Chapter 4: Soul Library [2]
The Soul Library panel sat in front of him with one entry.
Alden selected it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Soul Library
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Species: Wolf
Wolf Soul Fragment ×1
Blueprint Progress: 10%
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Known Concepts
✔ Keen Hearing [Unlocked]
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Undiscovered Concepts
??? [Requires 20% Blueprint]
??? [Requires 50% Blueprint]
??? [Requires 100% Blueprint]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He looked at it and the pieces fell into place on their own.
’Every time I extract a soul from the same species, the Blueprint grows. And as it grows, more Concepts unlock.’
Which meant the more of the same creature he hunted, the deeper his understanding of that species became. Eventually he’d have everything. Every instinct, every ability, every trait a wolf had ever carried.
’That’s actually insane.’
’System. Equip Keen Hearing.’
[Concept: Keen Hearing equipped successfully.]
His ears changed.
One second the forest was quiet. The next second it wasn’t, because it had never been quiet.
Leaves brushing against each other thirty meters away. Insects crawling under bark. The rhythm of small wings somewhere in the canopy. And beyond all of that, far past where vision ended, the faint continuous sound of a waterfall he couldn’t see.
"...No way."
He stood in the middle of the forest and heard all of it at the same time.
[Wolf Blueprint: 10% → 17%]
’So using the ability increases it too.’
"This is so co—"
"Help!" A scream tore through the trees.
High-pitched. Old. Coming from the direction of the house.
’Darius?’ Alden turned and started running before the thought finished.
The old man was on the ground beside the porch, one hand on his staff, struggling to get his legs under him.
Alden got to him in seconds and pulled him upright.
"You alright Gramps?"
"Claire." Darius’s hands weren’t steady. "She should have been back by now. She always comes back before dark."
"Where is she?"
"The spring." He pointed into the trees to the left. "She goes there before sleeping. But it’s been too long."
Alden looked at the forest. Then he turned back to the old man.
"Stay inside, I’ll find her." He ran before the old man could answer.
Something bothered him as he moved through the trees.
He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, just a feeling sitting. Darius had sounded like a man who already knew something bad had happened.
Not like a man worried because someone was late. Like a man who knew.
’I’m probably overthinking it. He’s old and she’s his granddaughter and it’s dark. That’s enough reason to panic.’
He pushed it aside. Claire first. Questions after.
Then through the dark and the distance and the filtered sound of branches and wind, his enhanced hearing caught something.
"Help!"
He stopped dead.
The sound had come from multiple directions at once, bounced between the trees.
’I can’t find her like this. I have to concentrate. Focus. Filter out everything else.’ He closed his eyes.
The insects dropped away. The wind dropped away. The creek somewhere to the right dropped away.
The voice arrived again. Direction locked.
"Help!"
He opened his eyes and ran toward it.
[Wolf Blueprint: 17% → 18%]
The forest opened after another minute of hard running, and he came out at the edge of a clear spring. Moonlight sat flat across the water.
Claire was in the deepest part of the spring with her back against the rocks. She had nowhere to go.
Three wolves ringed the bank in front of her.
"Alden!" The relief in her voice was immediate.
"You hurt?"
"No. I’m scared."
"Stay in the water. Don’t move."
He grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it at the nearest wolf. It hit the flank and the wolf spun with a growl, and all three of them turned away from Claire and toward him.
He leveled the sword.
"Come try me instead."
The first one ran out of patience. It charged through the shallow water instead of going around, which slowed it down considerably, which gave Alden two extra seconds he needed.
He stepped into the water and drove the blade through its throat.
It dropped without a sound.
[Power Combat: 1.5 → 2.0]
He crouched and pressed his hand to it immediately.
The black energy pulled free and sank into his arm.
[Soul extracted — Wolf Blueprint: 18% → 28%]
[New Concept Unlocked: Predator’s Instinct]
[Description: Slightly increases reaction speed and battle intuition for 5 seconds.]
He had about half a second to read it before the second wolf left the ground.
’System. Equip Predator’s Instinct.’
[Concept equipped.]
Everything seemed to slow down.
’Wait, why is everything suddenly slo—’ Then it hit him.
He had just become so fast that everything else looked slow.
He knew because his own hands moved exactly as fast as they always had, but the wolf above him was hanging in the air like something had paused it. Water droplets floated beside its paws. Its expression was frozen mid-snarl.
He stepped to the side and raised the sword.
Slash!
The sword cut fast. The wolf went loose and dead, still hanging in the air.
[Power Combat: 2.0 → 3.0]
He quickly turned to the third one.
The slow feeling vanished. And the mid-air dead wolf landed on the ground.
[Predator’s Instinct Cooldown: 5 mins]
Five seconds were already done.
’Ah, shit! I should have been faster! I’m done for real now.’
The third wolf looked at the other two. Its ears went flat. It made a sound that was nothing like a growl and then turned and ran into the trees.
’It ran away?’ Alden stood there for a second and exhaled. He let it go.
[Predator’s Instinct Used — Wolf Blueprint: +5%]
He crouched beside the second corpse and extracted its soul. The familiar black streams flowed into his arm.
[Soul successfully extracted.]
[Wolf Blueprint: +10%]
[Wolf Blueprint: 43% — Total Fragments: ×3]
[+500 EXP!]
[Level Up!]
[Level: 3 — EXP: 750/1000]
He immediately hurried back to the spring.
"Claire—" He turned around. "You can come out."
She waded toward the bank and then stopped at the edge with an expression that was less relieved than he expected.
"My spare clothes," she said. "I left them on the rocks. They’re gone." She looked at the surrounding ground. "The wolves must have dragged them off."
He looked at the rocks. A towel sat folded near the water’s edge.
"That yours?"
"Yes."
He handed it to her, then pulled his academy coat off and held that out too.
"Use both."
"Thank you" She took them without saying much.
______
The sky was just starting to get light when they walked back. It was that shade of dark blue that means the sun is coming soon.
The cabin came into view through the trees.
Darius sat on the porch with a cup of tea.
Alden slowed his steps.
The man who had been on the ground, trembling, calling for help with a voice that shook was now sitting with perfect calm on a wooden chair, looking at the treeline like he’d been there all night.
"...Gramps?"
"So." Darius set his cup down. "You’re back."
"Yeah. Claire’s sa—"
"What do you think, Claire?" He interrupted.
Alden stopped.
He looked at Claire. Something in her face had changed.
The scared girl from the spring was gone. She held his coat over one arm and looked at Darius with a completely stern expression.
"I don’t think he’s that kind of person," she said, pulling her blade out.
Alden’s mouth was still open from the sentence he hadn’t finished.
He looked between them.
"...What?"
Claire had changed into a neat academy uniform.
He hadn’t even noticed. He didn’t know when it had happened.
His eyes went down to the uniform and then back to her face and then to Darius, who was no longer bent.
The old man straightened slowly. The curved spine disappeared. The frailty in his arms disappeared.
The careful shuffle of someone who needed a staff became the deliberate stillness of someone who had never needed one.
His posture settled into something tall.
The wrinkles were still there. The white hair was still there. But the man behind them was entirely different.
"What is this all about? what is going o—"
"Relax, Alden." He turned to look at him with a serious face. "You were simply being tested."
After a moment of silence, the sun rose. The light slowly reached Darius.
Alden’s eyes moved across the man’s face.
He knew that face. He had written a character just like this.
’Why is he here? What does he want from me?’
He was an important side character in his novel.
Darius Thorne.
The soon-to-be Headmaster of Astral Academy. He was also the grandfather of Claire and Sierra Thorne.