-It's like a small space just right outside your soul. This space is your personal lair and you'll be able to meditate twice as fast as you are on the outside.
-Dangerous? Nah, it won't. We're just going forcefully open your subconsciousness and start to piece back your soul. Basically, we're going to do the second step instead of the first.
-Harm you? Nah. If 'that' somehow happens, I'm here to assist you. Just build up your strength, find where your soul is undeveloped, and start repairing it up.'
He also rambled on with a lot of unnecessary words that didn't contribute to the understanding.
His words were unsettling and stirred up discomfort within me.
Today's lesson on the soul has expanded my understanding of it. Just as essence is significant, delving into the soul is equally crucial.
Now that I've learned about them, it's time to apply it now.
-Subconsciousness.
It's a method to gauge the development of one's soul. Noticing the absence of what's termed the "small space" near my soul, I can confidently conclude that my soul is underdeveloped.
"Let's see what we have here."
The book in my hand is written by the cloaked individual himself using my language since all the other books he had are in Horror language.
/Horrors who were born with undeveloped souls are omen amongst their peers. Something that needs to be avoided. So what if the result of their essence might be bad or low quality because of it? So what if the quality output would be bad and not as destructive as others? Isn't fixing it better than discriminating them?/
For a moment, I thought this was a waste of a page as I skimmed through the context until I was on the last line of the page.
/The very ancestor had also an undeveloped soul./
'Ancestor…'
I vividly remember that the figure kept mentioning this ancestor figure. Is this individual really that great?
I proceeded to the next page.
/A method has been passed down to our kind. Some knowledge that we only possessed. But even if others were to do it, as the ancestor said, they wouldn't dare risk their whole life because of it./
My eyes shook once the next paragraph surfaced.
/You may become cripple in life./
However, my eyes calmed down once the next sentence surfaced.
/But he did it. The ancestor pulled the unbelievable feat. The method is called Binding Soul Chains./
Woah, that name sounds heavy.
Then, the cloaked figure started putting his own words.
/Usually, the method would be Soul > Subconsciousness yet he went from Subconsciousness > Soul. The weight of the name matches its gravity. Undeveloped souls are broken bridges that have no way of connecting each other.
/Imagine the successful bridge as a developed or complete soul. Then bridges that had no way to piece each other even though there's foundations were undeveloped or incomplete. Only using this method you can enter the subconsciousness and start connecting them together.
/Yes, it's harder than it seems. It's saying to connect unfinished bridges, far away from each other, using only a strand of metal. The unfinished bridges are your scattered soul, and the essence is the strand of metal.
/And you have to connect them all to lead a way towards your subconsciousness./
"Shit…!"
I can understand it completely! Without the use of bridges, I would've lost the very first part of the text.
Basically, it's like connecting the dots!
But with these risks…!
As if addressing my doubts within, my eyes drifted to the next page, revealing the rationale behind why this binding of souls can only be done.
/Of course, everyone tried to employ various methods to solve undeveloped souls yet not a single thing has been done right. Especially the method Complete Soul Shackles. It's saying building carefully and slowly for their shattered souls to connect to one another
/Yet they forgot a simple thing. The exhaustion of essence. The quantity you inject essence crystals didn't even matter since this basically shows wasting of the soul. If these perfect shackles broke down, no matter how complete it is, the problem would be the lack of essence, especially if their soul is undeveloped.
/They also forgot a lot of things such as you will only get one chance to connect these bridges. If all one shackle is slightly off which results in it breaking down, the others will follow up. And you'll redo your actions once again, an endless cycle."
/One last thing to do regarding completing your soul is to track or pinpoint where they are. Yet all of these methods are hard alone, especially making the essence form a chain./
For today, I read the book while understanding the terms that I needed to understand.
There's a method on how to do this chain without learning much about essence as long as one's soul can provide this and there is essence crystals to assist.
Once I finished reading the entire book, I went through it again, immersing myself for clarity and a deeper comprehension.
It surprises me anytime no matter what angle I read the book. There's also information regarding Horrors in this book that I etched in my mind that might be helpful to future inquiries.
"Done,"
I have a few ideas in my head but I knew it would be different to apply them once I experienced them. Who knows if I had to think of other methods since these ideas wouldn't work at all.
"Trial and error then."
Surveying my makeshift camp, which bore little resemblance to its intended form, I positioned myself in a manner that wouldn't disrupt me in case of error.
Once I'm properly arranged, I proceed to begin opening up my subconsciousness.
/To begin with this method, the very thing to do is to pinpoint these scattered souls and use one scattered soul as your foundation, and start connecting your chains to the other./
Easier said than done.
'Do I think that my soul is like an incomplete body? Then it's like I'm going to connect a piece of my arm to my shoulder?'
The reason the cloaked figure is leaving me to this is because the structure of our soul is different from Horrors.
Only myself knew how this would go.
/Medidate/
Sitting on the floor with my legs crossed, my spine kept straight, and my hands resting on the knees with palms facing upward.
I fixed my breathing, making it deep and controlled since it is suitable for meditation.
Lastly, my eyes are closed to enhance introspection and concentration.
"Pheww…"
/For the first-timers, feel the souls scattered around you/
Indulging myself in this position for half an hour, my worldview started to change much different from normal.
As if I was in a pitch-black world.
No, I was 'inside' of this world.
I wasn't just feeling it because my senses were heightened but because delving deeper into the soul was kind of… unnatural.
The sentiments I experienced defy precise description but align closely with a mixture of 'amazement' and 'fascination.'
My concentration was top-notch notch as I wouldn't mind the water waving from the swamp's shore, yet I was aware of them as if my eyes were open wide.
A feeling of clarity washed over me, prompting me to sprint towards the void and surrender to its dark expanse, where I pinpointed the very first scattered soul within this darkness.
'So, the soul of a human has the same structure as the body?'
The first scattered soul I found was my thumb. As for the rest, it seemed like I had to go through everything before finding all of them.
'Okay, that's a first.'
Just before venturing a certain distance from the shattered soul, my senses tethered to it abruptly vanished.
'Hmm?'
Retreating slightly from the shattered soul, I regained the ability to sense its presence, now aware of it residing on my thumb.
'God damn it. So it's not natural to know them when you meet them?'
As if half of my ideas were crushed in that instant, I took a mental note of the whereabouts of my first find. Soon, I floated on the dark expanse once again but before I could even leave on my thumb, another shattered soul presented on my front.
'So they are naturally white? Then, if someone shaped their essence to red, does that mean their soul will also be changed into red?'
Thinking that this question wouldn't help me anything with what I was doing currently, I proceeded to roam around.
For the next three days, that's the only thing I did until I was finished… on just my hand alone.
Certainly, over those three days, I allowed myself some rest, recognizing the importance of reflecting on and internalizing the experiences gained through this method.
Too much venture when you are still consuming your soul, albeit in a low amount, will still do no good.
Amongst the ones I took note of is that once I indulged myself in this new 'world', I was put in a place where I left. It didn't bring me back to the starting point and as if a save option was there, automatically filled me in.
For another three days, I roamed around my arm and finished it on the fourth day, resulting in a total of twenty-seven shattered souls on that arm alone, which also includes the hand and fingers.
I've exhausted various approaches in an attempt to chart the next course of action, yet each one has proven futile.
Opening my eyes after a thorough search, I wiped the bead of sweat that formed on my forehead.
"Okay, this is going to take too long."