Neo woke only when his body had finally had enough sleep to drag him back up from it.
The room was darker than before, though not fully dark. Sunset had already reached the window, throwing a tired orange across the walls and the edge of the bed. He stayed there a little longer, staring at the ceiling, letting his body rember where it was. A real room. A real mattress.
He had slept far more than he expected.
Neo reached for his phone and checked the screen.
There were a few ssages waiting for him.
One was from Snot.
How are you feeling? Want to et one of these days? We need to talk about what we’re doing now that Max and Marika are out.
Neo read that one twice before moving on.
The next was from Richards.
Hey, Neo. We didn’t get to talk the other day. Co by my apartnt when you can.
Cedric had left one too.
Thank you for what you told . If you find anything interesting out there, I hope you’ll let know.
Neo lowered the phone for a mont, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the folded paper he had kept there. Just nine digits. Nothing else. He knew exactly whose they were.
’Why did she even give this?’
His thumb rubbed once across the paper before he unfolded it properly.
’Last ti Snot said she wanted to talk to , but why? A girl like that doesn’t just hand her number to soone for nothing. Is she trying to recruit into her family? If that’s it, I’m not interested. I’m not putting myself under soone.’
He opened the contacts app, entered the number, and saved it without any nickna.
Vivienne Mourne.
That was enough.
He put the phone down on the table beside the bed and leaned back for a breath before calling up his status.
The Soul Window unfolded in front of him.
[Soul-Window]
Na: Neo
Age: 16
Soul Core: Vein
[200/2500 Vein]
Primary Class: Soul Reaver
Rank: Divine
Description: A divine class that can steal and store the classes of people, Soul Beasts, and even gods.
[Extra Info!]
Secondary Classes:
Duskmane Beast - Ascendant
Mastery: Mid
Abilities:
Beast Regeneration - Unlocked
Beast Strength - Unlocked
Soul Reader - Legendary
Mastery: Low
Abilities:
Soul Window Reading through physical contact - Unlocked
Soul Window Reading without physical contact - More mastery required
Thoughts and emotions reading - More mastery required
Glassbrood Spider - Ascendant
Abilities:
High Poison Resistance - Unlocked
tal Threads - More mastery required
Berserk Swordsman - Saint
Abilities:
Frenzy: In a frenzied state, your senses dull, but Strength and Agility increase by 50%.
Relentless Pursuit - More mastery required
Iron Hunger - More mastery required
Soul Relics:
The Thousand-Form Relic - Divine
Stored Forms:
Sword - Rare
Gravebite - Ascendant
Attribute Enhanced:
Bleed -> Endless Bleeding
Twin Fangs of the Mourning Executioner - Saint
Description: A paired set of blades once carried by the six-ard guardian of the throne.
Venomfang:
Spreads a deep-acting poison with every cut.
Gravefang:
Rips wounds wider and worsens blood loss.
Paired Effect:
When both blades wound the sa target in close succession, the target’s movent slows and the body begins to fail from within.
Vagabond’s Rag - Common
Description: Minor protection against physical blows.
Neo read through it all without blinking.
Four secondary classes.
For soone who had awakened not long ago, it was absurd. Even he had to admit that. Plenty of people would kill for one good class and spend years trying to squeeze sothing respectable out of it. He already had four stacked behind a Divine primary, a Divine relic, and enough growth in one month to make most awakeneds sound like a joke beside him.
’Not bad.’
That thought stayed for less than a breath.
Sothing else had already pulled his attention.
[Extra Info!]
That was new.
Neo focused on it, and the window shifted.
A new line appeared.
[(...) He could no longer endure the feelings and impulses that piled up as his power increased. By taking in more power than he could control, he began to lose his mind. He had to learn to contain himself.]
Neo frowned.
’Feelings? Impulses? What is that supposed to an? Nothing like that’s happened to .’
The Soul Window answered him again, this ti more directly.
[Each ti you obtain a new class, a fragnt of that soul remains with you.]
[Its impulses, desires, instincts, and emotional residue do not vanish.]
[Your soul stores more than power.]
[It stores fragnts.]
[Those fragnts remain within you.]
[Obtaining a class is not the sa as obtaining an item.]
Neo stayed still after reading that.
That explanation took a mont to sink in properly, and when it did, it left behind sothing cold.
So that was the cost.
Not pain or so so obvious corruption spreading over his body. Not a simple limit like soul essence consumption or a cooldown he could asure. Every class he took left sothing behind. A residue. An instinct. A hunger. A way of seeing things that had once belonged to soone else or sothing else. That ant he was not only stacking abilities inside himself. He was storing traces of lives, creatures, urges, and half-buried compulsions that had nowhere else to go.
’That’s bad.’
He thought of the boss in the tower. The shifting faces. The violent changes in mood. He thought of the Duskmane and the raw pull of violence that ca with Beast Strength when he pushed it hard enough. He thought of the spider class, the poison, the threads, the patient predatory way those creatures had built nests and rationed food.
’So if I keep taking classes carelessly, I could end up carrying every piece of filth that ca with them.’
That was a real problem.
Soul Reaver was still absurdly powerful. It let him grow in a way that should not have been possible. It made the rest of the world look slow. But that sa path had a rot built into it. Not imdiate, not loud, not the kind of thing that announced itself before it was already wrapped around your throat.
Neo let out a breath and dragged a hand down his face.
He would have to pay attention from now on. Not only to what a class could do, but to what kind of thing it had belonged to. So classes might be strong enough to tempt him and filthy enough to make the price worse than the gain. That ant he could not keep consuming everything just because he could.
Even with that, he could not deny the truth.
He had grown enormously in a ridiculous amount of ti. That part felt good. Dangerous, but good.
Neo let the Soul Window fade and reached for the phone again. His thumb hovered for a mont over the contact list before finding the na he had added just minutes earlier.
Vivienne Mourne.
He opened the chat and stared at the empty space waiting for a ssage.
’What am I even supposed to write?’
A dozen bad options crossed his mind and died there. Anything too formal sounded stupid. Anything relaxed sounded even worse. In the end, he went with the simplest thing he could think of.
hello?
The reply ca so quickly it looked as if she had been waiting with the screen open.
finally you speak to , white-haired boy
Neo stared at the ssage, expression flattening as the warmth of the sunset stretched across the room behind him.
’She really was waiting.’
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