Chapter 208: A Soul Remnant

Lucius was currently using a type of soul magic that was similar to the one he had used before, the resonance spell. This was called as the Soul sense spell and could be said to be a lower version of the same category of the spell.

While the other one could attract the wandering souls, this one was used to find soul remnants and other such constructs. This consumed a very small amount of soul energy and thus could be used without him taxing his soul too much.

The last time Lucius used his soul energy was when he gathered the wandering souls of the fake bandits to refine soul essence. After that, it had taken him over a month to recover it all.

White the soul remnant locked on, Lucius started to pull it towards him using the soul sense. Since it was just a remnant of a soul, it had no will and thus could be easily controlled. 

In other words, it was just like an object rather than a living thing. Though it still contained information that Lucius could very well use. And with that in mind, the blob like soul remnant released from the body of the spy and flew towards Lucius.

Lucius quickly pulled the remnant into his soul space where its dissipation was stopped and it was isolated from the influence of the outer world.

"Hmm… the remnant is mostly gone. Don't know if I'll get anything relevant from it, but it's worth a try anyway." Lucius said to himself before his soul extended its hand and touched the remnant soul.

The women, he did so a rush of information filled his mind. This gave him a splitting headache, but he forcefully withstood it for the time being. It was a common side effect of using such a direct method of extracting information from a soul remnant.

But a few seconds later, the headache went away on its own and Lucius felt much better.

"Huh, that was unexpected," Lucius muttered to himself before he took a look at the information that had come pouring into his mind.

Most of the information was a messy and jumbled mix that could not be used at all and was mostly a waste. Lucius directly cut off this part and only kept the parts that seemed to be a bit more coherent.

But even then, there were parts that read like broken sentences to him. Still, they could be useful and thus he kept them. With all the extraction done, the soul remnant dissipated quickly as the only thing that it contained was now gone.

Within Lucius's mind, only a few lines of information were left that he could fully understand.

'Urgent contract'

'Count Gabriel'

'Food catering needed'

'Short time'

These were the only four lines that Lucius could make sense of and were usable to him.

"Of these, Count Gabriel seems like the biggest markers of what the spy intended to do. And that urgent contract as well, perhaps it's a contract for the murder of the Count?" Lucius analyzed.

"Food Catering needed seems rather mismatched and is probably unrelated to everything. As for Short time, it is rather vague and can be used in many situations." He continued.

With this little information obtained, Lucius decided to end his session and left his soul space, returning his consciousness to the body. 

"Ugh!" Lucius held his head for a bit and pressed upon his temples.

'There was far too much junk information in there. It strained my mind more than I thought it would.' Lucius thought to himself and rested for a few minutes.

He only woke up when a knock was heard on the door of the lab.

~Knock~ knock~

"I'm here with them," Kiana called out from the outside.

"Wait, just a moment," Lucius said before he covered up the dead spy. 

Even if he was sure of these people, Lucius didn't trust that they wouldn't let out something unconsciously to others. He had not yet put marks of obedience on them and he would prefer to keep his distance until then.

Lucius then checked the three Lost and saw that they had strangely backed against the walls. Not knowing why Lucius furrowed his brows, but did not think much of it for now. He had known that these lost were different from others from his past life and there were a lot of things that he didn't know about them just yet.

He would need to figure out the other details later on as time went by and things occurred. For now though, he needed to attend to the helpers Kiana had brought.

"You can enter now," Lucius announced.

~Creak~

The doors of the lab opened and on walked three men. Two of them were young, looking like they were in their late twenties, while one of them was an old man in his sixties.

"Welcome!" Lucius said with a smile.

A little politeness and humbleness went quite far when dealing with subordinates. With basically no cost, one could increase the loyalty and favor that a subordinate would feel for their superior.

Being polite was something that came at no cost and was something every successful politician needed to learn, or at least needed to pretend to be on the surface.

"Greetings, Lord Asher! We are pleased to help." The three men said, almost in sync.

"Please do tell us what you need of us, Lord Asher. We shall do our best to help you." The old man spoke.

"This is blacksmith Milo, and metal workers Brian and Elmer." Kiana introduced.

"Of course, of course, how can I forget our good friends?" Lucius said with a wide smile.

"I need your help with something that needs your specialty," Lucius asked.

"And what's that, Lord Asher?" Milo questioned.

"I need your help in the identification of a metal and perhaps who made it." Lucius stated.

"Of course, we can do that my Lord." The two metal workers responded.

Lucius gestured to the arrows, quiver, and the bow on the desk before saying, "please take a look."