Now... time to search for the goblin warrior's soul. The barrier I'd put up was a full sphere, with a radius of one hundred metres. Since souls are in the grey zone between life and death, they wander mindlessly through the ground, the air or the sea, until a demon comes along and picks them up with other souls of the living who had died recently.
Unlike the ground or any other material in the mortal world, my barrier can prevent souls from leaving. It's a perk of being a (former) Reincarnation Angel. I specialise in souls, and I know all about them.
To find—well, locate or see the souls, I had to exercise some of my Authority to turn reality within my barrier into the Imaginary Realm, where souls are easily visible. The demons responsible for collecting souls in Arula don't need to do that, as they are given special abilities that allow them to see souls extremely easily, as it's a perk for their job.
I'm a bit jealous of that ability, but I'll take reincarnating souls over guiding souls any day. It's a lot more work and effort. Not to mention (I believe), they get paid a little less than us as well. Lower pay but more work and effort? That doesn't sound like something I'd like to do.
Nevertheless, my current job as a Dungeon Master is certainly strange for someone like me, but it's very well-paying, so I'm not complaining.
It usually takes a while for reality to be turned into the Imaginary Realm, so I had some time to kill during the process. Either way, I should contact the demons in charge of Arula's Demon Station to update them about my request to interfere with the Reincarnation Cycle. I guess I'll send them a message.
Something like "Hello, I am a dungeon master, sent here by one of the Seven Archangels to manage a broken dungeon for the time being. I've extorted some of my Authority in order to create a barrier to prevent the soul of a goblin warrior from wandering around and to prevent you guys from picking him up and bringing him to the Overworld. I've already contacted Archangel Raphael about this, and I've been given permission. Thank you for your cooperation". Yeah, that sounds good. Alrighty, I'll send them a message now, and all I have to do now is wait for their reply.
Just like before, I compressed my divine energy into one singular point in space I then sped it up with all my might to send it to the demon stationed at Arula's Demon Station. Hm? There's an error? That's weird...
So I tried it again.
"Huh? Again?!" I said aloud this time, showing my confusion at the error message. To hopefully find answers, I looked around me and realised. "Oh. The barrier is preventing me from sending the message. I guess I'd give up on sending the message for now..."
I never knew these "soul barriers" could prevent divine energy from passing through them. I mean, to be fair I should've realised it sooner, as souls are divine beings and if divine beings cannot pass through this barrier, then divine energy cannot either.
I looked around to see the barrier surrounding me. It was slightly blurry but mostly transparent, making it a little hard to see. The space between the edge of the barrier to where I am, the centre of the barrier, was slowly fainting away, slowly becoming fainter and fainter by the second.
The goblin warrior's corpse was not an exception either. It too started to fade away into nothing slowly.
"That might be a little problematic," I said. "But oh, well, it's fine. As long I have the soul of the goblin warrior, it's all fine."
I fidgeted with my halo as I waited to pass the time. It might take five to ten minutes for reality within the barrier to turn into the Imaginary Realm, so I could be here for a while. As reality slowly became the Imaginary Realm, I started to see the outline of souls faintly.
They were white and were like a blob of white with a fuzzy aura around them. They do not have a shadow, nor are they affected by weather, temperature, or anything like that—just like angels.
I believe souls are divine beings, although one of low rank. They are divine beings with no consciousness, will, or instinct, just waiting for someone to pick them up and use them to serve a greater purpose. That is the entire nature of souls.
Uhhh… oh, right! Hundreds of wandering souls were floating around within the small hundred-metre barrier. By this point, reality had mostly been turned into the Imaginary Realm, so I was able to see souls quite clearly.
Souls give off a slight colour depending on the amount they have been reincarnated. The maximum reincarnation limit for souls is generally two hundred thousand times, but some souls can go further without going through their final phase, known as the "Collapsing" Phase.
All souls will go through this "Collapsing" Phase, no matter what, as their divine energy demands after each reincarnation increases slightly, and if the soul does not contain enough divine energy, then the soul will go through its Collapsing Phase.
The limit for the number of times a soul could reincarnate is three hundred thousand, and if a soul can reach this many reincarnation cycles, then it will give off a very cool and dark purple.
The young souls, like those who only had been reincarnated once or twice, would give off a bright red, while the youngest souls who haven't experienced a reincarnation are white.
Most souls are white, as the spirits within the Spirit Realm are working around the clock producing souls, shipping them to us in the Overworld, and yeah.
Luckily, the goblin warrior's soul was giving off a pure white colour, signalling that it had not been reincarnated before. If I want my dungeon to last a thousand years or so, then I would like Guardians or subordinates that have long life spans and their souls within the range of zero to fifty thousand reincarnations.
Thank goodness. I should also take a look at other wandering souls within my barrier… I might hit the jackpot. You know, I possibly could strike gold and find another reasonably powerful being alongside the goblin warrior's soul.
Now then, let's get hunting. I'd already extorted a fair bit of my limited Authority to create this barrier and turn reality within the barrier into the Imaginary Realm, and so, if I do anything like that again, I would need to request more Authority from an Archangel.
Therefore, I had to manually inspect every soul here, and determine if they have any problems or issues with them and their strength.
I flew to the soul nearest to me and forcibly held it in my arms. They're around the same size as a medium-sized ball (basketball-sized), which was fine and all, but what made them annoying to deal with was the fact they always tried to escape from anyone's grasp.
It's like a freshly caught fish, immediately out of the water and into your arms, and the fish is desperately trying to escape from your grasp by any means possible. I could scan for a soul's strength, but that would require Authority to do that, and I wouldn't like to spend more Authority on something that could be done manually.
Why go through the harder route? That's because I can save on Authority if there are no strong souls, and if there are, then it's only three thousand four hundred and ninety-five souls present.
Compared to the average nine trillion souls per day when I was a Reincarnation Angel, three thousand five hundred is nothing. I'll say three minutes maximum to finish inspecting these guys.
For the next three minutes, I flew around to each wandering soul, grabbed them into my arms and visually inspected them. I didn't bother with souls that were blue or purple, as it meant they were quite old and I didn't want that. It's hard work manually inspecting souls due to the nature of souls, but at least I'm saving Authority!
I had my eyes on a few souls already. I don't know if they're strong in their previous lives, but their souls are larger than the average soul, so I'm curious to know.
I'll recruit them for the sake of it, saving myself some time and resources. I would have to make Valentyn stronger if I wanted to use him within my dungeon. But it's going to be quite time-consuming... hang on. Wait a moment.
If I can train these souls to be a desired strength, like what I'm doing to Valentyn right now, then I don't have to spend all this time searching for strong souls!
Why didn't I think of this before? It was this simple! Well, I might have thought of this before, just merely forgot about it... but that's alright. I'll note it down and go back to my search for strong beings within this forest. I should also hurry too. Valentyn must be waiting for me by this point, so let's not make him wait too long. I'll say another five minutes of searching around.
Or... I could follow the boy who'd slayed the goblin warrior to his next prey and once he kills his prey, then I could wait it out and steal the soul of that said strong being and repeat the cycle! Uhm! That sounds like a wonderful idea. Let's do that then.
So, I'll collect these souls, hand them over to Iona for a second, follow the boy to his next prey, and repeat the cycle once or twice, head back to Valentyn, before returning to my dungeon by noon. Sounds like a plan.