Chapter 126: Soul Gate
The Soul Fragments "the white dots" gradually began merging with Rios’s Soul Domain, and Rios quickly realized what was happening and began following the instructions he had learned from the Soul techniques he had purchased.
According to the instructions of the Soul techniques, Rios began controlling the Soul Fragments and merging them into something called Soul Essence!
The Soul Fragments began merging with one another under Rios’s guidance.
Rios directed two Soul Fragments to merge with each other, but he found them repelling one another!
Tsk!
Rios ignored that repulsion and began increasing the number of Soul Fragments entering that fusion. After the number of fragments that had begun merging reached ten, the repulsion finally disappeared and they merged together.
The shape of the small white dots, each with a different form, disappeared, and was replaced by a small, shining white sphere... smaller than a fingertip!
It might seem that the process took a lot of time, but in reality, it took no more than a few seconds.
After Rios finished creating the first Soul Essence, he began creating the second, then the third, then the fourth, then.....
After Rios finished creating one hundred Soul Essences, something strange began happening in his Soul Domain!
From the cracks that had appeared in the ground, something resembling white water began flowing, and something resembling small grass began growing from the ground. In the sky, something resembling clouds began forming, and around Rios’s original soul "the Tree of Abyss," specifically around the trunk, a white ring began forming!
"It’s the First Gate!" Rios looked at the ring that had formed around his trunk in shock and joy!
This was the first of the Soul Gates, which was equal in power to someone at Level Four of the Energy Path!
The Soul Path was different from the Energy Path.
The Energy Path focused on Laws and how to control and wield them, and it was divided into several Levels.
Meanwhile, the Soul Path focused on spells, curses, and controlling Soul Containers, and instead of Levels, there were Gates.
They were recognized as follows...
Wis (4) = First Soul Gate
Wis (5) = Second Soul Gate
Wis (6) = Third Soul Gate
Calamity (7) = Fourth Soul Gate
Calamity (8) = Fifth Soul Gate
Immortal Realm = Golden Gates
Rios had created the First Gate, but he had not finished merging all the Soul Fragments yet. In fact, he had to say that he had not even finished merging five percent of them yet!
Driven by his desire and his thoughts about the extent of the possibilities and power all these fragments would grant him after he merged them and turned them into Soul Essence, Rios rushed like a madman to merge these fragments...
Time gradually passed, and Rios threw himself into merging every fragment he found in front of him....
After an unknown amount of time, Rios finally finished merging all the Soul Fragments into Soul Essence, and in the end, Rios was surprised by the amount of Soul Essence he had managed to create...
Not because it was more than he expected, but because it was less than expected!
It was known that creatures with consciousness or those possessing souls, but who did not follow the Soul Path, had a fixed number of Soul Fragments throughout their lives. This number might increase slightly with the passage of time or during rare events, but unless one followed the Soul Path, there was almost no hope of increasing their Soul Fragments...
The number of Soul Fragments possessed by animals, monsters, and creatures with lower consciousness ranged from one Soul Fragment to five Soul Fragments. Meanwhile, the number of Soul Fragments possessed by humans, humanoids, and creatures with higher consciousness ranged from six Soul Fragments to ten Soul Fragments.
As the Centaur race belonged to humanoid creatures, the soul of each one of them should have contained at least six and at most ten Soul Fragments. Rios had killed thirty thousand of them, which meant there should have been more than two hundred thousand fragments.
And they were there... but this enormous number had produced only around six thousand Soul Essences!
"Before the First Gate was created, ten fragments were enough to create one Soul Essence, but after creating it, the number immediately doubled, making the creation of one Soul Essence require at least twenty fragments. And the more Soul Essence I created, the greater the number of fragments required to create a single Soul Essence became. When I approached creating the Second Gate, one Soul Essence required more than thirty fragments to form. After creating the Second Gate, it required more than forty Soul Fragments to create a single Soul Essence.
And now that I’ve reached halfway through creating the Third Gate, the number of fragments I need to merge together to create a single Soul Essence has reached around fifty!"
Rios held his chin and began thinking to himself.
At first, it required ten fragments to produce one Soul Essence. And because the First Gate did not require much Soul Essence to be created, he didn’t notice this matter much.
But after the First Gate, the Second Gate required one thousand Soul Essences to be created.
That was a huge number of Soul Essences, and Rios noticed the increasing demand for Soul Fragments for each Soul Essence he created.
The Third Gate required ten thousand Soul Essences to be created, but he had only reached halfway. After creating the First and Second Gates, he had only five thousand Soul Essences remaining.
"The difference between creating each Gate and the next is tenfold." Rios looked at the five thousand Soul Essences that had begun merging with his Soul Domain and observed the changes that had begun occurring.
Small trees had begun growing, and rocks had begun appearing. But there were no signs of life other than the Centaur race!
"At this rate, the Third Gate will require ten thousand Soul Essences, and I already have half of that number. But to obtain enough Soul Fragments to create the remaining half of the Soul Essence, killing only thirty thousand won’t be enough this time!"
Rios sighed from the headache caused by all the calculations, then looked at his original soul, "the Tree of Abyss," and the two circular Gates rotating around its trunk. He then shifted his gaze toward the manifestation of the Tree of Abyss’s soul itself, furrowed his brows, and said in an annoyed voice.
"What the hell am I missing!
First, I can’t awaken the Power of Abyss, then the Law Resonance that I’m supposed to possess as an Immortal-grade mutated bloodline, I can’t find any trace of it.
And now even the Soul Talent isn’t appearing after creating two Soul Gates!"