{Edited} A Merchant's Odyssey - Chapter 15: Fine, I'll Do It Myself (Patreon)

AN: Edited chapters do not count toward the monthly quota.

Chapter 15: Fine, I’ll Do It Myself

“Alright, Spirit Beast hunting take 2.”

Sebastian was back where he had left off the day before.

He may, or may not, have gotten distracted playing with the new applications of Spirit Energy in runes in his lab through the night.

But for the sake of progress, he chose to ignore that fact and proceed. "My gut, and possibly volatile mixed substances combined with coffee, tells me to go that way."

Sebastian decided his fate by using the mythical method of dropping a stick and took off in the direction it pointed, once more as a panda man.

The first beast to appear was a black-and-white wolf of some sort.

“Oh, it can multiply.” Sebastian watched in interest as the wolf glowed and caused a doppelganger to appear, vicious, slathering, but with actual life instead of how Grimm felt. “Neo would adore you; I should keep your species in mind for when I eventually bring her here.”

The beast didn’t seem to appreciate Sebastian’s commentary as it lunged, but a simple banishing charm sent it flying, its copy vanishing in the process. “Magic is still effective, but I need to learn the extent to which. Sadly, this one is too weak to find out.”

As it came back for a second attack with a new doppelganger, Sebastian put away his magic and focused on his Martial Soul.

With his increase in rank, his eyes were able to find the symbol within the beast's attack in half the time, and the same increase in speed followed for his claws drawing it in the air. 'It seems that simple manual was correct; every Spirit Rank fundamentally improves the Martial Soul.’

Rather than the single doppelganger the wolf created, Sebastian formed two.

Without any guidance from him, the two copies threw themselves forward to crash into the wolf and its copy. 'Intelligence isn't copied, and I can't control them. Is it because the wolf is too young for a more advanced clone? It could be different with a compatible Martial Soul, but it's not very interesting for my panda.'

Seeing copies of himself fight like wild animals was somewhat off-putting. Still, Sebastian let it run its course to test the new duration. 'With the Garlic monsters, I could only keep my hair active for ten seconds. Now it looks like it went up to a full minute.'

When the doppelganger faded, so did the knowledge of its symbol from Sebastian's mind. 'That's frustrating. Perhaps it will change when I rank up more? Or is there something else needed?’

Sebastian pinched his chin and ignored his test subject. ‘Is there a written runic language for these spirits?’

The wolf was half dead, so Sebastian put it out of its misery with a quick severing charm.

There was a fine line between sadism and scientific interest, and Sebastian knew where he stood.

‘Alright, test number two.’ The white Spirit Ring barely left the corpse before being dragged into Sebastian's Pendant alongside a trail of red mist. ‘Take it slow this time.’

The Pendant vibrated in displeasure but followed his command as it trickled the refined Spirit Energy through his Aura Channels, dripping it down into his Aura Pool and slightly increasing his accumulated Soul Power. ‘Much more manageable. As long as it's one or two at a time, I should be fine.’

Sebastian figured the most significant issue was that he had killed two dozen the first time while being within the first rank.

Still, in his defense, he had no way of knowing his Pendant could absorb and purify a Spirit Ring as energy for him to absorb. 'This thing is the biggest cheat code I’ve ever seen.’

One of Nym’s favorite quotes crossed his mind unbidden. ‘If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.’

A snort of humor left him as he flicked the happily vibrating Pendant. ‘People would kill me for this in a heartbeat.’

Sebastian was well aware of the risks.

After opening a gate to Remnant, it took close to half a year for the stone to recover to its maximum capacity. 'And that's with me opening doors within Remnant whenever I felt like it, but it was entirely drained by the time I met Neo.’

Holding it up to eye level, Sebastian saw that the power gauge was around 22%. 'I need to see how the Arch reacts to soul-powered runes. My tests last night already showed Egyptian Runes respond far better to Soul Energy over Mana.'

“I’m getting distracted again.” Sebastian shook his head and summoned the wolf’s corpse, throwing it into an empty pouch on his waist. “So many things to do, only two hands to do it.”

There was too much on his plate for him to focus on.

‘And that’s on top of spending time with Neo and having an entirely new world to explore that I know so little about.’ Sebastian mused as he restarted his journey through the woods.

‘I can’t afford to slow down and take everything apart piece by piece. I'm on a clock until the day those bastards move on Nym, yet I can only take things one step at a time unless I want to risk tripping over something I should have seen.’

Sebastian could always risk cracking open the barrier that stopped his Mana Pool from growing further using the stone, and hope that God’s Tear could fix the damage without mutating his flesh, but he didn’t need to take such drastic risks just yet.

'My gut says I'm on the correct path to fixing my Mana cap issue. I just need to get my soul up to the same level as my Mana and see what happens then.’ He scratched his cheek and hopped over a large root. ‘Hell, I should be thankful I unlocked Aura first, or I probably would have exploded from the rampant energy.’

Aura, at its core, was defensive.

Passively, it defended its users from direct attacks.

Actively, it could boost the body or weapons, but it took effort to train and learn to use it efficiently. 'Yesterday, when the essence was pouring into my soul, my Aura focused on protecting my channels. If I tried that move without Aura, I likely would have died.’

Soul Power, from what Sebastian could determine, was the opposite.

Soul Power was offensive in nature; it wanted to be used externally. ‘At least that’s what it feels like.’

He wasn’t speaking for Martial Souls or Spirit Rings, but purely the energy collected inside his soul. ‘It has no automatic passive function, yet it requires no training to actively use it to spend Soul Power.’

Combined, Sebastian felt they could empower each other, but he needed to keep ranking up to test it. ‘And if the ring from the wolf was any indication, I should be fine to keep going for a bit.’

Sebastian looked up in time to see a jungle cat the size of a fully grown husky smash into his Aura with a yowl of displeasure. ‘Fast.’

Sebastian slid back a few steps from the impact, claws digging into the dirt to slow down, and narrowed his dark eyes at the feline. “What's your trick?”

The jungle cat glowed momentarily before it dashed forward at triple its speed and smashed into a shield charm. ‘I see.’

The symbol glowed in Sebastian’s dark eyes as his claw drew it in the air, his perception shifting as he was suddenly thrust forward at triple his speed to smash headfirst into a tree. “Ow.”

His Aura protected him from damage, but the pain still came through. ‘Not all copied abilities are useful without practice; good to know.'

The cat descended on him again, but Sebastian banished it before it could touch him. 'I've been meaning to try this out; let's see how it operates in the field.'

Holding up a paw, Sebastian’s white Spirit Ring appeared around his arm, and a glowing sphere of rapidly rotating blades appeared in his palm. 'The mana version had a ten-foot radius at this size and tore into the Grimm like wet paper.’

The sphere stopped growing, and he quickly banished it toward the feline.

To the cat's credit, it reacted and tried to dodge, but the sphere cracked, severing lines of green energy exploding outward in a twenty-five-foot radius.

Sebastian had pulled back to avoid the backlash and still almost got caught in it. “Hell yeah!”

A whistle left his lips as he witnessed a massive tree crack and keel over as its bark was torn through. “Explosions really are a man’s romance.”

The cat's body was shredded, leaving little for Sebastian to collect.

However, a Spirit Ring still appeared and was sucked up by his Pendant, turning to purified essence as it poured into his soul and raised it another notch closer to Level 11. 'This one gave me a bit more than the last; I guess the years of its ring were higher?’

The year concept was another interesting area to research. ‘Do the beasts actually live that long? Or is it a term to describe how much Soul Power a spirit beast has?'

Sebastian had a growing list of questions he wanted to answer, but he wouldn't find them in a forest. 'I'll keep hunting until I feel myself hitting a limit, then I’ll look for a library.’

With that mindset, his trip sped up.

Against an ambushing vine, he threw his Spirit Ring grenade.

For an aggravating electric bird, he unleashed his needles.

When aggressive bamboo stalks tried to stab him in the ass, he shattered their shells with grenades until it was a pile of debris and sap.

A dozen more came in all shapes and sizes.

None of the White-ring Spirit Beasts were a match for his defenses, and they quickly fell under his onslaught.

All the while, Sebastian tested his Martial Soul to better understand the symbols he was using. 'Some kind of soul-based runic language? If so, it’s far more powerful than Egyptian runes.’

Sebastian's soul continued to fill up, like water pouring into a reservoir; he felt no strain under the increasing Spirit Levels as he consciously tried to kill only a single beast at a time.

Those that came in twos or threes were simply stunned as he let one process before continuing.

Yet when he reached Level 18, something threw a wrench in his plans.

A purple wasp bounced off his Aura with an angry buzzing sound, and Sebastian had to raise a brow at the sizzling poison it left on his Aura. ‘It can eat away at Soul Energy?’

A summoning charm had the wasp pulled to the ground, where he squashed it with his boot before it could make a second attempt.

Sebastian had never stopped looking for poisons to add to his needles, but with the metal's limited potential ceiling, he was very picky about what he added. 'I wonder what would happen if I used soul-based poison on a Dementor?'

The odd thought made him pull out a jar to collect the wasp’s corpse, yet just as he did, his ears twitched at a much louder buzzing sound.

Sebastian looked over and blinked. ‘Bloody hell.’

A cloud of angrily buzzing wasps descended on him with the fury of a petty leprechaun who had his gold stolen… cough, borrowed, even as Sebastian reassured the little shit that he just wanted to study his gold.

Sebastian prepared to apparate away when the wasps fired their poisonous stingers at him and forced him to throw up a shield. ‘Is it eating away at my fucking Mana?!’

Sebastian’s eyes widened as he reached into his pouch and pulled out a Dust grenade. ‘You thought I would come out here lacking?’ He activated it and banished it. ‘Hopefully I'll be far enough to avoid the absorption force.’

The grenade detonated with a wave of chilling frost that froze the wasps in a shell of ice, and Sebastian used that moment to twist and apparate to the other side of the clearing. 'Ha, that could have been bad.'

A growl behind him was Sebastian’s only warning before something smashed into his back with all the force of a runaway train.

His Aura protected him again, but his body went tumbling across the ground to smash back into the pile of frozen wasps as a Horned Ox stamped the ground from where he was a moment before.

“Did anyone get the number of that broom?” Sebastian muttered through the clearing stars in his vision before he saw the wasp corpses and realized where he was. “Bugger.”

His Pendant vibrated like a happy dog as a cloud of red dust and around three dozen white Spirit Rings shot toward him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Sebastian panicked and tried to turn his focus inward, but the Ox glowed and charged at him like a speeding bullet. “I already dealt with a cat with your trick; get lost!"

He banished his body in a different direction to dodge the speedy attack.

Sadly, it wasn't the feline's triple-speed ability, but rather an impact-focused attack as the Ox slammed through a tree with a snort of annoyance at having missed Sebastian.

Shrapnel from the tree slammed into his Aura and got deflected, with pain blooming across his mind.

Still, Sebastian could barely focus on that as his soul started rapidly filling up toward its max output. ‘You stupid stone! Send the energy somewhere else!’

Much to his surprise, the Pendant vibrated and followed his order as the flow of Spirit Energy changed directions from his Aura Pool, a sliver away from maximum capacity, and toward his rotating white Spirit Ring.

'Holy shit, that worked?' Sebastian was flabbergasted at the change but couldn't focus on it as the Ox slammed into him again. "Fuck you too!"

Sebastian yelled spitefully as he was sent rag-dolling until he got his feet under him and dug a trench into the earth with Aura-reinforced legs. “You wanna play, you dumb fuck? Let’s fucking play.”

Sebastian let his weapons fly out of his bracer and smashed the Ox with sound-breaking metal, and it bellowed in pain. 'Did that seriously not break its bones?'

Its skin cracked, but upon closer inspection, Sebastian noticed it was leaking Soul Power around its skin. ‘Is it reinforcing itself? Shit, this isn’t a newborn Spirit Beast.’

If it weren’t for his Aura, Sebastian might have gotten taken out with that first strike.

His needles bounced off its reinforced skin, unable to penetrate, so he focused on the spheres.

He reinforced his weapons with Aura and sent them forward again. ‘If one hit doesn’t do it, how about twelve?’

His spheres slammed it into the earth, cycling like a juggler. 

‘Twenty.' Sebastian pressed harder.

Its bones snapped, yet still it tried to stand.

“Fifty.” Sebastian roared as his mind ached from the command.

A bellow of agony left the Ox as its legs gave out.

‘I refuse to believe there is something that can't die with enough bludgeoning.' Sebastian felt something shift inside him and looked inward with a raised brow as the Spirit Energy pouring in from his Pendant tapered out. ‘Let’s see what this does to you.’

Raising his paw, Sebastian channeled his Soul Power and watched with a growing smile as a Yellow Spirit Ring appeared around his arm.

The growing sphere didn't stop at the usual size.

It kept growing as Sebastian fed it more energy, changing from a softball to the size of a beach ball, with nearly half his Aura Pool being spent on it.

The Ox’s animalistic eyes were glued to the glowing sphere, and Sebastian felt no pity for it as he launched his attack with a middle finger raised in his other hand. “Fuck around and find out, cunt.”

The second it left his paw, Sebastian banished his body backward as hard as he could, watching in soul-deep satisfaction as a massive explosion of blades ripped up the forest and ground the Ox down into a bloody mist. “Woo!”

The explosion was a match for his Philosopher’s Stone-powered grenade spells, and it only cost him half his Aura Pool to cast. "Now that's an upgrade."

Sebastian smiled widely at the yellow Spirit Ring spinning lazily around his arm. "This just opened even more doors."

The dust cleared, and Sebastian got a good look at the carnage of his supercharged ability, only for his eyes to land on a floating yellow Spirit Ring right before his Pendant vibrated.

He had a moment for his expression to flatten. ‘Oh, fuck you.’

The ring shot across the clearing and slammed into the Pendant with far more energy than a white ring. The last sliver of Sebastian's soul reached saturation. 'I can't catch a break with this bloody thing.’

Shutting down his miscellaneous thoughts, Sebastian emptied his mind and focused on what his Martial Soul was doing.

With a clear nudge from Sebastian, his panda’s paw scooped up the Energy Tracing rune and dragged it down to his Aura Pool, where it fell in and began absorbing the dense Soul Power flowing in at a rapid pace.

'It has to be a rune of my own creation.' Sebastian understood it then; it wasn't just that his Martial Soul could make its own rings, but that it couldn't absorb foreign Spirit Rings.

He had to make his own, yet the possibilities of what he could make were limitless. 'Who needs a foreign power boost when I can just make my own? Isn't that what I've always done?'

As his claw rose and began drawing the new Spirit Ring in reality, Sebastian felt a laugh bubbling up inside him. ‘From start to finish, I'll build every building block with my own hands. The stone was my one lucky break, and even then, I had to plan for a year to steal it in the few-minute window it was free for the taking in the six hundred years since its creation.’

He had spent almost his entire seventh year planning that heist.

Sebastian grinned down at the formation of his second Spirit Ring. ‘Everything I've done up to this point was my achievement and legacy; no one gave it to me.’

He watched the rune shift and change as Soul Power mutated it. ‘Who needs a mental art I can barely practice like Occlumency? If I need mental protection, I’ll just make my own!’

Sebastian wasn't a warrior but a madman who shattered preconceived notions and pushed the boundaries where everyone else would scream to stop.

The new Spirit Ring was finished, and its fresh white glowing surface sank into his body to appear around the first yellow ring in his expanding soul.

Unlike the first time he ranked up, instead of expanding the interior walls, his Soul Power rapidly decreased in quantity, growing in density as each drop of energy held double the raw power of his previous rank, until it reached a tenth of the size of his Aura Pool.

‘It’s getting closer to resembling my Mana now. I guess I just need to keep filling the tank.’

However, just as he had that thought, Sebastian frowned at an odd ache in his soul. 'I think I strained something; I should slow down until I can use a God’s Tear again.’

His panda form faded as the pressure eased. 'Yeah, a break sounds good.'

He didn't fear pushing boundaries, but he also had no issue hitting the brakes if he felt there was a risk. 'It's just a week; I can live without stressing my soul. I should turn my attention elsewhere.'

There was a lot on his plate, but for now, his next step was finding a library. 'Perhaps I should pay Lee and his brothers another visit; I'm sure he'd be delighted to give me directions.'

Sebastian channeled his inner Neo and grinned evilly.

0000

Half a day later, Sebastian stopped before a pair of grand gates with a skeptical expression. ‘Nuoding Academy, huh? This must be where the ‘Number One Scholar’ that Lee spoke of is.’

Chapter End.