A sprout?

It had been a few weeks and Eric was only a day or two from the royal capital but a few things had happened, first, the souls he took from the bandits were special, not the souls themselves but how 'complete' they were. A soul starts to degrade the moment its vessel expires, be that a body or something else, but because Eric took the bandit's souls while their 'vessels' were still working their souls were in almost perfect condition, tearing them out of their host had caused some damage. These complete souls not only were much more beneficial to his own soul but the soul fires growth as well.

An unexpected benefit was that he also get the full soul's memories, due to the way that they were refined they didn't cause any problems with Eric's memories, seeing them was like watching a movie so no spit personality today. Plus they sped up the growth of the soul fire 'personality' when it refined them, by 'seeing' and 'experiencing' 'life' it was able to develop itself much faster than if it were to just grow naturally.

Secondly, there were some changes in the flesh seed, It had sprouted. Yes, sprouted, this shocked Eric when he noticed it. Even though it was called a seed, a container would be more accurate to what it actually was, so its sprouting was a shock to him, even more so when it fused with his body when he went to inspect it.

When he first noticed some changes in the 'seed' he brought it out to check what was going on. From its previous appearance as a ball of flesh, a small sprout, similar to a tree, had grown out of a crack in its surface, instead of the brown or green that a normal tree or a red or pink, like flesh, it was bone white with blood red leaves.

When he grabbed it to see what was going on it all of a sudden dug into his arm and crawled into his torso, replacing his heart. It hurt like fuck as it happened but soon after it replace this heart it turned back to its old shape, a ball of flesh, and began to work just like his old heart, he could tell this because he had complete control of his body and could 'see' what was going to inside it.

After it replaced his heart he could feel something new in his soul, and low and behold, there was a small tree spout that was bone white with blood-red leaves inside his soul. Strangely it didn't harm his soul instead, he could feel it helping by absorbing the unneeded byproducts his soul would make and 'feed' on them. This resulted in a small rivalry between the soul fire and what he was going to call the 'tree of flesh' fighting for the parts of his soul that he didn't need but they did. I know, the name isn't very original, but it's the best your gonna get, so deal with it. It had even changed from a piece of equipment to a power,

{name: Eric

Gifts:Potential, adaptation

Realm: energy gathering 3/9

Powers: energy refinement(v2) lv3, physical refinement(v2) lv3, passive growth(v2) lv3, soul fire, tree of flesh, energy veins,

Skills:

enhanced intellect lv5, rapid learning lv5, black magic(Journeyman), sacrificial magic(Journeyman), puppet control lv2, soul magic(intermediate), multi-minded lv2, body magic(intermediate) life/trade skills(intermediate), combat mastery lv2, weapon mastery lv2, bestial fighting(self-made), appraisal(self-made),

Energy: demonic/mana

Equipment: bestial set (4/4, coat, gloves, pants, shoes, growth type)

Stats: (healthy)

Strength:300

Agility:300

Perception:300

Intelligence:300

Constitution: 300

Ep: 22,500 (100%)}

It still worked like its old self, absorbing and storing flesh and blood, but it would be stored in his new 'heart' now which resulted in some unexpected benefits, the first being he could use some of the stored flesh to heal himself, second he could do. rituals on the spot as both the material and circle were 'part' of his body, side note he was tempted to move the circle to his heart to speed up the presses even more, and lastly he could tell that he could absorb stored flesh and blood to permanently strengthen any part of his body that he wanted, be that how fast his hair grew, or how his muscle formed, allowing for even greater customization with body magic. He wasn't going to go full-on chimera though, he quite liked his current body.

The reason he hadn't done any strengthening was that the flesh seed had used all of the stored flesh to sprout meaning that he had none left, he was going to go hunting first chance though, from the memories he had stolen from the bandits there where some strong monsters around and Eric was keen to have some fun.

Other than that all he had been doing was trying to make some weapons, he knew that unlike light novels and anime where the mc would get their legendary weapons or ancient artifacts, he would have to make do with what he had. And what he had was flesh and bone. Eric's current research was about how viable a spear made out of only bone is, sadly, he couldn't make one because he was out of flesh, as mentioned earlier. But he could run simulations, using the bullshit power of hive minds Eric was using all four of his minds to think about making a meat rod that could kill, by stabbing that is.

Another idea he had was to make a 'brain box' which would have a fully functioning brain in it that he would control and be connected to with puppet control, and he could use that brain to collect with other brains when he ran out of puppet slots. But that was for later as that would also need does to spare. Seeing as he couldn't do anything fun for now he set his other minds back to what they were doing before and began on his next project, making magic runes.

You would think he had already done that with the already-existing magic circles but they just acted as a focal point for mana, in reality, he could do anything without the circles just the same but with a bit more effort. setting the spare mind to create a whole new language Eric just went back to relaxing with the actual weapon practicing session and workout out.