'I absolutely need to collect 30 more souls, I will make a bet and use the discount for the |Hell fire| skill hoping I will be able to us it in the way I want.' Zach continued to collect the souls of every corpse he found.
He was collecting souls for 30 minutes and to find new corpses he took more and more time because they were more and more scattered in this forest. He finally found another corpse but this time there was a very odd thing about it, there was no cyan light, he tried to extract the soul but to no avail.
'System why can't I extract the soul of this corpse ?'
[The soul belonging to this corspe disappeared and went to the cycle of reincarnation, so host can't extract soul of corpse whose soul already dispersed.]
'Oh okay, even I if did not planned to do that, it means there is no soul to collect in graveyards. Though it means that if one day I make a massacre, I will have to hurry to collect the souls.' He gave up collecting the souls of the dead bandits, they should have already dispersed.
Since he got access to the shop he had collected 26 more souls, meaning he was short of 4 souls to get the |Hell fire| skill.
Now that Zach had collected all the souls he could, it was time for him to take back to the path to the capital. As always, he was on the side of the road and he was doing his utmost to be as stealthy as possible.
In addition to being stealthy he was seeking beings he could kill to collect their souls. He absolutely needed the |Hell fire| skill, if he could use it the way he wanted he would be able to start training in the Void Body method.
Contrary to his expectations there was so little beasts near the road, he still did not find any, he could not spend all of his time searching being. He already spent so much time waiting the appearance of a merchant, he wanted to reach the capital before sunset.
He continued to make his way to the capital hoping that some weak beasts would appear or even another fight between humans.
While he was running Zach saw out of the corner of his eye a small family of rabbit, 4 rabbits, he stopped immediatly. 'Bingo ! Exactly the number I need.' Zach silently approached them, the thing he wanted the least was to scare them away.
He hid behind a big root and observed his preys, like the predator he was, he readied himself, scythe in hands, he suddenly leaped on them. The moment Zach leaped on them the rabbits were already about to jump to escape, Zach just had the time to reap the life of two rabbits.
Luckily for him the two remaining rabbits fled in the same direction, he chased them but he was slower and less nimble than them. They were slowly distancing him, he had to try something or they would escape him, he launched his scythe in despair.
It hit them, he succeeded, it did not kill them but stunned them just enough time for Zach to grab them and snap their neck with his bare hands.
He collected their souls before getting back to where he left the other two, once he was done collecting the four souls. 'System I want to use the 60 % discount to buy the Hell fire skill.' Zach stated in his mind and just after that he heard the system response.
[Ding ! |Hell fire| skill bought, Host has gotten the control of one the strongest fire in the whole universe, host shall be careful when using it. The darker the Hell fire the mightier it is, host flames will naturally become stronger when the level of the skill is increased.]
All the information about the Hell fire had gotten into his brain and he felt like he could call it whenever he wanted.
'Yes ! I will be able to see if it can do what I need it to do.' Zach concetrated on the idea of a small flame appearing at the tip of his finger, he succeed, a small light grey flame appeared at the tip of his right index.
Zach stared at this beatiful flame for 5 seconds before he remembered he had something to try. He put his left hand on the flame at first it did nothing but he imagined this flame burning his finger and "OUCH! It burns. YES !! It can even burns me." Zach exclaimed with a big smile.
Despite the fact the great pain caused by the flame he was overjoyed, he needed a powerful flame to start cultivating the Void Body method, now he had one at hand whenever he wanted. However he was not sure if he could keep it burning enough time to complete the first step, it consumed 1 mana points per minute and he had 100 MP so he could keep it up for 100 minutes, however it was for the weakest flame which may not be suited to what he wanted to do.
He would need to put 25 mana points per minutes to have the greatest output which would be powerful enough. If he could not complete the first step in one go at worst he would die and at best he would become a cripple.
'System how do I get more mana points ?' Zach has an idea of how it would work but still asked the system. [Host has to upgrade his intelligence to gain more MP]. 'Like I thought, it means I have to level up. I need 40 EXP points to get level 2, low rank 1 being give me 10 points and human realm being 1 EXP points. The easiest would be to kill low rank 1 being, they are not too powerful and I don't need to kill plenty of them, in addition I am not in dire need of souls right now.'
He decided to go deeper in the forest to seeked any low rank 1 being which he could kill. He wanted to get as much exp as possible before starting the Void Body method. He succeeded he found many more beast than at the road's side, so far he had killed 37 beast which made him level up twice.
'Upgrading Hell fire's level before starting would be the best, but I'm afraid that the bonus MP I would get with my remaining points wouldn't be enough.' Zach had as always got 6 system points per level, so he had already gathered 12.
He eventually made up his mind, he would stop hunting beast and he will invest the system points he had gathered to upgrade the Hell fire skill and put 2 points in intelligence. All he had to do now was to find a secluded place to start. After searching for hours he finally found a cavern which was very well hidden, so well hidden that he almost missed it.
He entered it carefully, he was not sure if it was the lair of a powerful beast, he eventually reached the cavern's end, luckily for him there was no marks of a beast taking this cavern as its lair. He sat in lotus position he summoned his hell fire in his right hand and took a look at it, it was now of a darker grey and it gave him an intimidating feeling.
In fact he was nervous, the first step of the Void Body was extremely dangerous he could die at any moment and even if waited for his title it would not work.
For the first step Zach literally needed to completely melt his muscles, skin and tendons. Once melted they would get an affinity with the void and then he would have to reconstruct his muslces, skin and tendons.
If one attempted this while he had already broke through the rank 1 the universal energy already in his body would get in conflict with the void and they would try to devour each other which would make the process fail without a doubt and the cultivator would die on the spot.
With the void as a base his body would be able to improve like other using universal energy but Zach's body would devour and refine it into void energy, that was the gist of the Void Body method.
Zach could use his Hell fire for almost 5 minutes before running out of mana, he needed to entirely melt his muscles, skin and tendons in this time which would be extremely tough for him. He took deep breathes to shred off all his nervosity.
Suddenly a grey flame recovered his body "AHHHHHHHH !" His whole body was in so much pain he was threatening to faint at any instant but somehow he managed to hold his sanity and kept his flame which had already melted his skin and was slowly melting the muscles and tendons.
Contrary to his skin which melted in seconds, only half of his muscles and tendons had melted, he had already endured three full minutes of pain.
He knew it would be hard to make it before running out of MP, it made him even more nervous. Time was running out and only a chunk, the size of a fist, of muscles lasted. The chunk he had to melt thinned more and more before his very eyes. He was exhausted and started to feel that he would not be able to hold much, he knew he was running out of MP.
Eventually he succeeded, he had melted all his muscles, skin and tendons. He was about to faint but he gathered all the energy he had left, after all he still had to construct back his body. He took about 3 minutes to construct back his body, the same he had before.
His skin was now reflecting a light grey light and chiseled muscles all over his body. Zach was so exhausted, he just fainted there in the secluded cavern he was, he had succeeded.