I have Nine Lives

Chapter 57: Trying to create a soul technique

To create a technique from scratch was impossible for the current Felix, he had no further knowledge of souls besides the basics which he learned from experiencing them head-on.

Maybe he would have to talk with Siracha after his escape, it was dumb for him to jump inside with no plans but he was high on the feeling that his improvement was good enough for him to absorb the severely disabled opponent. Seems he was wrong.

Felix mulled upon what he could use to escape from this situation... maybe he could transform his stealth technique to better adapt to his soul rather than his body? He was using the same footwork as the one he was doing in his physical body so it was obviously not gonna cut it for his soul body, there were similar effects but Felix could feel that this wasn't the full potential of his soul.

While he was hiding the bear was rampaging around like the mindless beast it was... as long as Felix didn't reveal himself or tried to leave the mindscape he wouldn't get attacked which left him with enough time to mull over the things he had to and transform the techniques he used in his body to something that could be used in his soul form perfectly.

As he didn't know how time passed in his mindscape he wasn't sure how much time had passed since he entered, maybe it was a week? maybe a month? Or maybe even a few seconds passed outside, who knew? Thoughts moved so fast they couldn't be calculated properly in the outside world speed, especially now that his soul was way stronger than before, his thought processing also increased in speed just like a computer which got a processor upgrade.

His thoughts moved so fast that he didn't feel time pass at all, so did the time pass or not?

He would see as soon as he got out.

His blue soul energy engulfed him like a cloak, every being had soul energy regardless if they were from another dimension or this dimension as souls were made from that energy, so while Felix couldn't use his own hex energy and had to rely on the surrounding energy, he had his own soul energy that he could use!

With his rudimentary almost non-existent knowledge about soul energy and his familiarity with the stealth breathing technique and footwork, he created a new technique that he could use to exude his soul energy full potential!

It was just its embryonic form but as time passed Felix would surely improve upon it as long as he continued to use it!

Felix's disappearance was total now... he couldn't be found at all as he fused into his mindscape and became one with it, it was the highest realm of stealth that he couldn't even employ in his real physical body!

The highest realm of stealth consisted of becoming untraceable even while attacking regardless if the person knew killing intent detection or not! It was a perfect fusion between killing intent masking and the ability to turn invisible, melding into the surroundings making yourself unable to be found even by the Gods!

Felix felt that he had reached that realm... or well not that high up but he was still pretty much above what his physical body could do right now.

He approached the rampaging black bear and started to attack him with all he had trying to open up the wound that he had created on his neck, even though the wound closed itself that didn't mean the area was as sturdy as it was before.

The bear went as crazy as it could but... it couldn't understand who was attacking it at this point, he went around randomly but unlike before he couldn't feel where Felix attacked from, it felt like the world itself was slashing at him using spatial tempests and attacks he couldn't perceive!

This made it reach the limits of its anger as its black fur turned deeply red and his eyeballs fell from his head, he started to walk on two feet as all the froth at his mouth turned yellow and his intestines appeared out of his stomach, they burned with a deep green flame and the shout of its crazed existence created ripples across all of Felix's mindscape.

Such raw power... without any control appeared in the soul body of the black bear shaman, this wasn't a technique the previous memories of the soul knew, this was just pure anger manifesting itself as a talent that the shamanic soul could employ when it was pushed to its limits, this wasn't something that could be activated consciously!

Felix's memories trembled as cracks appeared on the soul nodes that Felix created to hold them, finally after a long while the bear could damage the memories! Even though the damage was only to the 'frames' that were holding the memories, any damage to the frames would scatter his memories and put him in a similar situation compared to the time when he first made his way into the mindscape.

Felix frowned as he continued to attack the more exposed wound that appeared on his neck, the more he slashed at it the deeper the wound became and the more blue blood spurted from it, the bear couldn't be angered anymore at this point so it just rampaged anywhere that it could move to make deep cracks appear on the support of the soul nodes.

Felix could feel his soul body making cracking sounds alongside the supports that were constantly getting more and more cracked... this certainly wasn't good.

At this point Felix's eyes started to sparkle with an interesting thought... since these were his memories anyway, could he absorb them in his main soul body just like he did with the soul bodies of the other 'intruders' that his ability absorbed?

Felix looked at all of his memories and opened his mouth deeply as he inhaled them, they quickly started to move towards his direction which grabbed the attention of the immensely angered bear, the moment those memories started to move, he instinctively attacked that direction with a claw flying attack that left a slash mark of soul energy that bisected the support of some of the soul nodes leaving the memories in the open!

Felix didn't care about the incoming slash as he sidestepped it and absorbed one memory into his soul body... His soul started to glow as he absorbed the memory and he felt it etch itself inside him, so deeply that he couldn't ever forget it anymore! It was something akin to photographic memory.

All the damage done to the support soul node was also recovered, Felix continued to absorb all of the memories not letting the soul of the bear damage them any further as his soul started to increase in size taking more and more space in the mindscape.

At one point his stealth technique unveiled itself but the moment the angry bear saw his size he unconsciously let out a fart of fear!

He almost yipped as he tried to run away but Felix had already finished absorbing all of his memories, if their sizes were to be compared, Felix was Godzilla while the bear shaman's soul was a random car that Godzilla could easily trample.

Felix ignored its attempts at escaping as it grasped the soul with his paw, his gigantic mouth opened as he popped the soul into his mouth and started crunching it, the soul was rather hard to crunch even for Felix's new size but with a little bit of continuous munching, the soul transformed into the soul energy that was absorbed into Felix's soul body...

The immense soul energy from the bear shaman's body activated itself as it rushed inside Felix's gigantic body starting to compress it continuously reducing its size back to his normal form, just a little bit bigger than an average dog, he was practically as big as a wild cat.

He breathed out a black mark of energy that dissipated into his mindscape before leaving his body altogether, then it quickly flew into the skies disappearing from existence.

Felix could feel his soul quality changing somewhat after he ate the bear shaman... its strength didn't advance much but he could feel that it had gained some properties that it didn't have before. It gained the hardness of the bear shaman so his soul defenses soared to the point that Felix thought that it was above the former bear shaman's soul, but not by much.

His multiple lives didn't get affected at all, they remained at the number 9 as it was seemingly the limit of the ability and nothing else changed... he did gain a few fragmented memories that weren't his, as he absorbed them into his main soul body he realized that they were some of the bear shaman's childhood memories...

The bear shaman was different as a child, he had purple short hair and he wore a small dark robe that hid his body under it, it seemed he was currently going through a ceremony as he was kneeling in front of an old man who was pressing his hands upon his forehead... he was inserting some information that Felix couldn't gain due to the memory being too fragmented... but he could see the dark energy that he expelled enter his brain afterward rushing towards his soul where it took root.

The memory stopped there then skipped to his teen years... as a shaman prospect he grew up to be strong and wild and with time he defeated all of the other shaman candidates while taking the throne...

More time passed and the man went through more and more ancestral sacrifices giving his piety to the ancestors while he was granted strength, information techniques, and sometimes equipment for his troops...

At this point, the memories ended and Felix woke up from his reverie to find himself in the inn bed... he looked at the simple watch that stood on the wall near his bed and realized that from the moment he went to bed to this point 9 hours passed... but that wasn't counting the days, Felix was only counting hours.

Suddenly the door of his room opened for Lindo to rush through with a concerned look on his face.

It seemed he did sleep quite a bit.