Recovery

[Alert: Unknown @%$*&#^@ Detected]

Anomalous essence located in the immediate vicinity.

Do you wish to absorb it?

[Y/N]

Absorbing essence…

Your soul begins to resonate...

Your soul begins to shift...

Your soul begins to evolve...

...

...

[Transformation Complete!]

Your soul has undergone a profound metamorphosis.

New Constitution Acquired: [Seraphic Spirit Constitution]

Possible Effects: Increase in mana density, Increase in mental resilience, Increase in soul's resilience.

--

What is this? I almost jumped on my feet, looking at the notification. Seraphic Spirit Constitution? Anomalous essence? Absorbing? Did I absorb that bastard after I killed him? But how I didn't even choose Yes.

Putting aside how I had chosen Yes, I jumped back inside to take another look at my soul, only this time in a lot more detail.

It wasn't apparent at first, but things became noticeable as I took a closer look. The notifications were right. I have never heard anything about the constitutions, but my soul did indeed have changed, somehow feeling much more resilient and thicker.

This might be the reason behind its abnormal healing rate. I mentally nodded. At least that was one mystery solved.

I let out a deep sigh. The entire incident with the reflection had been nothing short of a hellish nightmare, but if I coupled this with the increase in mana and mental defenses, not to mention the Salhira, then overall, I had gotten away with pretty decent rewards.

The increase in mana and Salhira is going to be especially useful in the coming days.

Even though I was injured for now, it didn't mean I had forgotten about the stone statues or the marble building. I was still planning to explore that place, only a bit later than I had originally planned.

Let's just hope I get back into fighting shape before the storm ends.

--

In the end, it took over an entire week for my soul to recover to a level where I wouldn't be constantly assaulted by gut-wrenching pain.

Living through this week had been nothing short of excruciating. Not only did I have to deal with body-splitting pain, but there were also the constant hallucinations, terrible nightmares, and not to mention hours and hours of meditation to make sure the will inside didn't resurface anymore.

The result of willingly letting it take control had already begun to show. In the last couple of days, some of my hair had begun turning silver, and my skin had turned into a shade of ghostly white. I had also started craving sour food for some reason. Other than that, if there were other psychological changes, then I hadn't found those yet.

Outside, the sandstorm had continued to grow stronger, reaching a point where the stormraven could no longer fly through the sky to check on the stone statues. On the plus side, Duskwraith had been healed as well, giving me another card I could use against the statue.

Overall, things were going well; there hadn't been a copy of the reflection incident, and the three of us had spent the rest of our time simply talking. The curious thing, however, was that not once had anyone mentioned Tess's odd behavior that night; Aria had been behaving as if nothing had even happened.

I didn't know how to feel about that, but in the end, I decided to keep an eye on Tess.

It was the ninth day when I decided to finally make my move. The storm was still going hard outside, and a small section of one of the walls had collapsed, leading us to do some emergency repairs.

I wasn't going to get a better chance than this. Once I informed the two of them, I left our house to look for some supplies to plug into that hole.

The city outside was exactly as one would expect; the storm was going wild, covering the entire place under a layer of silver sand. No longer could one see the stone roads; even the houses had become indistinguishable from each other.

Covering my face with several layers of clothes, I began marching forward towards the marble building. The winds were too strong for stormraven to guide the way and the lower visibility in the area was only making moving difficult.

In the end, it took me quite some while to finally reach the marble building. Outside of the building was just as it had been last time when I checked with stormraven, with tens of stone statues scattered around frozen, only this time most of their lower bodies had been submerged in sand.

The big one, however, was still nowhere to be seen. I tried to scout the area with Duskwraith, but it was nowhere to be found, leaving behind only one place it could be.

"Let's hope he has been severely weakened at least," I called back duskwraith and began preparing to go inside the building.