Liam inhaled and let out a deep breath. Another failure but that was okay. His gaze flickered to the big space sprawled in front of him. There, thousands of soul minions were seated in a similar meditative pose with eyes closed, every single one of them giving full concentration to their task at hand. AKA to strengthen their souls.
Liam had to admit. He had kind of cheated in this test of sorts but he did not regret it. The Myriad Constellations Technique was a behemothian beast that he had underestimated greatly. To think that he could master it in a mere day was foolish. It did not matter if he was a soulmancer or how much experience he had with souls, he simply couldn't make decent progress in the technique fast enough. It was too hard. Of course, that was not all the tricks he had up his sleeves.
Liam had been breaking his head over how to crack the technique when he decided he needed more heads breaking over this problem. That was when he involved his soul minions. Obviously, they wouldn't be able to succeed where he failed but they made copious mistakes. Mistakes that he learned plenty from. And within just a few days, the collective hard work yielded bountiful results.
Liam smiled in satisfaction as he closed his eyes and looked at the five shimmering runes that now lay stably in his soul space. About half of his dispersed and shredded soul energy was already tied back together in the form of runes of power and they now once again were under his control.
Liam felt a lot better as the pain that had been plaguing him ever since he injured his soul was finally starting to subside. As an added bonus his mental energy was full and brimming thanks to this. He felt rejuvenated and replenished and his capacity to control his soul wisps further increased because of this. This in turn bumped up his speed as he worked to form the next rune of power. He could feel it. Soon he would be able to get the first constellation in his grasp.
However, he was not in a rush to reach that goal. This was because while practicing the soul-strengthening technique, he finally managed to get a hint on the soul-healing method he was personally tinkering with.
This was how he had healed his soul back in the tutorial and now after some adjustments, he was very close to further healing and replenishing his soul energy that was vastly depleted.
He was not quite there yet but hey, he had many many souls that he could experiment with and a high-tier soul cultivation technique in his hand. This was just the first constellation technique after all perhaps the deeper he went he would gain further understanding of the method.
Unfortunately, he simply couldn't do as he pleased and continued to forever perfect everything in his soul space. The clock was ticking. Not just for completely mastering the first stage of the technique but also for the earth's complete integration.
Within the next five years, he had to return to his full strength and then some more to truly feel confident about their prospects. Of course, there was also the matter of getting out of the beast they were currently stuck inside.
A vicious smile appeared on Liam's face which carried all of his hatred and frustration that he had bottled up within him. He knew who they were, all the enemies who wanted him dead or as a slave. Starting with this god-damn beast he was going to take care of each and every one of them. He was going to use this beast as a stepping stone and become even stronger. It invited him into its body and now it had to pay the price.
He did not let the others know just yet but he could feel it. He could clearly sense the unfathomably powerful soul of the beast they were currently residing within.
In fact, he was pretty sure that this whole world was a space created within the soul pocket of the beast as he could sense the threads of soul energy swirling around, knitting the very fabric of their environment.
How powerful would a beast need to be in order to have a soul such as this? He had no intentions of fighting such a thing or even confronting it at least directly. That would be a fool's errand. Instead, he had other plans.
He needed to somehow corrupt or at least freeze the soul of this monstrosity of a beast in order to escape. That was if he only needed to escape but why not take something when leaving?
While this beast was powerful it was in no way an overpowered being like that strange man he had met in the Spire. Heck, it was a coward who only ate awakened beings without any background.
Chances were that if he managed to get out of here, it was not going to come after him. Even if it wanted to, it could get in the long queue of everyone else who wanted him dead first.
Liam knew he was probably once again going to be biting more than he could chew but how could he let this golden opportunity slip by? There was soul energy floating all around him. He was definitely going to get himself a good helping of the meal.
Right now he could at most make ten runes of power in his current state which would make for a pitiful first constellation. But if he could somehow siphon the soul energy and bump this up to a hundred runes of power which is what an average elite of the myriad realms would possess, then his strength would skyrocket, catapulting him into the realms of power he had only dared to dream of before.
And this was just the first constellation. The technique hinted that there were more constellations that harnessed the deeper layers of the soul.
Liam's plan was ambitious, to say the least. The beast's soul was a vast, dangerous expanse, filled with energy so potent it could obliterate him with a mere flicker. Yet, within this peril lay an unprecedented opportunity for growth and strength. If he could harness even a fraction of this power, the benefits would be immense.
To achieve this, Liam needed to extend the scope of his soul manipulation abilities. He would have to delve deeper into the study of soul energy, exploring new methods and techniques that could allow him to carefully extract and assimilate the beast's soul energy without alerting it to his actions.
He definitely had his work cut out for him and for the next five years, he was going to be really busy. Letting out a deep breath, he took out a soul-capturing bead. It was time to start forging again.