How does a spell affect souls?

Hmm, I use my newest sensing skill to observe my soul. Instantly noticing the tiny sphere of void inside of it. Which in turn instantly reminded me of Pocket Suspense.

I try to recall the feeling of how the spell manipulate my mana in order to affect my soul, might be my higher intelligent but the memory surfaces unhindered, it's no 4k High Definition graphics but it'll suffice. From the memory, my mana somehow seems to have shift and slided from one reality to the other, very simple?

Yeap! Very simple to watch but totally not simple to follow, all shift and slide does to the sphere of mana I'm nursing is cause it to move in a spiral way. Another peak shows that Henry seems to have leant how to use Latent Mana with my trilattic Swarm and is trying to explain for the other two who also have the spell, while the two who do not have it are merely listening in.

So what am I doing wrong, the mana needs to slip from our reality into the Mindscape… which I achieve by focusing and allowing myself to kinda sink into it... I'm an idiot! The sphere of mana shifts at my command, kinda phasing through reality and slightly sinking into an ethereal like space while maintaining its presence in this one. It now perfectly exists in two realities, the real world and wherever it is energy comes from, because that is what the soul is essentially, and so is mana… so the soul is mana, or is mana merely part of what creates a soul? I'm getting a slight headache.

Anyway~, now to make this, soul damaging. The image of Kirana's scalpel surfaces in my mind, it's not much of a weapon, but does it really matter..? I shrug, nyeh, why not… parts of the sphere began shrinking to form the surgical knife while the rest are used to maintain its function. When damage is dealt, use the slight bit of contact to slip into the borders of their Mindscape and cause harm, thereafter, the mana would return back to nature.

I now have a transparent grayish scalpel gripped within my right hand. It feels solid, maybe two or three kilograms, which I think is decent enough to throw. So targeting the nearest sentry where a human's heart would be, I feel my Thrown Weapon Skill coming to effect making minute corrections to my form before I flex my arm and let loose. The scalpel strikes true, half its blade piercing into my target before slowly sinking deeper whilst growing transparent to the naked eye. The creature flinched at the moment of impact before limply falling to the ground.

** DING **

I was kinda expecting the dungeon to start yappin'~, but nope, silence… So I finish it off with another cast of the new spell, the kill confirmed with a System ding and by re-Inspecting it. Why is it so weak? Maybe I've just found their weakness. I looked for dropped items but found nothing. Satisfied for now, I quietly make my way back to the other. As I pass by, I get the feeling that these creatures are weird, too silent.

Reaching the corridors, I continued to walk while checking my notifications. 'Updates please.'

** DING **

Skill level up, Visualization 14 > 15

Level 15 threshold breached

Journeyman spell learnt Animus Incision

Spell mastery rank up, Animus Incision Early > Basic

Slayed Druidant Sentry lv 12

12 syscred and 82 exp awarded

'Thank you System.' What threshold? Ah! Introduction pack decided that was the right moment to intercede. Telling me that some skills would provide extra effects known as thresholds, or bonuses when a certain level is reached. Thresholds requires the person to understand or discover more about the skills usage before they may attain the next level, while a bonus is instantly given upon reaching the required level. Such a complicated system… 'Inspect, x2'

** DING **

Visualization. Daydream better by seeing what you're thinking. You may create and edit an illusionary image invisible to everyone else, viewing it as a projection before your eyes. Provide mana to change the invisible, visible.

Animus Incision - Basic. Journeyman rank. 60 mp. Size doesn't matter, it's the thought that counts. Summons a streamlined semi-etherealized knife that deals a miniscule amount of physical damage before phasing to hunt and harm the target's soul. The weapon is available for one use; be it a slash, a stab before fading away, merely leaving behind a tiny inconspicuous incision. The knife has attained perfect equilibrium between its two realities, that it may linger long enough away from its caster to allow for a decent throw.

Alright, me needing Visualization to be visible to others just as the skill hits level 14 is very much a coincidence, allowing me to breakthrough without experiencing any setbacks. The spell too, is nothing original but it'll suffice for now, especially if all the Druidant variants are weak to it.

"..lo~ Mr. Zane. We're done heree~. Helloooo~" I exit the corridor to the comical sight of Agus waving and hopping before my disk whilst calling out to me. "Why is he not answering?" He asks Roy beside him, whose only answer is an exaggerated shrug. The other three, fortunately, has enough common sense to keep an eye on the exits. I ignore the two clowns and approach Henry who is sitting on a rock protruding out of the wall near the other two chatting ladies.

"I didn't get to check the ones on the ground floor, but the guards are called Druidant Sentry, level 12." My camo fades—I ignore their flinch—as I tell him about their placement and their natural armor, as well as my experiment with the spell. "Do you think soul damage is their weakness?"

"During the time it took for us to learn how to better use a spell he made, he's out there figuring out a new one." I hear Dianty say to Kirana. Hmm, that's a good point, maybe there's more to Immortal Mi–.

"There's not enough data to prove that," he places a hand on his chin in a thinker's pose. "We'll shelve what weakness thing for now. So, first of all, what exactly are you trying to do here?"

Eh, I thought he knew from the quest. "It's as the quest said, we need to get to the core and get rid of the soul residing in it."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

He looks at me seriously, "how?"

The clowns chose this time to finally recognize my voice. "Huhh, when did you get here Mr. Zane?" "Oh! There's the lad." I wave at them in acknowledgement, and decided to withdraw the hovering disk into its sheathe on my back. Roy is unexpectedly a little bit comical.

"Well on the last one…" I proceed to tell him the short version of how I met the broken soul who now resides in my Mindspace. Then, had to tell him the short version of what a Mindscape is… about 4 hours and 25 minutes left till quest failure.

A quick disk check tells us that there are 19 more sentries along the balcony, twenty total, which translates to the caverns being about 300 meters deep assuming they are all 15 meters apart. At the far end, 3 exits can be seen. On the ground, there are twenty fields of various sizes scattered about; each field has at least a dozen herbs of different sizes and seems to be defended by about five of the worker Druidants.

We all agree that it's better none of us are seen by a creature whose name contains sentry, and since I am capable of disabling these sentries in two spell casts. It was determined that I'm on sentry culling duty, along with Kirana. Using SYMPHONY, I recover up to thirty mp a minute assuming I stayed still – maybe in a way as though I'm using meditation. So, The plan is Kirana and I would approach one under camo. First, I hit one with an Animus Incision to disable the enemy and she finishes it off while I recover the 60 mana required to cast my spell. Rinse and repeat. Apparently she has a trick with her scalpel that makes cutting a wil–unconscious–ling target very easy. The spell won't cost me as much, but I'll keep that bit of info to myself for now.

The others are to wait for ten minutes before advancing through the ground floor, they will first, attempt to bombard one with disks to see how the others react. If nothing, continue to focus fire. If all five get aggroed, then Roy will tank and the other three focus fire, Henry will kite if necessary as he is the only other person with a swarm armor. They'll wing it if neccessary.

All set, we depart. Kirana's armor mirrored mine as we blend into the background and depart for the corridor that leads to the balcony. "Good Luck you all, see you later." I tell Henry and the others. Henry had come up with the idea to make a slight distortion on the back of one of our greaves, so anyone following from behind has something to coordinate with. Maybe it'll be cool if I incorporate party communication features into the spell somehow. Even if it's not a problem for me, as both SoulSense and Mana Sense still work fine within its effective range.

The first Sentry comes into view. So without further delay, I toss the conjured weapon at its torso, like previously, the creature drops onto the ground as if a marionette with its strings cut, causing a slight thud as it hits the ground. The sentry next in line still has its focus on the lower floor, despite the thud. So I cautiously approach the downed creature while motioning for Kirana to follow, only for her to not follow… right, camo.

Hmm, maybe communication does not necessarily need to be a mastery upgrade, let's see~, ten mana to feed the Latent framework and have it connect to hers kinda like a cup and string phone. My mana sense detects the moment my armor's Latent Mana connects to hers, I pull at the string to keep it taut and whisper, "testing?"

Her flinch is plenty enough to tell that this works. "So, you know those cup and string phones from ancient times, imagine your armor is the cup and a mana string is, well, that. I've already got the string connecting our armor set, so hopefully we can talk now"

"...an you hear me?" Her voice reverberates inside my armor, whoops. I move the connection between our helms to around where the cheeks are and decrease the thickness of our connection, synthetic fishing line rather than those braided strings.

"Yes I can, is it better now?" I ask her using the new set. "Are you gonna do your cutting thing? Aim for the neck and stay under cover of its body so the next sentry doesn't spot you, let's talk while we work."

I sense her approach the downed creature's neck. "You talk too much and don't tell me what to do, who says I want to talk with you." Feisty, I don't like it! She kneels besides the neck on its humanoid body and started applying her scalpel on it, the knife slowly goes deeper before, again, it slowly cuts open half its neck.

I let her do her work in silence. We're both hiding behind the same creature, which means I'm close enough for Soulsense to feel both Kirana and the Sentry out. All souls feel like a sphere of, well~, maybe energy? And is located right on the center of its torso. Kirana's is maybe the size of a tennis ball, while the sentries soul is barely the size of a nail, and not even from a thumb. It occurred to me that, maybe, it's simply their souls that are weak.

Half way through her cutting, I could sense the soul fade and seemingly got absorbed by the atmosphere but chose to let her finish. Between our failed conversation and the cutting, we probably spent three minutes total to kill this one. "Awesome, let's get the next one." Just maintaining courtesy but not really caring for an answer, I cautiously begin walking.

I decided to approach this next Sentry from its 7.30 instead of just throwing the ethereal scalpel in my hand. Once within reach, I unhesitantly stab it right where its brain should be on a human and see its soul dim while the creature once again just kinda flop down. "All yours."

"On it!" She approached and started doing her thing. After a moment of silence., "sorry about earlier."

"Nah, it's fine…"

"The world went to shit and I kinda took it out on you," she explained while her scalpel is cutting open the sentries neck. "I don't know what happened to my family, and I'm stuck here due to my weakness. They don't answer my calls or texts... then there is you, making your own spells, and creating extra effects on the go and looking like you're having fun when the world's coming to an end... It got to me."

"I understand, no worries." I tell her with a neutral voice. "Did you ask Mr Herman to help find your families?"

"No, can he help?" She was done, so we began approaching our third target.

"Well, he helped me find mine, who knows. where do they live?" I whisper at her through our phone-armor. Cast. Approach. Stab. Wait.

"Thanks, I'll try asking him. They live at Kedoya but who knows where that is now." I stood still while watching her cut with my Mana Sense.

"Yeah, maybe they made it into one of the government's safe houses. I heard it's overly crowded there, but they're fed and protected, at least. The country, heck the whole world was kinda prepared for something like this. Don't lose hope." I try to cheer her up, kinda wish I'm better at this…

We moved on and managed to snuff the fourth and fifth target in busy silence, before a commotion can be heard from the first field. "Should we check that out?" Kirana broke the silence with her question.

"Hmm, allow me." One disk flew off my back and towards where a fight is taking place while we stay hidden behind the corpse of our newest kill, I Visualize a tiny palm sized image of the scene for her to see. One of the winged Druidants can be seen lying unmoving very close to the field, it has a thin and streamlined physique, the male humanoid upper half figure sports multiple cut lines. Further back, by the entrance to the corridor, Roy took point, standing between two of his party members in the corridor and the four Druidants assaulting them, tower shield in hand.

The bigger Druidant also took point, clashing at Roy with its pair of massive front limbs, limbs as thick as a young tree, the rest of its body buffed and covered in thick exoskeleton. One other stood slightly to the side and behind it, emaciated and rather unhealthy looking in the way it's skins wrinkles, the creature is conjuring and tossing out globs of green that sizzles upon contact with Roy or the ground. While the last identical two stood together a little further back where they each gesture and shoot out individual water-gun-like pressured jets of water, their upper humanoid half has a slightly cute, twin girls next door kinda look, their ant body, too, slightly reflect their feminine forms in the way they slightly curves.

"We should help!" Kirana said at once.