Michael had very limited knowledge about the problems that could occur by fusing too many Soultraits to his War Rune. In fact, only a handful of Awakened all over the Origin Expanse would know what would happen if they manifested eight Soultraits. It was not exactly a common occurrence, after all.
'Maybe if I upgrade Glacicle to a complete 1-Star Soultrait something will change?' Michael mused, not really sure how much impact upgrading Glacicle would have.
But even if it was not that impactful, Michael didn't know what to do, in the first place. There was not much to do other than experimenting a little.
With that in mind, he willed some of the SoulStar Fragments stored near the pillar of light to move toward Glacicle.
Michael pushed a handful of SoulStar Fragments towards the Symbol of Glacicle, yet only two SoulStar Fragment reached the Soultrait. This surprised Michael quite a bit. He ignored the stream of Glacicle's Soultrait information, which had begun to enter his mind slowly, and focused on the movements of the remaining SoulStar Fragments instead.
The SoulStar Fragments Michael had willed were subtly pulled toward the sphere of golden light that expanded around the Symbol of Extraction.
As the SoulStar Fragments collided with the sphere of light they burst apart. The strand of soul power that had been stored inside the SoulStar Fragment was unleashed and devoured by the sphere of light. The sphere of light's glow intensified; a clear indicator of it being nourished by the soul power of the SoulStar Fragment.
'Hmm? What is this sphere of light? It can even absorb SoulStar Fragments.' Michael wondered, only for his attention to move back to Glacicle.
Under normal circumstances, a starless Soultrait shouldn't require more than two SoulStar Fragments to upgrade to a 1-Star Soultrait. After all, it usually required three to five SoulStar Fragments to upgrade a 1-Star Soultrait to a 2-Star Soultrait. Yet, Glacicle's 1st Star hadn't been fully formed yet.
Michael frowned seeing this, but he chose to ignore the confusing feeling that spread through him as he continued to invest SoulStar Fragments to upgrade Glacicle. This time, however, he focused on the Glacicle Soultrait to see how many SoulStar Fragments it required to be upgraded.
10 SoulStar Fragments later, Michael's frown deepened.
'It took 12 SoulStar Fragments to complete Glacicle? Why would it be so expensive?' Michael asked himself, in bewilderment.
He then moved his attention to Eagle Eyes to see if there was something wrong with just Glacicle, or if his other Soultraits required more SoulStar Fragments to be upgraded as well. After he used more than 30 SoulStar Fragments on Eagle Eyes, realization dawned upon him.
'Why are all Soultraits so expensive to be upgraded all of a sudden? Is it because I added an 8th Soultrait? Maybe, the War Rune cannot sustain more than seven Soultraits.'
Various theories formed in his mind, but one was absurder than the other. Most of them didn't make any sense, in the first place.
At the end of the day, Michael couldn't find out the reason all Soultraits were suddenly more expensive to be upgraded after Glacicle fused with his War Rune. If he had to guess something it might be the fact that the human soul couldn't endure the toll of fusing with more than seven Soultraits. That was the theory that made most sense in Michael's opinion.
Of course, this theory might still be wrong.
Unsure what to do now, Michael experimented a little bit more with his Soultraits. For every SoulStar Fragment he used to upgrade his Soultraits another SoulStar Fragment was used to nourish the sphere of light.
Michael did this intentionally, hoping that the sphere of light would provide the answer he sought. It didn't seem dangerous and the Extraction Symbol was at its center.
At one point, Michael began to invest SoulStar Fragments to upgrade Extraction. It was a mere experiment with little to no hope to change anything. However, that tiny strand of light at the end of the dark tunnel began to shine brighter when Michael noticed something.
"Extraction's SoulStar Fragment demand didn't increase? It stayed the same!" He exclaimed as his eyes widened in surprise.
Once he realized that Extraction didn't require more SoulStar Fragments, it didn't take long before Michael made another discovery.
'The sphere of light formed a socket that revolves around the Symbol of Extraction… Could that be helpful?' Michael mused, instinctively willing Eagle Eyes to move to the empty socket that was revolving around the Symbol of Extraction.
Afterward, Michael spent a few more SoulStar Fragments to see whether upgrading Eagle Eyes was still expensive or if it returned to the original cost of upgrade.
It only took ten SoulStar Fragments for Michael to reach a final conclusion.
"Eagle Eyes's demand for SoulStar Fragments is still not the same as before, but it's not as cheap as before. The sphere of light seems to control how much upgrading Soultraits costs."
After his initial discovery, Michael spent most of the remaining SoulStar Fragments to nourish the sphere of light. Initially, he had 1193, but his experiments cost him close to 200 SoulStar Fragments. Michael spent the rest nourishing the sphere of light, which expanded in size upon digesting 1,000 SoulStar Fragments in the blink of an eye.
Michael felt a little discomfort spreading through his body upon nourishing the sphere of light. It felt like something inside him was changing slowly. However, the final result was not a bad feeling. On the contrary, he felt pretty good after more empty sockets manifested within the sphere of light.
The sockets were in different positions – some closer to the Symbol of Extraction, some farther away –, however, all sockets were revolving around the Symbol of Extraction.
Once a total of seven sockets had been formed, the Soultrait Symbols began to vibrate violently. They moved around in unpredictable patterns, causing great harm to Michael, who began to vomit blood once again.
He was not sure what was going on, but he could see that only the Eagle Eyes and Extraction Soultrait were calm and unmoving while the rest were moving frantically, making him feel uneasy.
Michael may not understand what the sphere of light was, but he could tell that he needed it. He willed his Soultraits to enter the sphere of light, where he embedded them in the empty sockets one by one.
Only then did the Soultrait calm down.
Once the Soultraits calmed down, Michael didn't feel like vomiting blood anymore. His condition improved immediately, and he could pay more attention to the sphere of light, and the changes that occurred to him after binding the 8th Soultrait to his War Rune.
'The cost of upgrading a Soultrait is determined by the distance the sockets have to the core of the sphere of light, right?' Michael asked himself, knowing that he would have to experiment a little bit more before he could come to a conclusion.
He left his consciousness and got up from the ground. Meanwhile, Masked Saber and Tiara stood next to him, staring at their Lord and Master with worry.
"Are you fine? What happened?" Masked Saber asked when he noticed that Michael seemed to have stopped puking blood and was in a condition to talk.
Tiara bent down to help him get up, but she realized that something about Michael had changed. Michael's expression and everything were still the same as before, yet something had changed about his presence.
Somehow, he felt a little bit more like a deadly predator than before. The danger she perceived from him naturally was much higher than before.
"Did something happen to you, Master?" Tiara could only ask, unsure of what had just happened to Michael.
"I am fine. I just encountered a small issue with my Soultraits. But it's solved now. There is no need to worry," Michael responded to Masked Saber and Tiara, forcing a smile on his lips.
He wiped the blood around his lips and focused on the corpses of the 8 Lords and 9 Awakened he and Masked Saber had killed in the previous battle.
After unleashing Extraction, he quickly extracted the corpses' SoulStar Fragments, Soultrait Symbols, Artifacts, the loot they'd procured in the Lord Rift, and more.
Michael gained a total of seven Soultrait Symbols and 719 SoulStar Fragments. Upon extracting the Soultrait Symbols afterward, Michael was able to accumulate a total of 1363 SoulStar Fragments.
That was more than enough to continue experimenting with the sphere of light, and the changes in the upgrade cost for his Soultraits.
He used roughly 100 SoulStar Fragments to figure out how expensive upgrading the Soultraits was in the different spots all over the sphere of light before he concluded that Extraction was the cheapest to upgrade and that the cost of upgrading the other Soultraits increased exponentially the further the distance to the center of the sphere of light.
"If that's the case…can't I just switch their position whenever I want to upgrade them?" Michael murmured quietly to himself before he gave switching the position of his Soultraits a try.
His train of thought was quick, but reality was cruel. Extraction couldn't be moved away from the center of the sphere of light. It felt like the entire sphere of light would crumble the moment Michael tried to move it. Thus, he quickly forgot about moving another Soultrait to Extraction's central position.
The other Soultraits couldn't be moved either, but they didn't cause the sphere of light to crumble when he attempted to move them.
That was also why Michael chose to use Extraction on a few Soultraits to see if he could extract them from the sphere of light's sockets, and if it was worth moving them around.
Michael spend the next half an hour experimenting with the sphere of light. Unfortunately, the results were rather unpleasant.
It was possible to extract the Soultraits from the sphere of light's sockets, but he lost SoulStar Fragments while extracting the Soultrait Symbols. The loss was not small either. He lost between 10% to 20% of the accumulated Soul Power while extracting the Soultrait Symbols.
That meant low-level Soultraits with a Soul Power of 10 would lose one or two Soul Power Units, while those stronger Soultraits with a soul power of 200 would lose 20 to 40 Soul Power Units.
This ruined Michael's plan to keep switching his Soultraits' position to ensure that the cost of Soultrait upgrades wouldn't be enormous. It also meant that Michael had to figure out which Soultraits he should focus on, and which Soultraits didn't require his focus. After all, investing twice the amount of SoulStar Fragments to upgrade certain Soultraits – that were located further away from the center of the sphere of light – wasn't really worth it.
'Enhancement and Eagle Eyes are still the best Soultraits for combat and other purposes. But what about Spirit Whip?' Michael asked himself, scratching the back of his head.
There were only three sockets located close to Extraction, and one of it had already been occupied by the Eagle Eyes Symbol. Enhancement was the Soultrait he used the most in combat. It was the most versatile Soultrait he possessed, granting him great opportunities mid-battle.
This left only one more empty socket that granted a low upgrade cost for Soultraits. The other sockets were located farther away from the sphere of light's center, increasing their upgrade costs by more than 50%.
"For large-scale battles, Glacicle will be much better than Spirit Whip – especially if I use Enhancement to strengthen the Glacicles," Michael mumbled, "I can still upgrade Spirit Whip to 5-Star, but I am not sure if Spirit Whip's enhancement will have a big impact if I keep focusing on it. Glacicle, on the contrary, can turn into a terrific Soultrait that requires little to no focus to create a barrage of hundreds of Glacicles."
Michael was not happy that he had to organize his Soultraits, but he could understand why it was like that.
The human soul was never supposed to handle eight Soultraits at the same time. However, Michael had broken the established norms.
It was a little bit annoying, but it was also something Michael could be proud of.
Furthermore, the increased upgrade cost wasn't too much of a problem. After all, he would still focus only on a handful of Soultraits. Nothing had changed, or so Michael thought.
