6 Prologue 6 (1/2)

When I got back to the Master house the next day, I was preparing myself to scold him, but something unexpected happened. He wasn't there.

All I was able to find was a letter, a small booklet, and a flip phone. What is it, 2005?

The letter was short, something came up, and he will be back in a few weeks. In the meanwhile, I have to use that booklet to start training as a soul artist. When I master it, I can then go to a hunting ground to gain experience.

The phone was for emergencies only, there was only one number on it addressed to Devin Zaldivir, which I swiftly changed to Dumb Master.

Now the only important thing left was the booklet. On its cover, it said Five Transformations Cycle. It looked old and was handwritten, making it look even more aged.

The first page was talking about the soul and soul essence. What I was calling energy, is soul essence. Unlike elemental essence, it is not possible to use it for martial or arcane arts. This is because of its stability, it's impossible to make it change its 'nature'. But instead, it offers good defense against everything that is created using elemental essence.

Then how to increase it. The soul is like a muscle, it grows when it is used, and especially when it is strained. Then it will use the body's energy and resources to strengthen itself, because of this food needs to be consumed at a much higher rate.

Most of this I figured out by myself. But it's better to be sure then to suffer later, so I didn't skip a sentence.

The next page started talking about the five transformations cycle.They were as follow: manifestation, transformation, separation, expansion, and condensation.

Manifestation – using soul essence to manifest the soul image outside the body. It will act like armor and will strengthen the user.

Transformation – manipulating the shape of the soul image at will, allowing the user to create almost anything.

Separation – manifesting the soul image outside the body and separating it from the body while keeping control of it.

Expansion – increasing the size of the manifested soul to the maximum while keeping control of it. Granting user even greater strength.

Condensation – compressing the soul to the original size decreasing its size while keeping the amount of soul essence the same.

Then the cycle is repeated. The first four points were there to learn control of the soul energy and the manifested soul image. And the most important was the last point, the condensation. There is a limit to the size the soul can have, and it is the size of the body. When it grows bigger then the container, the execs will spill out.

So to keep strengthening yourself, the soul is condensed to a small size, after which it can grow again. This way I could increase my strength infinitely, with only limitations being time… and control. The higher the concentrations, the higher the difficulty of controlling will it be.

This will be difficult… the amount of food I will need to keep my soul growing… I will need a job.