The Strongest Spellblade

While we made our way down through the dungeon, I checked for any nearby Abnormals. That knowledge was probably the second greatest thing I had gotten from the beastkin continent, right after my divination skill.

Most of the time Compass of Desire just spun about, with no clear direction when I checked. But as were passing through the 6th layer, I picked up on an Abnormal and adjusted our course from heading directly to the next layer.

The Abnormal was a fire breathing Minotaur. After the demons I had faced, it was a joke and easily killed. The secret chamber took longer to locate than the actual fight.

Ozy found a wall the monster had come out of. I had Wild Tail use his spell skill on the wall, breaking it apart. The wall had been linked to some kind of mechanical contraption. I wasn’t interested in any of that. I was far more interested in the chest.

I poked it carefully and very carefully opened it. While there might have been only one trapped chest in the dungeon, once the story spread, it was a tale of caution and alertness. Checking inside the chest, there was a spikey red fruit, a soul fruit.

Carefully picking it up, I considered if I should consume it myself or give it to someone else. The answer was obvious. I ate it myself.

I was the leader of the party and that meant I got the natural treasures that were found. While it would have been useful for Lanner, I could use the boost in skill level and stat gain. While I didn’t expect it to impact my class, if I consumed more of these soul fruits over time, there would eventually be a qualitative improvement.

As for Ozy, I was never going to give him a soul fruit. I had a pet, a tool, I didn’t need a demon. That Spark skill was highly concerning, but he was just more aware. As long as it didn’t increase rapidly or go up a tier, I wasn’t overly concerned.

My personal guess was that true sentience where he could speak would be a Tier 3 skill. Ozy was more aware recently, but it wasn’t a huge change. He wasn’t about to start speaking. He understood things, but he was comparable to a very smart dog at the moment.

If he did become a demon, I wasn’t sure what I would do. But I would probably have to kill him. A pet was a lot different from a thinking monster. A thinking monster could put its needs over mine.

The best option would be finding a System Priest and trying to remove that Spark skill from Ozy before it became a higher tier. I had given the issue a lot of thought and Ozy couldn’t be allowed to become a demon.

If I had to guess, that was how the first demon came to be. Some person gave a soul fruit to their pet. But I had never forgotten all the warnings I had received. While I knew my mother wasn’t thinking about this situation of giving a pet a soul fruit, the sentiment still applied.

The risk was too great. While I liked Ozy and he helped me out a lot, I would never let him gain independence. If he tried, I would cut him down myself. Monsters were monsters, and they were in their own category. They couldn’t be trusted.

Or perhaps some kind of slavery skill. While Wild Tail had brought that up, I would never use such a skill on a thinking creature. But a monster, that was another thing entirely. That way even if Ozy gained sentience, he would never be able to break free.

An enslaved demon was a novel idea. I had never heard of something like that before. But if it could be done, then it would be quite powerful. As for what Ozy wanted, that didn’t matter. He was a pet and a monster, not a person. Even if he did become aware like a demon, he was still a monster.

The biggest risk would be that he broke whatever enslavement skill or technique was used. There wasn’t much knowledge of such things anymore, so I had no idea how they worked beyond being associated with soul skills.

“I will be a minute,” I called out, while sitting down to focus on what the soul fruit was doing. It was expanding my soul slightly, creating greater gaps between the skills and stats already engraved upon it. Or the skills and stats were being compressed, leaving more space for new stats and skills.

I could feel my soul pressing up against my body even more than before. My body felt like it was being refreshed. I wasn’t coughing out Alchemical waste like before. Trying to copy what the soul fruit was doing would be impossible, but I understood the process.

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That was key if I ever wanted to replicate its effects. I just didn’t know how to expand my soul evenly like the soul fruit did. There wasn’t a surge of Mana, but something else that came from the soul fruit.

I had taken a greater interest in such things after learning about the Seraphim skills. Seraphim Skill Tempering and Seraphim Stat Tempering might work in a similar way, but I wasn’t entirely sure. Skills could accomplish the same things through entirely different mechanisms.

A soul fruit type skill would be incredibly broken. But I had no doubt the College and the Eldarin Empire had studied such things in depth. My greatest chance of breakthrough was consuming more soul fruits and trying to develop a related skill.

How was my soul being expanded or skills and stats being compressed? That was the real question. It wasn’t Mana in the soul fruit, but some other mechanism. No wonder why no one had made progress on this issue as far as I knew.

It was likely some very precise and unique application of Mana. While I hadn’t sensed any Mana from the soul fruit, the soul was made of Mana. Its expansion was directly related to Mana. Perhaps a kind of Mana that different from the type that was normally sensed.

But Mana sensing skills could pick up on all kinds of Mana and techniques. Even divination type skills used the small bit of Mana in the air to react. As I wondered about getting more information on soul fruits, my Compass of Desire skill just spun around randomly. That happened with a lot of knowledge based questions.

It was clearly better at locating people and locations rather than knowledge. It was a powerful skill, but the limitations were annoying. Or perhaps that knowledge didn’t exist anywhere, or was hidden away like the gnomes.

If I knew how soul fruits worked, I wouldn’t share that knowledge or write it down anywhere. It was far too valuable. And after learning about divination skills and getting one, I always felt a sense of unease that something or someone could be spying on me.

After a couple of minutes I exited the treasure room. “Find anything?” Lanner asked.

“A soul fruit, I consumed,” I said. I could tell there was some frustration within him, but that was why he needed to be in his own party or on his own. While I carried and led this team, that also meant I got the benefits of such discoveries as well.

If he wanted the benefits then he needed the skills and to do this on his own. Another reason why we couldn’t team up long term. With the treasure room cleared, we continued on our way towards the next passage down.

The monsters were easy enough, that I let Lanner and Wild Tail take the lead in fighting them with Ozy watching over things. That way they could both gain more experience. This was a final chance for Wild Tail to push up his level before we reached the Eldarin continent.

He wasn’t great at fighting, but he could handle one monster at a time. With Ozy around, there was more than leeway for me to let him fight and get more experience.

As we moved onto the next chamber, I watched Wild Tail slam his metal staff into the monsters’ heads with a lot of force. Their heads caved in, but he was showing why blunt weapons weren’t preferred.

I stood off to the side with a whip in hand. These easier layers, I would use worse weapons to work on those skills. A large flying bug was headed in my direction. I snapped my wrist and the end of the whip hit the monster. The metal tip did a tremendous amount of damage. It burst apart in a shower of gore.

Luckily none of it fell on me. While I could clean it off with the Clean spell skill, I preferred not using it constantly to save on Mana. Lanner was using Gnomish Fencing and constantly moving about. I did note that he carried a wand in his off hand, just in case he needed it to get out of a troublesome situation.

Another easy fight. Lanner and Wild Tail got to work getting the cores. I would let them keep the red Mana cores. There was no need for me to try and squeeze out every little bit of money. That would be their fund to starting over with a new life once we arrived at the Eldarin continent.

I would contribute as well, but having money would make things a lot easier while they got their feet under them and adapted to an entirely new culture. At least the language was the same, which would make assimilation easier.

Lanner would be looked down on due to his small stature and Wild Tail would have trouble finding work beyond being a laborer outside of the Adventurer’s Guild. Beastkin were incredibly rare, so it would be a shock for most people having to deal with one.

The racial prejudices of the Eldarin Empire had faded but they still existed. It was mostly directed at elves and dwarves, but I had no doubt that beastkin would be caught up in it as well. It wasn’t as big of a deal at the College, since everyone there was an elite or training to become one.

No one had the time or energy to discriminate against others, except on the basis of how quickly they were progressing. Depending on where we arrived at the continent, that would help determine if I took Lanner and Wild Tail with me to the College.

The College was the best place to get new gear and sell off the information and books I had collected. There might be some private collectors, but the College routinely sold soul fruits and other items to adventurers, making it the perfect place to trade away everything I had collected so far.

I had no idea how valuable all the books I had were. The book written by a demon would be incredibly valuable. That alone would net me thousands of gold pieces, possibly thousands of platinum pieces. It was a one-of-a-kind item.

I wouldn’t be selling that information about Abnormals. That was one secret I was keeping to myself. Who knew if the dungeon limited natural treasures?