"What? He's a soul oracle?"

"Did he say that thing can hold souls? It feels so ordinary."

"Eh? It's covered in a basic illusion designed to make it look normal."

"Really? But can it actually store souls? It'd have to be a Mythic-ranked item to do that. Not just anyone can get an item like that."

"Maybe he really is a soul oracle."

"He should have announced that at the start. I got angry for nothing."

"It's not been confirmed yet. He could be a mere charlatan."

"True, but can't you feel his group's strength? Leaving the two human boys aside, they're all at least A-rankers with that tall Fairy being an XX-ranker."

"Is that so? Maybe it would be worthwhile making a connection or two with them in that case."

"Isn't he the guy that assaulted the daughter of the Merchant's Guild's chairman?"

"He must be. She definitely said it was a Golden Foxkin. And as far as I'm aware, only two of those are still alive on Altros."

"Right. The baby and the young man who escaped Milindo, that backwater country to the far west."

"I heard he has the baby with him as well. It turns out she has a special ability to change into an actual fox."

"How do you know that?"

"It was a golden fox that was in Milindo, but then this man showed up at our borders with a Golden Foxkin baby. I also heard that he was the person that won her in the auction she was sold at. You do the maths."

"That does make sense..."

"I don't care who he is nor how powerful he is, I still want an apology from him. Cutting in line, regardless of the reason, is bad etiquette."

Lone raised an eyebrow. He was a bit surprised that so much was known about him so soon. It made some sense when he thought about how Headmaster Erion had been looking for him, so, ignoring his unique heritage, it was only natural for people to heavily investigate him.

It was also surprising that no one seemed to be looking down on him because he was a demi despite most of the people talking about him being humans. 'I guess they're either not racists, or they're far better at containing their distaste than that Anita girl was.'

"Excuse me," the soul oracle apprentice called towards Lone.

Snapping out of his thoughts about the crowd, Lone smiled towards the young man who was perhaps five-years his junior. "Yes?"

"I just finished communicating with the vice-head guider, Master Millisa. She wishes to test you personally regarding your claims. Should you actually be a soul oracle, she would love to hear out your 'unrefusable' deal," the soul oracle apprentice said loudly so the line could hear him as well.

"Did he just say Master Millisa?"

"She wants to test him personally?"

"he must be the real deal then. Master Millisa must have sensed his soul oracle powers or something."

"Yeah. Must have."

Lone nodded. "great." He approached the redheaded woman at the front of the line and handed her an item bag. "I counted everyone in line. There are ten-ruby gold coins in that item bag for each person."

Her eyes moved from the bag to Lone a few times. She soon wore a troubled expression on her face. It was like she wanted to ask him something, but didn't know how to.

Lone ignored that. If she had to say something to him, then he wasn't going to wait for her to figure out what it was. There would be plenty of chances for her to ask him whatever it was that she wanted to ask of him in the future assuming she was from Mystopolis or was planning to stay here for a while.

He looked down along the crowd and put some power into his voice. "I hope this meagre offering from me can allow all of you to forget my rudeness today. I also have plans to eventually set up a store here in Mystopolis, so I would appreciate your support when that happens. As a side offer, for those of you that have a genuine need of a soul oracle's services, I'm more than willing to help free of charge so long as you bring the patient to me. You can find me at Madam Cortelle's Palace of Rest. I'll be there for some time."

'Madam Cortelle's Palace of Rest?' the ponytailed and armoured woman thought. 'If he's staying there, and if this bag really does have all of that money in it... I'd better hand this out and say sorry to him later. I'll probably get rejected by the hall again, but maybe he'll hear me out?'

Waves of impressed and slightly sceptical murmurs spread throughout the crowd as the ginger woman began handing out ten ruby-gold coins to each person.

Eolande narrowed her eyes. 'What a schemer. Is he trying to decrease the number of people that will cause us trouble, or is he trying to increase that number? It's so hard to understand him sometimes...'

Contrary to her thoughts, Lone's were far simpler than she was imagining. 'With this, our fame should spread quite a bit. Now people will know that I'm filthy rich as well as willing to help those in need for free. Maybe someone who knows about the true gods or Clicker and Tapper will be among the people that come to find me later?'

He looked back at the soul oracle apprentice and asked, "Is it okay if my friends come in as well?"

The young man scratched his cheek and laughed awkwardly. "Em, usually, it's not allowed. Um, do you mind if I ask vice-head guider, Master Millisa first?"

Before Lone could answer, the grandly decorated double doors leading into the Soul Hall swing open slowly and a stunningly beautiful woman with dark-brown skin and long-flowing black hair stepped down onto the street. She was dressed in a very simply robe, but it didn't serve to hide her curves.

"There is no need for that, Apprentice Reldo. I have come to greet Master Lone personally," she claimed with a silky smooth voice.

"She came herself?!"

"She just called him 'master'!"

"So he was a bigshot soul oracle."

"I wonder why this wasn't in the reports I received..."

Lone raised an eyebrow. "Is it safe to assume that you're the vice-head guilder, Master Millisa?"

She chuckled softly. "Please, just call me Master Millisa. My skills at sensing souls are sorely lacking in comparison to yours, so being called the vice-head guider by you makes me feel ashamed of myself."

The people in the queue were frozen still. The second strongest soul oracle who only fell behind the head guider himself, that woman was saying that she was worse at sensing souls that this young foxkin was?

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It had to be known that sensing souls was the first step to awakening as a soul oracle. As that natural talent grew, so did the potential of the soul oracle in question. Even if Lone only had two soul oracles-specific skills right now, Mallisa could sense how inferior her soul's power and ability to feel other souls was when compared to his.

"Master Millisa, eh? Sure," Lone said. 'So once you reach a certain skill-level in soul sensing, you get dubbed as a master?'

Millisa smiled faintly. She turned to Apprentice Reldo and ordered, "Send in the next guest. Journeyman Sendro will see to them. Of course, after they have finished distributing Master Lone's gifts to the line."

Reldo bowed and cupped his hands. "Yes, vice-head guider, Master Millisa."

"Please, Master Lone, follow me. Your friends are welcome as well," Millisa said. Her eyes lingered on Swind for a few seconds longer than everyone else, which slightly alarmed the young Lemurian.

Lone silently nodded and walked behind the woman. As they were traversing the halls of this grand building, he decided to use Clicker's power on her. From what he could sense, she was an X-ranker, but he was still curious about her stats.

Status Name: Millisa Sex: Female Age: 97 Level: 5,492 Species: Human Rank: X Race: Native Aurillian HP: 75,550/75,550 SP: 210,000/210,000 Basic Stats Strength: 10,000 Vigour: 7,555 Dexterity: 2,400 Agility: 1,500 Vitality: 21,000 Luck: 2,175 Secret Stats Charisma: 100  

'Wow. She's got a lot of strength, vigour and vitality... Still, 'Native Aurillian', huh? Is that this world's version of 'Native African' or something similar? This is the first time I'm meeting a black person in this world, now that I think about it. Milindo was full of white people, and most demis are either white or kinda Asian-looking,' Lone wondered. 'Also, she looks no older than twenty, but she's almost a hundred. That's kinda crazy for a non-demi. And she's an X-ranker despite being that young? She must be super talented.'

As they weaved through the Soul Hall and made their way up a few flights of stairs, Lone held his chin and resumed his thinking. 'Still, no magic power? That's new. I guess it makes sense. Most humans don't have magic anyway. Demis are the weird ones since almost every single demi is born with some magic power in them. Even before I remade Swind's body, he had a minuscule amount of magic power, didn't he?'

"Hehe... Despite the seriousness of your visit, you seem very relaxed, Master Lone," Millisa pointed out as she pushed open a door and held it for everyone.

As Lone entered the room beyond, he rubbed the back of his head and replied, "It's a habit. I tend to hyper-analyse most things I come across. I like to have a full understanding of everything so I can make the best decisions and plans. Also, collecting knowledge and pondering over it is always healthy for the mind. Well, my mind, at least. It kinda sucks me out of what I'm doing and puts me on auto-pilot."

"Wise." Millisa closed her eyes and nodded in a sagely manner as she let go of the door and took a seat in the spacious lounge. She raised a curious eyebrow at Soph climbing onto Lone's lap and wrapping herself in his tails, but she simply chuckled softly and didn't comment on it.

"Wise? Nah. I'm just a bit of a control freak," Lone joked, to which Millisa smiled.

"I've never seen a demi with fully changed racial traits. It was to my understanding that foxkin only had their irises as well as the tips of all of their tails altered upon several awakenings. However, you, Master Lone, have perfectly golden eyes as well as five unaltered tails while the other four each have a unique colour. How curious." Millisa leaned over and rested her elbows on her knees as she propped her chin up.

"How curious indeed," Lone responded.

Millisa could tell that Lone had no plans to elaborate, so her gaze wandered from him and landed on Swind. "And you, young man. I've never seen your race before. Those mechanical limbs are items, yes? Not a part of your body?"

Swind was trying to look as patient and calm as was physically possible, but his desire to speed things along was very hard to hide. "Yes. They are items." He was curt and he lacked his usual politeness.

He knew he had to be nice to this woman. She was a potential life-line for Rachel, but the way she was starting a useless conversation was upsetting him a great deal.

Millisa smiled knowingly. "Impatience isn't a good trait for a fledgeling soul oracle, my scaly friend."

"What?" Lone's voice cut through the air like a hot knife. "Swind's a soul oracle?"

Millisa laughed warmly. "You didn't know?"

"Wait. You're actually being serious?" Lone - as well as everyone else - was extremely confused.

"My, my. A fellow master comes to the Soul Hall with another soul oracle and a girl whose soul is splitting apart, and he isn't even aware of it?" Millisa was hopeful for Lone's continued perplexion. It was rare to get the chance to tease a fellow master. Even though the subject was serious, she just couldn't miss this golden opportunity.

Lone smiled as he kissed Soph's head. "I'm more than aware of my little angel's problem. It's a non-issue. I'm very surprised that Swind is a soul oracle though, assuming you're not lying." Soph's cheeks turned red and her lips curled up in pleasure at his blatant affection.

Millisa's eyes opened wide. "You have a way to deal with a soul tearing apart?"

Lone grinned knowingly. "Many ways. Some temporary, some permanent."

Millisa slunk back into her chair and sighed. "I feel defeated. I'm quite shocked that you can detect a soul splitting apart and have methods to deal with it, despite not being able to tell that your companion is a soul oracle. I was hoping you'd be clueless to her problem. That would have been a powerful bargaining chip."

"I'm sure. Anyway, how do you know Swind is a soul oracle? I didn't even know that there was a way to figure that kind of stuff out without seeing a person actually perform a soul oracle skill," Lone admitted honestly.

"I'll answer you if you promise to tell me where you got... that," Millisa replied as she pointed at Saturn who was innocently bobbing around Lone's head.

He shrugged. "Sure."

"As a show of good faith, I'll go first." Millisa wanted Lone's cooperation at all costs if that floating orb could do what she thought it could. The time for teasing was long over. "All, or should I say, most, master soul oracles have a skill called 'Soul Oracle Detection'. Ordinary sounding, I know. It hyper-focuses our natural talent to sense souls and tells us where our fellow soul oracles are. It's as simple as that. I'm very shocked you do not know of or possess this skill considering your absurd range of soul detection."

Lone clicked his tongue a few times thoughtfully and rested his chin on Soph's soft head of hair. "I can sense upwards of one and a half miles if I'm really trying, but only one-hundred-and-fifty meters normally. Is that really so impressive? The only other soul oracle I met was a White Dragonkin called Elksworth, and he didn't tell me anything."

Millisa's eyes opened wide. "Yes, Master Lone. That is amazing. I can only detect souls up to fifty-feet away from myself and one-hundred if I really put some effort in."

"I see." Lone stared up at the ceiling as he squished Soph's very squishable sides. She wasn't chubby, but her child-form was certainly very... well, squishy.

Something clicked in the almost century-old woman's mind. "So, Master Lone. Do you mean to tell me that you're entirely self-taught?"

Lone cocked his head to the side and matched her gaze. "Pretty much. I learned how to bind souls after watching Elksworth do it once. I then learned how to reinforce souls after reading a book about it at the eastern world tree. I can move souls too, but that's not a skill and they degrade very fast if they're not stored somewhere."

Millisa's composure was crumbling. "Learned after watching it once? You learned one of Master Rakmul's signature soul skills just by reading a book? You've been to a world tree and still remember it?"

"Ah. Right. I sometimes forget how absurd some of the normal things I do actually are when compared to the more crazy shit that happens to me," Lone said as he smiled lightly.

Eolande rolled her eyes loud enough for it to be physically heard. 'What do you do that isn't absurd, Husband?'