Chapter 170: Soul Burning

[Technically, your soul could be used instead of mana. Sure it would hurt like hell and sure it would probably debilitate you beyond saving, but it would work. You probably don't know this, but way back in the past, the people who could see mana were pitied by the people. A sad bunch of madmen, who would continuously talk about some colorful blue stuff. After all, no one in the World knew what magic even was, so there really wasn't a big difference between mages and non-mages. All those stories from your home planet Earth, which usually depict ancient wizards and witches being much stronger than their modern counterparts... Well, logically thinking, it just isn't plausible, as shown by the example here on Alvox.]

[In any case, after a period of experimentation, the ones who were able to see mana learned how to cast magic using their souls. Screaming from pain and their whole body drenched with sweat, they would perform some sort of impossible deed. Due to how magic worked back then, every one of their miracles would be different. But, one universal feature among them was that their miracles were extremely weak. Thus at first people saw them as intriguing, or even entertaining, but people started to notice that their miracles were becoming stronger. If one was able to create tiny sparks in the air, after a year of practice, it would become a huge fireball in their hands. Due to this fact, mages as a species began to be hunted extensively. It was like every non-mage in the position of power decided that these weird people were threats to their power all at the same time.]

[Mages were branded as devils and were hunted for more than two centuries. Anyway... what happened next is super, duper interesting, but I'm going on a long tangent here, so I'll have to skip it for the time being. Maybe you'll be able to dig out information about this in the future. Tee-hee!] Four suddenly betrayed Evin.

"What?! Why did you even go on this stupid tangent in the first place, then?" Evin couldn't help but shout out. Furiously, he began reading the ensuing chapter, only to find out that Four resumed her talk about Soul Magic like nothing happened. Evin wanted to rage, but he figured that there wouldn't really be much he could do about.

'It's probably something stupid and boring anyway, like some important king giving birth to a mage child, and then deciding to secretly raise it. Then the mage child would learn of the oppression his kind receives and decides to avenge his race or something...' Evin thought, before shaking his head.

[In any case, mages learned how to use mana instead of their soul and realized that they worked very similarly. This fact made mana into something almost holy. Mages hypothesized that mana was the soul of Alvox, thus named it Divine Essence. Well, how could they know if they were correct or not? No one was there to tell them they were wrong. Mana... was just mana. The natural energy that pervaded Alvox's atmosphere. From what the Empress said, it was a complete coincidence that the soul had similar properties to mana.]

'Why is Four so specific about this piece of information? Do I smell conspiracy? Soul equals Mana! You're being fooled by the Empress?!' Evin's attention span was reaching its limits, judging by how easily he was being distracted.

[In any case, this is mostly just trivia, so it's quite useless in practice. Let's talk about how burning your soul can actually be useful,] Four suddenly changed the topic and began to explain how casting magic with one's soul worked.

Evin felt a bit suspicious about how Four wrote this part, but he couldn't really go and ask the Empress to explain herself, so he could only focus on the matter at hand.

From what Evin could understand, souls were used as a kind of buff to one's spell. For example, if Evin cast a normal flame, and then burned some of his soul alongside it, the flame would become stronger and get some mystical properties. The most prominent one being its ability to burn literally anything. Even water would burn if it touched such a flame. How it would burn exactly, Evin had no idea. But he had lots of time to test this out, so he wasn't worried.

But these flames weren't that over-powered, since it's mystical properties would die out if Evin either stopped burning his soul, or just canceled his spell.

'Finally...' Evin thought excitedly. He finally learned how to burn the Corrupted Soul Tree down. He would have to try out many different methods to calculate exactly how much soul he needed to burn the whole tree down, but he was guessing it wasn't a small number. 

Evin continued to read and found that most of its applications to spells were fixed and absolute.

For example, a water body made by burning a soul (let's just call it soul-burnt) would have healing properties. Even if Evin used the water to attack someone, the healing properties would not die out. 

A soul-burnt Earth spell would get the ability to partially turn immaterial. Evin didn't how that would be beneficial, but surely someone found a niche use for it. 

A soul-burnt Wind spell would have an invigorating effect, washing away the fatigue and drowsiness of its recipients. A refreshing whip of air...

A soul-burnt Light spell would boost one's psychology, where anyone who was fell under its light would feel calm and clear-headed. Four even explained how it could cure insanity and some mental illnesses if applied over a long time.

A soul-burnt Dark spell, on the other hand would passively fear the one who was caught up inside it. If Evin left someone inside his Dark Room for a certain amount of time while burning his soul, the one inside his spell would apparently go insane. 

[As for the Conceptual Worlds, there really isn't much research on it to say something concrete. I wish I could do more research on this topic, but I've been banned from doing so due to reasons, so that's not happening anytime soon. Maybe you can solve its mysteries one day,] Four added afterwards. 

She then wrote about the side-effects of using one's own soul. A mage wouldn't die from using their soul, but they would definitely become extremely weak and debilitated. This would show on their physical bodies as well. 

And also using one's soul was akin to self-mutilation, so most mages preferred to use the souls of others. The effect wasn't as good as using their own and also a bit wasteful, since the souls would burn up for good, but it was the only method if one didn't want to end up like some bloodless ghoul.

[But there is a method to turn these corrupted souls into something that will stay with you forever. After all, you can't just burn them all up and let them be free. You have to be, uhh, what's it called... enviromentally aware! You have to recycle those souls! And the method is...! to forgeraw souls into Soul Masks. I guess you could say that It's something that binds foreign souls into your own and turning them into Soul energy. There should be enough souls in this World to make one good-quality Soul Mask.]

'Four's metal as fuck,' Evin suddenly realized. 

According to Four, Evin could have many Soul Masks, all of which had the ability to recharge itself over time, but It's effect was quite lacking compared to having one good Soul Mask. Four went a bit into the details and explained that a good one could also develop the ability to transform mana into Soul energy as well.

This meant that Evin could use all the things he learned about Soul magic in the main World, since he would have a stable source of Soul energy. Excitedly, Evin read further into the scroll. 

After this point, most of the things Four wrote turned into random trivia. And at the end of the scroll, Evin was able to see some of guidelines for this World. 

[The barrier around us will stay around for as long as you need, but you will be able to bypass it freely from now on. You can think of the barrier as a safe zone to recuperate. The corrupted souls won't appear at day, so you will have to hunt them at night as fast as possible, since your goal would be to create a single Soul Mask.]

[Actually, I'm not really worried about the speed. In my calculations you would be finished after a few days or so, since the souls here are super weak. As long as you don't fuck up somehow and start merging with a soul again, we should be fine. Then you'll get to forging the Soul Mask, which might take a bit longer.]

[Another problem are the Instruments of Death. If I'm remembering correctly, they become stronger and smarter over time, so please don't ignore, or underestimate them. And I'm pretty sure I don't have to remind you of this, but don't ever try to get close to them. If you somehow end up near them, don't think and just run. Even I won't be able to save you if you get caught by them.]

'I will definitely follow your instructions,' Evin thought in agreement.

[One more thing. Don't bother me unless absolutely necessary. If you have questions, prepare them now and ask them all at once. After I answer your questions, I'll mostly be unconscious, like yesterday]

Evin's consciousness appeared outside the scroll and he began thinking of the questions he wanted to ask. Four was still lying on the bed, seemingly getting herself comfortable. She was, after all, going to stay in one position for a very long time.

After a few minutes, Evin finished thinking and walked towards Four.

"You've said that I can see my memories from when I was living as this woman. I wasn't able to find the method to see it on the scroll," he asked.

"Oh, that… I've decided to show it to you right before we leave this place… The contents… they might be a bit distracting for you after all," Four replied lazily.

The current Four seemed to be the chiller, non-abusive one. It was a bit hard for Evin to get used to, since Four's way of talking was too different from the way she spoke. 

"I've also decided on the Molding of my eyes. When should we begin the process?" 

"A bit boring, but I suppose it's understandable... since this mutation's size is small, although a bit detail oriented, we should have enough Soul energy to perform it here... So we'll do it now... come here. Though do understand... that there will be a lot of pain involved," Four said and began the grueling procedure of changing Evin's eye structure.