Stored souls

The ug- pretty blade remained silent for a few moments, as if contemplating how to answer that question. After a few seconds, Kai could swear that he thought he felt the hilt of his sword vibrate.

"You fed me... and I woke up."

Kai frowned. That didn't really explain anything. Kai had killed many abominations with his sword before that Veiled of the Dark Side, so why did it only react after that?

Maybe it was just that Kai had killed enough for the blade to awaken, but that didn't really feel right, almost as if Kai was missing something.

But as for what that something was, Kai had no way of kno-

Kai's eyes widened as realisation hit. There was something that Kai had done differently in comparison to all the other abominations Kai had killed.

Unlike some special abominations, crescent moon and some other abominations did not posses souls. It was probably due to the fact that they were just mindless followers of Eye of the Moon and did not really have a mind to form their own thoughts, but there were some, like the two Veiled of the Dark Sides that Kai had killed, that did have souls.

They were obviously a pain to look upon with how atrocious and corrupted they were, but they were souls nonetheless.

And the second Veiled of the Dark Side was the only abomination Kai had killed by delivering the finishing blow to the soul itself.

"So because I stabbed you into that abominations soul, you woke up. Is that right?"

"Yes..." Life Eater sniffled. "I was already on the brink of awakening, but that soul was potent enough to push me over the edge and then some. I don't really know what happened after though... Does that make me more of a dissapointment?"

After realising that his blade sounded as if it were about to start crying again, Kai was quick in his attempts to console it. Only after the blade had calmed down did Kai attempt to question it further.

"What do you mean you don't know what happened after? Did something strange happen?"

Life Eater remained silent, as if composing itself because it didn't want to bother Kai by crying anymore incase it didn't want to be labelled as an ugly weakling by its master.

"Normally, when I digest the life of something, it just increases how sharp I am or boosts my durability. Only after killing that cool abimination, I still feel some of it running through me instead of being digested."

Kai frowned, ignoring the fact that his sword had called the invisible wendigo cool in favour of trying to figure out what it meant.

"So part of it is still inside you? Is that a good or bad thing?"

"I don't know. It's like-"

Life Eater was cut off as a new line of text appeared below its description, the new line being the answer to Kai's previous question.

1/3 souls stored

Kai's eyes widened as he gawked at his reliable sword that had suddenly turned a lot more reliable.

"Oh, you stored its soul, that's great!

... But what does that mean exactly?"

Life Eater trembled in Kai's hands before answering.

"One moment..."

Then, another line of text appeared below the previous one.

Souls stored:

-Veiled of the Dark Side (D)

- Empty

- Empty

Kai couldn't help but be in awe as lines of text kept preparing before his eyes. Who knew that the weapon that he had thought would be disposable when he first received it would end up being so useful and versatile? Not him anyway.

And even better, his trusty blade could store up to three souls, a whole three! That was a bargain, Kai had definitely gotten a bargain with this item for how easy it was to kill the abomination that had given him this.

... However, its not like he had any idea what a stored soul would do.

Luckily, that question was also answered for Kai in the form of another notification.

Veiled of the Dark Side (D)

After felling one of the five special types of abominations, an Uncommon rarity blade awakened a special ability. By pouring your Mana into this blade, you are able to borrow the power of the souls stored inside. If you choose to borrow the power of the Veiled of the Dark Side, the user will be able to manipulate the light around them to turn them invisible. This effect can be broken by any perception type skills or any sensory type abilities.

Kai grinned, he was now more sure than ever this blade was his best item. He may have a legacy item that he was currently unsure about how strong it actually was, but he was sure that at this current moment, Life Eater was more useful.

But there was also the question about why his blade even had this sort of ability in the first place. It said in the description that it came from the fact that it had been used to kill one of the five special types of abominations, which turns out Kai didn't know as much about the forest as he thought he did.

However, did that mean that every weapon item could awaken a special ability by killing a certain type of monster or otherworldly creature?

Obviously not.

Of course, there were some that probably could, nothing was impossible after all. But Kai was also sure that Life Eater should not be one of those types of weapons.

After all, at the end of the day, it was an Uncommon rarity sword that Kai had gotten in a tutorial, there were definitely much stronger weapons out there.

But Kai was unsure if any had the same sort of charm his did though.

There was one possibility that could explain why it happened, but that idea also made absolutely no sense.

In the description of Kai's upgraded Soulcery, it mentioned that the skill could passively influence those around him. However, the skill hadn't been upgraded at the time Life Eater struck the soul of that abomination, so the timeline did not match up.

Maybe all skills had their future potential already in them, just it was incomparably weaker than when it reached a higher grade. Maybe Kai had already been influencing the souls of those around him without his knowledge, but to a degree that could be said didn't even make a difference.

It might even be able to be compared to putting a few extra grains of sand on a beach, not even noticeable.

That was the only way that Kai could think of anyway. There was also the chance that it was something entirely different or something obvious that he had overlooked, but he had no way of knowing, not right now at least.

However, unlike Umbra, Life Eater was not asleep, meaning he was free to experiment with his revolt- charismatic blade.

Still, it's not like Kai could actually call his blade Life Eater, it would be fine to call it that in certain situation, but since it was sentient it deserved an actual name.

"Alright, Esurient, that's your nickanme now by the way, we are going to do some experiments."

Life Eater, now going by the nickname of Esurient, responded with what Kai could almost describe as a miniscule amount of glee.

"Am I not useless? Am I actually helpful?"

Kai grinned as he lightly tapped the body of the blade before getting up off the mattress and taking a few steps away from Umbra.

"You're definitely not useless, in fact, you're very helpful. This little ability of yours is worth it's weight in gold, especially if this invisibility trick is actually useful and not some sort of scam."

Esurient fell silent and Kai felt the blade tremble once more. Only this time, it wasn't a depressed tremble or one of self-pity. It was more so a tremble of determination.

It seemed that his trusty blade was resolute in its dream of not wanting to be useless.

Taking a deep breath, Kai attempted to share his Mana with Esurient. He wasn't sure if it was actually working or not, it was much like when he first attempted to partially transform, he was mostly relying on luck to make it work.

And to his surprise, and maybe a bit luckily, it was actually pretty easy.

Esurient started to gobble up Kai's Mana, but not to the degree that Kai would be sucked dry in a few second.

And with some God given grace, Kai was saved the agony of having to do any maths himself as a timer appeared in front of his eyes.

Time remaining: 5 minutes and 3 seconds

Those extra few seconds probably came from the extra bits of Mana Kai had from his Soul Core.

And while five minutes wasn't actually that long, Kai would be able to increase that number by a lot if he were to tap into his abundance of unasigned stat points.

But why would he do that? He still had another four days in this room so he would have plenty of time to replenish his Mana normally.

Looking down at his hands, Kai couldn't help but grin.

He couldn't make out any part of his body, he was completely invisible. However, Kai quickly became aware of some of the drawbacks of this ability.

It was basically a weaker version of that wendigo's invisibility. Sometimes, Kai's form would shimmer, and while it was barely noticeable and ninety-nine percent of people would miss it, it meant it wasn't as perfect as the Wendigo's.

But one of the good things was that Esurient also turned invisible along with Kai, meaning there wouldn't just be a floating sword moving around.

Kai grinned, but it's not like anyone would be able to see it.

He still had another four minutes before his Mana ran out, and he had quite a few things that he wanted to try before it did.