Dimensional Vault

As Lloyd came back to his room, he turned the lights on and the darkness surrounding the room was chased away in an instant. The room he had rented was spacious enough to have a small kitchen, a few furniture such as tables, chairs, and a desk for writing which he didn't really use, and a comfortable bed that was situated near the window.

He sat down on the chair in the unused study desk and put the celestial gold and quasar shard on top of it. He opened the drawer of the table and took out a champion soul shard from it. He didn't have a lot of champion ones since most of the enemies they killed on the jungle were grunts and elites.

There were several champion hellspawns roaming in the streets of the ruined outer district, but fighting there would only attract unnecessary trouble and might lead to their deaths since the place was literally crawling with different types of abominations of different ranks, not to mention that scary statue in the middle of the town square.

"It's time to do this."

He placed the materials next to each other and casted Materia Refinement. He was given options to choose in crafting a weapon, armor, or a tool. He chose the tool since he wouldn't be needing new weapons for now. He didn't have any blueprints of the spatial ring or any kind of spatial tool that would let him store his loots since this was his first time in crafting something like that. He could only pray to the gods that the random tool would result to a spatial storage item.

Lights flashed which illuminated the whole room and then it receded after a few seconds. A strange object, which looked like a soft, glistening soul orb that was radiating a golden color, materialized in place of the materials that had vanished. It didn't look metallic at all in contrast to the two metallic ores he had used as base materials. Within the transparent outer layer of the soul orb, he could feel that there was a vast space inside and countless stars were twinkling.

He examined the item and read its description on the screen that had popped up.

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Name: Pristine Soul Core

Rank: I

Soul: Champion

Ability: ???

Description: A pristine soul, glowing in a soft radiance produced by countless stars in its vast space, was forged by an enigmatic Nephilim. Crush it and receive your blessings.

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"What's this? This is the second time I received something so dubious!"

He frowned greatly upon reading it. The first time he had encountered an unknown substance was the devil's heart which was currently in his worn-out bag. The description of that item was only left in question marks which meant that not even the soul tree system could figure out its use. Then, this item called pristine soul core had an unknown ability instead of having an unknown description.

'This should be an original craft since the enigmatic Nephilim it was referring to was obviously me. I think I would be able to craft it without limits.' He thought to himself.

He contemplated for a while whether to break it as the description commanded, or just keep it and study it more. However, he really didn't have any use for it so it would be a waste of time if he didn't break it. He could just create it again if needed since he already had the memory of its base materials, as well as the blueprint of this item. Crafting once would allow him to carve the blueprint of the crafted item in his soul tree.

He picked it up and exerted a great amount of force by using his mana essence to crush the object with just his bare hands. It exploded into fine fragments of light and disappeared. He waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened.

"What's going on here?" He tilted his head slightly as his brows furrowed deeply, looking so confused.

Suddenly, a monotonous voice spoke inside his head.

'You have received a skill.'

"Wait, what?!"

A little dumbfounded, he quickly opened his own status screen to take a look at the changes.

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Name: Lloyd Claudel

Rank: II

Soul Core: Grunt

Title: Awakened Aspirant, Eternally Stagnate, Corrupted Soul

Innate Ability: Midas Hands, Chaotic Skill Devourer

Skills: Materia Generator, Materia Refinement, Evil Eye, Dimensional Vault

Ascension Requirement: 270/2500 enemies killed 

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He focused on the new skill, Dimensional Vault, and read its description. His eyes lit up upon finding out that the skill allowed him to access a rift in his soul where he could store objects and materialize it when he needs it. However, just like the spatial ring, it takes three seconds for an object that was stored in his soul to materialize into reality. The space of his soul also depended o his rank. Thankfully, it won't drain his mana constantly while there were things stored inside his soul and only required mana whenever he stores something or pull an object out.

This was even more convenient than the spatial rings. Unlike the spatial rings which are physical objects that could be lost if their fingers were cut or if they accidentally misplace it, Lloyd's spatial storage was an ability that could be accessed at the cost of mana. He didn't even need to wear or carry it. It was a part of his soul instead.

A wide grin formed in his lips. He tried using the skill. He was shocked that it consumed a hefty amount of mana. His soul was currently empowered with three cores; two from his original soul system and one from his corrupted soul. Still, the mana it consumed was at least one tenth of his maximum mana pool.

"I should carefully think when to store things." He said to himself again.

He put all the loots he currently had with him and satisfyingly closed it. He had to find Klaudia soon to retrieve the things he had left with her, but that could also wait for now.

Lloyd still hadn't figured it out how to ascend… or descend his corrupted soul deeper into corruption. And what if he finally managed to strengthen it? Would there be dangerous side effects that would be detrimental to him? That was what he needed to find out.

He didn't know where to start since there were no clues given by the status screen. The only thing he could do for now is to go outside and hunt monsters. It was almost past 10 pm and the darkness had finally drowned the whole outer district of Arcadia, which was the perfect time for him to be hunting hellspawns, since he didn't need to be afraid of the dark anymore. He had his evil eye backing him up if ever there were hellspawns hiding in the vicinity.

Lloyd headed out once again and reached the entrance where they had first come in towards the city after a few minutes of running. Since the guards in the area weren't including the people who were leaving in their inspection, he was able to get out of the city with ease.

A few more minutes more of running, he arrived at a large, ruined building with a partially collapsed ceiling and a bunch of tumbled pillars on the ground. This used to be a large cathedral for the people in the outer district where they could worship the gods.

"There goes my first victim!"

He softly said with a fierce look appearing in his eyes as he stared at the bunch of goblins loitering on the entrance of the cathedral.

He summoned the wraithslayer sword from his soul and activated the ghost blade skill after it had materialized. He dashed forward which startled the goblins upon hearing his loud footsteps. They quickly picked up their weapons and tried to block the incoming blade of the wraithslayer, but to their horror, it only passed through as if they were trying to deflect a hologram.

The sword had also passed through their fleshes, not leaving a single wound in it, and directly cut through their souls. The goblins had seizures and dropped to ground one by one. The wraithslayer had once again claimed lots of lives.

He deactivated the ghost blade and approached the corpses to dig the soul orbs from their bodies. Before he could do that, an idea struck his mind which made him look intensely at their corpses.

"I wonder if goblin meat would taste good?"

His curiosity got the better of him and he decided to cut some pieces from their fleshes and stored it in the dimensional vault. After he was done, he pushed the dilapidated door of the cathedral and entered its huge halls.

Lloyd could see broken chairs and a damaged altar at the far end in the middle of the hall just opposite to him. He stopped and studied the surroundings. Upon not noticing anything alive in the perimeter, he approached the broken altar to examine it, but didn't notice that a perilous creature was already lunging forward at him.

His eyes widened in horror upon noticing it too late. A human-like apparition that was wearing a cloak had suddenly appeared in the darkness behind him and stabbed him in the right abdomen with a sword.

'How on earth...' He couldn't understand how this guy had bypassed his evil eye. He couldn't think clearly as the pain was messing with his thoughts.

A shocked look appeared on his face as he got a clear look at the very familiar sword embedded into his body. That sword was none other than a talwar, a weapon used by a very familiar man he wouldn't be able to forget no matter what. He tried turning his head around and saw the ghastly face of the man who was once known as Shane.