'Unbelievable. Do these powers really belong to a mere C-ranker?"
Nira Nightshade started doubting if there was a fundamental difference between the Expert rankers that she knew of versus the Expert rankers of the current generation. Eren had broken the conventional mold with his survivability alone.
Eren healed himself completely except for his torn clothes. He ran his fingers through his hair before rotating his neck. He stretched his limbs, made some bone-cracking sounds, and jumped on the spot a few times to check his well-being.
'I feel…. Hungry.'
Eren slapped his now-healed tummy a few times as it was making rumbling noises. His bloodline powers were at their peak, shooting his metabolism to insane levels because of constant cellular destruction and construction.
He felt like he could kill for some meat.
The butcher felt liberated. Not because he enjoyed the fact that he was being beaten up. But because he had faced his fear of standing up to a Sage ranker.
He felt like he had overcome a huge mental block at this point. The fact that he was facing the vestige of a Sage did nothing to stop him from feeling a sense of accomplishment.
"Who am I?"
Eren looked at Nira Nightshade and smiled. This wasn't the first time he had been asked the question. And he had a feeling it wouldn't be the last.
"Hehe. I am whatever I need to be."
Eren clenched his hands and turned them into fists before raising them in front of him.
"You know… this is the first time I've seen soul sense getting used like this. So these are what they call soul spells, huh?
You don't have a mortal shell and no mana core. And yet, you can use magic without using mana. Witnessing things like these makes me realize I still have a lot to learn and a lot to see. A lot to comprehend.
I'll have to thank you once again for broadening my horizons, Sage Nira."
Eren said and bowed a bit in front of the night elf. When he straightened himself up, he had a genuine smile on his face.
"I am getting a few ideas from watching you use your soul sense. Let me try some of them on you."
Blink.
As Eren said, he disappeared from the scene. Sage Nira seemed unfazed by the butcher's moves. He could not hurt her using his traditional spells. And he did not have the power to harm her using his soul sense.
At least that's what she thought.
Eren appeared right in front of Sage's apparition and let his punch fly. The latter thought that his physical attacks were just going to go through her non-materialistic image and hit empty air. However, she soon realized that the butcher had imbued his fists with his soul sense.
Eren had decided to use soul sense in conjunction with the Fist Arts he had learned from Ken.
***
It was difficult for Eren to use his weapons while imbuing them with his soul sense. The major reason for this was that they were not spiritual weapons. His soul sense would seep through the weapons' composition, not allowing him to enhance his physical attacks in any way.
The other reason was that he had not seen anyone use soul-based spells other than Alephee. So he was missing a reference point.
Of course, Eren's inexperience in using his newly awakened soul sense also had its hand to play in his fumbles. He had to say that Alephee was right in saying that it was too early for him to employ his soul sense in his attacks and defense.
However, taking a beating from Nira Nightshade and getting exposed to her soul sense taught him many things at once. He could analyze her attacks with his soul sense, receiving feedback for every move she made against him. The chronic planner in him took all those observations and deductions into account before finding a way to proceed.
His limbs– his fists– were different from any elemental spells or weapons.
They were a physical extension of his existence. As such, they were a far better carrier of his sense of self than anything else for the current him. All he had to do was find a way to coat his fists with the ethereal form of energy his soul sense was made of. Then he could use his Fist Arts he had borrowed from Ken to hurt the Sage's apparition.
***
Swoosh. Zoom. Connect.
Eren's fist connected with Nira's apparition for the first time instead of moving through it. He stopped after hitting Nira's stomach. That's because the attacker and his target both were caught off guard by this phenomenon.
They both couldn't believe that the most rudimentary form of soul sense use had worked against Sage's apparition.
Life is simple unless one finds a way to make it complicated. The same was true for the soul sense as well.
***
Spiritual attacks.
These were the types of attacks one could use with their soul sense. The act of imbuing one's limbs or weapons with soul sense could be considered a spiritual attack. Soul spells and mental attacks performed with soul sense also fall into this category.
Eren remembered Har Jahar appreciating him for his soul sense when he had used it against a monster during the monster festival. At that time, he had only overwhelmed his opponent's consciousness by spreading his soul sense around. However, to the Monster King, it was a big deal. He had said that Eren could be made god's emissary with just this qualification alone.
Eren didn't understand at that time what spiritual attacks were and how they worked at that time. But an altercation with the Sage had taught him many things at once.
Spiritual attacks rely on a different form of energy than mana. They employed spiritual energy that was found in one's soul space. To use spiritual attacks, one needed to establish a connection with soul space.
AN: Soul space was first mentioned in chapter 662. The term Spiritual Attack was first used in chapter 689.
