BXBX NOVEL Chapter 215: Enlightenment
\'Can I just drop out of here pleaseeee…\'
\'Why do we need to know all of this?\'
Most of the class were bored out of their minds, but a select few of them, like Alex and the big chested girl, were still fully focused.
It was students like Alex and the big chested girl that were the reason why Dr Zoric even accepted the job of teaching here.
The Soul studies community may be small, but it was hugely appreciated by the awakened community, especially the higher life forms among the awakened.
And without inquisitive and interested students like Alex and the big chested girl, this research topic would very quickly die off when people like Dr Zoric retire or die.
As for Alex, he was deep in thought at the moment.
\'Energy… Souls… what do these two have in common that makes them linked…\'
Dr Zoric had explained a little bit about the research that he and a few other elite researchers on the subject had conducted, but he didn\'t go into enough depth for Alex to get any sudden epiphanies or anything like that.
\'Maybe our soul cores are actual, physical entities somewhere inside our bodies like the energy core I created when I perfected the Heart of the Phoenix technique in one go? Maybe-\'
Speaking of epiphanies, it seemed like Alex had just found one.
His eyes bloomed open as the other students around him looked at him strangely as he looked off into the open air at nothing in particular, with such an enlightened and gleeful look on his face.
But in reality, Alex was looking at a spew of system messages that were pouring in.
[Congratulations, you\'ve actually learned something from this class. How smart you are!]
The first message was the system\'s usual sarcastic quip towards Alex.
It seemed like it had gone back to normal after it suddenly started acting weird the previous day.
[The third layer of your Soulforge talent has been unlocked.]
\'?\'
Alex was confused.
Wasn\'t he supposed to have learned something more about the second layer, and how these \'Remnant souls\' are supposed to be useful to him?
How the hell did he end up skipping that entirely and unlocking the third layer?
None of it made sense to Alex, but then again, a lot of things in life made no sense to him.
He just went with it and decided to take a look at what had changed about his talent.
[Soulforge(Soul+): First layer - Condenses the energy of any slain beast into a more refined energy source called soul orbs — the most valuable energy resource in the universe, many would sacrifice millions just for the chance to get one.
Absorbing these soul orbs dramatically enhances your physical abilities beyond what others can do alone with Beast cores, while simultaneously condensing your own energy, enabling any attacks you deliver to be stronger than your peers.]
[Second layer - Soul orbs don\'t just contain energy, but they can also contain the remnant soul of the defeated foe inside. This is dependent on the strength of the beast\'s soul, so higher classed and higher ranked beasts will have a higher chance of harbouring these remnant souls.
Through absorbing soul orbs you will gain some remnant memories of the slain beast, chosen at random from the beast\'s entire lifetime — Find out the rest for yourself.]
[Third layer - Souls and energy are intrinsically linked. Every soul has a certain amount of higher class energy in them. Absorbing lower class soul orbs now affords you two options.
Option one, you can absorb it like normal, and use it to progress towards the next rank. Or with option two, you can absorb it, and refine the energy gained into its higher class equivalent.
However, if you do choose the second option, be aware that the amount of progress you will get towards upgrading your own class will be substantially lower than absorbing a soul orb made of complete higher class energy.
Remark: Choosing the second option also voids the chance of gaining any remnant souls, as they will also be needed to refine the higher class energy.]
\'What the hell??\'
Alex didn\'t know what to think.
He had gained more comprehension into souls, but the same stupid \'Find out the rest for yourself\' was still there on the description of his second layer…
However, he had a sudden realisation.
What if the system meant to find out through actually absorbing a beast\'s remnant soul, not through gaining comprehension…
\'Fuckkkk, I am so stupid!\'
Alex felt like an idiot for not even considering this until AFTER he had come up with the plan to systematically learn more about souls through the Soul studies class.
But he also realised that it was still a very good decision regardless.
It led him to unlock the third layer of his Soulforge talent, and might even enable him to unlock more layers, if they existed, further down the line as he attended more lectures.
Speaking of new layers, Alex inspected the third layer and his whole attitude flipped when he read through it.
\'This is fucking amazing! Maybe I really do have the strongest talent!\'
The fact that he could now refine lower class energy into higher class energy was simply unheard of!
It didn\'t matter if the energy he would gain from only gave him decimals towards his progress towards Variant class.
With enough Mutant class soul orbs, those decimals would add up very quickly.
Not to mention the fact that there were A LOT more Mutant beasts than Variant beasts.
The only Variant beast he had ever come across wasn\'t even through natural methods, but from a summoning.
Meanwhile, he occasionally met Mutant Class beasts every few days while hunting in the Primordial Expanse.
This made it so that even if he didn\'t find a single Variant class beast when he went out on missions to Floodgates, he could still gain some progress towards Variant class, so it wouldn\'t exactly be a waste of time.