Chapter 65 - The Rose Wight

Opening the bag, Merlin found a couple bones and a strange crystal talisman that gave off a sickly green glow. This confirmed his theory in his mind, the rose wight was created through necromantic magic, meaning there was a culprit, but he was yet to find the reason why she was killed, or how turning her into a wight fulfilled their goals.

He pulled a flask of lantern oil out of his inventory and poured the entire flask inside the bag. He then grabbed the small bag of blessed salts he previously purchased from the temple in Macedonia, emptying its contents inside the drawstring bag as well.

Upon the blessed salts making contact with the remains, black smoke began rising out of the bag, and an eerie scream echoed around him.

Ignoring the scream, Merlin began chanting while pointing at the bag.

「Skill ⟪Ignite⟫ Activated.」

Small embers started appearing on the bag, which quickly erupted into a large fireball as the lantern oil caught fire. The eerie screams became much louder, and the pitch raised into an almost ear-piercing whistle before becoming completely quiet only moments after.

In the smouldering remains of the rune-covered drawstring bag was the talisman, seemingly undamaged by the fire, and a glowing green ball of light.

Merlin's eyes widened as he saw the green light, it was a monster's soul. Without hesitation, he reached his hand out and grabbed the soul, causing a notification window to appear before him.

「You have empty soul slots, would you like to absorb, "★★ Race Soul: Rose Wight (Level 1)"?」

Merlin accepted the prompt, and the green ball of light was absorbed into his body. Moments after an information window appeared, showcasing the soul's stats and skills.

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★★ Race Soul: Rose Wight • Level 1

Bonus Stats: +7 Constitution

Abilities: ⟪Rose Blight⟫

Origin Soul Bonuses: +12% Status Resistance, ⟪Thorn Vine⟫

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Merlin admired the information window for a moment, he didn't expect it to be a two star race soul, not this early into the game anyway, but that didn't matter too much as he acquired it from a lower level creature.

Stars weren't typically an indication of power, they were more there to make it feel special, or as an indication of rarity. But coincidentally higher star souls usually had better stats and abilities than lower ranked souls, although this wasn't always the case.

In the case of race souls, souls that had more stars were either due to the creature being a rarer creature, a higher species of creature, or in the case of the rose wight, a rare mutation of a creature. This wasn't an indication of power, as the soul's strength varied based on the type of creature, as well as the creature's level you received the soul from.

As such a level four hundred dragon's soul would be vastly superior to a level three goblin's soul. And a level four hundred goblin's soul would also be much stronger than the soul acquired from a level three goblin.

For class and job souls however, higher star souls were generally given by quests with a high rarity, but they could also be levelled up and evolved by various means, the most common being class questlines provided by the various guilds and colleges.

But the most common way to acquire superior souls, which was an essential part of being a ranker, was by utilising the soul forge and the soul merging feature it provided. The soul forge allowed you to forge two or more compatible souls together to create a new soul that typically contained traces of each soul. The output was usually a higher class of soul, or at the very least had more potential than its parent souls.

Merlin decided to take a look at his soul's abilities, unfortunately he couldn't utilise the thorn vine skill due to his origin soul being taken by the fighter soul, but this didn't stop him from reading the skill.

The first ability he checked was the core ability of the class, one he'd be able to use regardless of the soul's origin status.

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⟪Rose Blight⟫

You have become immune to rose poison, but your blood is now poisonous.

• You can imbue your attacks with rose poison.

• This poison has a 10% chance to reduce the target's stats by 5%, this does not stack.

• Can be used to amplify certain skills or coat any physical weapons.

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Merlin read the ability out, it seemed a little weak at first, but five percent was incredibly useful when versing higher levelled opponents. The ten percent chance seemed a little low at first, but Merlin knew it would raise relatively quickly when he started levelling the soul up.

He then looked at the next ability, which appeared to be more of an active ability than the rose blight, which was more passive, only really changing his blood into a toxin and giving him an immunity to it.

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⟪Thorn Vine⟫

You now have a telepathic link with the seedlings that are growing in your body, allowing you to manipulate them as if they were your own limbs.

• Allows you to manipulate up to 2 thorn-covered vines.

• The vines can be used to attack, and have a 10% chance of triggering the effects of ⟪Rose Blight⟫ on a successful hit.

• Can be summoned and retracted from any part of your body at will.

•  If one is severely damaged, it will automatically retract and cannot be used again until it has recovered.

• 30 second recovery time.

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It was a strange ability at first glance, but he realised that it was similar to souls that just added other body parts, these ones were just retractable. Merlin had played around with these types of souls in the past, just out of curiosity, but he never really bothered trying to make them work with his playstyle.

The most popular souls that added body parts were ones that added wings, some rankers began using them as they believed that aerial superiority gave them an edge. There were also those that added tails and fluffy ears that were popular with the more casual playerbase, but also a few rankers, such as Snowbunny. There were plenty of others, but most weren't viable for ranked play, the players who did use them were doing it out of personal enjoyment or as a joke.

One of the least extreme examples of such were souls that added two additional arms, which was used by those who thought wielding four swords at once was a good idea. But the most extreme example he could remember was a high ranking centaur's soul that a streamer started using as a joke, causing him to explode in popularity. It made him much worse as a player as his entire lower half was replaced by a horse's body, but he became one of the most popular streamers in the game.

Humans only had four limbs, so utilising wings or in Merlin's case, tentacle-like vines, would require a lot of practice, but Merlin wasn't sure if he wanted to swap out his current origin soul for it. If he did, he would lose one strength, two agility and the sucker-punch skill. But the twelve percent increase to status resistance almost made it worth it alone. He was torn, but decided that he'd try out the new skill out later to see if he liked it enough to swap.

With that issue out of the way, he swiped all the windows away before chanting a command, "Open stats."

An information window appeared before him, showcasing his current stats.

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• Vitality = 5 (+4 Base, +1 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Constitution = 11 (+4 Base, +0 Title, +7 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Strength = 13 (+4 Base, +2 Title, +3 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Dexterity = 10 (+4 Base, +0 Title, +2 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Agility = 7 (+4 Base, +0 Title, +3 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Intelligence = 4 (+4 Base, +0 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Wisdom = 5 (+4 Base, +1 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Charisma = 5 (+4 Base, +0 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +1 Bonus)

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Merlin seemed pleased as he glanced over his stats. Constitution, which was once tied with intelligence as his lowest stat, was now raised to his second highest. Constitution governed over his defence and status resistance, two attributes that would assist in Merlin's survivability, especially when he met creatures that posed a threat to him.

Putting his new soul aside for a moment, Merlin swiped the information windows away once more before glancing at the talisman that was laying within the burnt remains. When Merlin walked over and picked the talisman up, he found that it was considered an item by the system, meaning he could store it in his inventory.

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[Purified Soul Sealing Talisman. (Uncommon)]

A crystal talisman, attached to a silver chain necklace.

• Was used as the catalyst in a necromantic ritual, it has since been purified.

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It didn't seem like the talisman was useful for anything, but Merlin decided to keep it stored away in his inventory for now.. There was always the option of selling it, but he may find a use for it in the future.