Rank Up

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Slowly he started to wake up but he felt very groggy like he just woke up from an hour nap that only made him more tired. After taking a couple of minutes to completely wake up he looked inside his soul.

The mist he collected before he fell asleep was completely gone and the drop at the center of his soul also looked like it grew a bit bigger. ‘So this confirms my theory that I passively process any mist I consume.’

Focusing outside his soul everything looked the same except where ever they were heading looked a tad closer. ‘What happens when we reach whatever that place is?’

‘That's a problem for another time, first, let's eat some delicious mist.’ Moving towards the closest soul he was pleasantly shocked when he was slightly larger than the soul.

‘What happened, why did I suddenly get bigger? Could it be I grow more by letting my soul process the mist naturally?’ With more questions then answers he pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on the soul before him.

‘I wonder...’ Curious he moved closer to the soul and... ate it whole. Well not exactly, the soul was now inside his soul halting all movement. ‘What do I do now, I don’t think I can remove it now. He tried to push the soul out of him but as it touched his boundaries it felt like he was pushing against a brick wall, if he pushed long enough it might work but he could care less.

‘If pushing it out of my soul won't be easy then can I break it while it’s inside my soul?’ He tried to break the soul while it was inside his but... he had no clue on where to start, how could he break something inside his soul?

‘What do I do now?’ He continued to try out theories but none of them worked and without him knowing it a lot of time passed, after the second hour stuck like this the outer shell of the soul broke releasing its sweat, sweat mist.

‘Finally! After a minute of enjoying the sensation, he collected his thoughts and decided to test out two theories at once. He moved towards another soul but it was larger than him so he looked for one that was smaller.

After finding one he proceeded to consume the soul and reentered that immobile state. After an hour the soul broke and he confirmed his theories. Somehow his soul naturally broke down anything within after a certain amount of time and having mist already swirling inside his soul shortened the time needed.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Pleased with his discovery he decided to consume three more souls before that familiar drowsy feeling to return. ‘It appears consuming souls instead of bashing them open tires me out a lot more, but the plus side I seemed to get a lot more mist then sucking it up after bashing them open.’

Instead of entering his hibernation type sleep he stopped moving to allow his soul to regain energy. After a couple long hours the drowsy feeling completely went away and the swirling mist inside was almost completely processed.

’So allowing my soul to naturally process the mist is much better than forcing the process myself.’ The drop in his center started to round out and shrink slowly. After all the mist was processed the drop completely rounded out he felt an odd sensation coming from the rice-sized sphere.

It started to release a white mist that fused with my soul, after whatever was occurring stopped his soul felt a lot more solid then it did before. Moving around didn’t consume as much energy and even consuming souls was shortened by a few more minutes.

’Whatever that was, it somehow strengthened my soul, for the meantime, I’ll call it a rank up, and I’m most likely at rank one as this was the first time it happened.’

Looking at his soul he found it shone a bit brighter than the souls around him, getting close to one shown him that any soul within a certain radius of his soul was slowly pulled towards him, but it was much easier to just consume them.

Oddly a thought popped into his mind, ’how come no other souls move, they just seem to float towards whatever that thing is in the distance while in deep hibernation or something.’

Curious he moved towards a soul that was now only half his size and nudged it gently. Feeling very stupid he did the mental equivalent of a facepalm.

’Of course, it won’t wake up, it won’t even wake up when I bash into them!’ Feeling very stupid he tried something else, he consumed the soul in front of him and moved towards another after consuming it.

He focused completely on moving the mist outside his soul and into the soul before him. It was a lot harder than he thought and after it left his soul he felt as if he was being poked all over but continued anyway.

After five minutes the poking feeling subsided and moving the mist started to become easier and he forced fed it to the soul in front of him, The mist easily entered the soul and after all the mist he currently had entered the soul it started to move.

But that goes things went wrong, the gentle blob of blue light from before twisted into a dark--almost black--blue and turned into a malformed shape. The soul released a mental roar and bashed against my soul, it hurt a lot more then I thought and after a minute of fail attempts at breaking me the soul quickly tried to flee.

’Oh no you don't! I don’t know what I did but I’m definitely not letting you escape!’ Furious he sped towards the now black soul and consumed it, after it entered his soul he started to feel a burning sensation and that drowsy feeling quickly returned.

After what felt like an eternity his soul processed the black soul which released a disgusting black mist that tasted like his everything he hated. But he didn’t have to worry about it much as sweet sleep released him from his torture.