Threads of the Soul

[Your Biological Score has increased.]

'Finally! It's about time already.'

Seth let out a content sigh as he heard those blessed words whispered into his ear by his very own guardian Angel. Licking his fingers clean, he pulled up his stats one last time and finally laid eyes on those lovely round numbers, unable to stop the giddy and child-like smile from spreading across his lips.

[Name: Sephtis 'Seth' Quinn

Species: Gaian Human

Biological Score: 100 Elemental Score: 73

Spiritual Score: 200 Psychic Score: 51

Mutation - Puppeteers Thread, Spirit Animal

Requitals: Life Lantern, Ravens Raiment, Expeditious Ratreat, Grizzly Reminder, Kiss of Death, Requiem of Blood, Weavers Curse]

Bonds: Omelette]

Getting his spiritual score to the max had been child's play, in fact it had barely taken him a minute to gobble up two soul fragments to get the remaining few points. It was the bio score that took the most time, although he relied on his own stockpile of food for that. After all, there was no need to take a chunk out of the group's new gains when he had all this venison and bear meat dried up for such an occasion.

It was just a little irritating that it took him nearly all of his supplies to get those last few points. Sometimes the jerky wouldn't give him even a single point, forcing him to down a few more just to finally get that miserable point. It was like playing a meat based gacha game, except instead of being left with an empty wallet he simply ended up with a bulging belly.

Even while sharing half his meat with Omelette, in an attempt to quickly raise the Wyvern's own stats, he was positively stuffed to the gills, much like his feathered companion. It was just a shame he had no idea how close Omelette was to maxing out, bu the Wyvern was a little glutton so he had to be close, or maybe he was already there and was just stuffing his face for the joy of it.

Thinking about it... It was probably the former, this little beast had been gorging himself on kills throughout the entire battle. He had probably reached his peak days before Seth and was just waiting for him to catch up so they could progress.

Speaking of progress, doing so turned out to be a little more complicated than simply hitting the max on his stats. He had been wondering why he had yet to see any tier one people or beasts, with the exception of the Kaiju sized Shelled Drake.

He had been asleep in suspended animation for almost a week, so it made sense he had yet to hit the peak on his stats, even with his increased limit on the soul stat. But others had been awake and active the entire time, so if it was as simple as just hitting the big 100, then no doubt there would be dozens or even hundreds of tier ones roaming around. It would have made beating someone like Sirius much harder, or maybe even impossible.

After all, they had only barely overcome their battle against the drake, and even then they had numerical advantages and their own giant monster.

No, it wasn't that simple. Of course it wasn't. Although whether that was a good or bad thing was yet to be seen.

When he had reached the limit of his soul stat, Angel had simply presented him with a list of 'Catalyst requirements' without even a 'congratulations' or a 'job well done'. Honestly, what did a guy even have to do for a compliment? It was even worse for Seth because by the time he could finally attend school, ie once his sister had pulled him away from his insane cultist parents, he was at the age in which school teachers stopped using stickers or gold stars on school work. An utter travesty.

Getting back on track and no longer dwelling on the childhood he missed out on, Seth looked over the list of required items once more, just in case the new stat increase had changed them at all. It had, but not by much and still within his workable limits.

In fact, he had already prepared the tricky parts, such as the heart of a lion-type beast and a mana imbued crystal, amongst other things. That was where most of his spare Requitals had disappeared to, traded off to other members of the community in exchange for these objects to increase his power.

Well... Technically they thought they were giving the items to increase Corvus' power, and they thought that because that is precisely what he told them, but it wasn't a lie. Technically.

Increasing his power would, hopefully, increase Corvus' power in turn. So really, it wasn't a lie and everything was dandy, right? Plus it's not like he was ripping them off, they got something in exchange.

The only of his newly gained Requitals that he had kept were the [Requiem of Blood] as well as the [Weaver's Curse], which he had gained from killing the horrifying spider with the ridiculous name.

It was a clawed gauntlet that had the ability to produce, and in turn control, extremely thin, incredibly durable threads of spider silk that could also be unnaturally sticky if he so desired.

The fact it complimented his natural abilities so well couldn't be a coincidence, it was practically made for him. Every piece of equipment people acquired was always something they could use. Armour always fit, no matter how their bodies were designed such as the cases for extra limbs or appendages, and weapons were always properly sized for their wielders. This stayed true even when the equipment was traded, which suggested it was definitely an active process on the part of their guardians.

Such a tailor made equipment gifted to him could only help confirm that Angel had some sway in the process, even if they wouldn't admit to it.

He wasn't the only one trading Requitals or using other items, such as food or clothing, to barter for special organs or parts, which meant that he definitely wasn't the only one using this bountiful harvest to their advantage in an attempt to rank up. But such a revelation didn't bother Seth, he didn't need to be first, just so long as he wasn't left behind.

Besides, there was probably some heavenly gifted pretty boy out there that had the rank up handed to him like a proper main character, never having to work for it. Wouldn't that be nice. They probably had both arms too.

Muttering curses to himself, all of them aimed at his fictional nemesis, Seth retreated to a secluded spot within the library and hid himself amongst the maze of towering bookcases. With Bob and Geetz on watch, one on the ground and the other high above, Seth began to set out the items required for the process.

Curiously enough, it turned out that the 'Mana imbued crystal' had been what the Hemogoblin mages had atop their staffs. It was a shame he couldn't thank the Hobgoblin for bringing such a bounty right to their door stop.

I mean... He could thank it, he was currently holding its severed head in his hands as he placed it atop the body he had dragged inside, but he wasn't going to. Talking to a severed head would just be weird. Using it, and its mage buddies, as a Catalyst for your magical evolution on the other hand? That was perfectly normal.

Once everything was in place, and after he had triple checked to make sure he wasn't missing anything, Seth finally confirmed to Angel to proceed with whatever came next.

[Confirmed. Checking Catalyst requirements... Requirements Met.]

[Beginning Purification Process...]

'Purification process huh? That doesn't sound so bad. I guess it'll just be the black gunk from the pores, shame we can't shower much anymore...'

Waiting for this 'process' to begin, and lamenting the fact he didn't have many clean clothes to change into afterwards, Seth was about to slip off his shirt when he felt a curious sensation in his mouth.

It started off soft, a gentle pressure in the back of his jaw, before the pressure suddenly increased in an instant, as if someone had wrapped a wire to his jaw, attached it to a brick and tossed the brick off a bridge.

Suppressing the urge to retch, Seth felt something rattling around in his mouth. A few somethings actually. Shifting them around with his tongue, he lifted his hand and spat the objects into his palm as he gave them an incredulous look.

'Is that... my wisdom teeth?'

Before he could question it any further, Seth curled forward and was forced to his knees, letting out a wheezing cough as it felt like Alexandra had given him a Rhino halting punch straight in the gut.

His teeth scattered across the floor as he quickly placed his hand down onto the ground to support himself as he began to violently cough and retch, but it wasn't bile that was rising from his stomach. Instead he could feel something soft and slender, as if a worm was crawling its way through his guts and up his throat.

At the same time his lower back exploded with pain, as if he had been hit in the ass with a sledgehammer. When he finally puked up the 'worm' that was climbing up his throat, along with an uncomfortably large puddle of blood, Seth was finally able to see what the 'worm' in question was. It was his appendix.

'It's... It's getting rid of vestigials?'

Coughing up another mouthful of blood, Seth fell onto his side as his tailbone shattered itself and rapidly reformed. Soon his muscles began to scream, wriggling and writhing uncontrollably underneath his skin as the process broke them down and fixed them again, over and over. Forcing his body to experience centuries and millennia of evolution in the span of a few minutes, without the trial and error and instead with the goal of 'Purification'. Whatever that meant.

After half an hour of gruelling, rapid evolution Seth was finally left laying in a puddle of his own sweat. His chest heaving as he greedily sucked in lungfuls of air, which had never tasted so heavenly before. After how his first evolution had gone, he really should have expected this sort of torture.

Yet through his blurred and unfocused vision, he couldn't help but notice that all of his Catalyst requirements, such as the Hobgoblins and the various mages corpses, where still exactly where he had left them and completely untouched. That was, naturally, when Angel once again whispered in his mind, ruining any hope that his torture was over.

[Purification Complete. Beginning Transcendence of species limitations...]