Chapter 78: Soul Energy And Soul Essence

A strong attractive force was released from Lucius's soul which quickly pulled the wandering souls into his own body. If this was done by anyone else and wandering souls entered their body, they would be in fatal danger.

At best they would go crazy, at worst their soul would perish and the body would be taken over by the wandering soul. Even if a wandering souls did not have self awareness, once one was able to get into a body, its instincts would take over and it would do its best to control that body.

This was its another chance at life and it would do its best to succeed.

Still… Lucius was fully aware of all this and had intentionally done this. His aim was different.

Once the wandering souls entered his body, they didn't even have a chance to struggle before they were sucked into Lucius's soul space. In there, they were slowly suppressed into mere balls of smoke.

Once they were fully turned into balls, Lucius waved his hands and gathered them together into a larger ball.

"Hmm…. The quality is shoddy, but workable… the soul resonance spell actually still works. Though it's quite taxing on my soul right now." Lucius said.

The soul resonances spell belonged to a special category of spells that were different than normal magic spells. These spells did not use mana but used up soul energy. Soul energy was hard to gather and use as it could not regenerate quickly. 

Even using the spell now would prevent Lucius from using it for at least a month. There were of course methods to regenerate the soul energy faster our gain it from other sources but Lucius could not use that in this world.

'It's was worth testing this out. At least I know that the souls here don't have a divine pull. I can make use of this now…' Lucius thought as he looked at the large ball made from the wandering souls.

"With a bit more of processing, I should be able to make quite a bit of soul essence. This should make creating a hell imprint more easier." Lucius said to himself.

He quickly got to processing the ball of souls and spent the rest of the night on it. It was a strange sight as nothing could actually be seen. The ball that was in Lucius's hand just started to shrink over time and reached the size of a marble.

At that point it was morning and Lucius decided to stop. Not only was he feeling tired he had not slept the entire night.

'Thankfully I can sleep more in the carriage. Though I won't be able to further process the soul essence before getting to the mansion.' Lucius thought as he split his consciousness from his soul and returned it to his body. 

Opening his eyes he saw the sunlight coming through the gaps in the tent's flap. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, wobbling in the process. The soul energy that was drained from his soul would some physiological effects like these. But they should resolve on their own if he rests more.

"You're up?" John said upon seeing Lucius walk out of his tent.

"Yeah…" Lucius said in a tired tone.

"Couldn't sleep well?" John asked.

Lucius simply nodded his head in response.

"I understand. Sleeping out like this is not something you have done much before. It takes time getting used to." John said, thinking it was due to Lucius being uncomfortable, when in reality it was due to him using the soul resonance spell.

"That's true." Lucius replied, not bothering to correct anything.

Kiana noticed Lucius too and brought him a bowl of water so that he could wash his face and rinse his mouth. In a few minutes he had freshened up and was ready to leave. The others were long since ready and were only waiting for Lucius to wake up.

They moved to their carriage and embarked on their return journey. But first, they needed to halt at the nearby town and inform the army officers there. There were always a few of them in each town as they were assigned there. 

It took them four hours before they reached the entrance of the town. It was a wide open road and there were no fences. There were a few town guards standing around but they were only there in case some beasts passed by and they would not check any passing carriages.

Lucius and the team easily entered the town and went to the building where the army officers were located. They then dropped off a letter that Lucius had written and had stamped with the seal of the Inanis family along with John's own signature of a lieutenant.

This was enough to authenticate the letter and let it pass swiftly through the bureaucratic channels.

~Phew~

"There we go, the final part is now done. The kingdom's clean up team will take care of the dead bandits while also gathering any clues we missed. We can head back to the mansion now and inform the Count about our success." John said.

Lucius simply nodded his head and didn't speak much. He was still tired and was just waiting to go back to the carriage to sleep. While he had slept for three hours during the ride here, it simply wasn't enough.

Once he sat down on the seat of the carriage Lucius instantly fell asleep and stayed that way till evening. He only woke up because Kiana had gotten worried and shook him. 

"Are you fine?" Kiana questioned.

"Yeah, just tired." Lucius answered.

"Hmm…" Kiana hummed in response thinking that this journey may have been a bit more for Lucius and attributed him to still be recovering.

"Eat first and then you can sleep more. It's evening anyway. We'll be reaching the next town in a short while. You can sleep at the inn there more comfortably." Kiana suggested.

"Alright." Lucius nodded his head before dozing off again completely ignoring Kiana's words.