Rory stood in the room with the four doors, having made the decision to stay away from the city and camp out for a while. At a minimum, he was going to do three days, which was when his next measurement was due and also his first Eskrima class.

It was important to learn if anyone would investigate the disappearance of Carlisle, his business, or even Morton. But until then, he would use his time in the snake room as well as he could.

“First thing’s first,” he said to himself. “Check the summary.”

The projection showed him what he had gained in myst.

{Soul Warrior} slain…

Calculating…

1,226% Myst Gained…

Vessel filled…

Vessel filled…

…

“Bloody Hell!” Rory screamed.

Counting it up, he had gained six vessels from killing Morton.

“Shit. No wonder a wielder killing a wielder is a capital offense one hundred percent of the time. Otherwise, everyone would do it just for the myst.”

That was his biggest worry. He could only hope nobody would investigate and do myst-trace. It was when the constables used special equipment to find the traces of myst when a human is killed and track it to the person responsible.

“Hopefully, nobody will even notice for a while. After a few days, I’ll go back and see what I can do to cover up the evidence.”

Since he couldn’t do anything about it at the moment, he moved on to thinking of his recent gains. Rory realized he was actually pretty close to back to where he had been prior to the whole insane set of events when he put so many vessels into Teanga.

As of this moment, Rory was level 18 which meant he needed something like twenty-five to thirty level 5 snakes to advance again.

Well, that’s depressing. I guess I need to move deeper in. But am I ready?

Realistically, he had no idea. But one thing was for sure, he knew his weapon wasn’t really there. His chakram had cut through human skin just fine, but when he was fighting any snake above level five, he would have issues cutting through the scales.

Which meant he had some decisions to make. For now, he reviewed his summary to help him think.

Soul Summary:

Available/Used Vessels (Gathered): 6/12

Available/Used Vessels (Granted): 0/268

| Wielder |

Body

Vitality (8/X)

Strength (5/X)

Agility (3/X)

Mind

Defense (1/X)

| Construct {Serpent Chakram} |

Melee (0/1)

Ranged (0/1)

Neutral (1/1)

Power (0/2)

Skills (0/2)

| Soul |

Soul Bond (250/250)

Active Bond {Ice Basilisk} (1/1)

Soul Form (X/115)

Soul Control (1/1)

Soul Capture (5/5)

Soul Call (5/5)

Summoning (1/X)

Terra Basilisk, “Teanga” (11/300)

Living Spring Treant, “Crann” (5/63)

Flora Scented Serpent (0/6)

Bobbing Jungle Serpent (0/8)

Wooden Sleeper Serpent (0/3)

Winged Woodland Viper (0/5)

Digging Jester Snake (0/3)

Withdraw Soul (1/5)

Rory was glad to see the modifications how his commo displayed his summary had worked. Using his tablet, he learned how to customize it. In this case, he simply changed the order of his summons. For now, that was good, but he’d probably do more later – especially if his summon list grew.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Not ready to make big decisions just yet, Rory checked his backup of messages. The first was a text comm from Steph asking for an update. He replied in the same way saying he was okay and was going to be out hunting but really wanted to spend time together when he got back. He offered that she could come over to his new place and they could order in like she had said.

He sent a vid to Elphina next, telling her only that they should keep her head down and listen for any gossip. In short, nothing new for them.

The last was news from Greenfield and it was as bad as he feared. His mum had woken up in a strange place surrounded by strange people without any alcohol in reach. She had freaked out. It had started with her attacking their workers and then, when restrained, trying to hurt herself. He had known that she couldn’t face everything without something dull the pain, and while not surprised, was sad and disappointed and frustrated.

He commed Dr. Thames’s nurse, the person who had left the vid comm. After trying and failing to comfort him, she let him know that yes, Rory’s mum had ranted about how everything was his fault, how he had abandoned her, and how they should have given him up.

“So what’s the plan,” a distraught Rory asked.

“Well, based on the information you provided, this outcome was not unexpected. Your mother needs time on the detox meds before Dr. Thames can take any other steps.” Then she hesitated and looked sad for a moment. “Unfortunately, until we see improvement, she is being medicated and restrained. We don’t have a choice. She’ll hurt herself otherwise.”

“I… understand,” Rory said sadly. “Can I come see her?”

Once again she hesitated before speaking. “You are of course welcome to come, but we… recommend against it. She is very unstable at the moment. If do you decide to visit, we would ask that you not allow yourself to be seen. It likely will set her off.”

Rory nodded, his eyes wet. “I understand. I might come by, but I won’t let her know I’m there. Thank you, ma’am.”

After a few minutes of just walking and processing everything, Rory felt ready to move on.

He held his hand out and dropped the safe into the center of the room of the four doors with a crash. Walking to the front, he opened the heavy door and looked inside. Not having really looking back in Carlisle’s office, he realized the safe was about three feet cubed on the inside and mostly it was filled with cash. Stacks and stacks of hundred and thousand pound notes. He sent them all to his ring. The small rifle went in next. Guns were not his thing, but he figured he could hang onto it or sell it.

The next things he found were a bit of a surprise. Six filled infusers lay stacked and bound together in a corner. Examining them closer, he saw there were no labels to identify what they did, but they did say “Cosmica Engineering” on them with some numbers that held no meaning to Rory.

“Huh. Wonder what you do,” he asked the infusers.

As they didn’t answer, he sent them all to their own shelf in his Soul Vault. The last two items were a pair of myst cells four times the size of the ones he had sold Mick. And they were both completely full.

“Wow. This guy really did want to have a retirement fund. No wonder he went for the gun. He would have had absolutely nothing. I need to look up how to sell these. And ask Steph if she can identify the infusers.”

Beyond that, the safe was empty so Rory closed it up and put it back in his ring.

Never know when you might want a safe.

Now for the intrepid Mr. Morton. His body thumped to the floor and Rory started seeing if he could figure out how to remove the armor. He looked for any sort of switch or button, but found nothing. Then he tried cutting it with his chakram, but they barely scratched it, which was a separate issue. In short, he couldn’t get through it.

“Damnit. Fine, whatever. I’ll figure it out later.”

He put the body back in the ring and headed through the open door into the snake area for a few days of camping. He wanted to see how he did against high levels before he took action on his SVs.

***

Surprisingly, Carlisle's and Morton’s bodies turned out to be quite useful. Rory sliced up the unarmored parts of the dead men and used most of the pieces as lures. He had read that lures were a great way for hunters to seduce prey to come to them rather than having to search the beasts out. Using this method also allowed him to hunt without putting too much pressure on his still-healing wounds. Elphina’s stuff was great and accelerated his healing, but it was no infusion.

The bodyparts lured a number of level 4 and 5 scavenger snakes. He confirmed that his chakram had no issues penetrating their scales and killing them with his enhanced strength and their current sharpness. As such, he decided to move in a little deeper into the forest. When a level 6 finally moved in on the “lures,” he found that chakram did indeed have issues penetrating enough for a kill. Which meant it was time to invest some vessels.

“Alright. Buckle down and do it. No more waiting.”

Exhaling a big breath, Rory spent two vessels to open the Power tree under Neutral. From there, three white clouds and one blue cloud became available. The whites were Edge Sharpening (0/5), Construct Density (0/5), and Construct Flexibility (0/5). The blue was, Shape Refinement (0/10).

The whites are obvious, but what’s the blue? Changing shape maybe?

Shape Refinement {Epic} 0/10 - A Soul Technique that makes small modifications to the Soul Weapon’s structure based on whether it is being used in melee or ranged combat. The change is determined by whether the wielder is in physical contact with the weapon. The more myst added through vessels, the fast and more impactful the modifications will be.

Requirements: Mixed range/melee weapon

What a weird technique. And epic rarity too.

Thanks to the generosity of Soul Wielders on GalNet, he had finally found out what the rarity rating was all about.

Apparently, there was an unquenchable human need to rate and compare everything. Soul Techniques were no different, being compared by how special they were. In short, how many people have access, how many SVs they could hold, how deep in the tree they were, whether they were standard or elemental, and way more criteria. It was utterly inane and a complete waste of effort in his mind. Who cared if one technique was rarer than another? As long as it worked.

Shaking his head, Rory refocused on what he was doing. Shape Refinement, while interesting, was a technique for another day. For now, he applied a single vessel to the white Edge Sharpening (0/5) cloud, which flashed and brightened dramatically.

That done, Rory summoned his weapons, held them horizontally in front of his face, and looked at the edges. He wasn’t positive, but he thought they maybe looked a bit finer.

“Well, let’s see if I just wasted three vessels.”

He dropped some meat in the same area as he had when the last level six came by. As always, he climbed a tree and waited. About ninety minutes later, according to his commo, a tan snake with triangle patterned scales slithered into the clearing, its tongue following the scent to his lure. He waited until it was extending its mouth for a nice big swallow and threw his weapon.

His chakram sliced through the level 6 like it was a level 1.

“Brilliant!” Rory quietly exclaimed to himself.

So he spent the next two days, hunting level 5, 6, 7, and occasionally even level 8 snakes. All in all, he was looking forward to getting back. He was excited for his first martial arts class, and of course seeing Steph, who had agreed to come over. Well, actually she agreed to stay over, but they’d see. He was still hesitant to take things too far too fast.

From a hunting perspective, he managed to hunt just enough to complete two vessels and reach 20. On the other hand, his rubbish luck didn’t allow him to gather even a single new summon.

Buy the end, Rory was so frustrated, worn out, and looking forward to getting home, he didn’t see the small rainbow-colored scales until it was too late. The Rainbow Ferret Snake had sneakily disabled its flashing lights until it suddenly appeared in front of him.

Seeing the flashing, Rory skidded to stop, immediately turned his head, and ran away.

“Damnit. Why didn’t grab the sleeping potion?”

He hoped he could get away and return to that spot in the future with the proper tools to catch it alive. As if to spite Rory’s hopes, the snake pursued aggressively, keeping up thanks to him having to run through and around all the vegetation. Hoping for a distraction, he dropped Gusss. But his glowy compatriot must have been having an off day because the snake wasn’t interested beyond a glance. Sighing in acceptance. Rory turned around and threw his white chakram before it could frazzle what little brain he had.

It slammed into its neck, slicing well into the spine. The snake dropped, hissing and twitching. Rory put it out of its mysery without damaging the brain and immediately stored it in his vault, hoping to preserve what he could.

“Elphina’s going to kill me,” he muttered as he reviewed the results on his commo.

Rory froze. The myst was inconsequential and did not impress him. It was the last line that his eyes focused on.

Summoning Tree Updated…

“Yes!” Rory yelled while pumping his fist.

He’d gotten himself a damn rainbow snake summon. Beyond that he had high hopes for that snake and its use to the Withdraw Sole technique.

That said, Rory was still furious with himself for being oblivious. He berated himself as he grabbed Gusss and ran out, this time paying attention to his surroundings.