Kumkani was speaking as the soul was being sucked into the vortex created by the circle through the bars of the cage. The entire thing barely lasted half a minute, and once it was done, everything became still.
"Well." Kumkani said as he took a moment to evaluate how much he had gained. "What a weak soul. I have no faith in the world of this Dimension."
He then turned around and walked towards the edge of the floor, only for a door labeled 'Mind Realm' to appear before him, before opening of its own volition. He then walked through the door into an almost identical room. The door closed behind him, and on this side of said door, the label read 'Soul Realm'. Kumkani stood in the middle of the floor, however unlike in the Soul Realm which was empty save for the soul and cage, the Mind Realm had a number of floating windows, all with various images and videos – clearly all the memories of the body. Kumkani opened both hands, and all the windows began to flow directly into his body, nut more specifically, into his forehead. The process took considerably longer than the soul absorption, however in the grand scheme of things, it didn't take all that long. Once it all came to an end, Kumkani took a deep breath before sitting down to process the information he had just absorbed. He quickly stood up though, as he had seemingly processed something fairly important.
"There's no time for this." Kumkani said as a trap door opened beneath him and he slipped through the hole in the floor of the Mind Realm. He was suddenly back in the physical body, and before long, he had opened his eyes. His torso was wrapped in bandages, his left arm in a cast, throat, forehead and eye bandaged. He was not in great shape at all; however, he sat up with some difficulty whilst taking care not to pull the I.V from his arm. He looked around his hospital room, recognizing a few of the bodies in the room with him. All it took was a cursory glance for Kumkani to see that very few, if any of them, were going to survive any further. He looked around his own bed as if looking for something in particular, however a somewhat surly looking nurse entered the room, recoiling a little bit as she saw Kumkani sitting upright and looking directly at her.
"V-Venator Rex!" She exclaimed. "You're conscious?!"
Kumkani, who by now knew his body's name, simply nodded in response, before pointing to his throat with his good hand, as if to indicate that speaking was not yet possible. The nurse quickly rushed to his bedside and grabbed the chart to go over his information. After giving it a rather thorough look, she quickly got on the P.A system and called for the doctor.
"Venator Horatio Rex." The nurse called out as she looked at him. "The doctor will be here shortly."
After a fairly brief wait, a fairly young, sleep deprived looking doctor entered the room, and upon laying eyes on Horatio, seemed to glitch for a moment. His eyes grew so wide, it was as if the giant bags and dark circles had never been a thing in the first place. He shuffled over to Horatio, grabbed the chart, and proceeded to not only look it over, but conduct as thorough a check as he could – especially considering how the patient was currently unable to speak.
"You are made from tough stuff, Mr. Rex." The doctor remarked incredulously. "F-Rank Venators aren't usually this resilient. I've seen B-Class Venators pass from less severe injuries."
As if to illustrate the point, one of the fellows who had been a part of the group in the Zone suddenly started convulsing as the machinery that was monitoring and keeping him alive started to go crazy, beeping and blaring all manner of alarm. The doctor and nurse rushed over to his bed to try and attend to him. More nurses came in as well, however they were taken aback by Horatio being sat upright, watching everything unfold. They didn't have the luxury to stop and stare though, as they had to move to the now violently convulsing patient. Horatio was watching intently as the hospital staff tried to hold him down tight enough to allow the doctor to inject something into the patient, but after a few moments, he shook his head.
'This one is gone.' Horatio thought to himself as he watched on.
He wasn't wrong either, as not even half a minute later, the body went limp, and the doctor called it. Horatio silently watched as an ethereal substance – which was clearly the now dead body's soul – drifted out of the body and wafted up into the sky above. What actually held Horatio's attention however, was focused on a different substance forcing its way out, as when the body was convulsing, this substance was being forcefully expelled from the body.
'Is that what is called Aura in this Dimension?' He thought to himself watched the last remnants of said substance leaving the body. 'This body of mine has absolutely no Aura whatsoever.'
Horatio used his right hand to trace a series of shapes in the air, after which a small translucent ball of energy materialised and floated towards the wisps of aura cascading off the hospital bed. It stopped just under the bed and sucked in as much of the Aura as it could carry, before slowly making its way back to its creator. Horatio then decided to lay back down as the hospital staff dealt with the dead body, and as the doctor looked at the now sleeping patient, he sighed and shook his head.
"It's already a massive shock to see a patient in this room regain consciousness, especially considering how close he was to death. For that person to see somebody else die right in front of him might be something that tips him over the edge."
After the corpse was wheeled out of the hospital room, and the other patients were checked on, everybody left the room and only the gentle beeps of the equipment could be heard. After about an hour or so, Horatio sat up gingerly once again, and opened his right hand. The orb floated up and into his hand.
'My body naturally has no Aura, so let's see what happens if I try to absorb this.'
Horatio closed his eye and focused on absorbing the orb into his palm. That didn't take all that long, and once the Aura was in his body, he started to focus on circulating it and letting it go where it most felt natural for it to go. The process was more akin to shepherding than anything, and as the Aura was being guided through his body, Horatio noticed that it was all naturally converging towards a point just below the navel. Unfortunately, whatever was supposed to be there to absorb or house the Aura not there. There was only evidence of it having been there before, but it was either damaged or underdeveloped to the point of it looking damaged. The Aura, having no place to settle, started to go berserk, and in order to prevent his already injured body from suffering any further damage, Horatio expelled the Aura quickly, blowing the blanket off of his body and loosening a few of his bandages. Luckily, apart from coughing out a little blood as well as a nosebleed and some profuse sweating, he was no worse off than he was before.
'So Aura in this plan is more akin to Chi than it is to Mana. Without an Aura Center so to speak, one cannot create a hospitable environment for Aura to settle. That sample size was enough to trigger quite the backlash, however all that did was prompt Horatio to accelerate his plans.