Well isn't that just beautiful?

His second skill upgrade so far was an extremely helpful one that came at the perfect time. Having Soul Sight upgrade meant he no longer needed a reflection to see his soul.

Or do I?

Quickly opening his status screen, Kai looked at the description of his newly upgraded skill to see did it change at all.

A soul is one's being, peering at one's soul could definitely be considered perverted. This is a passive type skill. Allows the user to perceive the souls of sentient beings. The difficulty of viewing the soul is based on the user current Mana pool. Grants the user a slight affinity to souls.

...

Damn it.

Looking at the first line, Kai couldn't help but feel hard done by. The line which used to say the skill could be considered perverted, now says could definitely be considered perverted. Kai only picked the skill that would help him grow his Soulcery repertoire, how can that be considered perverted?

Well... If you look at it like that...

Souls were the very essence of someone's being, a person would not be a person without a soul. So the skill is kind of like peeping on someone shower, but technically worse?

Not that Kai would do that, of course.

He would be much to scared to.

He would rather fight the invisible wendigo again than risk doing that.

Probably...

The only other thing that changed about the description was the addition of a new line at the very end. And it was this line that had Kai confused.

Grants the user a slight affinity to souls... What does that even mean?

A slight affinity to souls was about as ambiguous as it could possibly get. And Kai had dealt with a lot of ambiguous things so far since the white room.

Did it mean he could finally reach a breakthrough in Soulcery? Did it mean he would be able to statshift easier? Or did it even mean something completely different to do with a section of Soulcery so random Kai would never even discover it due to how useless it is?

Kai hoped it was the former and not the latter, but he wouldn't mind if it was his second thought either.

Still, an upgraded skill was an upgraded skill. This was the third rare skill in Kai's arsenal, along with Contract of Artemis and Nonchalance. The three skills which were the most useful were the highest rarity.

How fitting.

Closing his status screen, Kai happily welcomed the cold embrace of the waterfall he was still under.

If he was ever going to be able to properly achieve statshifting, it was now or never. The skill which was the catalyst of being able to statshift just upgraded after all.

Combined with the fact that he could be dead in less than a week, it really was the perfect time.

And probably the only time.

Closing his eyes, crossing his legs and taking a deep breath. Kai repeated the actions he had done multiple times in the last month and concentrated deeply on his soul.

Maybe it's because of forming a soul, maybe it's because of his new affinity, or maybe it's a mix of both, but finding his soul was much easier and a much more pleasant experience when compared to what he had to do before.

While before, finding his soul was about as hard as... finding a soul. Now, it wasn't so bad.

Kai could visibly sense the dull orb that was now physically inside him, accompanied by the vibrant dots that represented his six stats.

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Activating Partial Transformation so he could more easily and carefully split his stats, Kai slowly motioned his hand closer towards his soul.

Kai still had no idea how this even worked. His hand was moving outwards while his soul was inside his chest, yet he could still touch it as if it was in front of him. The dimensions were completely wrong, but Kai wasn't going to complain.

He would much rather move his claws outwards than into his chest after all.

Kai reached out towards the golden spark that represented Luck. Honestly, Kai had no idea what to think of the stat. It could have been helpful without him knowing, yet it also could have been extremely useless.

Maybe the time that Kai successfully statshifted his Luck into Dexterity was because of his Luck, or maybe another moment that Kai unknowingly got extremely lucky was because of his abnormally high Luck.

Like the Depth Dweller for example, Kai still had no idea how he got out of that alive.

He would have died if the terrifying abomination held him back further from its eye, if it used more than one tentacle to hold him. In fact, it could have just crushed him at the very start.

But it didn't.

If Luck could subconsciously influence things around him...

Then Kai had been underestimating the stat too much.

Still, in a situation like this, Kai was fine with temporarily giving up.

Splitting of a miniscule spark of gold, Kai gently guided it over towards a different stat. The stat he was about to increase was going to be the pedestal for his survival of the final fight.

-1 Luck

+1 Strength

Kai grinned.

Shifting his stats was much easier now that he upgraded to Soul Sense and formed a soul inside him.

This is going to take forever...

Sadly, Kai did not have forever, he only had a few days, meaning he wouldn't be sleeping for a while.

So with the cold waterfall drenching his whole body and a slightly determined look on his face, Kai started statshifting.

******

So... tired...

Kai lay on the bank of the pond, his bodysuit and tunic clinging tightly to him as his chest heaved up and down slowly.

His mind was foggy, nothing made sense, life was meaningless-

Shaking his head, Kai stopped the random thoughts and concentrated on not falling asleep right then and there.

He didn't want to catch hypothermia after all.

If that was even possible anymore.

While statshifting didn't cost any Mana to do, Kai did not account for the mental strain it would put him under.

Previously, Kai just moved one singular stat point and that was it. Now, Kai had to move a lot more than that.

His head was throbbing. This was the worst headache he's had in his seventeen years of life, even worse than the temporary hangover he had when drinking with The Ever-changing.

The pain was due to statshifting. If Kai knew it would have been like this, he probably would have given up in the first place. So far, it's been around six hours and he's only moved twenty Luck into Strength.

Averaging three stats swapped an hour was a lot less than Kai expected. The first stat was always the easiest, but it's as if he had a mental block or just wasn't doing it right for all the others.

But Kai was too tired to worry about all that right now. In fact, the ground he was currently resting his head on was feeling awfully comfortable.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a little-

No! I have to get this done. I want to see my family, I want to live.

I want to get stronger.

Despite his somewhat cool inner monologue, Kai less cooly pushed himself off the ground and cursed his dwindling luck.

Forcing himself back under the raging stream falling from the waterfall, Kai made a mental note to move five more Luck before he would take a rest.

And that's what he did.

Not really.

After another hour and three more stats shifted, Kai passed out under the waterfall.

Face down, Kai was unaware that he was drowning. The water made its way up his nose, slowly draining the life of the unknowing Kai.

Inwardly sighing, a brown-haired man emerged from one of the trees in the distance.

The man wore simple cotton clothes and had a look in his eyes that radiated authority and compassion.

Still, there was something deeper hidden in them.

Failure walked into the shallow pond, not caring the water was slowly rising up his pants. He gently grabbed the back of Kai's tunic and picked him up like a business man holding a briefcase.

Plopping Kai down on dry ground, Failure softly patted the back of Kai's head. Admiring the sleeping Kai's expression for a moment, Failure chuckled softly before speaking to himself.

"I have no idea what you were doing, but keep it up my dear Kai."

And with that, Failure left Kai on the bank of the pond to rest. The charismatic man once more disappearing into the depths of the inner forest of The Dome.

Kai dreamt while he slept. It wasn't a strange dream, it was just that saw his family at different moments in his life. It was like his life flashing before his eyes. Randomly though, Failure appeared at the end of his dream.

Nevermind, it was a strange dream.

Then, Kai woke up. Lifting his head, Kai spat away some grass that was stuck to his face and blinked hard.

What the hell was that?

Thinking about the strange dream he just had, Kai realised that he was on the ground and not in the pond.

Oh, I must have passed out and imagined me shifting the last five stats.

Slightly angry at himself for being so mentally weak, Kai opened his stat screen and saw that he actually did shift three of the five stats.

Then how am I on land?

Curiously looking around, Kai spotted nothing out of the ordinary about his surroundings. Even the minor memory enhancement offered by the Tunic of Rememberance couldn't help him remember what the hell happened.

Sighing, Kai got up and contemplated does he still have to do all the statshifting under the waterfall.

Does he want to?

No.

Does he feel like he had to at this point after doing it for every other stat so far?

Yes.

And with that, Kai forced himself under the waterfall once more.

Unaware of the footprints leading into the small forest beside him.