Valen sprang from his bed, barely able to contain his excitement. His heart hammered as the full implications of what Iris had revealed settled into his mind.
This is a significant discovery. The loophole should work.
Noble families like the Ashfords didn't just have wealth and political connections—they had access to resources that could fundamentally alter a person's destiny. The Origin Core Potion he'd consumed wasn't some standard concoction available at market stalls. It was a masterwork creation, brewed using materials that cost more than most commoners earned in a lifetime.
The most valuable component was the Core Crystal—a physical crystallization of a Mana Core that formed after death. When Spirit Beasts, Mages, or Warriors died, their accumulated magical power condensed into these precious gems, each one containing traces of the deceased's abilities and knowledge. These crystals were among the most sought-after resources in the entire world, forming the foundation of the magical economy.
The truly exceptional potions, like the one Valen had consumed, granted newly awakened mages an innate ability derived directly from the Spirit Beast whose Core Crystal had been used in the brewing process.
Valen had specifically requested a potion containing the Mana Sharing ability, following the subtle guidance Iris had planted in his dreams over the years. This was a crucial part of the strategy to exploit the loophole.
The mechanics of Mana Sharing were straightforward enough. The caster could open a spirit channel with a target and send or receive mana with the target's permission. It is generally considered a support ability without much individual power.
But to establish the loophole, Valen required another ability—one called Mana Boost.
The Mana Boost ability, like Mana Sharing, created a spirit channel between caster and target. The difference lay in how mana flowed through that channel. When casting Mana Boost, the caster's mana regeneration speed dropped to zero while the channel remained active. Simultaneously, the target's mana regeneration increased by two to three times their baseline.
In both abilities, maintaining the spell consumed mana continuously. The target ultimately received approximately the same amount of mana the caster expended—a zero-sum transaction that made it useful for tactical redistribution but hardly revolutionary.
However, the devil lay in the details.
The requirement for both Mana Sharing and Mana Boost—along with similar abilities in their category—mentioned establishing a spirit channel. But there were actually three types of channels that could be opened between two mages: physical channels, spirit channels, and soul channels.
Physical channels were the crudest form, requiring direct contact and allowing only limited, unidirectional mana transfer. Spirit channels operated at range and with greater efficiency, but remained fundamentally unidirectional—mana could flow one way at a time.
Only soul channels could be truly bidirectional, allowing simultaneous mana flow in both directions.
This wasn't hidden knowledge. Other mages had certainly thought of this exploit over the centuries. The theoretical possibility had been discussed in texts, debated in Academy halls, and dismissed as impossibly dangerous.
Because opening a soul channel required lowering every defensive barrier of consciousness. It created a direct pathway between two souls, allowing them to touch, intermingle, and merge. If both consciousnesses merged uncontrollably, both individuals would be destroyed—their personalities fragmenting into incoherent chaos, their bodies transforming into mindless, raving monsters driven only by corrupted instinct.
Therefore, voluntary soul channels were the greatest taboo in the magical world. Even mentioning the technique in polite company was considered deeply offensive, and practicing it was grounds for execution in most civilized nations.
But Iris had discovered a way around it—a method that required capabilities no ordinary Mage possessed.
The key lay in Soul Crystals, specialized variants of Core Crystals that contained not just magical residue but fragments of the original owner's consciousness and soul. These formed only when the deceased had possessed tremendous willpower and died with powerful, unfulfilled desires binding their consciousness to their Core.
Iris's cheerful voice chimed in his mind. "I know where we can obtain one. The young guard who usually takes the night shift in the armory acquired a Soul Crystal during the recent hunting expedition to eliminate goblins. It contains the Mana Boost ability. I overheard him bragging about it to his friends yesterday evening. We should be able to purchase it from him."
Valen thought pragmatically. "Buy a Soul Crystal? Mages and Warriors don't sell those for gold. They trade them for other Core Crystals or magical resources."
"Typically, yes," Iris agreed, her chibi avatar bobbing knowingly in his peripheral vision. "However, I also overheard that his younger sister is getting married next month. He needs substantial gold urgently to help pay for the ceremony and her dowry. Your savings should be sufficient."
"You overhear an awful lot of things," Valen observed dryly.
"Hehe. It's a maid's duty to anticipate and fulfill the Master's needs," she replied with obvious satisfaction.
"You're really committing to this roleplay, aren't you?"
"When in Rome, Master."
Thirty minutes later, Valen returned to his room clutching his prize—a Soul Crystal that looked like a small marble crafted from dark, smoky glass. The surface felt impossibly smooth beneath his fingers, almost liquid despite its solid state. Faint shadows swirled in its depths, like smoke trapped in amber.
So this is what a fragment of a soul looks like, he marveled, turning it in the moonlight. The novel mentioned these but never described them properly. It's beautiful in a disturbing way.
He settled cross-legged on his bed, cradling the crystal carefully in both palms.
"Are you absolutely certain about your calculations?" Valen asked, unable to hide the tremor in his voice. "If something goes wrong during this process, my consciousness could be corrupted. I could turn into a mindless monster."
"One hundred percent confident," Iris replied with unwavering certainty. "I have modeled every possible variable and outcome over the past several years. The success probability is effectively certain, given my capabilities."
Valen took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Then let's begin."
He cupped his hands around the Soul Crystal, forming a sealed chamber with no gaps for energy to escape. The technique he was about to attempt was the exact opposite of standard Soul Crystal taming procedures.
Normally, Mages maintained rigid mental barriers and then forcefully invaded the consciousness trapped within the crystal. Through sheer willpower and soul strength, they would either tame the foreign soul into cooperation or crush it into submission. This created a strong spirit channel between Mage and crystal, allowing the Mage to access the Soul Crystal's abilities like commanding a tamed beast—powerful but separated, always at arm's length.
Soul Crystals were incredibly valuable precisely because of this property. Even mediocre Mages could dramatically increase their combat capabilities by wielding the skills of captured souls. A fire Mage could suddenly command ice magic through a tamed crystal. A warrior could cast spells, surprising and overpowering opponents who'd prepared for pure physical combat.
But the process was dangerous. The battle of consciousness could leave permanent spiritual damage—fractures in the soul that never fully healed, leaving the mage weakened or unstable.
What Valen was attempting was far more perilous than the standard method. Instead of maintaining his defenses and invading the crystal, he was deliberately lowering all his barriers and inviting the trapped soul directly into his consciousness.
This would create the strongest possible connection between two souls—a soul channel, providing perfect unity that would allow him to control the Soul Crystal as naturally as his own organs. The crystal would become a true extension of himself, responding to his will without the friction and resistance of normal taming.
If he failed, the goblin's consciousness would overwhelm him entirely, and Valentine Ashford would cease to exist.
Inside the Soul Crystal, an undead consciousness stirred.
The goblin had been old even before his death—the chieftain of a modest tribe that had scraped out survival in the contested borderlands between human and monster territories. His wrinkled face and scarred body had told the story of a long life filled with violence and cunning.
Death had stripped away many of his memories. The faces of his offspring had faded into formless shadows. The taste of his favorite foods had vanished like morning mist. The sound of his mate's voice had become silence.
But his essential nature remained intact—the cruel intelligence, the predatory instinct, the burning desire for survival at any cost.
When the barrier between the crystal and the outside consciousness suddenly dropped, invitation flowing inward like an open door, the old goblin's spirit responded with savage glee.
Foolish human, he thought with vicious satisfaction. Inviting me in willingly. Your body will be mine. Your life will be mine.
True, the resulting entity would be corrupted—a monster with fragmented memories and destructive urges. True, he would likely retain only partial coherence, more beast than goblin or human. But he would live again, and that was everything.
The goblin's consciousness surged through the connection like a flood through a broken dam, pouring into the human's mindscape with overwhelming force.
He found himself standing in a vast, empty space.
The ground beneath his feet looked metallic and glassy, reflecting distorted images of himself like a dark mirror. Strange glowing symbols flowed across the surface in mysterious patterns—geometric shapes and mathematical formulae that hurt to observe directly. Above, the sky churned with similar incomprehensible data, forming constellations of pure information.
The wrongness of this place made his spiritual form recoil instinctively. This wasn't how a human mind was supposed to look. Where were the memories? Where were the emotions? Where was the vulnerable core he needed to consume?
Then the floor rippled like water, and something rose from its surface.
A metallic octopus emerged, its form composed of the same glassy material as the ground. Its tentacles moved with mechanical precision, and its eyes glowed with cold blue light—utterly devoid of fear, anger, or any recognizable emotion.
"Found you," the goblin snarled, recognizing this construct as the human's attempt at defense.
He immediately began his assault, firing his Air Bullet ability from his spiritual form—compressed spheres of raw magical energy that had taken decades to master in life. Simultaneously, he exerted his soul pressure, the weight of his consciousness bearing down on the construct like a physical force.
The octopus simply watched with those indifferent, machine-like eyes as the attacks struck its body. Slowly, methodically, pieces of its form cracked and shattered, breaking into metallic cubes that scattered across the glassy ground.
Victory!
The goblin spirit sprinted toward where he sensed the human's mana core, the true seat of consciousness and identity. Consume that, and the body would be his.
But before he'd taken three steps, another metallic octopus rose from the floor directly in his path.
The goblin hesitated, doubt creeping into his spiritual form like ice water in his veins. But he'd committed too far to retreat now. He attacked again, pouring more of his limited remaining strength into destroying this second defender.
Just as the octopus began to crumble, a third one emerged.
Then a fourth.
Then a fifth.
Suddenly, his entire field of vision filled with identical constructs, their glowing blue eyes all fixed on him with that same terrible, mechanical indifference. They rose like a tide, an endless army of defenders that required no fear, no exhaustion, no morale.
The goblin's dying scream echoed through the artificial mindscape as dozens of tentacles wrapped around his spiritual form. One of the octopuses opened what might have been a mouth, and the goblin's consciousness—memories, personality, essence—was methodically consumed and processed.
"The goblin soul has been consumed successfully," Iris announced with professional satisfaction. "I am now taking direct control of the Soul Crystal."
The moment the invading consciousness was eliminated, the soul channel between Valen and the crystal transformed. What had been a contested, chaotic connection became smooth and perfect—like replacing a frayed rope with a fiber optic cable.
The Soul Crystal became an extension of his body, as natural and responsive as his own limbs. He could access the mana core within it, use the goblin's innate abilities as if they were his own.
But crucially, he wasn't the one controlling it directly. The blue-eyed octopus construct—Iris's direct interface within his soul—had seized complete dominion over the crystal through the soul channel.
"Excellent work," Valen breathed, satisfaction flooding through him. "We've succeeded."
"Let us test the system, Master," Iris chimed, her voice carrying barely contained excitement. "I am now casting Mana Boost using the goblin's mana core as the source, targeting you. Simultaneously, you should activate Mana Sharing through the soul channel."
The Soul Crystal in Valen's palm began to glow with a dark, murky blue light.
Immediately, Valen felt his mana sensitivity sharpen dramatically. The ambient magical energy that normally flowed around him like a gentle breeze suddenly became a raging waterfall, pouring into his body through every spiritual pore.
This sensation—it's incredible, he thought, marveling at the rush of power. Like suddenly being able to breathe after holding your breath for too long.
His own mana flowed through the soul channel to the crystal as he activated his Mana Sharing ability, providing the fuel to maintain the Mana Boost effect.
But that same channel was targeting him, dramatically boosting his regeneration rate.
The loop completed itself perfectly. It wasn't a zero-sum game anymore. Both Valen and the Soul Crystal had more mana than when they started, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that defied the normal limitations of magical abilities.
"Recording metrics," Iris announced, her analytical processes working at full capacity. "Due to the perfect soul channel between your core and the crystal, the efficiency is exceptional. I am detecting mana regeneration boosts up to thirty-one times your baseline rate."
"Thirty-one times?" Valen repeated in disbelief. "Not thirty-one percent?"
"Correct. At your current mana levels, you are regenerating magical energy thirty-one times faster than normal. You should effectively never run out of mana in any realistic combat scenario."
Valen felt a grin spreading across his face, wider than he could remember smiling in years. With this, I could explore anywhere. Dangerous ruins? I can afford to make mistakes and still have enough mana to escape. Extended battles? I'll outlast anyone. Complex magic that requires sustained casting? No problem.
The possibilities unfolded in his mind like a map of infinite roads, each one leading to places the novel had never described, experiences the original Valentine Ashford would never have known.
He looked down at the glowing crystal in his hand. "The luminescence is a problem, though. Anyone who sees this will immediately know I'm actively casting. And other Mages can sense active magic—they'll detect the Mana Boost effect even if they can't see the crystal itself."
"We have a solution for that as well," Iris assured him. "Specialized craftsmen create protective shells for Soul Crystals that completely suppress mana fluctuations and prevent visual detection. Most Mages who use Soul Crystals employ such shells—both to hide what type of crystal they possess and to conceal when they're drawing upon its power."
"Perfect. We can visit a craftsman tomorrow morning to commission one." Valen paused, then grimaced. "Ah, but I don't have any gold left. I spent everything on the crystal."
"You can request funds from Head Maid Beatrice tomorrow," Iris suggested smoothly. "Before your mother departed for the border, I overheard her specifically instructing Beatrice to ensure all your needs were met and to provide you with reasonable amounts of gold for necessary expenses."
"You overhear a lot of things," Valen observed again, though his tone was affectionate rather than accusatory.
Iris's chibi avatar gave him the cutest smile, her eyes sparkling with satisfaction at a job well done.