’Status.’
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Na: Auren
Age: 18
Race: The Sullied
Health: Heavily Injured (Left Arm, Lower Body, Right Arm, Torso, Head)
Essence: 30/260
Rank: C
Shards: ◆─◆─◆
Strength: C
Agility: C
Vigor: C
Soul: B
Magic: C-
Charisma: B-
[Imprints]
Tremors: The Universal Hum speaks through you. Channel it, and its entire body will be yours to shape. First Stage. Mutable.
Arbiter of Soul: You are but a collector of reflections. Take what you please, and wield it as your own. Complete. Hereditary.
ActiveCollections:
◄ Empower
Inactive Collections:
[Manuals]
✩ All-purpose Swords: Defensive Style ◄ Mastery: Adept
[Skills]
Slot 1: Sunshine-pilled◄ [Rank: F] ◄ Common. Replicable.
Slot 2: Empty
Slot 3: Unlocks at B- Rank.
[Traits]:
Endangered
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Quite frankly, I’m astounded. It doesn’t look real.
A huge statistical increase, an Imprint of my own, and the potential to take any Imprints in the future. It’s all so much.
Darrow’s death gave so many Shards from his Soul that it flooded my Shard storage. My Soul was forced to automatically distribute Shards equally into each stat.
Killing an SSS-Rank may seem like a feat deserving of greater than a C Rank, but it should be noted that the transfer of Shards is a peculiar process.
It’s around 50% luck, 50% difficulty of the kill.
Killing a Soul-unlocked being, like Favored or Corrupted, is primarily how you obtain Shards to strengthen your Soul. But those Shards aren’t always guaranteed to transfer
This shabby formula is unknown to the wider world; most supplent their lack of knowledge with superstition or unfounded theories. Darrow coined the 50/50 in the novel, so I suppose I’m the only one who knows it now.
’Difficulty’ not only refers to how the being is killed—like how I pushed myself to the absolute limit to kill those two E-rank Corrupted earlier—but also incorporates the rank of the Soul killed.
It’s impossible to obtain Shards from lesser Souls. The greater the upward gap in Soul ranks, the higher the difficulty, and therefore the greater transfer.
There was little difficulty in killing Darrow, but there was maximum upward distance between our ranks.
I only got a bit under half of the total possible Shards in the transfer, but still. What a boon.
Then there’s my Soul’s innate Imprint: Tremors.
The description is esoteric and woefully contrived, poetic nonsense. Thankfully, as a manifestation of my Soul, the black tattooed lines that run jaggedly along my arms co prepackaged with a subconscious understanding of its capabilities
Cut through anything. That’s the elevator pitch.
Sounds a bit overpowered, right? Yes, and no. The Essence cost is insane, which makes sense since it’s so powerful at only its first stage.
’Mutable’ ans the Imprint can potentially mutate so long as the Soul increases in rank. It typically improves upon the Imprint’s first stage, but it isn’t uncommon for the Imprint to drastically change in ability.
I have a demonstration in mind, but there’s a bit more I need to ponder before that.
Primarily, my biggest prize: Arbiter of Soul.
What’s better than one Imprint? All the Imprints you could ever want!
Well, more like five Imprints active at a ti. I can have infinite ’Inactive Collections’, but only five ’Active Collections’. Changing between active and inactive ones requires an entire day of pain.
Arbiter of Soul essentially replicates the Imprints from dead Souls. It creates translucent Essence channels along my body that only appear when activated, which is convenient for hiding this stolen power, but I need to be careful when using it since it’ll show as a bright white.
To get more Collections, I need to kill more Imprint holders.
My first and only Collection is from Darrow. Unfortunately for , due to a quirk with Arbiter of Soul, Darrow’s Imprint, Empower, is only of his First Stage.
It’s really a sha, as having his fully mutated end-ga Imprint would’ve been insane, though using it would imdiately out since the Imprint is so recognizable.
In the future, I’ll need to target Favored with ’Complete’ Imprints rather than ’Mutable’ ones, since Complete Imprints will tend to be more powerful than the first stage of a Mutable.
Anyways, ti to test drive my Imprint, Tremors.
Before I finish my victory lap, I allocate my three stored Shards into Soul.
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Shard Allocation Complete
◄ Three Shards to Soul
New Soul Rank: A
New Essence Capacity: 320
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Imprints cost a lot of Essence, and will therefore be my primary thod of combat and largest stat by necessity.
My footsteps echo as I approach the great oak. The tree seems to have visually sunk; all of its branches droop. Honestly, it makes more depressed than seeing the broken monstrosity of a woman in front of .
Ranni is quiet. Eerily so. She sticks out of the tree trunk like a sore thumb, her pale skin dirtied and bare.
"You... don’t know what you’ve done," she croaks, head sagging.
"I know full well what—"
"Dood. You’ve dood us."
"Really?" I grin. Dooming Humanity gets so tight. "How so?"
"Fool," Ranni ets my eye. Far tougher than I thought. "They’re getting stronger. Darrow was our salvation."
"Humanity’s salvation."
"All our salvation! The Seven Realms!" she snarls. "The Corrupted are bolstering. Upgrading. Consolidating. Organizing. Darrow’s rebirth was our only hope of survival!"
"Didn’t think to tell this before I killed him?"
"I know what you are, foul creature," Ranni tries to spit at , but fails miserably. Dry mouth, I’m guessing. "I see the hatred in your eyes. You have no allegiance, no ideology, no line. A sick, whimpering, mangy mutt who gets a lick of power and thinks he’s strong. But you’re nothing."
"I like this version of you a lot more."
I press my Shiv along Ranni’s throat.
Like the scales of a snake, branches imdiately grow to protect the places I threaten. As I thought.
"You don’t know ," Ranni snickers. Then her glare stiffens. I see a reflection of my own hatred, and I find it quite endearing. "And you’re too weak to kill . I know your na. I know your face. There will be no corner of the Realms where you are safe, co the end of my bondage."
I clear my throat, slowly, triumphantly pacing in front of the tree woman. I stare at the new jagged lines around my arm.
"That’s very funny."
She raises a brow.
"You can’t see what my Imprint does..."
Her expression stiffens.
"Because it’s a bunch of poetic bullshit. Am I right?"
...
"That’s fucking hilarious."
I press my Shiv to her impenetrable wood-coated throat.
The very last of my Essence flows into the black tattoos along my sword arm.
My hand vibrates like a motor, quickly reaching imperceivable speeds.
A deep hum grows from my soulsteel blade, its form devolving into a grey-white blur of pure power.
Ranni’s eyes have gone wide, glossy, terrified. A colossal being made small and fragile by the inevitability of death.
A final flick of my wrist is all it takes.
Ranni’s head is cut clean off. The cut is perfect, down to the atom.
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S-Rank Human slain.
►Shards Obtained
►God’s Eye Collected
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