43. Backup Plan

Orion also didn't feel any better knowing that they wouldn't turn into spectres right away. He understood that if they couldn't kill the third guardian in the amount of time they had, then it would spell certain doom for them.

At that moment, Feran appeared to have sensed the growing uneasiness among the souls in the temple.

"Everyone, don't worry. Everything will be fine," he said, attempting to reassure the crowd before turning his attention to Runo's team and the transmigrators. "And you, kids, continue your training diligently. The fate of every soul in the temple rests on your shoulders."

The kids nodded heavily upon hearing Feran, and they went on to continue their training.

After witnessing the tragic end of Walric, the group of kids became more determined to practice the Three Divine Ways. They didn't want the same ending for themselves.

Meanwhile, Orion retreated to a corner of the hall and leaned against the wall.

Although Feran didn't say anything about that, disappointment was evident in his eyes as he looked at Orion.

On the other hand, Orion didn't feel anything and thought about his next move.

'Looks like it's time for the backup plan.'

Knowing very well that the Three Divine Ways wouldn't be useful in the short term, he opted for the more direct approach—increasing his strength.

'Let's see what I have.'

Pondering over his abilities, he gave a quick check and noted something.

'For defense, I have the repel option, which I can use in my body and use of Dimensional Dissonance to shift through dimensions and make my body invisible. It can also make my body intangible, though I don't have any control over it.'

He thought that, in defense, he had quite a few abilities he could use but he wasn't sure about his attack power.

'In attack, I can only use abilities of attraction and my flying swords. So what I need right now is an attack based curse. As for the flame creation, I haven't tried much so I don't know how much control I have over that or how powerful the flame is. There is also the ability to negate pain. That's good too, I guess.'

After assessing his abilities, he noticed the lack of curses that could be used in attack. Therefore, he decided to look for some attack based curses here.

Afterward, he would also have to give some time to himself to get accustomed to these curses; otherwise, having them and being unable to use them freely would be too much of a waste.

Having decided what to do, Orion started walking towards the group of souls who had the same age as him.

His plan was simple—copy as many curses as he could from them.

As he moved closer to the group of kids, they also noticed him. Seeing him, they wondered what that guy needed from them.

After Orion arrived in front of them, he extended his arm in a form of greeting.

"Hey there fellas, I am Orion Darkwood; it's nice to meet you," he said as he introduced himself.

The group of kids gave Orion a strange look because they hadn't expected one of the newcomers to come to them and introduce himself.

Nonetheless, it really didn't matter to them if they had one more person to talk to.

"Hello Orion," one of the kids said as he shook Orion's hand. "I am Nathan."

As Orion shook hands with him, he copied his curse and then again extended his arm towards the other kids.

Seeing him standing with his arm out, the group of kids felt awkward for a moment before they decided to handshake him one by one while introducing themselves.

For Orion, there was no shame in it whatsoever. He saw this as his chance to grow stronger, and he was willing to seize it, even if it meant being a bit shameless.

Like that, he copied the curses of all the kids and also talked a few things with them about this temple and some personal stuff before Orion left them.

However, he didn't go back to his corner and instead looked for another group and did the same thing with them.

Of course, he couldn't copy the curses of all the soul forms present. If he were to go around shaking everyone's hands, his odd behavior would surely attract attention.

Therefore, he only copied the curses of those he could without arousing any suspicion.

He repeated this process a few more times before he finally appeared at the corner of the hall and sat down, leaning against the wall.

During this time, he copied many curses, but he also noticed that not all curses were useful to him. For instance, a curse where one wouldn't be able to see, a curse where one would have a splitting headache, and a curse where one's body would become immobile.

Although these curses wouldn't have any effect on him because of his own curse—Null Body—they didn't have any uses either.

So he quickly sorted these waste curses from the useful ones and asked the system to get rid of the waste ones.

By doing that, he was left with three curses.

[Burdened Gravity - Each time you alter the weight of objects, you inadvertently transfer the burden of that weight to your own body. As you lighten objects, your own body becomes heavier, making movement sluggish and laborious. Conversely, when you increase the weight of objects, your body light as a feather.becomes light as a feather.]

Orion copied this curse from a guy who had the talent of weight manipulation.

'With this curse activated, I can increase my weight to that of giant boulders, but I won't feel it due to my own curse, allowing me to move freely.'

[Frozen Torment - Each time you summon and manipulate ice, you experience an intense cold that penetrates deep into your bones, causing excruciating pain and numbness throughout your body. The freezing temperatures sap your strength and vitality, leaving you weakened and vulnerable.]

He copied this curse from a lady who had the talent of frost icicles.

From the description of the curse, he had a feeling that it would work the same way as his other curse velocity burst did, allowing him to generate frost.

[Detonating Flesh - Each time you unleash an explosive burst of energy, your own body becomes a volatile conduit for the detonation. The force of the explosions emanates from within you, causing your flesh to rupture and your bones to splinter as if caught in the blast radius.]

This curse came from a guy who had the talent of exploding flames.

'This will come in handy for sure.'

He mused over the prospect of this curse.

Meanwhile, he pondered the limitations he found for his curse.

Earlier, when he sorted out all those waste curses, he noticed a common thing among all those waste curses.

The talents for those curses happened to be the physical ones. Like, if someone were to have the talent of super strength, then their curse would cause them weakness.

Similarly, if they were to have the talent of enhanced vision or eye related abilities, their curse would lead to blindness.

These were just some of the examples.

He also noticed that some curses that didn't fall into the category of physical ones were also useless for him.

For example, he copied a curse bleeding wounds from a guy with the talent to cut anything. This curse would cause bleeding wounds every time he cut after his curse activated.

Another would be the talent for telekinesis, which gave him the curse of mental strain. This curse would cause headaches, dizziness, and many other severe side effects related to the brain.

So from all of this, Orion came to the conclusion that each talent came with a random curse, and these curses could be anything.

This made him realise that not all curses were useful to him, and he would have to copy a large number of curses like this time to find something that could come in handy.

'I should only copy curses of those whose curses I am aware of.'

He made a mental note of that.