Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

'Come on, push through!'

It had been 30 minutes since Alex had started absorbing the Variant class soul orb he had looted, and the pain still continued coming in waves.

However, he had made a little progress and had successfully forced a small portion of the rampaging darkness energy into submission and absorbed it.

This small portion of energy was already enough to completely rejuvenate Alex and allowed him to keep going with the absorption, and it was only around 2% of the total energy he was going to gain from this soul orb!

'Why the hell is this soul orb so hard to absorb?? None of the others were like this!'

He was already getting frustrated by the pain that he was forced to go through just to force the rampaging energy into submission.

'Maybe it has something to do with the special nature of soul orbs? Or perhaps even the unique nature of Variant class beasts?' Alex thought, trying to distract himself from the pain he was constantly going through.

'Perhaps… perhaps it has something to do with the Variant beast that dropped it? After all, soul orbs are different than beast cores in many ways. The energy I'm trying to absorb from this soul orb may still be under the control of the dead variant beast, as there might be a remnant of its will attached!'

Alex felt like he had finally struck gold with his assumptions, as it made sense considering this sensation of struggle and pain was only occurring after he attempted absorbing a Variant class soul orb for the first time.

[Congratulations, You've finally started using your brain and comprehended a tiny portion of the true nature of Soulforge! The third layer weakens slightly. More information about your second layer has revealed itself.]

'Wow! So that's all it takes huh?'

Normally, Alex would hate to be interrupted when he was in the middle of such an important moment, but exceptions were made for the system.

And Alex's assumptions were turned into truths from the sudden interruption of the system.

But even more interesting was the fact that the third layer of his Soulforge talent had weakened just from him gaining a little bit of comprehension.

Alex was fully expecting to have to go through another experience like the mental attack that led him to unlock the second layer

Speaking of the second layer, Alex paid particular attention to the last part of the system's message.

If he remembered correctly, the last time he checked the information of Soulforge, the description for the second layer was just something like 'Find out for yourself.' which was basically just a passive way of the system saying 'Fuck off.'

'So does that mean I'll actually get some sort of explanation for what the second layer does now? Or will the description still stay the same? I guess I'll find out by checking.'

Alex wasn't going to check his details just yet though, as he had to finish absorbing the soul orb before he moved on to doing anything like that.

It would be waste if he gave up on it now just to satisfy his curiosity a little.

However, he immediately noticed something different when he shifted his whole attention back to absorbing the soul orb.

'It doesn't feel as painful now?'

Right away, the pain didn't feel as intense and uncomfortable.

Before, it felt like he was getting pricked by thousands of needles at once all over his body, constantly.

But now, it only felt like he was getting pricked by hundreds of needles.

The pain was still there, but there was just less of it.

This was a very welcome change to Alex, as it enabled him to shift a little more of his willpower from resisting the pain to actually suppressing the rampaging energy that was causing the pain.

'It's time to get down to business then!'

With his confidence revamped, Alex immediately got to it.

***

'Why did he do that?'

When Mira returned back to her own dorm, the questions started returning to her mind once again.

The sudden weird vibe coming from Alex was just too concerning for her to overlook.

She said she would trust him for now, but there was still a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, telling her that something was off about all this.

Mira wanted to know what had Alex so worried, which was selfish of her, but she was doing this because she cared for him.

She had lied to Alex when she said she was going back to absorb her beast cores.

In fact, jumping over her fence was only an excuse to make Alex believe her.

What she really did was enter the void dimension as soon as she witnessed Alex sitting down into a meditative position and close his eyes.

'What is that?'

Immediately, she knew something odd was going on.

Alex had told her that he was going to work on his Heart of the Phoenix technique, but she knew that wasn't what he was doing.

She spotted a weird red orb appear in Alex's hands, which had obviously come from his spatial storage.

But even weirder was that he held it tightly in one hand, just like how one would when absorbing a beast core.

'What is he doing? What's wrong??'

Immediately, she noticed something off as Alex immediately started wincing in pain.

She almost stepped out of the void dimension then and there due to her concern for Alex, but she knew he would be angry at her if she did so, as it would be a breach of the trust he placed in her.

'Is this why he couldn't absorb the beast core? Because he would absorb this thing instead?'

She questioned as her gaze focused on the red ball of energy sitting neatly in Alex's palm.

'Wait, doesn't this look familiar?'

But she recognised the red hue it was giving off as she watched more closely.

To confirm her suspicions, she grabbed the beast core Alex had given to her from her spatial storage, and held it next to the red orb Alex was holding.

'It's the exact same colour…'

The whole time, Alex had no idea any of this was happening.

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