Beautiful inferno

Kai was pleasantly surprised that his soul had ranked up after Failure had possessed him, he was even more surprised that it had just skipped the D rank right to C rank. It was a welcome upgrade, but not one that Kai had expected.

Still, an upgraded soul had a lot of potential. It could potentially make Kai's Mana more potent, giving it more uses. Or it could make Statshfiting easier, making him more powerful overall as he wouldn't be limited in what he would be able to accomplish as he would be able to freely switch between being a tank or a swordsman or a mage and so on and so forth.

Still, there was another benefit to his soul upgrading.

6% increase to Mana pool

So that was why when Kai looked at his Mana it read one thousand and ninety rather than one thousand and thirty, considering his actual Mana stat read one hundred and three, when in reality it was one hundred and nine.

So that was the end of Kai's soul core upgrade.

However, there was another thing that came out of Kai upgrading his soul, and that was obviously an upgrade to a soul related skill.

[Soul Flame (Rare)]

So Soul Flame had jumped all the way to Rare rarity. It made sense, considering it was Common when Kai had an E rated soul, meaning the skill had basically skipped the Uncommon rarity as Kai's soul had skipped D grade.

Would it make a skill more powerful or less powerful considering that he skipped a rarity of it, Kai had no way of knowing. Of course he would be missing out on some training and getting used to the upgraded version, but it was probably something he would be able to overcome even if it was a little difficult.

He was sure that it wouldn't be like someone who had just shot a few times with a pistol had been given a minigun and been told go wild, definitely not.

However, as he had done with everything he had gained over the last ten minutes, he could just read the description to get a better idea of what he's dealing with.

A small flame that was ignited within your soul is beginning to bloom into a beautiful inferno. With the increase in rank, your flames have grown in strength and resilience. Soul Flame has a minor resistance to any water or water affinity Mana. Your flames can be separated from your body, their power growing weaker the longer they are separated and the further away they are. User now has more control over the properties of their flames. May your soul hearth forever prosper.

Kai blinked after he finished reading the description. Currently, he was more than happy that he had selected Soul Flame in that skill selection.

Still, he probably would have got it anyway considering he was given Soul Link and Soul Manipulation, meaning if he had picked either of those skills then he would have just received Soul Flame in its place when he was passed out.

Still, the upgrade was absolutely incredible.

For starters, Kai had no idea that the skill was weak to water, which now that he thought about it, should have been extremely obvious considering it was fire and all.

There was also the fact that his flames had apparently gotten stronger, which was helpful as any boost to his power was more than welcome.

Another thing was that Kai nearly blushed at the fact the system had compliment his flames, saying it was beginning to bloom into a beautiful inferno. Who knew that the cold feminine system was a romantic at heart?

It even wished his soul hearth well, whatever that was, but that just showed that the system actually cared about Kai, maybe he was one of its favourites? That would be nice, considering it might go easy on him after all it had put him through in the span of three weeks.

But there was something else Kai wanted to test with his Soul Flame, the description mentioned that it could be separated from his body, so did that meant...

After a moment of contemplation, Kai extended his right hand and activated the skill.

However, unlike what he had expected, instead of a dull gray flame, it was a pretty and vibrant multi-coloured flame that appeared.

A stunning mix of red, blue, green, yellow, violet, white and gold.

Kai couldn't help but gasp softly at the sight. The flame was prettier than anything he had ever seen. The colours all merged and blended together seamlessly, making it look as if they all belonged together in the first place.

And it wasn't just the sight of it that made Kai feel relaxed, the soft heatwaves that were being emanated also just made him feel comfy and relaxed.

It wasn't that the flames were weak thought, it was just that it felt that way to him. Kai had no doubt that if anyone else was this close to the flame that they would undoubtedly get burned, a much worse burn than that of which the dull gray flames had done previously.

As for why his flames had suddenly changed colour, Kai had no idea, but there was one thing he knew for sure about the colour change.

Each colour represented one of his stats.

Like the last time Kai had gazed into his soul, red was for Strength, blue was for Dexterity, green was for Constitution, violet was for Mana, yellow was for Stamina, white was for Will and gold was for Luck.

So that explained the how of why his flames had changed colour, but it still didn't explain the why.

Still, Kai was willing to leave that train of thought for later as he would much rather just play aroun- train with his newly upgraded skill.

The vibrant ball of flame flickered in Kai's palm as he looked at the padded wall of the white room. The padding was incredibly resilient, Kai knew that much after he had tried to break through them after his first few days in the white room. So that only made them the perfect target to test them on.

Winding his arm back, Kai pretended the warm ball of flame was a baseball as he threw it at the wall.

Kai watched it fly with eager eyes as it soared towards the wall at rapid speed. The flames dimmed a little after a second passed, but it still managed to crash into the padded wall with majority of its strength with a loud hiss.

A tiny section of the padded white wall had managed to be burned by Kai's flames, but to his surprise, the padding instantly started repairing itself with some sort of magic. The burn started slowly disappearing at the pad returned to the pristine white colour it always was.

Even though his flames did not have any lingering effects on the wall or even damage it all that much, Kai was not downhearted, no, rather than that, he was absolutely ecstatic.

He knew before hand that the padding was incredibly resilient, and its not like he was trying to break out of the white room. No, he really was just testing the capabilities of his upgraded Soul Flame.

And he was very pleased with the results.

For starters, the ball of flame he had created acted like an actual ball, its speed was affected by how hard Kai threw it, meaning he could either make it go really slow or really fast.

Another thing was the strength of the fireball. In all honesty, Kai expected it to leave no mark on the padding, yet it had actually managed to burn a portion of it.

Maybe whoever had created this tutorial clearly hadn't expected anyone to be able to get a C rank soul core and have Soul Flame at the same time, otherwise they might have put some more effort into reinforcing the white rooms.

And the final part of it was that the heat the vibrant ball gave off was definitely nothing to scoff at. It was much, much stronger when compared to when Kai first used it when fighting the horde of abominations that wanted nothing more than to crush him with their numbers.

All of this meant one thing, one thing that Kai couldn't help but grin at.

This newly upgraded version of Soul Flame was absolutely incredible.

And it still had loads of grow. If it was Rare at a C rank soul, then it would be Epic for a B rank soul, and then Legendary for an A rank soul. Obviously, there had to be rarities higher than that as these type of systems never ended at A rank, but Kai had absolutely no idea as to what those rarities could be.

Still, Kai was absolutely over the moon with all the potential Soul Flame had. Even if in its future upgrades it only increased its raw power, that was still amazing at that was the main point of the skill.

And the even better part was that the skill cost absolutely nothing to use. No Mana, no brain power, nothing like that as it was just based on the power of his soul.

Meaning, Kai basically had an unlimited amount of powerful, colourful fireballs at his disposal.

But there was another question that popped into Kai's mind, one equally as important as the ones he had regarding the why of his souls sudden change in colour.

If a Common, dull gray flame gave plus five to all of Kai's stats when it was fully activated, then how many would the upgraded skill give?