In the back alley, four people are just sitting there smoking weed. Meanwhile, Dhruv’s soul form is hovering above them, looking down with a totally indifferent expression. He is here to test out a new skill, ‘Replace Thought,’ which he developed on the basis of ‘Copy Memories’ from White Snake.
Dhruv entered the first person’s mind and replaced the word weed with shit. The first person spoke: “Why does it feel like I’m smoking shit?”
Dhruv listened to him quietly and was amazed ‘this skill not only replaces a single word but even the senses related to it,’ then he entered the second person’s mind, then replaced a few words with ‘I hate weed.’ The second person spoke: “You know, bro, you are correct. Let’s take different drugs.”
Dhruv listened while feeling unsatisfied. In the third person’s mind, he replaced a few words with 'Drugs are disgusting.' The third person spoke: “This is really gross, man. I’m done with everything; I’m broke and can’t land a decent job, and now this awful shit, ugh. He walked away after saying that.”
The fourth person was bewildered and thought, ‘I agree that I bought the cheapest weed available locally. But I don’t think it’s that bad that they are reacting this way.’ “Oh no, I think I’m losing energy!” He stopped smoking.
Dhruv was very satisfied with the results; he absorbed 50% of the soul energy of each person with the help of a skill called 'Soul Absorb’. He thought— ‘I nearly perfected this skill after many trials and errors throughout this last day,’ and flew towards his home.
He turned the doorknob and walked into the hall entrance.
He noticed someone preparing tasty food in the kitchen, and the scent of spices wafted into the foyer.
If only she could be a real girl instead of just my body. He felt a bit disappointed.
White Snake looked towards Dhruv’s soul, and a faint smile appeared on her proud face. “You can physically interfere in the real world in a soul form, so I guess my method and your adjustments worked.”
“I wouldn’t be too happy about it; the rate of conversion is absolutely terrible. Only one black bead; if lucky, then two.”
"Sure, it is. You don’t consume the souls of others; how can you get more? Furthermore, even the soul practitioners are unable to directly absorb souls. You are lucky that your soul talent enables it; now we can compete with the Soul Avatars.”
“Oh, right, one more thing: look at me.” After saying that, Dhruv went invisible.
“Wow, if not for your body, I wouldn’t even feel the location of yours. How did you do that?”
“Using the same skill, ‘Absorb Soul’, but instead of others, I’m absorbing mine to the absolutely weakened point. The downside is that I cannot use any other skills in this weakened state.” Saying that he turned back to a solid state.
“Hmm, and you’re storing energy in the Receptor, but it’s useless against the soul practitioners as they can locate you easily. Have you made any progress in Wisdom talent?”
“Not yet, as I don’t have any references.”
“You know, just now I had an unbelievable thought. Want to listen?” She asked.
“Sure, but before that, can you clear up this burning smell?” He pointed towards the cooking gas.
“Oh God, I forgot.” She quickly rushed back to the kitchen and turned off the gas. “Dammit, it’s all burned because of you. I was on the final stage.”
Hehe, he chuckled as he said, “Are you cooking or playing video games?”
“Whatever, cook for yourself now. This is your body anyway; why should I maintain it?” She said with anger.
“Wow, chill out, girl.”
“I have to process my gains from today, and you will be using my body, so get used to it. I will hibernate now.” After saying that, he went into his subconscious.
White Snake was speechless.
A long silence later, Dhruv asked, “What thought were you going to share earlier?”
Instead of replying, she cut off her connection with my body, and like a puppet cut with its string, my body fell to the floor.
THUD!
“Now that you’re somewhat capable of using your talent, tomorrow we have to try and locate those five Soul Avatars, so I am going to plan,” saying that she flew into some corner of my subconscious.
I regained control of my body and felt immediate pain in my stomach. I stood up and grabbed up the pan to toss the burned food away, but as soon as I pushed the lid of the trash can, a strong burning stench assailed my nose. With my left hand, I sealed my nose shut and peered inside the trash can, only to see that it was piled high with charred food.
“If you don’t know how to cook, why did you not ask?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Silence…
‘She must have been hungry all day.’ I picked up the trash bag and went towards the main door, then I heard my doorbell ringing.
Ding Dong!
I opened the door to find a young and gorgeous girl waiting outside. She has a slim figure, thin legs, jeans on the bottom, a fitted t-shirt on top, a slightly curved waist, and a medium-sized breast. Her straight hair fluttered gently in the wind.
“Alia, what exactly are you doing here?” I questioned, then walked by her to the trash can outside and threw the trash bag in.
When I turned around, the evening sun was beaming brightly on Alia’s face. She has pale complexion, soft eyes, a tiny nose, and rosy, bow-shaped lips.
She smiled and added, “I am here to help, I suppose.”
“Help? Why would I need your assistance?”
She pointed her index finger to the garbage can, then to her room on the first floor of her house, which was opposite mine.
“To be honest, I’ve been watching you cook for the past three hours, which is rather amusing. But more importantly, I watched you faint just now. My father gave me permission to help you learn how to cook.”
Dhruv wondered, ‘Did she see my soul form? I need to evaluate the angle at which I was standing. But more than that, I know how to cook, bruh, and I can’t deny her now that she’s knocked on my door for assistance.’ ‘Uncle Ricky, how can you send your daughter to a bachelor’s residence?’
With a smile, “I said, thank you for thinking about me. Please come in.”
…
At the same time,
Plaquso Island, near Chennai City.
Huts were blazing, and uncountable corpses littered the beach community.
At the heart of the hamlet, two guys are surrounded by ten residents; both are fatigued. One man said, “Rajiv, how long are we going to do this? At this pace, I may vanish from tiredness, or was that your aim all along?”
Rajiv responded, “Henrik, how can you think like that?” He formed ten long javelins out of black beads and launched them at the villagers, who all fell to the ground at once. Rajiv reached out his palm, and the Soul Box materialized. He tossed it on the ground, and it began accumulating ten souls inside.
“Finally, I do not enjoy savage battles.” Henrik sighed as he finished saying that. They had been fighting for three hours, swapping bodies as one reached its limit and slaughtered nearly 600 people; the last ten villagers were the strongest.
“Now talk to me. Why did you want to join me?” Rajiv asked.
“You already know; why bother asking? Using one basic skill costs one black bead, which is absurd.”
“True, and while we have an infinite number of pure souls here, we cannot devour them. I often envy those white bead practitioners; they only have one bead, yet they can practice their skills until their minds are spent.”
“Man, stop talking like that; it’s cutting my heart. We can extract 100 black beads from one pure soul, which is equivalent to being omnipotent, but we’re here in a tough fight. You do not need to be concerned; when we return, you will receive 70% of my merit plus a share of pure souls from my Soul Box.” Henrik offered his terms.
“Alright, how many black beads do you have?”
“I started with 18, and now I have 15.”
“Hmm, you can forget about the three, which are maintaining the black box, so usable black beads are 12.” Rajiv felt pity for Henrik's situation.
“It’s quite bizarre, isn’t it? Technically, we should have arrived with the same number of black beads, but this damn world doesn’t want our plan to succeed. So, what’s the strategy?” Henrik asked.
“It’s definitely weird; we’ll have to figure out what’s wrong when we get back. In terms of my strategy, I intend to use this island as a focal point, attracting the city over there, which is quite populous.” He pointed his index finger at Chennai City. “And with your aid, we can position our Soul Box in two distinct orientations to avoid wasting any souls.”
After saying that, Rajiv picked up the Soul Box, which collected the 10 villagers.
“Attack with what? Earlier, when we came to this planet, you said you would create a tsunami.” Henrik asked confusingly.
“Do I look like an idiot to you? Although I thought that, after researching a bit, I found their information network to be way stronger than I expected, almost comparable to our magical network across the planet.”
“Unbelievable; I didn’t know that as I haven’t had much time to research yet.” Henrik was astonished by this information.
“So, I decided to use my backup plan, which I set forth before leaving our Planet, and earlier today I got a single confirmation that it is in place.”
“And, what’s your backup plan?”
“It’s my custom Asteroid.”
“Damn, thanks for having me, brother.”
“It’s my pleasure to host the Lord’s son. We will execute our plan tomorrow.”
…
[Alarm clock chime]
In front of the alarm clock, White Snake is bobbing her head with the alarm sound. “Oh! You are up.”
Click~
“Yup, and that’s an alarm clock, by the way; it helps me wake up. Although this is the first time I’m waking up while standing, I find myself peculiarly refreshed. Why is that?”
“Maybe because you ate that girl’s food last night.”
“Aww, are you jealous?”
“Why would I be? But you should see today’s news. It’s quite interesting.”
He opened his news app, and after reading the first headline, he was shocked.
“Do you think it’s their doing?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s quite possible, as it will land near this country’s region; fortunately, it is not immediately. We have one and a half months to plan things out.”
“Do you really have a plan to tackle these three Asteroids?”
“What! I’m not talking about that. You think I’m crazy; what will I do? Fly up there and give it a punch, and it will go kaboom, idiot. Let me ask you again: do you want to save their lives or souls?” White snake asked seriously.
“If possible, save lives; so, no souls will be generated for them to absorb.”
“Okay, let me put it another way: assume we risked our lives to save millions of other individuals and then perished. What do you suppose the five Soul Avatars will accomplish?” She paused for a bit then continued.
“They will carry out another plot to slaughter millions of people, and it will be impossible to preserve lives or souls at that moment.”
“It’s true. Okay, I’ll devise a strategy that does not jeopardize our safety.”
“Sure, just focus on the root cause in your plan.” White Snake replied happily.
White Snake hypothesized that Wisdom skill is terrifying without emotions, but with emotions, it can be manipulated using facts and logic. ‘Thank God he’s the latter type.’
“Hey, I have a question. Can you clarify it quickly? Does God exist? Dhruv asked.”
White Snake’s eyes widened ‘can he hear my thoughts? No, that can’t be.’ “Ah, this is a difficult one. Let me see how I can bring this all together. I’ll say yes and no. No, because no one has ever seen them, even in the higher world, but people believe in the concept of God, but the names vary depending on faith and organization.”
“And yes, since I believe those who can reach the Supreme World every year may be counted on one hand, and they are the individuals to admire because they have talent and power on a whole different level. They may also be deemed capable of rivaling God’s strength. We don’t worship them as gods since we can physically see them. Isn’t it really ironic?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh! Oh! Another thing: I went to the bathroom at your place, so you don’t have to worry. Hehe.” She said teasingly.
“What?”