Upgrades, people, upgrades

The Soul of Ethania..." Kai mumbled to himself as he read the text. How the hell had he even gotten this? Where did it come from?

At this point, was he just going to find Ethania's corpse somewhere along his journey to add to his collection?

Well, that thought was a little dark, and Kai was mostly sure by now that wherever Ethania's corpse was, it was probably dust and bones at this point.

Still, there was no harm in reading the description.

Soul of Ethania (Epic)

Oh.

Well, it was already different when compared to her Will, this one actually had a rarity and not just a few question marks. Does that mean that the Will of Ethania was actually only an Epic item but just had question marks for no reason?

But why was it Epic though? That seemed like a kind of high rating just for a dead beings soul. Was Ethania secretly super strong or something when she was alive?

Probably not, considering she was unable to fend off the people from her own kingdom. Still, there had to be something about her for a God to visit her in her dreams and offer her a way out.

And as for what that special thing about her was, maybe Kai would find out after reading the description of the skill.

When the distraught princess was offered a way out, her body became hollow as her Will was stored away for the small chance that someone would find it. A body without a Will is incomplete, while a body without a soul is dead. In the final moments of her life, Princess Ethania's loyal knight Constance shielded her body from Eye of the Moon's attempt to curse her. Sir Constance became a tree that spread its influence far a wide, while Ethania became a delicate flower shielded by that very tree. This item had no known uses.

Well, that was a whole bunch of nothing.

Honestly, that was probably the longest description of an item Kai would ever have to read. And the worst part of it was, there was no useful information in it. One part of it just sounded like a riddle, only serving to confuse Kai rather than explain anything that had happened back then.

But something in the description did catch his eye, something that honestly made Kai kind of feel like an idiot.

Quickly, Kai summoned the Will of Ethania and compared the descriptions.

Will of Ethania (???)

An unknown God appeared to Princess Ethania in a dream one night, offering her a way out of her dilemna. Princess Ethania accepted the God's offer and the God took away all of the princess's memories, storing them in this bead. This bead has no known use.

Kai inwardly groaned at how much of an idiot he was. It wasn't that these items were useless, it's just that they had no known uses.

How could they, considering they were the only versions of these items in existence. A person only had one soul after all, and probably one one will, unless they were schizophrenic.

"Goddamn... I should probably pay more attention to any description I read. If I find out I missed something important... Wait... I should check the descriptions of everything I have."

That would be something for another time though, he still had over four days to himself in the white room, and he still had quite a lot of notifications to get through.

Actually, before he done that though, he may as well see what the Soul of Ethania looked like.

In his left hand, Kai summoned the Will of Ethania, the small silver bead glowing softly in his palm.

Then, in his right hand, Kai summoned the Soul of Ethania.

To his surprise, the appearance of Ethania's soul was very different to her Will. Then again, her Will was stored inside the bead, meanwhile this was just her soul in general.

In his right hand was a small, beautiful flower. However, the flower was a little strange. It wasn't a physical thing, it was more like it was some sort of magical particles sticking close together in the shape of a flower.

The particles were even moving, slowly floating around in a set motion. At certain times, Kai could even catch glimpses of the floor through the pretty flower as the particles shifted.

Curiously, Kai pushed the two items together, thinking that maybe something would happen, but to his dissapointment, nothing happened. A few of the particles that made up the flower scattered on impact, but they returned to their position after Kai moved the flower away from the bead.

So that was that. He now had the Soul and Will of Ethania. What he would be able to use these items for, Kai had no idea. Still, it wasn't like he would sell them or anything. He would feel guilty if he done that after all Failure had done for him.

But there was still more notifications to go, so Kai got back to work.

Level 30 reached

Oh.

Turns put he wasn't actually level twenty-three, he had managed to jump all the way up to level thirty after fighting the Demon and the Eradication abomination.

Meaning, Kai had a whole one hundred and fourty-seven unnasigned stat points in his reserves.

Realistically, there was no reason to spend them now. He still had to rearrange his current stat points after all, so he could just save those unnasigned ones for if he really needed them for any perilous situation he could end up in.

Then, he couldn't help but curse at the next notification.

Level cap for tutorial reached, bonus rewards will be granted for this achievement

Obviously, bonus rewards were a very nice thing, but a level cap? That was a much less nice thing, especially as Kai wondered how many levels he would have actually gotten if there wasn't a level cap.

Hell, if Failure, the Demon and the Eradication abomination were all around level one hundred, then maybe Kai would haven been level one hundred himself right now. Well, maybe not, but he would have been at least around level fifty minimum.

That was still a bit away from the level one hundred requirement on his new crown and sword, but it was a much better start than his current level thirty.

But what could Kai do about it? All he could do was suck it up and hope that the bonus rewards made up for the massive loss of levels.

Still, Kai was quite happy to see what the next notification was.

Two skill selections obtained

Great, I get to pick two new skills. I just hope they're good, my expectations are high after Soul Flame.

Participant unable to select skills

What-

Selecting two of the skills offered in previous skill selection

Kai's expression darkened.

So he didn't even get to pick a new skill, he was just given two skills he had been offered previously. How shit, Kai was sure that if the skills the skills he had been given were terrible then he would definitely sue the system.

Quickly, he opened his status and scrolled to the skill section. He browsed through his list of skills as his eyes landed on a new skill at the very bottom of the list.

Soul Link (Rare)

Oh... Well... That's not so bad.

Soul Link was a skill that Kai wasn't sure if he should have picked or not. The possibilities with the skill were incredible, but there was just too many unknowns to make the choice plausible.

But now, he had basically been given it without repercussions.

Obviously, he could make use of it right now by linking with Umbra and taking all of her stats and skills, but that sounded way too evil for Kai to even give the idea a second thought.

Still, Kai wanted to go through the description again anyway.

Souls are one's true being, linking them together could almost be seen as intimate. Allows the user to tether their soul to another being that possesses a soul. The user can then share stats or skills with the one they are tethered to. Any skill or stats can only be possessed by one party. Severing the tether requires temporarily weakening your soul.

Yeah, it was a skill that seemed to have way too many possible loopholes. Like, what if Kai met the Ever-changing again, used Soul Link on them and 'borrowed' some of their stats and skills. There definitely was some sort of limiter that wasn't mention in the description that hadn't been mentioned, so Kai would have to find out about that eventually.

What was confusing though, was that there was only one new skill in the skill section of his status, while the notification had said that there was two.

So then where was his second skill? What had-

Just as Kai was about to keep inwardly questioning himself, he saw the notification after the one he had just read.

Two skills are able to be fused together, fuse skills?

Participant unable to choose, automatically fusing new and existing skill

So one of the skills he had obtained was fused with a skill he already had, and almost instantly, Kai could tell where the fused skill had gone. Now, there was a skill that was a higher rank than all of his other ones, one that had forever been arguably his weakest skill.

Soulcery (Epic)