“Looks like I have chosen the worst option,” Zalanir muttered while keeping a steady walk forward.

  It had been three hours since he went on this solo venture, luckily, no tough monsters thus far. Only low-level rats infested this area, it seemed, which he didn’t even need to fight. They scattered the moment the light from Shinnya’s gift came into contact, their frantic scramble added life to this otherwise lonesome expedition.

  Nah, it is what it is, he shook his head, hands stretched out, legs pressed on the hard floor and jumped up.

  An occasional double tournament was fun, but he was a single player through and through. Coaches, physiotherapists, and trainers were all necessary for his success, but when he walked on the court, only he and his rackets mattered. Life moved on. He needed to focus on the next opponent, and right now, it was to defeat the challenge of the Oasis of Misfortune.

  If anything, the name spoke to its difficulty already. Shinnya had mentioned the existence of a late C-grade meahli there, together with a community of these one-eyed foxes. He couldn’t just rely on what Josef said alone. It might very well be a thought-out trap.

  He had to prepare well. And that meant more testing. He could go wild now that he was alone.

  “Hey.” He popped up into the lantern, though as always, he lost sight of his surroundings outside.

  “We’re there already?” Josef asked.

  Scratched that. Wouldn’t work. He took a breath, leaning onto the wall for stabilization.

  “Hey.” He reappeared next to the main window.

  “Anything wrong—”

  Progress! For a blip, he existed in two places. Similar to daydreaming while running on the treadmill.

  “Hey!” He ventured into the lantern again. His eyes still registered the flickering flame of the ball in his palm, but at the same time, he also saw the black frame of the lantern. The two images layered neatly on top of each other.

  “…”

  Not just eyesight. He had to learn how to process the information separately as well. Also, couldn’t these guys be more fun in welcoming him to the lantern. He was still their owner!

  Taking time to let his senses stabilize, he tried again. And again.

  One time, he lost his foothold and banged his elbow onto the wall when he stepped forward. Hard to distinguish whether he was doing the action inside or outside. He swore his right leg had touched the floor already, but the result said otherwise.

  Another time, he ran straight into the wall, dizzied himself with a heavy bonk on the forehead. Josef and Cokhi had stopped even turning their heads now, probably already treating him as a madman for all the silliness he had exercised every time he popped inside.

  After the eighteenth time and several hours later, he shot a fire bolt into the wall while simultaneously running his avatar around the lantern. No tripping up this time.

  He did it again and then grinned.

  “Hey!”

  No response from any soul.

  “Hey Cokhi. I’m done. Now it’s your time.” On the outside, he resumed the walk toward the oasis. Now he needed a test subject.

  “Time for what?” the green soul asked, still lying on the floor.

  “The collaboration. Don’t you just eat my mana for nothing. It’s practice time.”

  Being able to split his attention was nice and all, but it wouldn’t help much with the actual combat. No. It was the job of Soul Collection. He pulled the description of the skill up again.

  [Soul Collection] — Universal unique: Grants the ability to mend and preserve souls with your energy, and allows you to become their expression. Grants the [Lantern of Verizss’ia] skill.

  He did it out of instinct and desperation to prove himself last time when fighting the Partition Racer, but now was time for a proper usage.

  Five sources of energy flared up inside his mind—three green, one red, and one gray—when he focused on the “become their expression” part of the skill. Didn’t require much intelligence to tell those were the five souls currently trapped inside his lantern.

  Cokhi had grown bigger with all the feeding, but still only one-fifth the size of the soul lion. Closer now to the soul cat, though. Would be a major boost if Cokhi would absorb the middle-sized portion. It was just lying uselessly in its own cell anyway. No sentience. No active movement. Just a piece of meat frozen in the freezer waiting for the owner to take out and cook into a meal.

  The weakest soul, different from his judgment, was Josef instead of the early C-grade meahli. The man’s energy power was probably only around the birduomera’s, which wouldn’t be of much practical use.

  He hovered his mental energy over Cokhi and “confirmed” with his right hand. His instinct told him to do that. Perhaps one of the dormant knowledge provided by the System when he first acquired the skill. This explained how he had pulled this off when he fought the silver snake.

  His veins turned black and bulged under his skin as if alive. He flipped his hand over. His palm was shredded and mangled. His skin twisted and moved. Despite that, there was no pain. Nothing at all.

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  Zalanir let the skill continue its work—or perhaps Cokhi, as its soul inside the lantern was floating up and glowing a deep green shade. Then, where his palm skin warped, a symbol of a creature on four limbs with pointed teeth appeared with the same hue.

  “Why are you in a tunnel?” Cokhi’s voice echoed inside the lantern.

  “You can see the outside?” Zalanir examined his hand.

  “What you’re thinking is correct. Your hand acts like my eyes now.”

  “You can read my thoughts?”

  “It’s written on your face.” Its soul drifted near the main window, where it was right in front of his avatar’s face inside the lantern.

  “Okay. How long can you maintain this form? Before you answer, can you do anything with my hand? Walking around with a glowing hand would be weird.” Technically, he could clench into a fist to hide the radiance somewhat, but it wasn’t ideal. Better to find a long-term solution.

  “Done. But isn’t a glowing hand cool? I will flare it up whenever I can.”

  “You just want your others looking at your symbol. It’s you, am I right? Crocosaurus, four limbs, spiked teeth.”

  “Nothing compared to my true form,” it snorted. “For I am a great warrior of the branka’r.”

  “Sure, sure, you can brag all you want with Josef or the meahli soul later. Now, how much time do we have?”

  “Half an hour at most. Will end sooner if I cast a spell. Still, where did you find this omnipotent lantern? Such a lucker!”

  Shorter than he had expected. Though the duration would surely increase the stronger Cokhi was. The incident in the cultist lair confirmed as such.

  Wait! His mana bar didn’t move. This cost no mana? So it all depended on the strength of the soul…

  Hmm. Technically, he still had to feed the soul, so it made sense. Would be stupid to spend twice the mana. He would take this logic any day. Any mana available for use in combat was far more valuable.

  “Thirty minutes is good for now. There’s plenty of room for improvement. Hmm, besides the previous buff skill, what else can you do? I need a quick overview.”

  “In my current condition? Depends on the environment. If there’s much dark affinity, then a lot. Mostly offensive and utility spells, mind you. My kind has superior defense compared to shoddy human skin.”

  No doubt about that. When the soul lion took over his body, if not for probably Mark of the Black Mist to supply all the temporary resources, he would be dead with that aggressive style of combat already. Monster-based sapience, huh? Guessed some traits wouldn’t go away even after their evolution.

  “Mostly means you still have one or two in the arsenal. That’s good. Cast one. Let’s see how this whole collaboration works.”

  Right now, he only had Energy Barrier as the sole defensive skill. Compared to Wanyi’s, it was night and day. He needed more.

  He concentrated, not wanting to miss any details. Even though Cokhi was his captive, it was still an A-grade, so whatever spell it cast would be of a much higher concept than what he was capable of at the moment. That would only be good for him, especially since he also had dark affinity now with Mark of the Black Mist.

  Five seconds passed. He waited.

  Thirty seconds rolled by. Still only the calm, glowing sphere of the dancing flame in his hand.

  A minute sailed past. Some rats scurried away, probably bored with him just standing there like an idiot.

  “What are you doing? Cast a spell.” If Cokhi’s soul weren’t still glowing in front of his avatar, he would have thought it had run out of energy already.

  “I did, but you don’t facilitate the notion, so my hands are tied.”

  “What do you mean? I’m waiting for you to do your work.”

  “I don’t know. Last time I followed your desire. Now there’s none.”

  Desire? Zalanir was about to call out this nonsense when a thought struck. Yeah, made sense, actually. It was his body. If he didn’t give his approval, then wouldn’t the souls go haywire in the weirdest situation possible? Got it. He would act like an immigration officer, with the right to approve or deny anyone at the border.

  He focused his intention to allow a defensive spell. Instantly, black smoke released from his hand, creating a field obscuring his vision. The smoke was thick and chaotic, moving around in high tempo and creating a sense of being surrounded by enemies. Even the light from the ball of fire couldn’t push past the darkness.

  This would be useful. Despite being a distraction only, if the enemies had no discovery tools like Sound Sense, this smoke-battlefield could very well turn into their graveyard.

  “Neat skill, but wasn’t this more of utility rather than defense?” he asked the glowing soul inside the lantern.

  “Depends on how you look at it. Locus of Dark Power is utility,” Cokhi said. “This one is defensive.”

  “Locus of Power?”

  “The skill I used to help you kill the dumb snake.”

  “I see. Let’s find something to kill. Will call you out when it’s time. Surprise me with your attack, then.”

  Took him a while to find a target worthy of the test. The occasional bumping and rumbling sound had led him to a pangolin similar to the one his group had killed earlier, though this one seemed to be having fun by bouncing on and off the wall.

  Sorry for the intrusion, but you die now, bud.

  He was able to get in close to the anteater before it noticed him, partly due to its playful antics, but also because of the robe he had bought with Ioviann’s money. The camouflage effect shone its worth in an underground tunnel like this.

  He signaled Cokhi to work its magic when the pangolin wheeled in. Contrary to his imagination of a rotting darkness lance or a shower of dark matter, only a shackle sprang from the ground and locked onto the scaly monster. Its charge halted, so that was good, but this was… underwhelming.

  “What else do you have?” This shouldn’t be it, right?

  Two tendrils double the length of his arms jutted out from both sides of his hip, instantly reminding him of the battle at the cultist lair. The soul lion did use this skill to aid it in combat back then to great effect, but this meant he had to get into melee range.

  “Punch it with your right hand.” Cokhi urged.

  Let’s get the most out of this, Zalanir sighed. Going forward, probably only the utility skills would be of use. All these melee skills? Not so much.

  With Wind Rush hugging his legs, he rushed up to the trapped beast, baited a swipe with a left feign, then struck the monster on the flank using his fist. To his surprise, his black hand cracked a scale, but that instant of distraction also earned him a whack on the shoulder by the enemy’s tail.

  Pushing up from the ground, he erected a shield using Energy Barrier to block another tail lash, unleashed a salvo of sound bolts at close range, and closed in once again with a running punch.

  The tendrils had also started working by punching together with him, making the pangolin shriek and became even more angry with its flurry of attacks.

  After a dozen punches, dodges, and more-than-necessary expedition of mana, he leaned against the dead pangolin, huffing for air and throwing a few curses at the supposedly great crocosaurus.

  “Told you I’m a warrior.” It had also stopped floating midair, its aura less lively compared to before the fight.

  “Yeah, yeah, my fault.”

  At least that shackle skill was useful. His initial assessment couldn’t be more wrong, as this skill could buy him several seconds. Together with the mist field, he still got some solid additions to his fighting tools prior to heading to the Oasis of Misfortune.