"Next stage? You mean as in the level of my soul core?" Kaz was confused by the last question.
"Yes, if you can move up you should be able to link with him."
"How would I do so?" Kaz had a feeling he had to use the nexus energy from crystals or something but he didn't want to give away what he knew them as yet. The name may reveal too much about his current power.
"I'm sure you have an inkling as to how, you just need more mana, I can provide you mana clusters to bring you to the next level. How many times have you evolved your soul core? I'm only seeing it at the second stage but I feel that is wrong considering the pressure of your soul force."
"I have evolved once." Kaz plainly replied.
Suddenly the God's eyes narrowed as he focused in on Kaz, and Kaz could feel an energy somewhat defile his privacy as the god probed his nexus glands. Before Kaz could reply out of dissatisfaction, the god's eyes shot wide open, almost stunned.
"Impossible! You couldn't possibly possess two cores! You don't understand what this means!" The god was amazed and also somewhat terrified.
"You are a whole stage below, I thought you were the same as him. This changes things, you won't need to be a higher stage than him, just one stage higher. We need to have this happen as soon as possible, so I can link him and also hide your presence to others. I have a plan."
Immediately the god dropped a few hundred Nexus Clusters in front of Kaz. "Take these, you can keep the excess, I saw your soul weapon, use it for that as well, you need to grow as strong as possible, because I fear you will make many enemies."
Kaz until this point hadn't had a moment to speak because of how rushed the god seemed, Kaz just accepted the situation, and sat down before you started to absorb just enough to initiate an evolution. He slipped strands of energy from his body, slowly reaching the clusters, he grabbed exactly 100 since that's how far he was from evolving and started to siphon the energy out of them into his being.
Slowly the glow of the 100 clusters died down as Kaz filled his being with the energy. The energy started to expand his pathways as they now filled 30% of his nervous system. The luminal buds grew by 10% but he felt their growth was hitting a plateau. As it slowed down he felt a heat emanate from his pores as energy was vacuumed into his being. He condensed the energy and completed the next evolution.
[Both of your Luminal Buds have evolved to the{Luminal Bud Stage 2} rank.]
[Do to you getting closer to reaching the potential that a being without a soul can get, your stat modifier has gone down. Your previous stats have been condensed into your foundation and you are now at a new base.]
Kaz opened his system to verify the new changes.
Name: Kaz
Race: Awakened Human
Nexus Glands: Luminal Bud Stage 2, Luminal Bud Stage 2
Nexus Drops: 0/200 (+2 stats per drop)
Skill Tokens: 2
Sense Range: 50 meters
(Stats are counts of 10)
Level: 15
Unallocated Stat Points: 15
Experience: 488,650/500,000
Physique level: 635
Health: 12660/12660 ({vitality + physique} x 10)
Vitality: 631
Stamina: 635 (physique level)
Intelligence: 647
Speed: 635 ({physique x 0.5} + {stamina x 0.5})
Damage: 638 ({physique x 0.75} + {intelligence x 0.25})
Skills:
…
Kaz was surprised by the growth. At this point, he was probably strong enough to win against 10 tanks and destroy them. Kaz stretched his hands out in front and looked at them. His eyesight was able to pick up fine details of them, and he realized his senses with his nexus glands have also synced with his eyes, and he could now visualize energy flows.
[The stage development has improved your connection with your nexus glands allowing them to manifest in more ways than before.]
Kaz looked back at the god and was taken aback by what he saw. What he saw was the most magnificent and pure light. The energy within the god seemed to dance and emanate benevolence. Kaz felt more reassured with the god after this. Kaz felt this man was trustworthy and he decided to not to doubt him as much.
The god stared at Kaz, examining him, which he had done during his breakthrough as well.
"Your body is even more different than I thought, it seems like it has the utmost command of the energy that is taken into it. You completely converted all of the energy when you put intention into it. All traces of my energy are gone from you, even though you just absorbed a huge quantity of my energy. This may be a problem if you can't control it, but for now lets worry about linking him to you, this could workout in our favor."
The unconscious body floated over to the two of them as Xohasis tapped the back of the neck of the husk king, eliciting a gold energy to travel with his fingers.
"When you are ready, present me with the nape of your neck."
Kaz followed his instruction and turned around, as he felt the sensation come to his nexus glands, and immediately he felt a gut wrenching feeling as he gasped.
"Fight his influence so that you are the commander of this connection!"
'Why the fuck did he not warn me?' Kaz thought to himself as waves of gruesome images flashed in his mind, those of slaughter, tearing people apart, gorging on their essences, relishing in their deaths. Kaz started to feel intoxicated by this feeling until he felt a sense of worry from his spear.
'Rika.'
Immediately Kaz's mind filled with thoughts of Rika, she fought away all those ill thoughts with her care for him, and even now she was caring for him. The fearsome images became that of sorrow and loss. Kaz felt tears slide down his face as the images continued. Then their was a golden light, which when focused on showed a little boy, with dull gray skin, yellow hair and amber eyes. He was crying, stuck in the images of slaughter. He realized that this was the locked rationale of the Husk King. Kaz reached out and touched his shoulder, with the boy only looking back and staring at Kaz. Their gazes met for a few minutes until he smiled.
The images left his mind as he got his bearings back, the god was over where the husk king was. "Look!" he exclaimed. As Kaz stumbled closer, he saw the same boy, but beaten and bruised, the husk king had changed to the boy he saw. "It worked!"
[Essence Bond contracted.]
Kaz smiled a smile of relief. The fear that the boy had was experienced by him, and he eagerly wanted to help him when he was lost in the images, so this gave him a lot of relief. Then Kaz felt slightly dizzy. When he sat back the god looked at him worried.
"I want you two to rest before I tell you the next plan, I'm taking you off this planet."
Check Author notes for important update about the story