‘This is big! Very big!’
Even though he had managed to calm himself, he still couldn’t contain the flood of joy that welled up inside him.
Ellis’s ability had turned out to be even more impressive than he thought!
And why was that? It was quite simple.
Northern’s main ability was talent copying. But it had restrictions: there were limited slots for the talents he could copy at a particular rank.
Somehow, it was impossible for him to choose what talent he wanted to copy.
Talents were copied when they were activated in front of him. Of course, he could decide not to copy them despite having the required amount of talent fragments, but the real issue was there was no way he could see the information of these talents until he copied them.
However, with Ellis’s ability [See]
If he used it on anyone, he’d be able to see their profile, see their true name, talent, attribute and talent ability.
It might not be much, but that means that Northern, as compared to before, now had an option of choosing what talent ability to copy.
And that, to him, was a big difference!
Coincidence had caused him to copy his father’s talent. Several other times, he had often thought about how it would be if he copied another person’s talent instead of his father’s.
A stronger talent.
But there was no use dwelling on it.
Besides, having that [Advanced Cloning] had made a lot of things easier for him and made him stronger than expected thus far.
For example… Dark Terror.
Not to say, there seemed to be more chances of having more Singularity monsters unconditionally loyal to him and obey him.
The prospects it offered were nice… even though that was just a coincidence.
Ellis’s too was a coincidence.
A sweet smile graced Northern’s lips.
‘Thank you for your work thus far… from now on, I’ll take the reins.’
From this moment, Northern now had full control on what talent to copy.
He exhaled and looked up, ‘Man, I should treat that guy to a nice meal or get him something.’
Northern nodded his head, he crouched, placing a tensile force on his lower legs and released himself, shooting upward like a fired bullet. Then he directed the trajectory mid-air and curved into the window, landing inside with finesse.
“Hey, Ellis.”
Ellis, who was trying to figure out a decaying book on the table, shivered away in shock, almost falling off the chair.
“Darn it! What was that crazy sudden entrance?”
Even though [Sense] always worked, he didn’t even know Northern had entered — the boy was swifter than his sense could keep up, or perhaps there was just some other trick to it.
Ellis scratched his head and slowly recomposed himself on the chair.
‘I hope I don’t have a heart attack before leaving this continent.’
He craned his neck at Northern who was staring vibrantly, waiting for a response.
“You called me… sir?”
Northern nodded with a smile. The smile was offsetting for Ellis, it made him uncomfortable…
‘What is it again? I can’t tell a thing that is going on in his head,’ Ellis complained internally.
Northern, after Ellis spoke, immediately brought out a couple of soul cores and poured them before Ellis.
“These are for you.”
Ellis raised a brow, he looked at the cores and looked at Northern again.
“You are giving me these?”
Northern nodded, “Yes,” he added, “absorb them and let’s go to the castle. Or do you want to do it when we come back?”
“No, no. I’d rather do it now. But what are we going to do in the castle?”
Northern slightly puckered his brows.
“What do you mean? Are you not going to make enquiries and try to see what you can do about the items I gave you?”
“Ah… yes, but can’t we wait for things to calm down? It has only been three days.”
“Three days is a lot of time for things to settle,” Northern replied, his tone hushed and firm.
Ellis silently observed Northern’s face that was fixated on his eyes. Both of them stared at each other for a while.
Then Ellis’s eyes glided down to the soul cores scattered at his feet, some had rolled under the table.
“Are you sure you want to give me this?”
Northern folded his arms, “Do you want me to have it back?”
“No, no, not at all. I was just… uhm, sorry, I’ll just absorb them now.”
Ellis looked away in a slight flush of embarrassment and sat on the hardwood floor.
He managed to bring all the soul cores together and crossed his legs, then placed them within his crossed legs.
He took one, placed it on his right hand, allowing it to sit comfortably on his palm, then he placed his index finger at the top, his thumb towards the side of the orb and began to breathe.
Northern watched as Ellis absorbed the cores with a bit of jealousy etched across his features.
‘He sure looks cool,’ he sneered internally.
In less than three minutes, the soul core became transparent like glass with cracks running over it.
At this point, it’s just an ordinary orb that can be used as raw material for glass of low class ornamental designs.
Northern watched Ellis repeat the same thing for the other nine cores. When he was done, he smiled and stood up.
‘I can feel the changes slowly…’ Ellis clenched his fist.
Northern squinted his eyes, ‘Let’s see…’ he activated [See] again.
Name: Ellis Ruthsworn
True Name: [The Blind Song]
Attributes: [Sense]
Soul Rank: [Drifter]
Soul Core Saturation: Low
Talent: [Soul Eyes]
Talent Class: [C]
Talent Ability: [See]
Northern knitted his brows in slight confusion, ‘What? No changes at all?’
Northern felt the “Soul Core Saturation” part was where it indicated Ellis’s soul core growth, perhaps it’d eventually go from low to mid, then to high and maybe break into the next rank.
After ten soul cores, he had at least hoped to see some kind of changes. But there was none.
It wasn’t like the progression was recorded in numbers like his.
But still, Northern was curious.
He looked at Ellis in the eyes and asked:
“How many soul cores have you absorbed so far?”
Ellis arched his brow, lingered for a couple of seconds before responding:
“If I’d count the Central Plain and here, I’d say a little over a hundred soul cores.”
“I see…” Northern paused for a second and asked again, “and how many more would you need to advance to the next rank?”
Ellis’s eyes widened a little, he was shocked by Northern’s questions and his hopes were slowly rising… ‘Does he want to give me more?’
“I guess around nine hundred more, since it takes a thousand soul cores to go into the next level. But it also depends on the monster rank of the soul cores, the higher the rank, the more essence they contain. So for higher rank monster soul cores, it’d probably not be as much.”
Northern nodded, “I see…” he looked at Ellis again, “so how many did you take to become a drifter?”
Ellis tensed his forehead in a faint frown of confusion, “You’re asking a weird question. It’s impossible to absorb soul cores while being a walker. The best most people like the elite clans and nobles do is educate their children and teach them all sorts which requires a lot of money. But it’s not wasted, since a walker can only advance to the next rank when they successfully come out of a rift.”
Ellis, after explaining, looked at Northern’s focused eyes. Unlike Northern, he received a lot of classes on rifts before becoming a walker, even.
Although his education in that regard is still inferior to many.
But he was far better than Northern. Looking at Northern’s face, Ellis felt the irresistible urge to continue, since Northern seemed so interested in what he was saying.
“Generally, the fast way to grow is by entering rifts, compared to killing monsters. When a rift is cleared, when the soul core is broken, the rift essence is shared into two. Half is poured into the soul of the person that strikes the soul core, the other half is shared among other drifters in the rift.
“It’s simple and straightforward, no absorption technique is needed, it just automatically pours into the soul. Which is why several drifters prefer entering rifts in order to grow.”
When Ellis was done, he saw that Northern’s eyes were glued to him.
‘I feel good… he paid attention throughout. Now, where are my soul cores?’
Northern nodded his head as all the information settled in and formed a more fundamental understanding of a lot of things.
‘I can’t believe I didn’t know this much and entered the rift. Wait, since I cleared the rift myself, shouldn’t all the essence be poured in me? Or since I don’t have a soul core, it doesn’t work like that.’
Northern wondered for a short while and shoved the thought to the back of his mind for now. He stood up.
“Come on Ellis. Let’s go to the castle now…”
Ellis arched a brow slowly, looking at Northern, ‘No, soul cores?’