Infinity: Rising of the Soul Weavers

* Jim Yosef - Eclipse [NCS Release] *

"Do you remember the way Zeru fought against the giants?" Tu asked Raven.

"He used mana control to condense his energy into spears!" Raven's eyes widened in realization. 'Wait so does that mean that mana control in general requires such a thing as constant supply of souls?' she wondered in her mind.

"Your highn- um, Raven," Joey corrected himself, "do you mean that there's someone else with powers that are identical to yours?"

"I wouldn't go as far as to say identical," Raven shook her head. "But, he did appear to use mana control, in one way or the other, which means we share the same origin of powers."

"That simply does not make any sense," Joey shook his head this time. "Unless, whoever that is, is in fact a part of the Shadow Clan, which means he's your relative…"

At that, Raven's eyes widened. 'There is no way, right?' There were many questions roaming around, in her head, but she didn't know which one to ask first.

"I'll guess I'll ask him later," Raven tried to focus back on her main task. "For now, I need to try and build that tree."

Hearing that, Joey couldn't help but tilt his head in question, "you're building the tree? The same tree we were just saying was so rare that only royalties could taste on planet Erembourc?"

"Uhm, pretty much," Raven smiled.

"How will you do that?"

"We'll figure it out, don't worry about it hehe," Kayla chuckled while hugging Raven's arm.

***

"Adam, have you sent out the requests yet?" Scott, the Deputy General, asked his assistant.

"Yes, we should receive the responses soon," Adam said.

Currently, they were trying to contact other EDA officials around the globe in order to organise the Elite Class.

The idea behind it was that they needed a group of young rankers that have the ability to grow up and become the next generation of elites.

As of now, only a handful of officials knew the reason behind Scott's request. But those few had made sure to encourage the rest to accept.

The class is intended to have rankers from around the globe, not just Canada, as they intended to gather the best of the best.

"Deputy General?" Adam called.

"Adam?"

"Do you think it would be wise to include that girl in the mix? From what I can see, the strongest young ranker we have on the list is ranked at A++

"Meanwhile, that girl is beyond SS rank, to be able to defeat you…" Adam thought back to the incident while clenching his fists.

During the encounter, he was nothing but useless. All he could do was run away.

"Adam," Scott said while tapping him on the shoulder, "I can't tell you what happened that day, but you have to trust me when I say that the girl isn't such a bad person.

"And although she did win that battle, it… it wasn't by her own strength… I can't tell you more than that, but the takeaway message is that she is safe to enter the Elite Class.

"In fact, we need her with us. The dangers that are approaching us can't be underestimated." He finished. "While we old rankers may be able to hold our own in the upcoming fight, many are expected to die."

*Sigh*

"The goal of the Elite Class is not to fight that battle for us, but rather to take our spot once we're gone…" he sighed.

"I understand," Adam said while looking down. He seemed to be drowning in his own thoughts. "Will the general be here for that?"

"Uhm, hopefully," Scott nodded. "She's been informed at least, and we have to trust that she'll be able to delay the danger, or be here in time.

"But even so, we know it'll take a while, so we do have some breathing space." Scott chuckled. "As of now, we have roughly four months…"

***

"Hm, something does not add up, huh?" Raven muttered while staring at the purple orb in her hand.

"So, we're looking for a way to extract the power of the soul, and make it so that it regenerates on its own…" Kayla muttered in turn.

They have spent about two hours now just staring at each other. They needed to create something they've never seen. 

Furthermore, what they were planning to create was something akin to a new source of energy, in a sense, which made it all a lot harder.

"Hm… maybe we're taking the wrong approach," Raven muttered while staring at the crowd in the distance. 

People were still working hard to recreate the stalls and set up the stages that were destroyed just a few hours ago.

"We shouldn't be trying to recreate something we don't have much experience in," she said. "What we should be doing is creating our own from scratch."

"But that doesn't change the fact that we have no clue how to actually perform that task, right?" Kayla raised her eyebrows.

"On the contrary," Raven smiled. "I created this soul orb, remember?"

"Hm, interesting, I like where that's going," Kayla teased. "Go on."

"You're such a kid!" Raven forced a smile since Kayla seemed as though she had already given up and left everything in her hands.

"Well, I mean…"

"Ok, shush, watch me," Raven said before closing her eyes.

'The way my soul weaving ability works is by extracting the soul through the shadow of a living being.

'But does it have to be a living being? And does it have to be through the shadow? What if I inject a soul into an object and give it the mana to grow? Probably not a good idea…

'Ok what makes up a soul?' thinking about it, she opened her eyes and used True Sight on the purple orb. 

Strangely enough, or maybe not as strange, the orb didn't seem to give away any secrets under her True Sight. 

*Sigh*

"Wait!" Suddenly, an idea flashed in Raven's mind. 'How did I not think about that?'

"Um, we're waiting…" Kayla raised her eyebrows.

"Ok hear me out," Raven smiled. "What if the tree wasn't a way to create souls, but rather extract them?

"We've learned that humans have been living on Earth for a couple of billions of years, no? 

"Meaning the soil itself should be soaked with souls. Well, not literally, but you know what I mean, right?" She asked Kayla.

"I actually think I do," Kayla said, "but are you saying that you're willing to use the souls of people that lived here before? Isn't that a bit immoral"

"Well, killing is immoral too," she shrugged her shoulders. "You have to think about it this way, we either go hunting for souls by killing people, or by using the souls of those who have already passed away.

"In addition, I doubt we'll be able to find souls that are intact after this long, but what we're counting on is that each one has at least left something for us to collect.

"The condensed energy from a group should be enough for one soul orb, or something similar at least "

"So wait," Kayla interrupted while shaking her head, "we need something to gather the soul remains, while condensing them to absorbable orbs? Doesn't that make you an Earthworm?"

Looking at her with raised eyebrows, Raven wasn't happy. "I'll ignore that for now, but I'll remember it when the time comes…" she smiled menacingly.

"Anyhow, let's start…" with that, mana started erupting from Raven's body.

'I think I now understand what I saw that time,' Tu muttered to himself, remembering his visit to planet Erembourc. 

During that time, many people were just sitting in the clearing in front of the big castle's gates as if waiting for their deaths, or already dead.

'They used living people to create an area of large soul concentrations… is that it?' He wondered to himself. 'I wonder if that was solely Raven's dad's doing…

'I really hope she doesn't end up being like him. But, from her actions, I want to believe that she's different than what he resembles.' he smiled while looking at her 

"Alright," Raven took a deep breath while stacking one skill upon the other. "Kayla-"

"On it!" Kayla instantly said while holding Raven's hand. The two connected their thoughts and started working together in absolute sync.

It took them about an hour or so, but at the end of it, they had a crystalized purple tree with silver circuits running through its bare branches.

The structure itself was a mix of different types of mana. The most dominant was the one belonging to Kayla's Ultimate+ skill: Ex Machina: Cyber Creation.

This skill allowed her to convert mana into matter. So even though it might appear to others as though she had created something out of nothing, in fact, she was using mana as an input.

"Do you think this would work?" Raven asked while panting on the floor with her back resting against a tree near the edge of the forest.

They had chosen this spot since it was relatively hidden from plane sight as well as had easy access for when Zeru and Aella might need it.

"I'm not sure…" Kayla had the same expression. "But it's the best we got so far.

"The tree should be able to support itself by absorbing some of the available world energy, just like normal plants use oxygen and carbon dioxide.

"Also, since it has a model of what it needs to gather, it should be an easy task to achieve it, with the help of both of our skills.

"Yours gives it the ability to gather soul matter and condens it into soul orbs, while mine is able to guide it."

"Uhm, I didn't expect your skill to have that function. But I guess Ultimate+ skills are indeed special." Raven said since she has just learned that Kayla's skill is able to insert a function, similar to a simple system, into any device she creates.

In a way, it means that anything she creates can function, on its own, as a computer with an end goal. 

"Hehe, it's all thanks to you!" Kayla chuckled happily. "Alright, so what do you want to name it?"

"Call it? I mean it might not even work as intended…"

"Still though," Kayla shrugged. "We worked hard to get it this far, no?"

"Hm, I guess… well, if anything, I'd go with um, Erembourc Tree, or actually scratch that, I'll go with The Erem Tree," she smiled. "What do you think?"

"Has a good ring to it haha, sure let's go with the Erem Tree!" With a smile, Kayla rested her head on Raven's lap and closed her eyes.

"You must be so tired huh?" 

"Uhm," Kayla muttered since she still had these sudden episodes of fatigue as she wasn't used to having her body out for so long yet. 

But she wanted to practice. So instead of going back into Raven's mind space, she chose to sleep on her lap.

"Well, we can take a quick nap," Raven said while massaging Kayla's head softly.. After a while, she closed her eyes too.