Daniel breathed heavily, shaking off his emotions. They were only spirits, not human beings. After this was done, he would take his time to research everything spiritual, so that he never had a doubt in his mind again. And if he found out he was in the wrong, he’d make it up to them somehow. That was the least he could do.

He walked over to their coffins, reading the nameplates carefully. Valeria and Ashrik Steelford. They had both died in the same year to something called The Great Bloodshed. Daniel committed those names to memory, vowing to always remember them.

To distract himself, he commanded his status to open, reading through any changes.

Name: Daniel Willow

Class: Soul Reaper (Legendary)

Level: 3

Job: None

Stats:

STR:10

VIT:15

DEX:10

INT:12

WIS:12

LUK:8

Available points: 7

Skills:

Gate of Reincarnation (Legendary)

Reaper’s Eyes (Rare)

Soul Scythe (Common)

Available skills:

Indomitable Spirit (Unique)

Phantasmal Puppetry (Rare)

Soul Rend (Rare)

List of Souls:

3x Lesser Spirit Essence

For a moment, he thought about holding off on spending his points, but he was still in danger, and there was no helpful description as to what each stat did. Even so, he had played enough games to know games to vaguely know what they did.

He assigned three points to LUK and four to INT. Being below the average LUK meant he would be constantly getting into unfortunate situations, and INT just seemed like the right stat for someone casting spells. It was hard to tell if anything had changed, and he certainly didn’t feel more intelligent or lucky.

More importantly, he looked over his skill selection, black boxes further describing them.

Indomitable Spirit (Unique)

An unyielding soul that bends to no one. Resists all external soul attacks against the wielder. Resists mind-based effects. Reduces the effects of corruption and madness.

Phantasmal Puppetry (Rare)

The loyal minions of a reaper. The ability uses the wielder’s imagination to create shells of living creatures. Then, the wielder may split their soul to fill the shell, possessing command of it.

Soul Rend (Rare)

A violent destruction of ego. Coats the wielder’s hands with phantasmal essence, tainting it with bloodthirst and allowing for a direct assault on another’s soul. May cause emotional degradation.

At first glance, his fingers itched to choose Indomitable Spirit. It was a unique skill, which naturally trumped anything rare. But, considering the matter more, it was the worst option of the bunch for his situation. Although extremely useful against other spirits, it would be near useless against other beasts and Velkir. He hadn’t forgotten his original objective.

That left two. Ultimately, after minutes of deliberation, he chose Phantasmal Puppetry. Soul Rend, although incredibly destructive, would require him to get up close and personal with anything he was fighting. With practically no combat experience, he could imagine a thousand ways it could go badly. Besides, the emotional degradation mentioned worried him.

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The other two skills disappeared from his status, leaving him with an updated status screen. He mentally dismissed it, determined to test his new skill.

“Phantasmal Puppetry,” he said with dramatical flair.

Nothing happened.

“Right, it did mention imagination,” he spoke to himself, standing awkwardly in a room filled with coffins.

If he was going to try something, he might as well go big. In his mind, he recalled a massive red dragon from a show he had recently watched, visualising every detail of its body. It was tougher than he thought. Certain details slipped his mind as he hyper-focused on others, and when he finally yelled the skill’s name again, all that appeared in front of him was a vague phantasmal outline of a large dragon. The scales on its body were blurred and its teeth were crooked, and, frankly, it looked pathetic.

Daniel also had a vague sense that even if he managed to properly imagine a dragon, it would be far beyond him. Comparing his soul with a dragon’s, it was clear which won out.

Instead, he began to imagine something much closer to his heart. For most of his childhood, he had a dog that accompanied him day and night. His name was Rex, and he was a German Shepherd named after a particularly beloved show of his. He would accompany Daniel to his bus every morning, and playfully bark every time he came back home.

Rex passed away when Daniel was just 14. Back then, it had felt like the world had crumbled around him, though he learned to cope with the loss in due time. Now, the memories reminded him of a better time, back when he was still full of childish naiveness and optimism. The details came back to him one by one, and when he muttered the skill, Rex’s spectral form shimmered in the air, frozen in a playful pounce.

It was at that moment he realised he wouldn’t be able to properly use the skill, at least not with Rex. The image of his beloved dog being killed by some monster would be too much for Daniel to handle.

Still, in the relative safety of the tomb, he opted to finish the skill. Unlike everything else that had happened to his soul, the ability didn’t cause him any pain. Instead, his emotions grew numb, his thoughts moving slightly slower. Certain parts of his memory were fragmented, and he had trouble even remembering who he was. Even memories concerning Rex were nowhere to be found, like a ripped page from a storybook.

However, none of that could match the joy of seeing Rex pouncing around on his own, excitedly running back and forth in the dusty tomb. In the corner of his mind, he vaguely felt the tap of four feet hitting the ground, expertly manoeuvring between various obstacles. There was a link deeper than anything else in the world between the two. It was his own soul after all.

Then, he foolishly decided to focus on what Rex saw. The previous issues were minor compared to the wave of vertigo washing over him, followed by nausea - two different perspectives making his brain haywire. When he decided to close his eyes, both bodies executed the command, and when he stepped forward - both toppled to the ground.

He shifted most of his attention to Rex, but even with that, his difficulties were numerous. He was seeing the world in fewer colours than before, and it was a miracle how well he could sense the difference between various scents, even if it caused him a migraine.. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so detailed in his imagination.

Moving on four legs took some time to get used to, but it was manageable as long as he didn’t focus on his original self. Using both senses at the same time required much more training. He added it to his ever-growing list of things to do.

The wonderful part of the skill was that when he was focused on his main self, the lesser soul would act on its own, moving around with great familiarity and with the personality of Rex. How that worked was yet another mystery he had to figure out.

“Good boy, you’ve done more than enough.”

With that said, Daniel kneeled down, petting Rex’s head. All that met his hand was cold air and Rex’s tilted head. He sighed.

“Phantasmal Puppetry,” he muttered, his soul once again becoming whole, memories returning to where they belonged. It was an extraordinary skill, but he needed something different to base it on.

Before moving further, he glanced forward, examining the final spirit with his Reaper’s Eyes. It was even more distorted than the others, mist barely clumping together to form a human figure. Daniel could have sworn the spirit lying on its back, not moving an inch.

Walking with even more caution than before, Daniel must’ve passed at least a hundred different coffins by this point. Still, the hallway went on, and so he followed. At last, it opened up to reveal a massive room untouched by time, bathed in a soft green light from dozens of ceremonial torches hanging on carved stone walls. They depicted scenes of a warrior fighting hordes of monsters.

In the middle of the room was a massive sarcophagus made from sturdy steel, flashing with glowing runes every few seconds. The same two wyverns he had seen before adorned the sides of the coffin, and the lid was sculpted in the likeness of a fierce warrior, wielding a massive halberd and wearing blue dragon-scale armour. The warrior was eternally frozen in a moment of glory, his helmet by his side to reveal a handsome face with long, golden locks reaching his shoulders.

Xaviar Steelford, the Hero of Cinder, the Champion of Ashkarn, the Slayer of Xerxes the Ravager, the Patriarch of Steelford.

959-1101

Died in his sleep of old age.

That was the nameplate that decorated Xaviar’s coffin. Steel tablets engraved with his heroic exploits were placed symmetrically around the sarcophagus, each telling an even more unbelievable tale.

Even this close, his Reaper’s Eyes revealed the spirit to be no more than a hazy blob. It must have been all the magic runes that slithered around the coffin like venomous snakes. Surely Tavian didn’t expect him to exorcise the spirit of some great hero? For a moment, he debated unleashing a soul scythe upon the lid, but the results would most likely be devastating. For him, that is.

Daniel let out a sigh of relief, exhaustion hitting his body all at once. He was glad he didn’t have another fight in front of him, even if it was somewhat anticlimactic. Turning around, he started walking outside, only to whirl around in panic when he heard a mighty bellow behind him.

“HALT, YOU THIEF! I WILL SLAY YOU IN THE NAME OF ASHKARN SO THAT NO EVIL SHALL GRACE THIS TOMB!”