FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 193: Chapter 193: The Soul’s Subjugation

The wind whistled through the gaps in the bone-arches of the Feline Spire, a mournful sound that seemed to carry the faint echoes of the Singing Moss from the forest below. Sol walked in silence, his mind racing as he processed the sheer complexity of the system Kira was describing. This wasn’t just about hunting, it was more about spiritual warfare.

Kira stopped at a landing that looked out over the sprawling city, her silhouette framed by the bioluminescent emerald glow of the Great Tree. She turned to face him, her expression hardening as she dove back into the explanation.

“You have to understand, Sol,” she began, her voice steadying. “A wild spirit isn’t just a lump of energy you pick up off the ground. It has a will. A fierce, predatory will that was forged in the survival of the Great Orrath.”

“When you kill a beast and try to take its soul, you are inviting that will into your own body. If you simply shove a living, thrashing wolf soul into an empty Sun Core, it won’t just sit there. It will trash the place. It will claw at the walls of your core, causing internal bleeding, spiritual fractures, or an agonizing death before you can even utilize it.”

Sol leaned against a pillar of petrified wood, his crimson eyes narrowing. “So it’s a hostage situation. You’re taking a prisoner that wants to kill the warden.”

“Exactly,” Kira nodded. “That’s why most people use the Common Method. We use Soul Stones. They are rare minerals found in the deep earth that can act as a temporary cage. When a hunter kills a beast, they trap the soul in the stone. They don’t bind it immediately. They carry that stone for weeks, sometimes months, using their own essence to slowly drain the beast’s will. They starve it. They isolate it. They wait until the spirit is dormant… comatose. Only when the beast is a broken shadow of itself do they move it into their Sun Core. It’s safe. It’s reliable. But of course, it’s slow.”

“That’s why tribe has dormant spirits, which you can bind easily, but you do know, most don’t do that.”

“What is the other method?”He asked.

She looked at his hands, then back at his face. “That is the Legendary Method. The Direct Capture. It’s the stuff of our epics. It’s for the warriors whose wills are so overpowering that they don’t need stones. They grab a fresh, thrashing soul the moment the beast dies and shove it directly into their Core. They crush its resistance in a matter of seconds through sheer mental dominance. It’s a terrifying display of power, but it’s incredibly rare.”

“And most who try it end up as cautionary tales. So, don’t even think about it, just obediently get one from the tribe, or even if you do want to get one yourself, just capture that in a soul stone provided by the tribe and slowly refine it.”

Sol nodded, his Memory Palace filing the distinction between the ’Safe’ and ’Legendary’ paths. He already knew which one he’d eventually have to take.

“But even with unlimited courage,” Kira continued, her voice growing grave, “there is a fundamental limit you cannot ignore. There is something called Essence Resonance. It is the law of balance.”

She stepped closer, her eyes locking onto his. “Think of your Sun Core as a cup and the beast’s essence as a river. If a Layer 1 warrior… a Crimson Spark… tries to tame a Layer 3 beast like a Ravaging Storm predator, the resonance is mismatched. The beast’s Essence is too heavy, too vast. It will ’backflow.’ Instead of you pulling the spirit into your core, the spirit’s energy floods back into your heart, overwhelming your own life-force.”

Sol felt a chill. “What happens then?”

“Feralization,” Kira whispered, the word sounding like a curse. “You lose control of your mind. Your human consciousness is drowned out by the beast’s instincts. You don’t just act like an animal; you become one. Your eyes change, fur or scales might burst through your skin, and you become a human-beast hybrid… a mindless, killing machine. If that happens, we have to kill you immediately. There is no cure. You are gone.”

She paused, the wind tugging at her hair. “In the best-case scenario of a failed resonance, you only suffer Soul-Bleeding. The essence doesn’t turn you into a beast, but it shreds your memories. You wake up with a hole in your head where your life used to be. You forget your name, your family, your skills. You become a ’Hollow One,’ wandering the city until you wither away.”

Sol fell into a deep, internal silence. Backflow. Feralization. Soul-Bleeding. The stakes of the “Rite” were becoming clear. It wasn’t just a test of strength; it was a gamble with his very existence.

Sol thought bitterly. I’m dressed in a ’Divine’ dress that draws every eye in the city, and now I’m told that if I try to get the power I need to survive, I might end up as a mindless werewolf or a lobotomized amnesiac. Did I really kick a puppy in my past life? Did I forget to tip a celestial waiter?

But as always, his external face remained a mask of stoic, unbothered calm. He couldn’t let Kira see the turmoil. In her eyes, he was a “Divine One”(even though a fake one) a being of mystery.

“So, that means,” Sol asked, his voice steady despite the internal chaos, “can you tame an unlimited number of them?”

Kira blinked, surprised by the direction of his interest. “In theory? Yes. The Sun Core is a fragment of the primordial sun; it has no set ’limit’ on space, of course, only at the highest level, which is just a legend. ”

“But every time you level up the sun core expands and the number of spirits you can house doubles. Of course, in practice, you are limited by your own survival.”

She began to pace the narrow landing, her shadow dancing in the emerald light. “It’s a choice of paths. One can choose to dedicate their entire life to upgrading a single spirit… feeding it all their Essence, forcing it to evolve into a higher form. You grow stronger by making your one partner peerless. Or, you can get more than one.”

“But,” she said, holding up a warning finger, “the difficulty increases exponentially. Essence is a finite resource. If you have four spirits, your Sun Core has to divide its energy four ways. This slows down their evolution to a crawl. If you don’t have a high-grade Core… like a Flame or Sun Core… housing multiple spirits is like trying to feed a pack of wolves with a single bowl of scraps. They will get hungry. They will start to resent you. And eventually, they might try to consume each other inside your own soul.”

Sol nodded. “So it’s specialization versus hybridization.”

“Exactly,” Kira said. “And if you choose the path of many, you have to consider Compatibility. Like if the warriors who want to be juggernauts of pure strength will bind multiple spirits of the same species or element. Binding four different types of Bears, for example. Because they are the same ’nature,’ there is less resistance. They huddle together in the Sun Core like a family. It makes housing them easier and their combined strength bonus is massive.”

“But,” she continued, her eyes flashing with a bit of excitement, “the most dangerous warriors are the ones who use a Balance System. They choose varied species for different abilities.”

“One spirit for raw strength, one for extreme speed, and one for iron-clad defense. Some even go further and bind different elements like… a Fire-Lizard for attack and a Water-Serpent for healing. It makes you a versatile weapon, but the internal conflict is terrifying. If the spirits hate each other, they will cause internal ’Essence Shocks’ during battle. You could be mid-swing and suddenly start coughing up blood because your fire and water spirits decided to have a spat.”

Sol processed this instantly. His Memory Palace was already mapping out a build. Strength, speed, defense. As a veteran he knew that more spirits, more opportunity, and protagonists always chose the balanced route. Those with a single specialization always end up as stepping stones.

“So, the goal is to find a beast that matches your resonance,” Sol said, steering the conversation back to safety.

“For most, yes,” Kira said. “You find a beast that is slightly weaker or equal to you. Once tamed, the spirit is ’anchored’ into your Sun Core. From there, it becomes a part of you. It grants you two types of power.”

She held up two fingers.

“First is the Passive Manifestation. It is the permanent sensory and physical upgrade. If you bind an Eagle, your vision sharpens forever. If you bind a Bat, you gain sonar. If you bind a Rhino, your skin becomes naturally denser. You don’t have to think about it; it’s just who you are now.”

She then clenched her fist. “Second is the Active Manifestation. This is the ’Cloaking.’ By burning the Essence stored in your Sun Core, you project the spirit outward. A ghostly, translucent outline of the beast appears around you, mimicking your every move. It adds the beast’s raw power, its claws, its speed, and its specific spirit-techniques to your own. That is how we fight the Marauders. That is how we survive.”

“Of course, all of it depends on which layer you are at, layer 1 you only get a bit of boost, real change starts at layer 2 and so on.”

In the middle of the conversation, they finally reached a towering structure carved from the white heartwood of the Spire. It was the guest house, its balconies draped covered by different flowering plants and lit by soft, emerald moss-lamps.

Kira stopped at the door, her stormy eyes searching his crimson ones for a moment. She looked like she wanted to say more… perhaps to ask again where he truly came from, or why he carried such a strange, heavy aura… but she held back.

“You’ll know more about the specific techniques later,” she said, her voice weary. “For now, stay here. Rest. Don’t go wandering… the city is on high alert, and the guards are jumpy. Just be careful, Sol.”

Without even waiting for him to reply, she turned and began to walk away, her figure disappearing into the shadows of the suspension bridge.

Sol pushed open the doors to the guest house. The room was lavish, filled with the scent of wild jasmine and the soft, rhythmic music of leaves rustling. He walked to the balcony, looking out at the silver-leafed forest stretching toward the horizon.