I spent the next day getting used to the psychometry provided by The Mentalism Ring to trace the psychic traces leading to the succubus’s home. I found that in addition to a couple of her hunting grounds. It was fortunate that the succubus was not particularly cautious and hunted those grounds every night.

While I could ambush her when she was hungry and thus weaker, it was the wrong call. With how much her charm attacks overpowered my defenses and her physical abilities eclipsed my own, that weakness would not make any substantial difference. My only win condition is to blitz her and end the fight before she can react. So, I wanted her to be fed and content over hungry and hunting.

I had my approach plotted out. The location I chose was an alleyway that was right before her residence. Now I just needed to wait for her to come back home.

It was several hours later I saw her strutting down the sidewalk with a smile on her face.

When she just passed me, I sneaked up behind her using a new technique that I had been developing.

I developed this technique due to an observation that movement caused disturbances in the smoke. I surmised that I was unlikely to be the first to think of it. I spent some time in the previous days practicing moving through the smoke while controlling it in hopes of minimizing disturbances. I had gotten to the level where unless you were looking for it you would not notice any of my movements in the smoke.

This technique bought me the first second I needed to get behind her. I then blew a cloud of concentrated black smoke at the back of her head then pulled it back towards her face to disorient her for the second of the seconds I needed. This was another thing I learned in the previous days, that concentrated smoke could disorient most people and open some weaker people to suggestion.

I used the additional second I had just obtained to grab her hair and pull her head back, leaving her throat wide open. While I was not strong enough to do this to anyone not disoriented, my opponent very much was disoriented. I then dragged the Holy Razor across the succubus’s throat. She dropped to the ground and started to gush orange energy into the air.

“Did you know that succubi store the chi they steal in their throat? I was surprised too. Most store it in their dantian, an energy sea located near the diaphragm.” I told the woman glaring up at me from the ground. She lunged at me, but I foresaw this and had given her the appropriate space. Thus, I was able to dodge the desperate attack.

“I know what you’re thinking, why is my charm gaze not working? Well, I severed the chi veins leading to your head. It’s not the typical engagement recommended by the MFBI, but I did not want to stab you in your chi organ as I quite like it. So, I decided to cut above it to sever the veins preventing the use of a succubus’s two greatest abilities, charm gaze and charm speech.” I told the clearly uninterested dying party.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Sorry to drag this out, but I don’t get many opportunities to talk to people and humans are social creatures don’t cha know. I also like to toot my own horn. Here let me put you out of your misery.” I said before putting Cole’s silver knife through her brain.

It was then time to collect the first of my prizes, her lips. While a weird body part to take, a succubus’s lips facilitated the absorption of chi in particular and any energy in general.

They were later that night made into another ring that I slotted onto my left middle finger, Succubus’ Kiss. It was a crimson ring shaped like a pair of lips that basically did what their source material did. This artifact would help me quite a bit in essence acquisition.

_

Succubus’ Kiss

“The kiss of death”

Tier One

Improves the wearer’s ability to extract energy from persons, places, or things

_

The second thing I extracted was the succubus’s chi storage organ. This was stored for whatever later purpose I could think of. The real gain of this was that it taught me a new usage of essence, imbuing the essence’s properties into various materials based on chi’s attribute of imbuement.

The last of my prizes were her charm abilities, charm gaze and speech, that I promptly fed to The Mentalism Ring.

_

The Mentalism Ring

“I’m seeing a J”

Tier One

A ring that grants the following mental abilities: Psychometry, Charm Gaze, & Charmed Speech

_

When I looked at her soul, I got an unexpected surprise, a collection of energy containing information that was connected to her soul. I named it the charm matrix as it contained a blueprint on how to appear attractive and charming: how to look, dress, walk, talk, eat, and every other aspect of life. I promptly turned that into a knowledge sphere that I planned to integrate overnight.

This provided me with two additional pieces of helpful information: a blueprint of humanlike bodies and a way to store information as energy. While the first was more appearance than substance, it was still way more knowledge of biology than I had.

Current Equipment:

Head:

[The Black Wasp Jackal’s Face]

Earrings:

[]

Necklace:

[The Energy Baron’s Stomach]

Clothes:

[Suit of Armor]

[Muscle Shirt]

Rings:

[The Mentalism Ring]

[Succubus’ Kiss]

Bracelets:

[]

Shoes:

[Cement Shoes]

Armaments:

[Weaver’s First Armament]

[Sense Cane]

[Holy Straight Razor]

Storage:

[Various Essences]

[Murder Weapon: Axe]

[Chi Organ]

[Green Thumb]

[Glass Eye]