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"They’re trousers," he said aloud, dusting off the charcoal pants. "And it’s not about price. It’s about being civilized."

I rolled my eyes and continued speaking telepathically. What part of my request translated to the way you dress?

"You requested confrontation. I doth provide."

I picked up a pebble and threw it at him like a child. It bounced off him the moment before I heard the real pebble hit the ground. Kline’s ears twitched, and he looked at me. Narrowed his eyes at Lithco and then went back to sleep.

Lithco raised an eyebrow. "Are you done?"

I pouted. Yes. Well? You gonna tell me?

"Ah, yes. Soul cooking. I can’t tell you much about it without a skill, but I can say three things. First, it allows you to process the soul-force meat so it cooks normally. Second, doing that will refine it, increasing your soul force intake significantly—making it a wildly sought-after skill amongst the elite. Lastly, if you get good at it, you can even align beast-specific soul force patterns with your own. It’s called Adaptive Soul Refinement, and it allows you to steal certain elements—like soul force—specifically designed to harden a beast’s skin and make it part of your own. You’re nowhere near that level, but that’s one of those spicy benefits of a platinum technique."

I grimaced. But it’s out of my class…

"Which means you needa spend a diamond."

I cupped my hands into my face and groaned, capturing the attention of the lurvines. I blushed and stared ahead, refusing to increase the perception that I was crazy by staring into dead space like I was having a conversation.

They know I’m speaking to you, right?

"No~pe. These beasts don’t have a guide."

You’re kidding.

"I’m not. But that’s a discussion for later. Now then, I assume you want to know if it’s worth it? Hmmm?"

I held still. Yes.

"I don’t think you have a choice," Lithco said. "You need power now, and this’s crank it up for all of you now in a way that doesn’t require effort. No need to thread. Build cores. Do shielding. You just throw around some meat and it’ll get the job done."

I grimaced. I had two diamond requests left, perhaps the last two I would ever get, but there were advantages to this skill. I needed to eat three times a day, and this would give me power during every meal. And, at the very least, I wouldn’t have to eat burnt meat that took me ten hours to cook.

Do it… I whispered weakly in my mind.

I got the chime and got six books, five skills, ten tutorials, dozens of recipes, and a variety of spells. I didn’t even look at them. I just opened up the tutorial.

Teach me.

"Let me change," Lithco sighed. He got up and walked behind me. A minute later, he returned in chef gear, and I almost blew a gasket. I threw around some sarcastic remarks; he responded with sass and snark. We moved on.

The lurvines watched me untie the bear meat from one of the lurvines and take it back to my pop-out stove, which blew up into a wood fire stove just by adding some mana. I then pulled out cooking knives I got from the Big Bag ’o Tools and a core container. I gave Kline the third evolution core and brought some to Aiden and the lurvines. Then I sat down in front of a flat rock with the bear meat on it, knife in hand, waiting for Lithco to teach me.

We began.

2.

"Soul force aura makes you stronger and resilient to the elements," Lithco explained, duplicating my knife, rock, and meat to work with. "So, naturally you have to remove those elements to make it weak to fire."

Makes sense… I whispered.

"To do that, we need to learn spells. You have enough spells to process up to fifth evolution meat… although barely. And, like all things, it’s gonna take you time to learn it. Thankfully, the beast’s dead, and the foundational breakdown spell’ll process just about anything. It’s like trying to chisel a statue with a jackhammer, but it will work. That’s what we’re gonna learn today."

I nodded.

"Close your eyes and chant."

I did and learned that it had more in common with creating my soul core than threading mana. It sent icy chills through me as the world around me seemed to warp, and I felt intimately connected to the world around me, and it almost felt like foreign elements were trying to enter my skin like worms. It was disturbing.

"Feel that?" Lithco asked. "That’s you connecting to the soul network. It’s all around us, permeating the air as raw mana. The chills you’re feeling are coming from that raw mana trying to invade your mana channels and body. If it wins, it will corrupt your soul."

I cried out and stumbled back, capturing everyone’s attention. The lurvines sneered and treated me crazy. Kline growled at them. Aiden smoothed it over. Whatever he said made the lurvines look at me with wide eyes and then continue a conversation.

I moved on.

Why didn’t you tell me? I asked.

"There was no need," Lithco said. "What’s the point of having a soul core if you’re unable to withstand raw nature. Now chant. Once you feel that again, churn your soul core and see what happens."

I complied, and when I did, the world of soulmancy opened up before me.

3.

Soulmancy. The art of manipulating souls.

Between Lithco’s initial explanation and what I learned from my domain practice, there were two types of soul mana. The first was "aura," an internal usage that amplified the power or sharpness of attacks, increased your concentration and mental shielding, built resistance and attacks and natural elements, and created external pressure and domains to control your environment. The second, and one specific to soul manipulation, was called neara, an external soul mana that allowed you to communicate with people and creatures in wide networks, inflict mental attacks that distorted an opponent’s mind, allowed you to fix, strengthen, or refine souls, and to breathe life into other beasts or inanimate objects. This form of soul manipulation was truly terrifying—

—and it was coincidentally what I was practicing.

I churned my soul core while using the chant that Lithco taught me, and an icy chill of soul mana washed into my chest, making me feel a deranged sense of deja vu where I felt like I was on the verge of remembering something important.

"Judging by the clusterfuck you started at the river, you have learned soul cleansing somehow," Lithco said dryly. "It’s strange but it makes this easier to explain. You know how you feel like you’re gaining something right now?"

I nodded. Yeah… it’s different.

"Yes. That’s because cleansing only cleans the aura and neara. This allows you to thread the aura around your core and absorb it from within. The aura isn’t bad. It is uniform, and it’s just like winding thread around a bobbin, just like your mana core. But neara is different. There’s many types, and when you absorb them all, you absorb the types for enhancing intelligence, capturing memories and emotions, and the type that enhances the nerve system. Without a core, the neara would hijack your own, corrupting your soul. But with a core, you can cleanse the neara directly, breaking it down into raw energy to feed your own. That’s why you feel like you’re about to remember or experience something, only for it to be deleted a moment later. You’re taking it in and cleansing it."

That was all too much to process.

So… how does this relate to soul cooking?

"When a beast consumes raw soul meat, the aura inside works as a barrier, like time seal coating on medicines that prevent active ingredients from destroying your body," Lithco explained. "Once you remove the aura, the shield’s off, and eating it will corrupt their soul. That’s why you need to cleanse the neara inside the meat. It’s actually quite involved."

I looked at Kline and shivered. The thought of poorly processed soul meat corrupting his soul cranked up the pressure significantly.

Lithco put his hands on the bear meat. "Thankfully, you’ve already learned soul cleansing somehow, and what you learn here today will be useful on your path to soulmancy. So even if you mess up repeatedly, it will only help to make you stronger."

I nodded hesitantly and put my hands on the meat like Lithco. Got it.

"Now listen carefully. This is third-evolution meat. Do not break focus and crank your soul core to the maximum possible. After two seconds, release. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"Good, now repeat after me."

Lithco chanted to reconnect me to the soul network around me, and then I churned my core to the maximum.

"Good, now repeat after me." Lithco had me start another chant. Not a moment later, an extreme force slammed into my core, and I thought I’d lose my mind, personality, and consciousness. I spiraled into limbo, and when my spinning core caught up, I snapped back into my body. What followed was terrifying. I experienced a kaleidoscope of flashing images and intense emotions, making me cry out in pain and release the spell.

"What the fuck was that?" I screamed. Aiden rushed over, and Kline pawed me but I put both my hands up to stop them both.

Lithco remained calm. "That’s what happens when your core can’t process neara fast enough. It’s uncomfortable now, but the ability to see images and feel emotions can allow you to take over the eyes of beasts, feel emotions and speak to souls. Everything you experienced is the nature of your new Wood Wide Web spell."

I wanted to scream at him, but this was how it was—the thing I asked for. I dug my hands into the dirt as Kline licked my wrist with his scratchy tongue.

Why didn’t you warn me? I telepathically hissed to Lithco.

"Because someone I know’s got a bad habit of pushing things too far," Lithco said. "And if she does that here, she’ll lose her mind and body and soul in seconds. So it’s best to feel the risks around a teacher."

I released my hands from the dirt and grabbed my forearms. They felt cold and looked sickly pale.

"Wood Wide Web, Soul Cooking—Soul Pacts," Lithco said. "All the diamond-level spells you just bought have the ability to destroy your soul. So don’t fuck around."

I nodded.

He nudged his head to my backpack. "Get weaker meat."

I felt deep hesitation.

"The only way to overcome this type of trauma is to jump right back in," Lithco said gently. "But… try to trust me. It’ll be okay."

I did trust Lithco. I learned to be wary of his lessons a long time ago, but even that wariness wasn’t a bad thing. From the beginning, his warnings and lessons had helped me to survive. So I trusted his sincerity and pulled out the meat I had marinated.

I put my hands on it and Purified it. Then I touched it.

Okay… I said.

"Let’s begin." Lithco began chanting, and so did I, sides splitting with aches, soul strained with fear. Yet the minute I started pulling the aura from the meat, it felt like there was a gentle stream that I could wrap around my soul core. It wasn’t comfortable. It still had force and power, but it didn’t even affect my mind."

What’s… going on? I asked.

"When your soul force is stronger than what you’re interacting with, you have control over it. Before, neara was breaking out of the meat, but now, you’re unraveling the aura and any neara that does make it into your soul is within your cleansing tolerance."

Oh… I kept churning my core and fighting against the pressure. Amazingly enough, it started fading after a few minutes until I could barely feel it.

"That was step one," Lithco said. "Now it’s time to purify it."

I groaned but followed along he started chanting. The moment he hit his stride, my eyes widened in amazement when I realized that it was a rudimentary version of the cleansing spell I was using in the river. Very rudimentary. It was like playing tic-tac-toe when I was accustomed to chess.

Can I… I asked Lithco.

"Yes, you can use your cleansing technique."

I did, and soon, the energy within the meat turned smooth like whipped cream, uniform and mixed.

Is this right?

"That’s better than alright. Start up your stove and try it out."

I opened my eyes and looked at the meat. It looked dull and lifeless, but then I realized that it didn’t have an external soul-force glow.

I turned and found Aiden hugging his knees. Kline was to my right, sitting straight, eyes fixed on me.

I grimaced under the pressure but pulled out my cast iron skillet, used separation to remove the rust from my last trip into the water, put it onto the heating array, and heated it up. I waited for a minute for it to heat up, created a water drop on my finger, and let it drop into the pan. It sizzled and turned to steam.

I then pulled out marinated steaks and hesitantly threw them onto the pan, trying not to get my hopes up.

The second the steak reached the meat, it sizzled. Oh, yes, it sizzled. And it smelled incredible. I took in the aroma of strange edible plants and herbs from the marinade and then waited a few minutes before lifting it with a normal fork.

It was browning.

It was actually fucking browning! I wasn’t waiting a year and some change to get meat. It was browning in real-time.

"Oh fuck yes," I whispered aloud.

Lithco laughed as he looked around. The lurvines had slowly walked up to me and Aiden was trying to shoo them away. As for my little warrior, he rudely jumped onto my lap to get a better shh~niff, and I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t blame him. It was food. Real fucking food. I felt bad that Halten was dying while I felt so much joy, but it had been months since I ate something that didn’t taste like charcoal and disappointment.

Twenty minutes later, I sliced up slices of the medium rare steak and took a bite.