Coming to the realization that my soul somehow grew after ranking up was… an interesting say to learn to say the least.

But what does this mean? Did I have an incomplete soul before and is my soul just growing? Then what happens if a small creature, like the hybrid whose body I am controlling right now, ranks up? Do they just not… feel that their soul grow? Or do souls grow at all? Am I mixing my soul growing with something else?

I have so many questions right now… but I can find answers for them later, probably when I inevitably raid a tomb or something like any good isekai protagonist does!

But before I go raiding tombs and get cursed to hell and back, I need to decide something… do I keep using this body or return to the terror bird’s one?

Now, returning to the terror bird’s body might seem like a bad idea, but it actually isn’t. Because the most important thing I have access to right now is mana, and my mana cloud being outside my body just means the ambient mana is going to slowly destroy it, and it will destroy it faster when I am walking, running, or fighting against something!

But the problem with returning to my old body is…

For a moment, I turned to the terror bird’s corpse, and saw that it already had a few flies flying around it. And soon, there would be many more bugs and other critters coming to take a bite out of it. But even if I did take it with me, bugs flying around it would still fallow me because the body was just rotting, so, if I were to re-bind myself to it, I would have at best until a few hours after dawn to get a new body which is… not a long amount of time.

But if I just remained in this body, I will just lose an immense amount of mana…

Well, even if I don’t want to, I need to go back because loosing a lot of mana is just not something I can afford…

Saying that, I started to extend a tendril of mana to my ex-corpse, but I quickly remembered something I wanted to test.

Then I quickly opened my window, my eyes immediately jumping to the skills section and ignoring everything else.

Name: William Race: Stray Soul (Hybrid)

Level: 7 Exp: 5/11 Rank: H

Health Points: 0/10 Mana Points: 30/52

Strength: 0 (0)

Vitality: 0 (1)

Agility: 0 (3)

Intelligence: 3 (2)

Wisdom: 13 (2)

Charisma: 0 (2)

Free Stat Points: 0 (12)

Skills: Shadow Meld (H), Ethereal Body (S), Mana Sense (Z), Bind (Z), Soul Sense (Z), Soul Manipulation (Z), Mana Control (Z), Mana Strengthening (Z) +

Titles: Reincarnator (S), Otherworlder (A)

Quests: Meddling with the Unknown (S)

Seeing that I had gotten a new skill, I was ecstatic! The thing system said about magical abilities becoming skills was true! And now I also knew that I could use the natural skills of the bodies I gained!

Quickly activating the skill, I felt a large sum of mana leaving me, and seeping into my body, and before my eyes, my body started melting into the ground, becoming one with the shadows!

Though I was sad knowing that I wouldn’t get to keep this skill when I changed bodies, I found solace in the fact that in the future, I could take the corpse of another hybrid and research this shadow meld skill further!

…Hopefully… I hope this is not some bullshit magic that only works for certain creatures, if so, I am going to be a really mad boy in the future.

Shaking my thoughts off, I started moving around while melded into the shadows, and it was… disorienting to say the least.

I mean, who would’ve thought that becoming a literal blob of darkness, and moving in the shadows, without any limbs, would make someone disoriented?

… Someone? Anyone?... Okay I may have been just a bit too excited to try this skill so I might or might not have just… forgotten that detail but hey, who can blame me? I bet y’all would’ve forgotten about simple things like that if you had the chance to meld into shadows too!

Anyways… I wonder, what’s the skills description?

Then I quickly asked the system about its description, which was fallowed by a familiar ding.

*ding*

Description Shadow Meld (H): Allows the being in possession of it to partially meld into shadows and darkness, allowing them to be nearly invisible.

Warning! Due to you not being the original soul of the body, you are not adapted to using the racial skill Shadow Meld (H), because of this, you expend large amounts of mana to use the skill.

As I read the description, and saw the warning, I started to wonder, was the reason why I felt a lot of mana leaving my body because I was just not… adapted to using it?

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then I quickly decided to check my mana counter.

Mana Points: 12/52

“HOLY FUCK!”

Seeing that I had nearly fallen below double digits, I quickly stopped the skill, and my body came out of the shadows.

“WHY DID IT USE SO MUCH MANA?!” I asked to no one in particular because, while I had felt the initial chunk of mana that had left me to activate the skill, I hadn’t even realized that I had lost so much mana after the activation.

Turning my head to the system window that was still open, I saw that this body gave me only 2 intelligence points, which was definitely not enough for these hybrids to continue using this skill as much as I had seen them use it.

“This makes no sense at all! Is the system just fucking with me again?! There is no way in hell that these small fucks could ever use this skill for more than a few minutes! And I’ve seen them use it for longer! Not like there is a difference in the amount of mana they and I use!

… Wait…” turning my head back to the window with the description of the skill, I once again looked at the warning.

Warning! Due to you not being the original soul of the body, you are not adapted to using the racial skill Shadow Meld (H), because of this, you expend large amounts of mana to use the skill.

…Does that mean if I was adapted to this body, and the skill, I would be able to use this skill more effectively? But can I even adapt to a body…

Shaking my head, I stopped thinking about the skill, and this body, right now I needed to go out, and get a new corpse before I could no longer.

Then I started extending a tendril of mana and soul to the head of the terror bird, but thoughts about how to control this… racial skill better plagued my mind.

Do I just need to be in the body, or the bodies of the same species for a long time? Or do I just need to use the skill a lot?

What happens when I’ve used the skill so much and can replicate it in another body? Do I just gain the skill and can use it in other bodies, or can I just not use it in another body because it’s a ‘Racial Skill’, but does racial skill mean a skill belonging to a single race, or a skill that a race develops naturally?

If it’s the former, and this skill for some reason only belongs to, and can be used by, a single race, doesn’t that mean that there are basically no other creatures that can meld into shadows or darkness?

And if it’s the latter, does that mean multiple species can evolve to use the same skill? Then why doesn’t every critter I’ve seen have shadow meld, or another magical skill?

Is it a case of them needing to be subjected to… I don’t know, elemental mana or something? Or is it just a case of the other animals just not having had enough reason for their bodies to justify evolution into the esoteric for some reason?

Though I am pretty sure those bugs are at least somewhat magically attuned to… I don’t fucking now, gigantism or something?

But as I continued to think about skills and magic, coming up with all sorts of weird ideas, the tendril I was extending into the terror bird’s corpse finally made contact with its head.

And for the first few seconds nothing of interest happened, until my mana tendril made contact with the brain, and the nervous system that expended throughout the body. Then, suddenly, as the dead cells that had contact with my mana tendril started to work again, using mana to act like a living thing once more, I felt my vision expend. Shadows at the edge of my eyes receding, and my eyes once again starting to work, to see.

But the problem was, my body was already working.

And as my eyes started to work again, I was hit with a sense of dizziness and confusion, my very being having a hard time comprehending the images coming from the 2 different sets of eyes.

“What the fuck…” then, as I turned towards the terror bird, I realized, I was controlling it at the same time as I was controlling this body… well, not all of it, only the head and a bit more bits but, I was still controlling 2 bodies at the same time.

“Wait… does this mean…” I asked my self quietly, then willed open my status window to confirm something.

Name: William Race: Stray Soul (Chimeric Creature)

Level: 7 Exp: 5/11 Rank: H

Health Points: 0/13 Mana Points: 28/89

Strength: 0 (0)

Vitality: 0 (1)

Agility: 0 (3)

Intelligence: 3 (5)

Wisdom: 13 (6)

Charisma: 0 (2)

Free Stat Points: 0 (12)

Skills: Shadow Meld (H), Ethereal Body (S), Mana Sense (Z), Bind (Z), Soul Sense (Z), Soul Manipulation (Z), Mana Control (Z), Mana Strengthening (Z) +

Titles: Reincarnator (S), Otherworlder (A)

Quests: Meddling with the Unknown (S)

“Holly fucking… shit… well, that’s another way of gaining a lot of stats…” my eyes jumped across the system window multiple times, trying to observe and absorb everything that had changed after I started controlling the terror bird’s head.

But after calming down, I realized only my race and a few stats had changed.

Then I saw that I still had Shadow Meld, and thought, “If I use this, will both of my bodies go into the shadows?” but then quickly waved off the idea. I don’t know how but I just knew that it wouldn’t work. Call it intuition or whatever, but even if I didn’t feel like it wouldn’t work, I’d probably come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t work after a bit of thinking.

So, I started thinking of the thing I believe everyone is thinking of right now. Could I use 2 bodies at once? And potentially make an army of corpses, all controlled by me?

I… wasn’t so sure of that…

Because, while I was able to control both bodies with seemingly no problems, there was a tiny miny flaw that doesn’t allow this to be more practical.

My mana tendril.

And the fact that it’s the only thing connecting both bodies.

I mean, yeah, I could probably find a way to control both bodies at the same time without needing my mana tendril, but I don’t believe it is possible for me to do it now…

Starting to think more deeply about this subject, I unconsciously started wandering in circles in the small clearing.

In the future, if, I can somehow find a way to re-animate the dead in more… conventional ways than just sticking my soul into them, yeah, I’d be able to control a lot more corpses.

And while now I could control at least 2 corpses, which would actually be really helpful because I am having a not so small issue with my soul growing too large due to ranking up, I don’t know if I can remotely control 2 corpses without my mana tendril.

And what would controlling 2 corpses remotely would even entail for me? Would I have to leave a chunk of my soul in a corpse? And could I even do that to begin with? And more importantly, would I want to?

What would happen if one of my bodies died, would I lose the soul in it? Or would it just… somehow come back to me? Or would I regenerate the soul back?

And what happens when I lose a part of my soul?

If I lose a part of my soul, do I just lose what makes me, me? Or do I just lose some unimportant ectoplasm or whatever my soul is made out of?

And if I can regenerate my soul, are the pieces I regenerate the same as the ones that were lost? Or are they just new parts that had nothing to do with my previous parts?

And how would I even go about… you know, separating my soul into 2?

Do I just fucking pull on it and wai—

As I was just about to finish my query, I felt something tugging at my very being from my behind, but when I looked back, imagining the things I met the very first day I came to this world, I saw nothing.

But that weird feeling of my soul being tugged upon continued. I tried to sense my soul, and I could find it without any problems and nothing weird seemed to be happening to it.

“How peculiar…” I said to myself, though I had noticed something weird… my soul, it seemed to not be fallowing me in a straight line, from the head of the terror bird which I was still controlling to my hybrid body, instead it seemed to… zigzag around?

I mean it wasn’t that much of a problem because I still had a lot of mana and didn’t need to worry about loosing my mana cloud protection, but it was still weird.

Then I started taking a step forward to continue my pointless circling of the clearing and a thought hit me.

“Wait… didn’t I theorize about only having a limited amount of soul this morning?” but before I could finish my thinking process, I felt something snap.

And my face and the ground started to get closer, very quickly.