyn hadn't been completely certain before, but now she could confirm that each fragment of the soul did indeed house the 'memories' of whoever it belonged to.
It made some sense, since she had retained all of the memories of her first life despite having completely lost her body.
Of course, these memories were all somewhat broken, and duplicated almost infinitely inside the soul. Even if some part of it was lost, the person was unlikely to 'forget' anything.
Evelyn didn't dare to easily 'merge' these memories with her own, however, and instead employed the same method that the headmistress had used to 'show' her own memories in the 'Searing Soul' to 'view' the ones in the fragment.
It might give her less overall information, but she would rather not take the 'chance'. Anyway, her primary goal had been to just get rid of the fragment and remove this threat, any benefits she gained along the way were just a bonus.
It took her far longer to go through these 'memories' than she estimated. Especially considering that aside from an 'understanding' of how her system worked, they seemed to be all just empty, blankly shuttling her vision through one layer of space to another.
However, this was a great harvest already! Because she could feel her comprehension of space deepening with each passing moment she viewed these memories. She even wished it could go on for longer, and felt regretful when the fragment finally vanished into nothing.
Evelyn exhaled in relief, and noticed that at some point Bree had woken up and was watching her worriedly, with Ruru taking a seat on top of the girl's head, as if to make sure she didn't move to disturb her master.
The pink haired girl chuckled as she nodded towards her little fox. Now that the soul fragment was obliterated already, there was no need for her to stay so alert. Thankfully, nothing had gone wrong.
After reassuring her little fox, Evelyn checked her system notifications, and the results were as she expected.
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[Unknown??? Grade Mission Completed: Unknown???]
—Acquired [Advanced Spatial Manipulation]
— ??? Error ???
— ??? Error ???
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She wasn't surprised by at all, because already knew that her system was actually incapable of 'generating' any energy, and all the rewards she had been obtaining from the 'missions' so far were either because of her abilities, or the 'Lotus Throne'.
"I feel… scammed."
But it also made some sense. The real 'boost' she had received had been her abilities and stats, and the system was only a 'guideline' that was meant to help her grow. Perhaps its real function had always been to make sure she remained focused on growing to the point where she was 'qualified' to trigger the fragment inside herself.
And at that point, perhaps, the 'real purpose' of being given such a great opportunity by Lord Chronos would be revealed.
Besides, although the fragment was now gone, it wasn't as if the threat it had possessed vanished completely. If the 'owner' tried to communicate with the fragment or trigger it, they would surely discover that it was missing.
Evelyn believed the owner of the fragment was either 'Lord Chronos' or some important subordinate, and it was impossible for them to not know who she was and where she was sent.
Evelyn only hoped that she was ready to face them when the day finally came.
She knew that her system was somewhat malfunctioning now because of the absence of the soul fragment. But that was easy enough to fix.
Evelyn focused within herself, and barely a few moments later, she managed to replace the parts of the system that had been linked with the soul fragment with herself, effectively establishing herself as the 'real owner' now.
Of course, this also meant that she could do with the system as she pleased, but actually knowing how it worked, she knew that most of her 'rewards' came from the Lotus Throne anyway, and the missions served more as a reminder of what could be done at this point.
That didn't mean that the system was useless, however. Evelyn felt that the ability to view status without needing any external artifacts, as well as the sheer amount of insight the system provided was already better than any treasure or artifact that she could hope to get her hands on.
And now that she had the 'administrator' privileges, of course, she would modify what she could in her favor.
"Alright, let's do this, then…"
The first thing she did was, of course, change the way that 'affection' was displayed.
No longer was it going to be shown as 'budding', 'stable', and 'strong', but would actually show her the actual value that the system was measuring.
After that, she spent some time reorganizing the 'interface' to make it suit her tastes more, and finally nodded once she was satisfied.
"Alright, I guess that's enough for now. I can always change it later, anyway… Now, let's take care of the 'Chaos Essence Bead' next…"
This thing had been in her possession ever since Bree had been partially healed using the tentacles of the 'Thousand Eyed God', and Evelyn had always kept it in mind to check it out once she got past level thirty.
[ Chaos Essence Bead ]
—A culmination of pure energy, fatal to anyone below level 30.
—Previously used to contain [Raijuu's Legacy], small traces of lightning essence still linger within it.
—Contains the energy of a Grade 9 beast's flesh and blood, purified using the Qilin's bloodline.
—Effects of the primordial ability [Calamity] detected. May lead to either involuntary subjugation or harvest of ability. Extremely dangerous!
—Unknown effect upon consumption.
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~ To be continued ~
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DustyDream:
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