Melakios was surprised to see Teiko looking at him with a grin on her face.

“Am I doing it right?”

Her face fell then scrunched up. She stood with her head still down so as not to show him her face. She flew off yelling,

“Don’t get carried away, I will be right back!”

Unsure of what just happened, Melakios continued his meditation which was trying to feel the souls around him. But he already could, why do this training?

Souls didn’t flow like aura or energy, they would converge onto a point. This was the Core. In Skyler’s case, he condensed all his soul into his Core for Clair.

Alkelios had a Core, too. He had absorbed, partially, the souls of the Demons. He used them to empower his Core, thereby making him stronger overall. This is similar to Clair using Skyler.

But Melakios didn’t have a soul or a Core. So what made him able to manipulate souls? He decided to shift his meditation to finding out why. He felt his body’s motions, keeping track of the movements. He pulled out a soul and began to refine, all the while observing the process.

He realized there was a flow of energy within his lower chest, a small bead of power no larger than a seed. Melakios had never seen it or heard of it before. He decided to call it a Core Seed. He slowly manipulated the soul towards the Seed only to have the soul disappear. He tried calling it back, but to no avail.

It was permanently gone.

Eaten.

Melakios realized this Seed would need a lot of souls. He pulled out the Dying Sorrow Core because there was no change within him. Maybe the Seed would absorb it all, leaving none of the energy to be free and cause problems.

He didn’t want to consume the Core, afraid of what it might do to his body, but he tried reforming it back into its soul form. It took a while, and Teiko was still not back, so Melakios continued. After a good hour, the souls were free and started to attack Melakios. He directed one after another into the Seed, even using the recently acquired Demon Baron.

The Seed had grown to the size of a small pebble. The feeling Melakios got from it was stronger. He was filled with questions like, ‘am I creating my soul?’ or ‘is this actually a good thing?’ Melakios didn’t quite know the answers.

Melakios decided to continue his meditation and pulled out another soul. He focused himself and began refining only to stop again in amazement. His refining speed had increased! It probably wouldn’t cause him any trouble to make a 1st Tier Core now!

Yes, he had made many Cores already, but he still suffered a mild strain. Because of this, he never tried to make anything better. From the decade of staying at Eligor’s mansion, Melakios had gathered many animals. While traveling through the forest, he had found more.

This time, he decided to try something new. He pulled out some soul stones and Cores. Stones were solitary souls of humans sent to Hell. The humans would be sent to Hell as punishment for their crimes in the Human Realm. After experiencing their penalty, a Demon would show up and steal their soul. There were greater soul stones, which were made out of Demons. And high soul stones, which were made out of high leveled monsters.

A stone contains one soul, while a Core contains many. For the regular populace of the Demon Realm, stones were the currency. But for the nobles, Cores were the way to go. So Melakios thought about using more than ten. He started to work, as he used ten at first, just to get the feeling. He stopped and undid the refinement and added more. Noticing the feeling was still the same, he used more. He finally had 100 pack rats and was about to refine, when Teiko came back.

“What are you doing?!”

“Creating a Core.”

“Out of this many souls?! Are you mad?!”

“What’s wrong?”

Teiko wiped her hand over her face as she pulled out a small bag.

“Is that a void bag?”

“No, I’m just getting an array out for you.”

“Why would I need that?”

“To make a Core, of course! Were you just going to make it here without one?!”

“Yeah. Hey, could I borrow the bag, I want to try something.”

Confused and a little doubtful, Teiko understood enough to know Melakios wasn’t dumb. She handed him the bag after emptying its contents.

Melakios began refining the souls, but instead of creating a Core, he inlaid the souls into the bag! Teiko was nothing short of shocked. He was enchanting an item without an array?! Melakios could finally feel a strain as he performed the refinement. This time, it took two hours to complete and Melakios was covered in sweat. He held up the bag and opened it. No change? What had gone wrong?

Then he remembered he had used his energy to open the rats before. Maybe he needed to do the same thing here. So he used his energy and he noticed the bag had changed in an instant. The previously simple design transformed into a fuzzy satchel with a rat’s tail for the handle. He opened the bag again, only to see blackness. He put his head in only to realize he couldn’t breathe!

He quickly pulled his head out, coughing the entire time. He decided, no living thing should be stored inside. Never. He didn’t realize yet, but he had made a Legendary Equipment. Souls were important, so no one would use 100 for a simple bag. But the purity and fusion of the pack rats increased its value many times over. Forget about the Dying Sorrow Core or all his new equipment, this bag was worth more than entire noble families!

What madness is this?! Teiko just stared at him in astonishment, not wanting to believe her eyes.