Ciel summoned his katana and started butchering the Feral Ants.
In the physical world, he would have to send the katana back to the Soul World and use Soul Transfer again to get it back from a distance.
But in the Soul World, the katana flew straight through the air and into his hand without any need for Soul Transfer.
After a few minutes, there were 12 small orbs that were a mix of black and green next to him. They were the Forsaken Cores.
Ciel had separated the flesh, shell and Forsaken Cores of the Feral Ants.
The meat of a Forsakened lasted longer before spoiling, but he still had to sell it quickly.
"Let's start." He said to Rein
She was grossed out by the butchering of the ants and didn't help with the process, instead watching from a distance.
He didn't complain, as he could understand her feelings. He himself was slightly dismayed by the task.
He took the Stone of Eternity in one hand and a Forsaken Core in the other.
He pressed them both together, and the Forsaken Core instantly vanished.
The Stone of Eternity started to grow a few inches.
'I guess cores of this level won't have too much of an effect. Still, it's better than expected, since we don't really have excess Spirit Essence to feed it.' He thought
He then fed all the Forsaken Cores they had to the Stone of Eternity. He couldn't sell them anyways without raising suspicion.
After all the Forsaken Cores were fed, the Stone of Eternity was a metre in length and a few inches tall.
At that moment, he also understood a bit more of the Stone of Eternity's abilities.
He already knew it had a high level mental defense, could be separated and had extremely high durability.
What he figured out was that it could increase the capacity of their Spirit Essence and rate that which the Spirit Energy was converted to Spirit Essence.
It was a huge boost for them, as Rein's abilities required a huge sum of Spirit Essence.
'That also means that as it grows larger, it will boost itself. Since it can absorb Spirit Essence, the increased rate of Spirit Essence generation will create a loop.' Ciel thought
He would still need to be careful of when to feed it Spirit Essence, as he would be vulnerable without some of it to spare.
Another thing he learnt about the Stone of Eternity was that it could be used as a beacon.
He knew he could use Soul Transfer with it to bring the Stone of Eternity to the physical world, but he had no reason to do so. It was because it was too small for any kind of use.
Now, he learnt a use of it while being small.
He could track the exact location of the Stone of Eternity in the physical world, making it a beacon of sorts.
If he hid a small piece in someone's pocket, it could be used to track them from afar.
'This thing is way better than i thought…'
Ciel was satisfied with the new information on his attribute.
"You're lucky you can freely use your abilities. I'm stuck having a scary door with a mysterious existence behind it." Rein said with a frown
"Why don't you open the door and let the Void element enter the Soul Core? Since the Stone of Eternity is larger, the mental defense will be larger." Ciel suggested
"Sure… don't blame me if something goes wrong, it was your idea." She said while regaining her regular mood
She walked up to the door and opened it slightly.
The moment she opened the door, a stream of a pitch black substance started flowing into the Soul Core. That was the Void element.
After a minute, the Soul Core was almost full. But just before it could be fully saturated, a cold presence was permeated from behind the Door of Void.
The mysterious entity that wasn't fully awake had noticed the open door.
They felt a vast feeling of indescribable madness and horror from the entity.
Rein immediately slammed the Door of Void shut.
Cold sweat was running down both of their faces. It was such a vast terrifying existence that they both fell back, panting and trembling in disbelief.
Their noses started bleeding, and their hair was standing straight.
"What the hell… I thought you were exaggerating about the unknown existence… it was way worse than what you described." Ciel said with an unknown expression
He wasn't mad at Rein. He just felt a sense of fear and madness he had never felt before.
"Whatever that entity is, we should hope it never fully awakens. We can only pray that we survive if that happens." Ciel said
"That's all the more reason to quickly get stronger. We can't sit and hope it doesn't awaken any time soon." Rein elaborated
Ciel nodded. It seemed they were on a time limit now. They didn't know how long the entity would take to awaken, but there was no point in waiting to find out.
They had to get stronger as soon as possible.
They both left the Soul World and regained their consciousness back on the branch of the tall tree.
Still feeling the shock, they decided to rest for a few more minutes.
Soon, they left the area and headed back to the Arrow village. It was already evening, and the sun was starting to set.
Once close to the village, Rein entered Ciel's shadow, and he jumped over the village wall once again.
No one was around, and he moved into a secluded alley.
Rein left his shadow and went first.
She was transported to a house of her own when coming to this world, not an inn. The house was just a few minutes of walking away from their current position, so she left to go.
Ciel waited a few minutes, and left the alleyway from another direction.
After a few minutes, he found a shop he was looking for. A material exchange shop.
Ciel entered the shop and went up to a counter.
"I would like to sell some materials." Ciel said to the young man behind the counter
He then placed a cloth bag on top.
Inside was the shell and meat of a singular ant he had killed.
"Pretty good quality, it's from a Feral Ant, right? how did you defeat it?" The young man asked
"I got lucky and found the corpse at the edge of the Emerald Forest. How much is this worth?" Ciel replied
"I see. It's worth about 40 Copper. If you got the Forsaken Core, it would easily be 60 Copper." The young man answered
Ciel nodded and took the 40 Copper and cloth bag before leaving the shop.
'40 Copper. Not bad, this will last a few days.' Ciel thought as he went back to the streets
He entered a few shops and bought a new katana and anything useful. He also bought some things that could be useful to him in a desperate situation, like preserved food or water.
Stocking up while there was still time was always the best thing to do, even if he got a few strange looks.
He put everything in the Soul World and went back to the inn.
After reaching, he went straight to his room and recollected what happened today.
'We need stronger weapons. My katana was damaged by the shell of the ants. More than that, it was damaged by my Spirit Essence.'
'Spirit Essence helped improve the power, but I won't be able to use the katana again as it's heavily damaged.'
'The arrows Rein used were also not great. They could barely pierce the shell of a Feral Forsakened.'
'I wonder where we can find powerful weapons…'
'I can make some basic reusable arrows with the Stone of Eternity. The problem is I can't make the shape too accurate, so creating a katana would be impossible. At least for now.'
Ciel pondered over what he learnt today, making mental preparations for the future.
Soon, he went to bed and quickly fell asleep.
.
.
A few hours ago, in the Avadonn palace.
A man knocked on a majestic looking door.
"Come in" A voice was heard from behind the door
Oscar opened the door and entered the room.
It was a magnificent room. There were white pillars with various pieces of decor, with large windows on both sides of the room.
There was a majestic chandelier, and a red carpet leading to a dais, with a large throne. On the throne was the king of the Floren kingdom, Nicholas Avadonn.
Nicholas Avadonn was 45 years old, having dark brown hair and a thick beard. His eyes were brown, and he stood at 6'0".
He gave off a cold feeling.
"Oscar… What happened?" The king said
"There's been an anomaly in the village of Arrow a day and a half ago. It's on the outskirts of the kingdom. There was a large influx of Spirit Energy circulating over there."
"There are no known Soul Sorcerers in the village." He concluded
"So you want me to check out what happened? You know tha we are low on military power right now. It's probably a secretive Soul Sorcerer's experiment gone wrong." The king said with a stern look
"It's an order from the higher ups." Oscar said with an expressionless face
The king made a complicated expression before saying:
"I'll send a few men. The fact that those guys are interested in something like this…" The king didn't say anything else
Oscar left the throne room after the king finished speaking.
There was nothing else to be said.
That night, a few Royal Guards were sent to the village of Arrow.