Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

Chapter 106  Soul

[Your mental fortitude and willpower have proven yourself worthy in the attack against your soul. The second layer of your talent [Soulforge] has been unlocked.]

The moment Alex read this notification, he was at first confused. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

'Why did this show up now? Don't these usually show up right at the moment you've achieved what it specifies? What's with the delay?'

In all honesty, Alex wasn't too shocked when he saw the notification about his most mysterious talent. He had known from the beginning that it was special compared to all of the other talents he had heard of, which was only further confirmed by the system itself calling it unique.

[Due to the nature of your talent, it took some time to process the information before you could be presented with your reward.]

"Right…" Alex voiced his thoughts aloud.

To be honest, at the moment Alex was far too tired and exhausted from the constant fighting to even bother comprehending anything the system was telling him.

The shock from the attack on his soul had emptied his energy reserves, and had drained any mental energy he had left.

Right now all he wanted to do was sleep.

And that's exactly what he did.

***

24 hours later, still on the periphery of the jungle.

'Fuck that hurts!'

Alex awoke with a migraine, feeling like his head was going to explode.

'I guess I know where the soul is located then… why does my head have to hurt so much if it's my soul that was attacked??'

Alex voiced out his resentments to himself, but nobody other than himself was listening. Nor would anyone care either.

'I feel like I slept for a week straight!'

Alex hadn't known exactly how long he was asleep, but he was honestly surprised he hadn't been woken up by some random beast coming over and trying to eat his sleeping body for supper.

Or maybe a beast actually did try, but he was just so tired and the beast was so weak that his body didn't even react.

'What was I doing again? Oh right, something about my Soulforge talent changed.'

With his mind slowly clearing up, memories of the previous day came back to him in waves and the most prominent of which was the notification about the 'second layer' of his talent being unlocked, whatever that meant.

'Thanks for the useless info system, it's not like I can check any details of my talent anyway. I still don't know if there's anything I missed about the so called first layer!'

Alex wasn't optimistic about anything, but he still checked anyway, because why not.

Talents: [Soulforge(Soul+)], [Flame(C-)], [Inferior teleportation(F+)]

'See, like I thought-'

Alex was so sure that there wouldn't be anything new that he didn't even give it a proper glance at first, but then he noticed the one thing that stuck out.

'It has a rank now…'

The big, gleaming Soul+ sat right next to his Soulforge talent, which stuck out like a sore thumb.

'So my talent has actually had a rank this whole time, and I didn't even know it…'

Alex felt a little excited at this, but he also felt a little bit of closure. The system said his talent was unique, but it never said anything about how strong the talent was compared to others. He had even started to doubt it himself, all his talent had done for him so far was enable him to collect another bit of loot when he killed beasts, soul orbs to be specific, and these soul orbs only strengthened him a bit more compared to beast cores, and provided a bit more energy to progress through the ranks.

But other than that, Alex wasn't exactly sure if it provided any other benefits to him. He had begun to doubt whether his talent was really that strong, considering there were people out there like Mira, who had not only an A- rank talent, but now even an S rank talent, which he could absolutely not compare to in terms of combat strength.

But even now, when he looked at the very eye catching Soul+ next to his Soulforge talent, he still had some doubts. 'What the hell kind of rank is 'Soul+' though? How the hell am I supposed to know if this is good or not?'

He had never heard of anything like this before, nor did he think anyone in the federation had either…

As far as Alex understood, the ranking of talents, soul cores etc all followed the standard F-S tier system that all ancient novels used for some reason.

But now, his talent wasn't even assigned the usual 'lettering', instead it literally had the word 'Soul' as its rank.

He suspected it had something to do with the talent itself, considering it was also in the name of the talent itself, but considering he had no information to go off of, as well as the fact that there was nowhere he could read up, or ask anyone about it, he pushed his thoughts aside for the time being.

Maybe some time in the future, he would get the chance to research more on the topic.2

Out of curiosity, he attempted to glean some more information about the talent, just like he had been able to with his other two.

He felt his mental power straining instantly and his energy reserves dropping, but in the end there was actually a result!

[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 - Find out for yourself.]

'Fucking finally!!'

Alex exclaimed in excitement, even letting out a few yelps of joy, disturbing the silence in the jungle.

He had finally been given some directions and information about the usage of his talent, and when he read the part about soul orbs being the 'most valuable energy resource in the universe', his heart nearly stopped.