Kai thumbed blood from his nose, glaring at his red hand. So far his attempts at upgrading his soul had failed spectacularly. This was the second time he had blacked out and his nerves were on edge. What if he had woken up to an Umbra hound feasting on his entrails? He restored his aura using one crystal after another as he evaluated his experiments so far.

His first experiment had been to simply visualise a smaller version of his soul-planet in reality, in his cupped hands. When he visualised the highly dense planet with a frozen magma core, surrounded by a thin film of cosmic water, his mind had been blasted into unconsciousness and his aura bottomed out in a split second.

After that he tried something smaller. Much smaller. A small slice of the surface of his planet. It was difficult to imagine as it wasn’t a holistic representation of his soul, but rather just a part of it. But that didn’t work either, in fact nothing even happened.

For his third attempt he had tried imagining his soul-planet within his body, physically manifesting near his heart. Perhaps the aura flow would be easier to control that way. He was more prepared this time and resisted the blackout thanks to his Neural Regeneration vital trait. He was left with the impression that he had tried to force the wrong puzzle piece into an incomplete picture.

After hours of sitting there concentrating in the dim yellow light of the amber tunnel, Kura started making chirping cricket sounds.

You’re not helping.

Not trying to.

Kai sighed. He really had no idea what he was doing and concluded either there wasn’t enough physical space or more likely, he had far too little aura to manifest anything, and he needed to solve that first. Had he misunderstood the Starforger’s ramblings? Was this perhaps a future step? He grunted and brought up his soul’s description, scouring it for hints.

-Soul aura-

Soul: F-Awakened (Early)

Affinity: Cosmic, Gravity, Hydrokinesis, Martial.

Sphere of influence: 9 feet

Details: Amount of aura, density, circulation speed, and recovery.

He had noticed that whenever he absorbed aura from the environment, he got almost nothing. Like trying to drink cake through a straw. Kai suspected his affinity was the culprit here, there was nothing that embodied the cosmos, gravity, or hydrokinesis since he had left the legendary underwater grotto. If it wasn’t for Kura’s ability to create crystals he would be at a massive disadvantage and unable to grow.

Dead dead, she snorted.

“Hey hey hey. Who feeds you?” Kai retorted.

She harrumphed and blew smoke in his face.

Kai mentally waved it away with a soft smile. “You r-really like that dragon visage huh?”

She nodded.

Kai resumed his meandering thoughts and wondered if improving his soul from neutral aura and not that of his affinities would not stunt his growth. But that wasn’t something he could solve underground, so he moved on.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

His eyes studied the description. Amount of aura. Density. Circulation speed. These are things I can try to improve. Closing his eyes, he looked within. Ideas soared through his mind like shooting stars as he examined the endless space around his soul. He wanted to compress his soul-planet more, but that was unlikely, given how much he had done so already. He’d need more pressure. More water. More aura. He gazed at the one-foot-thick film of starlit water flush against his planet’s surface. I wonder what circulating that aura around my soul-planet would accomplish?

His nostrils flared from concentration as he tried to circulate the water around the planet, but it barely budged, the water jostling. After several attempts he almost gave birth to his colon from all the pushing and gave up on that idea; even when he managed to get it moving slightly, as soon as he stopped concentrating it settled. He realised his aura couldn’t escape the gravity of his soul-planet and he’d never be able to keep the water circulating while on the move. It took far too much effort.

He wiped sweat from his brow. Time to try something unique to me. Why not let gravity do the work? With a spark of excitement he began rotating his soul-planet instead of his aura, treating it like the sun in a solar system.

This visualisation was far easier, but his face still scrunched in concentration. Eventually his planetary core groaned into motion and his excitement surged. Kai doubled his efforts and rotated his soul-planet faster and faster until the water upon its surface heaved into motion and spun. Soon after that each orbit started requiring less and less attention and effort.

He felt the pressure from the rotations compress his aura even further and his soul-planet compressed slightly. He now had 3 feet of starlit-water-aura circulating his soul-planet and it was dense, pure, almost refined. He even sensed a slight increase in the temperature of his frozen core from the increased pressure. What would even more pressure do? He wanted to further condense his soul-planet, but that did not feel like the next step right now, and he focused on his orbital insight.

After several hours he finally created a permanent orbital rotation that required almost no active concentration. He grinned as he watched the planet within his soul spin. Watery aura stormed over his planet’s surface in a way that made it look like stars were exploding underwater. Excited, Kai began experimentally absorbing a crystal. He watched rivers of white aura flow from his hand, through his body and into the cosmic expanse that was his soul. Only for the unrefined aura to get pulled into its spinning orbit like water circling a drain.

His aura became more condensed and refined every time he circulated it. Now that he had it spinning, he was confident he’d be able to absorb more aura faster thanks to the density compression. He kept a crystal in hand, steadily draining it.

“Is that what you meant by ‘Eat more’?” Kai spoke into the dim tunnel with his eyes closed, his voice echoed off the amber floor.

“I’m going to be up all night f-feeding you remains for lost pride aren’t I?”

Yes yes.

Son of a motherless goat. From that moment he swore to always keep a crystal in hand. Unless he was fighting, or needed two hands. He doubted he would find walking and absorbing particularly taxing due to his unique soul's gravity doing the heavy lifting. ‘Always be absorbing’, became his new mantra. Which Kura happily adopted moments later after a slight alteration. Always be eating!

He grinned when he read the notification saying that his soul had advanced from early to middle. Hell Yeah!

Congratulations, your soul is now: F-Awakened (Middle)

However, all his excitement and jumbled thoughts died when his eyes warmed, then blazed gold.

Adrenaline flooded his veins as his eyes burst open. Dirt and small rocks that floated around him crumpled to the floor. Kai let out a startled squawk as he scrambled to dodge two bronze spears barrelling straight for his head.