There's No Training Buddy Quite Like An Armadillo.

I opened my eyes in a bit of a daze. I realized I was laying on the floor before I heard the voice of the shaman behind me.

"Hey, you are finally awake."

Standing up and turning around I saw that there were bars in between me and the shaman trapping me inside.

"Oh, come on…" I said out loud as I got slightly nervous about getting trapped.

The shaman in front of me simply put a smile on his face before speaking.

"So, umm, I was wondering if you could do me a favor since we are friends now… There are a bunch of annoying pests on that side. It would be very nice of you if you could help me get rid of them… Think of it as part of your training!" The shaman said in a shameless tone as he tried to nudge me to head deeper into his strange temple.

"You know what? There is actually a pretty good charm inside that you can keep after you deal with all of the baldurs in there. It will help you use your soul better."

I simply stared at the shaman in both disbelief and slight annoyance, which caused him to continue talking.

"Hey, and think of this as a controlled environment to try out your new spell! We had a better way to learn and practice spells back at home, but since I am stuck here this is pretty much the best we are going to get…"

The metal gate in between us didn't look that sturdy. Worst-case scenario I would probably be able to break through it using my aura and my nail. Which, surprisingly, hadn't been taken from me.

"You owe me one." I said in annoyance as I grabbed my nail and began to make my way deeper into the temple.

The shaman didn't seem to have bad intentions, I probably would have helped him either way if he had asked me nicely. Even though I really wanted to give the shaman a good punch in the head for putting me in this position, I couldn't risk making an enemy out of the only person who seemed to have some knowledge about how to manipulate soul. But one thing he had said was correct. I could feel the knowledge on how to use the spell he was talking about to shoot out soul as if it were a missile.

It was strange since I felt as if I had the muscle memory to cast this spell, but at the same time, I had never used my soul in such a manner.

I encountered a husk and a vengefly making my way into the temple which were easy to defeat by simply bonking them in the head with my nail. The only real threat with them came from their numbers, so as long as they were isolated they were easy to deal with.

However, as I made my way deeper I spotted what I could only assume was a baldur. A strange armadillo-looking animal. Just like everything in this world that thing was massive compared to what I used to know. It reached just below my shoulders, and the moment it spotted me it turned into a ball before rolling straight in my direction.

Judging by the speed it was moving towards me this felt like something I could attempt to parry. According to what Iselda had told me, enemies like these that charged at you were the best to practice her fighting style.

'Keep my stance wide. Keep my body lowered. As they are moving forward, balance is the key.' I repeated to myself before quickly getting into my stance.

I waited until the baldur was right in front of me to strike it with my nail. Hitting it with enough force to redirect the rolling creature past my side and sending it crashing directly towards one of the walls.

'The shaman said there was a bunch of them. So I can probably get plenty of practice here. And speaking of practice…'

Looking at the slightly dazed creature preparing to roll in my direction I focused my soul inside me before I felt it surge and suddenly leap out of my body. A pure white ball of soul emerged from my body shooting directly towards the monster ahead of me at a surprising speed.

Before I knew it the spell had reached the baldur. Yet something I wasn't expecting happened. The spell struck against the creature's shell, but instead of exploding on impact, it permeated through it, continuing its fast movement until it hit the wall. Only then exploding into the air in white particles.

For a moment I thought the creature's shell was resistant to the spell since it seemed to have passed right through it. However, the next moment the creature dropped lifeless to the floor.

"....What?"

Walking closer to the dead baldur I inspected its body. But other than a small dent where I had struck it with my nail the rest of the creature looked completely fine. I was absolutely baffled as I tried to wrap my head around what the spell had done.

Did the spell I had learned deal damage to the inside of the creature instead of the outside? If I opened this thing up would I find that its organs were ruptured? If so then this spell was absolutely overpowered.

Pulling out my knife I decided to dissect it right here and now. Yet after a very amateur butchering session, I discovered that other than the mess I had made trying to get past its shell the insides of the creatures appeared to be fairly normal. Well, that is if you ignored the weird orange blood all of the creatures seemed to have in this world.

Taking a moment to think I decided to try to feel the soul around me as I held the armadillo-looking corpse. What I felt led me to open my eyes in surprise.

"This thing has some weird traces of soul inside of it… Maybe it did some damage and I just can't see it?"

Like any good scientist, I knew that I needed a bigger sample size before I continued making random guesses. I needed a control sample I just smacked to death with my nail without using soul. So standing up from the ground I looked ahead of me and raised my nail.

"Hopefully there are enough of these creatures for me."

— — —

Three different baldurs were approaching me from different directions as I stood with my feet firmly planted on the ground.

Taking in a deep breath I quickly swung my nail at the first one changing its trajectory so it wouldn't hit me. Doing a jump into the air I felt as one of them passed right underneath me. As I fell to the ground I spun my body just in time to face the final baldur.

Planting my feet firmly on the ground I held the nail ahead of me, placing my other hand on the center, preparing to stop the baldur's momentum. With a heavy thud, I felt myself get pushed backward slightly, but I was successful at stopping it in its tracks.

"These things are great!" I couldn't help but yell out in excitement.

There was a massive amount of these weird armadillos inside the temple. I hadn't counted them but I had killed at least 20 of them so far. Each of them was great to practice my blocking and parrying. They even helped me practice having to deal with multiple enemies at once.

The shell of these things was extremely durable, to the point I could attack one over and over without it being harmed. With their mostly predictable movements once they rolled into a ball I could always move to a more advantageous position without a lot of trouble in case I got overwhelmed.

When it came to blocking attacks it was hard to adjust to the heavy slam your body would have to endure in order not to lose your balance. But with these things, I could adjust how hard they hit me by adjusting my distance from them. Either getting closer for a weaker slam or further, letting them gather more momentum, for a harder slam.

I had honestly lost track of time as I continued to focus on improving the stances and attacks Iselda had taught me. But with every single time I blocked, I could feel my body adapting to this fighting style at an incredible rate.

Though I still preferred fighting while jumping all across the battlefield and using my movement to gain the advantage during the fight there was no reason for me not to try to master as much as I could. It was better to be prepared to fight in a confined space instead of being absolutely hopeless.

I continued training using the three baldurs until I felt like I was ready to move on.

Focusing my soul on my hands I felt as it surged inside me and suddenly manifested outside my body. Yet instead of being fired off immediately, I made it a point to keep a hold of the ball of soul gathered in my hands. I could feel the strain doing this put on my body, but I would be fine as long as I only held this for a moment.

By this point, the baldurs were already rolling in my direction, so I put all of my focus into what I had been trying to accomplish since at least a few hours ago.

Coating my hands with aura I was able to grab the spell in front of me. Soul had a strange texture that mostly resembled a balloon filled with water. Which, after some experimenting, I discovered that the only way for me to grab it was by coating my hands in soul. Otherwise, my hands would just pass through it.

Pulling hard on the spell I was able to take out two smaller chunks of it, effectively splitting the spell into three. Aiming both my arms at two of the baldurs before releasing the spell, which sent it flying in their direction. After which, I quickly fired off the last piece of the spell to the final baldur causing it to die as it rolled. Leaving me with three beat-up baldur corpses.

Dropping to the floor I decided to give my body some moments to rest. I wasn't sure what it was about soul but whenever I tried to manipulate it in different ways I would feel as if my insides were burning. On top of that, I would get a slight headache. Though this problem would usually go away once I got used to what I was doing, such as coating my body with aura.

Closing my eyes and focusing on my core I could see that some small cracks had formed on the outside. And there was already some of that darkness making its way to patch the cracks.

'It seems like whenever I use soul in unfamiliar ways I put a strain on my core causing it to crack. But the strange almost sentient darkness seems to be able to fill the gaps in the cracks and seal the core once again…

I wonder what will happen once the outside of the core turns entirely pitch black? Is that black stuff even normal?'