Chapter 42: Soul Age

A black-haired boy was constantly running on a sinuous trail through every few minutes. He takes a different direction at every stoppage.

With each step, Kritos body was mixed and changed with the new atmosphere. 

Kritos skill <The unnoticeable Shadow form> works with nature to hide the user's presence just like the achromatic lizard race, Furcifer.

One of the great advantages of this skill is that it doesn't consume any energy. It just depends on the user's stamina; after activating this form, stamina drained by the user's body drastically increases.

Kritos noticed that his elder brother was not running at full speed. Anyway, Kritos was having difficulty in searching Sanju's current location due to continuously using <Scently proboscis( phase 1)> many times.

While running, Kritos saw some monsters on the way; Kritos presence was no less than air to them. 

As a greedy person by nature, Kritos activated <Scently proboscis( phase 1)>, he sensed that Sanju was not shifting his place, for the time being, Kritos glanced at the giant squirrel who was rubbing its giant teeth with its small hands.

An idea pops into his mind, Kritos takes out an arrow from the quiver and places it on his bow. He concentrated for a few seconds, and his eyes were continuously aiming at the giant squirrel's left eye pupil.

Swish!!

With a thrusting velocity, the arrow travels in the air for a second and pierce into the giant squirrel's left eye.

"Churrrrrrrr…!

The giant squirrel cried out in pain, and it tried to remove the arrow with both hands while one eye was looking for the source of danger.

As a peace-loving species, the giant squirrel decided to flee as fast it can. But before it can retreat, a poisoned arrow thrust into its legs.

"Chrrrrrrrr…!"

The giant squirrel rolls out on the ground, and in anxiety, the squirrel searches for the attacker. 

To his surprise, the giant squirrel can sense some air distortion in a particular space but can't find its attacker.

Kritos was alarmed when the giant squirrel stared at his position; he found that after each attack, his shadow form deformed and twinkled for a second.

With caution, Kritos tried to approach near the giant Squirrel. Kritos knows if it notices him, the giant squirrel surely tries to bite him with infectious teeth.

Finally, after a few seconds, Kritos adjusted his body position and stabbed a knife into its neck and jumped backward for a safe stance.

Kach!!

Blood sprouted from its neck, the giant squirrel screamed in unimaginable pain.

"CHRRRR…, CHRRR…,"

The Giant squirrel falls on the ground, and the paralysis effect starts working on it immediately.

The poison spread into its body through the tip of the arrow. The squirrel trembles in its suffering and agony; after a few seconds, the giant squirrel stops shivering.

[Ding…]

[Host obtain 5 SP by killing pseudo rank 1 Giant tooth squirrel]

A system prompt popped into his sight; without looking again at the giant squirrel, Kritos trudged in Sanju's direction.

Many thoughts kept coming into his mind when he flew from that spot, " For powers, is it right to kill an innocent monster? Even demons sacrifice innocent humans for power, then what is the difference between them and me?"

The trembling and screaming face of the squirrel continuously coming into his view, giving rise to many questions in his mind. A slight sadness comes to his body after a few minutes of Interior fighting with itself. Kritos decided never to kill an innocent monster for power.

"Meat-eating monsters are enough for my SP."

***

It was already night when Kritos decided to take a rest at the big branch of an enormous tree. As Kritos closes his eyes, his exhausted body quickly surrenders itself to the darkness.

***

While Kritos was searching for his elder brother's location, Sanju was observing the unusual behavior of the nearby monsters.

One of the rank one monsters was carrying an odd flower in its jaws. Its jaw was coated by a glue type material, which indirectly separates the flower from the teeth and larva of the monster.

Mainly monsters look like they are searching for something, and what is more bizarre is that in the group of monsters, the prey and predators are searching in harmony.

Sanju saw the fascinating scenery from a tall tree; he chucked," Are all monsters in this forest decided to turn vegetarian?"

Sanju observed them for an hour when he saw they had no intention of soon leaving this place. He decided to take a nap for an hour and activated his innate ability < Amplified sense > 

It is one of the innate abilities of the frosty alpha wolf. Innate ability can only awaken after every major breakthrough.

At the apprentice warrior realm, Sanju got his first innate ability, High sense.

Innate ability doesn't have a ranking system; it depends on person to person. In contrast, the innate ability would upgrade itself after every breakthrough.

High sense >Amplified sense > ???

If a two person gets the same innate ability, doesn't mean they have the same advancement when they break through the same realm.

Many factors play roles when advancing an innate ability like bloodline and soul beast.

However, in some ancient texts, there was one more hidden factor written, which plays a vital role in advancement.

Soul age!

The age of a soul from the beginning of its birth. A soul can acquire any living being body from the whole universe depending on its previous life karma.

But Karma only applies up to tier10 Divine civilization.

When the soul, which is seen as eternal and part of a spiritual realm, returns to the physical realm in a new body. A soul will complete this cycle many times, learning new things each time and working through its karma. This cycle of reincarnation is called samsara.

Reincarnation is not limited to being born as a human. You may have had prior lives as animals, monsters, demons, or as divine beings who rule part of nature. 

However, even if a human achieves a high realm, they would never lift their seal of countless memories. One can say the previous life memory removes from the soul after each reincarnation.

Currently, only tier9 and tier10 divine civilization have a way to measure a soul age from the beginning.

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