Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Sila was beyond baffled to suddenly find something revolving inside his body and creating pathways that branched out to create a number of nodes within him. It throbbed and shimmered with a vermillion hue, confusing the Null-living heck of him. Only when white mana began oozing from the spherical structure, flowing into the pathways it had made and reinforcing his body further than his scant quantity of Null Life Essence did he realise…

"It's… It's really a mana core!" he cried, and looked at Kintar who shrugged.

Skullius was amazed. In a blink, he analysed what the new mana core Kintar had made was, and how it worked.

Because it was Sila's consciousness and not his soul that had melded into the body of the Stolen Angel before it was perfected into Serenity's Free Marauder (since Sila himself had expended his soul to save Skullius' life following the Premium Age Royale) the core had a shocking level of freedom.

Rather, Kintar modified it so that it freely established itself within Sila's body, becoming a part of him.

Normally, mana cores bonded with both the body and the soul, which was why their destruction more often than not killed experts instantly. But the core Kintar had established built nodes into Sila's body, establishing something akin to a compound connection; since it didn't have a soul to latch onto, it reinforced itself with every aspect of his body, down to the finer, harder-to-define elements – like his atoms, genetic potential and mind.

Sila could feel his thoughts thrumming with this vermillion quality mana. It was bizarre.

"How in the world did you come up with this?" Skullius asked Kintar and checked her own cores to see if they had taken on this vermillion quality, but to his surprise, they were still golden.

Kintar gave him a creepy smile.

"Weren't you the one who told me to go crazy when you gave him that skill – [Greatest Hegemon of Sorcerous Mana]?" she said to him.

"I did," said Skullius and he narrowed his eyes at Sila who seemed to still be experiencing queer changes to his body. "But I didn't expect this."

Kintar scoffed… importantly.

"Well, if you must know, I was inspired by a recent event that's spawned on Aigas in the last hour. I sensed a new type of Cluster, one that's denser than others – and that's just from reading it from this side," she said. "What we knew about Clusters before was that they only consisted of four main types – white, blue, purple and red. But Boron's emergence has caused one with a mash of black, lilac and red colours to appear. To me, this spelled the fact that Aigas has more potential for growth without having to be critically adjusted. But then I thought deeper than this. A mortal beast managed to change the whole power system on Aigas back in the day, affecting how Stages work. So, I asked myself the question, Why can't a Realm Source Mage like me do the same?"

Skullius grinned.

"Well, that was a logical conclusion, wasn't it? So, you just up and created a new type of core?"

"Yes. The vermillion core's quality is at least a thousand times greater than that of a golden one. Which is to say, if I had a golden core with 10,000 units of mana, when it turned vermillion, I'd have compressed the 10,000 units to 10 or so. A very drastic qualitative, but riddled with drawbacks."

"I assume those drawbacks have to do with the soul? Which is why you haven't given yourself one, right?" Skullius said. "Are you afraid even Granted Restoration won't be able to save you in case you have to live with that an unstable mana core?"

Kintar sighed.

"That's right. When you used that [Unbound] ability of yours on us, changing our common Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Mana and Endurance stats, you refused to do the same thing with our souls. And rightfully so. I won't be tacking on such a wildly powerful core to my soul," Kintar said and with a bright smile, she pointed at Sila, who was still very stunned. "That's why I chose to first run the vermillion core by this soulless dummy."

Sila finally tore himself out of his dazed state and gave her a dark look. He didn't let the ugly comment he had in mind slip though.

"It's perfect so far. It's enhancing my already high physical abilities substantially and it's making every single one of my bodily functions much easier – much more convenient actually," he said, first a little angrily. He then looked at Skullius. "It's like when you used the Stolen Angel. I barely exert effort to do anything. The mana from this core is reacting quicker than my nerves to give signals all over my body."

The Hybrid Warmoth gave a series of nods that told of how impressed he was.

"That's probably because Kintar adjusted the core so that it would work best with you and your soulless circumstances." He turned to the diminutive Unlimited Star. "At this point, you're just as handy with mana as I am, if not better. What are your findings here? Wouldn't you being so detached to some of your mana reserves help mitigate any damage to your soul in case something went wrong."

And indeed, Skullius had a good reason to think along those lines. After all, the way Kintar handled her mana was different how others did.

~~~

[ Name : Kintar Aladaster]

[ Level : 55 ]

[ EXP : --- ; <Task Pending> ]

[ Core(s) : Purple ]

[ Class : True Myth Mage ]

[ Race : Human ]

[ Inv. Status : Slightly frustrated ]

-------

[ Stats ]

[ EXPANDED VISION-BASED TORSION (III) : 56,908 ]

|Host can exercise all forms of physical interaction – especially physical impacts – with their sight|

[ COLLAPSING ALACRITY (III) : 155,934 ]

|When the host chooses, every movement collapses the integrity of their surroundings temporarily to bring them to their destination at once|

[ TRANSCENDENT SKIP (III) : x133,001]

|A second aspect of the host's transformed "Agility" where – should they desire it – if they backpedal a step, they traverse the entire span of the surrounding location up to 133,001 times in all directions within in an instant|

[ MEDITATIVE FOCAL INSTANCING (III) : 15,000]

|The host can isolate instances they have experienced, within their mind and then dissect, enhance, expand and speculate on them with extreme, Diviner-like quality, in a speck of time incalculable by most third parties. Up to 15,000 instances can be processed at a time|

[ FLUCTUATING THROTTLE ]

|The host's endurance is impossible to consistently trace and constantly fluctuates for better or for worse|

[ LUCK : 76 ]

-----

[ EXAGGERATED HEALTH : 1,223,003,899/1,123,003,899 ]

|Unusually inflated "Health"|

-----

[ ASCETIC MANA (III) (x15) : 239,900,320/239,900,345 ]

|The host's mana prefers to exist separately from them. It carves itself into the shape of the host's abilities and when needed, it can detonate with the effects of these abilities (taken after from the host's body). There is no need for conscious activation of an ability by the host themselves|

[ SUPER-CHARGED MANA (III) (x6) : 34,993,455/34,993,455]

|Mana entangled violently with different concepts and essences|

…

~~~

"Those cores are still connected to me. Besides, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I don't want the vermillion core until I'm sure it sits right with my soul," said Kintar.

Skullius sighed.

It wasn't as though this matter of the soul was something he couldn't deal with.

There were two ways he could have gone about it – if Kintar had developed the idea earlier, of course.

There was Ferex, who had abilities tied to the soul. He could have helped with her with the seamless transformation of her soul as required.

And then there was Skullius himself and his War Body which gave him high-end soul manipulation abilities. That was how he had handled Stylla's delicate soul, giving it a body that was even better than the original.

But using the War Body here and now for Kintar's sake wasn't the right move. Depending on where Fulgardt was at the moment, the spike of Amras that exploded out each time he summoned the War Body could lead the Immoral right to him. That would screw up a great deal about how Skullius planned to deal with the Divine. Indeed, abrupt being visited by Fulgardt while he was in the First Phase of the War Body was a very dangerous case.

Even besides that…

"I'll handle it. I don't want anymore babying from you. I hear the others are doing really well on their own. I wouldn't want them to think I only got stronger because you showed a bit of favouritism."

Skullius raised a brow at the short stack.

"You were eavesdropping on me and Suzamete?"

"Why does that surprise you?" Kintar scowled and shook her head. "I saw Grim astride the dragon too. At this rate, he might actually catch up to me."

Skullius laughed. "Cocky little monster."

Kintar shrugged and turned back to Sila.

"What kind of skills do you want?"

The Tower General thought he hadn't heard that right at first.

"What?"

"Hurry up and tell me the kinds of skills you want. Give me a good description on them too and add some of your biases. That'll help me craft something that matches your style. With some luck, we might be able to circumvent your lack of a Class since I haven't figured out how to create one yet."

Sila shuddered and looked at Skullius as though to confirm if he was still sane. "You can do that?"