It’s been five months since my first meditation. There wasn’t much I could do as a baby besides meditate, so I did exactly that. Every moment in my crib, I meditated and attempted to purify my soul. Sys finally started assigning quests, which helped speed up the process. However, it could only assign a few, as it wasn’t within its ability to make me “too overpowered” for my age group. Sys couldn’t directly assign quests that would lead to me becoming too strong. Instead, it assigned me slow quests like “Reach the Stable soul rank” and “Meditate every day for the next 100 days.” Thanks to these quests, I managed to level up to level 3. It might not seem like a lot, but from that level up, my stats now look like this:
* Strength: 3
* Speed: 2
* Stamina: 4
* Endurance: 4
* Durability: 3
* Mana: 6
* Soul Rank: Stable
It seems that whatever soul flow I focus on purifying and enhancing, the higher the multiplier for that specific stat when I level up. I am a bit confused about why stamina and endurance are higher than the others, but it might be because of how I used those stats while meditating. Stamina from how consistently I meditate, and endurance from how I bear the effects while meditating. If this is the case, then the act of meditating itself should also boost my mana multiplier, along with other basic usages of mana.
You should probably explain more about the soul ranks and colors.
Good point. There are seven main "colors" of souls, with "Celestial White" being the highest, reserved only for gods. The seven main colors of the soul are as follows: Black, Purple, Blue, Green, Red, Orange, and Yellow. Each color has three sub-ranks based on the amount of impurities removed: Tarnished, Stable, and Ethereal. Ascending your soul rank to a higher color requires a dangerous process known as a “Core Reset.” This involves going to a secluded area, manually disabling your soul flows, and then pouring mana into your exposed soul core. This process is dangerous because revealing your soul core makes you vulnerable to anyone passing by, which is why it's recommended to find an isolated place. Additionally, your soul’s energy leaks during this process, making your body severely weak and an easy target, regardless of your age. By this point, evil spirits aren’t much of a threat as long as the user is strong enough to form a spiritual barrier.
Core Resets are not needed when ascending from Black to Purple. This is because Core Resets depend on the purity of the mana used. Ethereal Black soul ranks are considered an "empty canvas," so it doesn’t take much for them to ascend to Purple. Moreover, babies and children, whose souls are typically Black and who don't use mana, do not need to disable their soul flows. Spirits can’t even sense this transition happening. This is why people unconsciously ascend their souls to Purple as they grow up. The process is different for blessed children, as they have blessings and people to protect and guide them. Core Resets don’t actually reset the soul or its flows. Instead, they reset the soul’s limits. The stats remain the same, along with the flows, but the "form" of the soul expands. This expansion allows the soul flows to become faster and stronger but also brings more impurities. The soul’s color stays the same initially, but after purifying the new impurities brought by the Core Reset, the soul changes color to reflect its new capabilities.
Moving on, things have changed. Due to my higher strength stat, I am now finally capable of crawling.
Both a dream and nightmare come true for your parents.
It was around the afternoon when I decided to take a look around. I cried for my mom, and she quickly responded by rushing into my room. She at first thought that I was hungry, so she tried breast-feeding me. Look. I know the whole trope of isekai protagonists being embarrassed at the thought of sucking their mom’s boobs. But for me, it’s different. Breast milk just tastes horrible. It’s like drinking sour tap water. I don’t care if it’s “demeaning” of me to suck tits. It’s also important for me to… you know, stay alive. But, holy shit. The god of this world really couldn’t have at least made it taste somewhat decent? Yet, for this plan of mine to work, I need her milk. So, I proceeded to “drink” a bit. At first, I drank a little bit, then I purposely coughed to get some on myself. Afterwards, I kept drinking for around a minute, which is when I decided it would be enough. With my mouth full, I let go, and made a gulping noise while still holding the milk.
Mom seemed to buy it, so I then pointed downwards, to signify that I was bored and wanted to crawl around. She understood it and carried me out into the main room. I saw my siblings Arthur and Elaine as they played tag around the house. Mom put me down near Arthur and Elaine and told them to keep a close eye on me. They voiced their compliance, but I was sure they would continue on with their game.
As soon as Mom went back into the kitchen, I darted off to explore. Throughout these 5 months, Sys and I have discussed various ways of more efficiently raising my soul rank. The best option was undoubtedly “soup absorption”. However, there was a problem. How could I even get the chance to do it? From what Sys had told me before, it's not possible to absorb the soul of a healthy living being. If they were on the brink of death, or at least in a very weakened state, then I would be able to absorb their soul. Since I was still just a baby, it didn't really seem viable. The other path was killing a being and absorbing their soul before it was recalled into the afterlife. Again, it didn't really seem viable, but I had an idea. Every living being has a soul, no matter how small it is. For example, insects. In a house like this, made strictly of wood in a mainly forested village, I’m sure there has to be some that could make their way into my home.
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I crawled looking out for any small cracks in the walls, since they were the most likely place for insects to squirm their way in. A couple of minutes passed by, before I finally found one.
You would've found it faster if you weren't going a millimeter per hour.
“Shut up.” I got closer as I spat out the breast milk right in front of the crack. Now, I just had to wait.
Since this is probably gonna take a while, I'll play some music. *now playing elevator music*
“….. You can't play like…. an actual song?”
What do you want?
“I don't know like—rap?”
Gotcha. Here's some Drake. *Kendrick just opened his mouth, now I'm about to put my*
“Sys, I think you downloaded the wrong version.”
Did I?
Thankfully, before I had to hear System play some more music, I caught the glimpse of an antenna poking through the small crack. A few seconds went by, and the head of an ant popped out. I waited for it as it made its way to the small milk puddle. It slowly crept up to the puddle, but it stopped as it cautiously drank at the edge. I had figured this would probably happen, which is why I had crawled to the side of the crack, so the ant would focus on the milk. The act of coughing milk on myself from before was to mask my scent, so the ant wouldn’t notice me. I also stayed completely still, so I wouldn’t give off any other scents.
As the ant drank, I then slowly came up from behind it, and I smashed it with my hand. I removed my hand to see the ant’s lifeless flattened body.
Rest in peace little buddy.
“How do I absorb its soul?”
Wow, really? You’re not even going to give it a proper send-off to the afterlife?
“It’s an ant. It’ll probably…go to ant heaven…..or be reincarnated as another ant.”
So? Does the afterlife and reincarnation disqualify the acknowledgement of its life?
“Again, it’s just an ant. Do you know how many ants there are in this world, let alone how this ant is exactly like any other ordinary ant? It’s not like the world’s gonna be affected by this singular ant’s death.”
What, you think…you think this ant’s death is meaningless just because it’s similar to the other ants?”
“Yeah, I actually do. Do you remember every single ant in the world that’s died? No, you don’t, because there’s no need to. Maybe if there was some sort of superhero ant that saved a kingdom, you would remember it. Maybe if there was an ant that somehow solved world peace, you would remember it. It’s because you only remember the ants that actually make them themselves unique and discernible from the ordinary masses. You don’t remember the ordinary masses because they have nothing to be worth remembering about. Their lives don’t mean as much as you think it does….like this ant right here.”
……I don’t like how you think.
“You’ll get used to it. Now, could you tell me how to do this before I shit myself?”
Go into Soul Sense. When you see its soul, use your own mana to attract it towards your soul. When it gets close enough, all you have to do is get it near your soul’s core. Since it’s only an ant’s soul, your core should be strong enough to be able to absorb it.
“It doesn’t have any impurities?”
A soul only has impurities while it’s in the body of a living being. Impurities stem from the limitations of a mortal body, such as weaker soul flows.
I went into Soul Sense and looked for the soul. Finding it, I was interested in how small the size of it was. Was it because it was just an ant? Was it because it didn’t have strong and proper soul flows? Whatever the case, it was perfect for me. I then started dispersing small amounts of mana from my soul, which caused the ant’s soul to slowly float towards my soul. I kept at it, until it eventually got close enough. As soon as it neared my core, I felt a surge of mana entering my soul flows. It was like a sugar rush, enhancing all of my 5 senses instantly. Other impurities within my soul also became purified, and I could feel that my soul flows became even stronger. The ant’s soul was absorbed by my soul completely, and I heard a ding sound, a sound accompanied by a level up message.
Congratulations. You reached level 6.
“Check status.”
* Strength: 6
* Speed: 4
* Stamina: 7
* Endurance: 6
* Durability: 4
* Mana: 11
* Soul Rank: Stable
I was a bit surprised by how many levels I had gone up by, but it was probably since Sys had assigned the quest “Absorb your first soul.” With that being said, from how nice it felt absorbing it, I couldn’t shake off a shaky feeling. “Sys, isn’t this like…..bad? I mean, I just killed this ant and I absorbed its soul. Doesn’t that mess up the whole life cycle and with Death’s affairs?”
Only the core of a soul is needed to pass on to the afterlife. What you absorbed was just the shell and outside of the soul, hence the pure mana you had absorbed.
If that was the case, then this might actually mess up my plan. “Is it not possible for me to summon absorbed souls then? A form of necromancy, sort of.”
Like I said, you absorbed the shell of the soul. When you become strong enough, you are capable of recreating the absorbed souls in their physical forms with your soul magic. They won’t be in actual physical bodies, but rather spectral bodies.
“When can I do it?”
If I had to say, wait until your first Core Reset. We can figure it out then.
Before I could ask more, I heard a familiar male voice say behind me, “Beric Bome.”
I felt a tingling sensation crawl up my neck as I heard it. I slowly turned around to see my father staring hard at me. I saw his eyes look at the milk puddle, the dead ant, and back at me.
Rest in peace little buddy.