Chapter 41
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Beta wasn't too opposed to entering deeper in the tomb. However, the labyrinth-like tunnels made it quite hard for him to find the deeper areas. Every single time he walked around a corner, he was on edge because, as Chugum already said, there were beasts in this tomb. Just because he couldn't see them right now, didn't mean that there weren't any at all. So, as he looked around the corners, he made sure to keep a safe distance.
That soon proved to be the right decision. Right after turning, he was suddenly attacked. A sword came swinging down on him, aiming for his neck. Beta quickly went back and prepared his own attack. He formed two void arrows and hurriedly fired them at his enemy. That's when he saw his enemy for the first time. It was a half-rotten corpse that already seemed to have lost most of its innards.
"How can it still live without any organs? How can it be so strong with its muscle tissues rotting away like that? So peculiar... Fascinating!"
The arrows flew across rapidly, hitting his enemy's chest and lower torso. However, to Beta's surprise, it still wasn't dead. Even with a hole in its chest and both legs missing, it didn't die. Instead, it was crawling on the ground, trying to attack Beta relentlessly.
"Even like that... Looks like the only thing that's completely missing is its brain!", Beta said with a little laugh.
Next, he formed another arrow, which hit the enemy's head. Beta wasn't sure if that would work, but giving it a try wouldn't hurt. As soon as the head went missing, the body came to a standstill.
"Hm? Is it really dead now? Or could it..."
After saying this, Beta formed another arrow and shot it at the motionless corpse. A few moments before it hit the corpse's body though, it moved. Rapidly. In the blink of an eye, it was before Beta, reaching out with its bloody hands. Beta, as if he expected this, shot another arrow at it. Earlier he had prepared another arrow before attacking the corpse.
The corpses' hands quickly vanished due to Beta's arrow and the rotting corpse fell to the ground with a thud. But seconds later, it stood up again.
"How troublesome… How am I supposed to kill this thing? I guess I'll just have to immobilize it first."
Beta willed his soulpower out and formed a small scalpel. He then cut off the corpse's arms and looked at it.
"Time to experiment a little!"
Beta's eyes were glowing brightly as he examined the corpse thoroughly. It still kept on wriggling as if it wants to attack him, which annoyed him quite a bit, but he was still able to find out a thing or two about it. The "living corpse" wasn't exactly alive. It was merely held together and manipulated through soulpower. Not just any kind of soulpower at that. It felt like the element of death, that he himself had. But it was a different application from what he had noticed so far.
Instead of changing physical matter, it somehow changed the soul. Although Beta didn't find out how exactly it worked, he surmised that an orb was necessary. It was made out of soulpower combined with what seemed to be the core of the organism. He deduced that it should be the container for the soul inscribed with additional instructions and a set of restrictions for its mobilization. As soon as Beta used the scalpel to slice it, the orb somehow turned into a fluid which flowed back into the corpse, vanishing completely.
"The fluid didn't get absorbed by the corpse, so where did it go? Was it a fluid to begin with? Though it felt like soulpower... well, it was more likely soulpower. For now, I'll just assume that someone used soulpower and trapped a soul inside it before hardening it to form the orb. Within this soulpower were a set of rules which the soul had to conform to. Heh… The death element seems to be trickier than I had ever imagined. I already thought that the void element is strong, but now I have to reconsider. I need to do more experiments with my death element in the near future... Not like I could train it the past few days though since I'm currently focusing with my void element. After all, I'm given this rare opportunity of meeting a void master. That would be stupid of me to let this chance go. Once these tests are over, I'll be able to start training properly with my death elemental soulpower again. There's still so much to learn about it. Too bad I can't start yet. Plus, I also don't know how Chugum would react to the 'evil' path..."
After noting his analysis down in his mind, he prepared to leave the scene and venture deeper into the tomb. As he got up to move forward, he noticed the corpse suddenly started to rapidly decay in front of his eyes. It was at a speed even a normal person could see without any problems.
"Looks like the body was even kept from decaying. Shouldn't that be due to the use of something like a life element? Hmm… how strange… The more I learn about my own element, the more I feel like I know nothing at all. This tomb might be just the right place for me to take notes for later experiments. Once I'm out of this personal world space, I definitely need to find some test subjects.", Beta happily mused.
Until now, he had always thought that the only ability of his death element was to make things decay. But it seems like he barely scratched the surface about the truth behind the death element. Knowing that it could stop decaying and even ventured into the area of soul manipulation, this discovery filled his complete being with excitement.
Beta didn't dawdle around any longer and proceeded deeper, eager to find other undead creatures to gather more information for further research. He wasn't disappointed at all. Only a few minutes later, he found a dog-like beast which seemed to be enjoying the meat of a corpse. However, when it noticed Beta coming in, it quickly threw itself at him. Its sharp claws were aiming at Beta's chest, while its teeth tried to dig themselves into his neck. Beta, of course, was expecting it, thus he quickly counterattacked. He had formed three arrows beforehand and let them all loose. The first one eliminated both front legs, while the latter two took care of its hind legs. Beta didn't try to hit its head because he didn't know if it's an undead as well. If it was, he'd like to inspect the brain without damaging it.
However, as he got closer to the limbless beast, it died. Blood was streaming out of all of its stumps, killing it quite fast.
"So, not only the undead inhabits this place. Truly too bad...", Beta thought while dissecting the beast. But of course, just because it wasn't an undead didn't mean he would let it lie on the ground unused. As they all say, waste not want not. There was still information to be gathered from the corpse so he wouldn't let it go to waste.
In its stomach, Beta found a few half-digested corpse parts and a small silver ring that must have belonged to the corpse nearby. He kept it so that he can sell it later. He was sure it would fetch a nice price for him. Beta then checked the liver. This organ is used to filter the blood coming from the digestive tract. Since this beast was able to consume rotten flesh without any repercussions, there must be something different compared to a human liver. Its texture is just as rubbery and reddish brown in color. But he noticed that there are some minuscule differences in its structure. Seems like this kind of liver was way more efficient. Beta was sure that if someone were to be poisoned while having this liver in their body, that person would fare much better than a normal one. Weak poisons might actually benefit the person instead!
"It's too bad this liver is too small to be of use to me... But that doesn't mean that there aren't any other beasts with similar kind of abilities in this tomb. I won't be able to transplant it here since Chugum is probably watching me though, but if I put it into my personal space, there shouldn't be any problem with doing it later."
With a new goal in mind, Beta strode into the next corridor. The deeper he got, the more he benefitted from this tomb. His expectations for the bottom level were boundless. He truly wished to just take everything with him and then analyze it in silence after getting out of this tomb, but sadly that wasn't possible with the time limit given and with his, still way too small, personal space.
On his way down, he encountered a few other undead, but they weren't much different from the others he already encountered. They, just like the first one, were powered by what he now called a soul core. Their brains were mostly mush or similar to a goo-ish kind of mashed potatoes.
"I should hurry clearing this place up."
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Beta wasn't too opposed to entering deeper in the tomb. However, the labyrinth-like tunnels made it quite hard for him to find the deeper areas. Every single time he walked around a corner, he was on edge because, as Chugum already said, there were beasts in this tomb. Just because he couldn't see them right now, didn't mean that there weren't any at all. So, as he looked around the corners, he made sure to keep a safe distance.
That soon proved to be the right decision. Right after turning, he was suddenly attacked. A sword came swinging down on him, aiming for his neck. Beta quickly went back and prepared his own attack. He formed two void arrows and hurriedly fired them at his enemy. That's when he saw his enemy for the first time. It was a half-rotten corpse that already seemed to have lost most of its innards.
"How can it still live without any organs? How can it be so strong with its muscle tissues rotting away like that? So peculiar... Fascinating!"
The arrows flew across rapidly, hitting his enemy's chest and lower torso. However, to Beta's surprise, it still wasn't dead. Even with a hole in its chest and both legs missing, it didn't die. Instead, it was crawling on the ground, trying to attack Beta relentlessly.
"Even like that... Looks like the only thing that's completely missing is its brain!", Beta said with a little laugh.
Next, he formed another arrow, which hit the enemy's head. Beta wasn't sure if that would work, but giving it a try wouldn't hurt. As soon as the head went missing, the body came to a standstill.
"Hm? Is it really dead now? Or could it..."
After saying this, Beta formed another arrow and shot it at the motionless corpse. A few moments before it hit the corpse's body though, it moved. Rapidly. In the blink of an eye, it was before Beta, reaching out with its bloody hands. Beta, as if he expected this, shot another arrow at it. Earlier he had prepared another arrow before attacking the corpse.
The corpses' hands quickly vanished due to Beta's arrow and the rotting corpse fell to the ground with a thud. But seconds later, it stood up again.
"How troublesome… How am I supposed to kill this thing? I guess I'll just have to immobilize it first."
Beta willed his soulpower out and formed a small scalpel. He then cut off the corpse's arms and looked at it.
"Time to experiment a little!"
Beta's eyes were glowing brightly as he examined the corpse thoroughly. It still kept on wriggling as if it wants to attack him, which annoyed him quite a bit, but he was still able to find out a thing or two about it. The "living corpse" wasn't exactly alive. It was merely held together and manipulated through soulpower. Not just any kind of soulpower at that. It felt like the element of death, that he himself had. But it was a different application from what he had noticed so far.
Instead of changing physical matter, it somehow changed the soul. Although Beta didn't find out how exactly it worked, he surmised that an orb was necessary. It was made out of soulpower combined with what seemed to be the core of the organism. He deduced that it should be the container for the soul inscribed with additional instructions and a set of restrictions for its mobilization. As soon as Beta used the scalpel to slice it, the orb somehow turned into a fluid which flowed back into the corpse, vanishing completely.
"The fluid didn't get absorbed by the corpse, so where did it go? Was it a fluid to begin with? Though it felt like soulpower... well, it was more likely soulpower. For now, I'll just assume that someone used soulpower and trapped a soul inside it before hardening it to form the orb. Within this soulpower were a set of rules which the soul had to conform to. Heh… The death element seems to be trickier than I had ever imagined. I already thought that the void element is strong, but now I have to reconsider. I need to do more experiments with my death element in the near future... Not like I could train it the past few days though since I'm currently focusing with my void element. After all, I'm given this rare opportunity of meeting a void master. That would be stupid of me to let this chance go. Once these tests are over, I'll be able to start training properly with my death elemental soulpower again. There's still so much to learn about it. Too bad I can't start yet. Plus, I also don't know how Chugum would react to the 'evil' path..."
After noting his analysis down in his mind, he prepared to leave the scene and venture deeper into the tomb. As he got up to move forward, he noticed the corpse suddenly started to rapidly decay in front of his eyes. It was at a speed even a normal person could see without any problems.
"Looks like the body was even kept from decaying. Shouldn't that be due to the use of something like a life element? Hmm… how strange… The more I learn about my own element, the more I feel like I know nothing at all. This tomb might be just the right place for me to take notes for later experiments. Once I'm out of this personal world space, I definitely need to find some test subjects.", Beta happily mused.
Until now, he had always thought that the only ability of his death element was to make things decay. But it seems like he barely scratched the surface about the truth behind the death element. Knowing that it could stop decaying and even ventured into the area of soul manipulation, this discovery filled his complete being with excitement.
Beta didn't dawdle around any longer and proceeded deeper, eager to find other undead creatures to gather more information for further research. He wasn't disappointed at all. Only a few minutes later, he found a dog-like beast which seemed to be enjoying the meat of a corpse. However, when it noticed Beta coming in, it quickly threw itself at him. Its sharp claws were aiming at Beta's chest, while its teeth tried to dig themselves into his neck. Beta, of course, was expecting it, thus he quickly counterattacked. He had formed three arrows beforehand and let them all loose. The first one eliminated both front legs, while the latter two took care of its hind legs. Beta didn't try to hit its head because he didn't know if it's an undead as well. If it was, he'd like to inspect the brain without damaging it.
However, as he got closer to the limbless beast, it died. Blood was streaming out of all of its stumps, killing it quite fast.
"So, not only the undead inhabits this place. Truly too bad...", Beta thought while dissecting the beast. But of course, just because it wasn't an undead didn't mean he would let it lie on the ground unused. As they all say, waste not want not. There was still information to be gathered from the corpse so he wouldn't let it go to waste.
In its stomach, Beta found a few half-digested corpse parts and a small silver ring that must have belonged to the corpse nearby. He kept it so that he can sell it later. He was sure it would fetch a nice price for him. Beta then checked the liver. This organ is used to filter the blood coming from the digestive tract. Since this beast was able to consume rotten flesh without any repercussions, there must be something different compared to a human liver. Its texture is just as rubbery and reddish brown in color. But he noticed that there are some minuscule differences in its structure. Seems like this kind of liver was way more efficient. Beta was sure that if someone were to be poisoned while having this liver in their body, that person would fare much better than a normal one. Weak poisons might actually benefit the person instead!
"It's too bad this liver is too small to be of use to me... But that doesn't mean that there aren't any other beasts with similar kind of abilities in this tomb. I won't be able to transplant it here since Chugum is probably watching me though, but if I put it into my personal space, there shouldn't be any problem with doing it later."
With a new goal in mind, Beta strode into the next corridor. The deeper he got, the more he benefitted from this tomb. His expectations for the bottom level were boundless. He truly wished to just take everything with him and then analyze it in silence after getting out of this tomb, but sadly that wasn't possible with the time limit given and with his, still way too small, personal space.
On his way down, he encountered a few other undead, but they weren't much different from the others he already encountered. They, just like the first one, were powered by what he now called a soul core. Their brains were mostly mush or similar to a goo-ish kind of mashed potatoes.
"I should hurry clearing this place up."
Beta wasn't too opposed to entering deeper in the tomb. However, the labyrinth-like tunnels made it quite hard for him to find the deeper areas. Every single time he walked around a corner, he was on edge because, as Chugum already said, there were beasts in this tomb. Just because he couldn't see them right now, didn't mean that there weren't any at all. So, as he looked around the corners, he made sure to keep a safe distance.That soon proved to be the right decision. Right after turning, he was suddenly attacked. A sword came swinging down on him, aiming for his neck. Beta quickly went back and prepared his own attack. He formed two void arrows and hurriedly fired them at his enemy. That's when he saw his enemy for the first time. It was a half-rotten corpse that already seemed to have lost most of its innards."How can it still live without any organs? How can it be so strong with its muscle tissues rotting away like that? So peculiar... Fascinating!"The arrows flew across rapidly, hitting his enemy's chest and lower torso. However, to Beta's surprise, it still wasn't dead. Even with a hole in its chest and both legs missing, it didn't die. Instead, it was crawling on the ground, trying to attack Beta relentlessly."Even like that... Looks like the only thing that's completely missing is its brain!", Beta said with a little laugh.Next, he formed another arrow, which hit the enemy's head. Beta wasn't sure if that would work, but giving it a try wouldn't hurt. As soon as the head went missing, the body came to a standstill."Hm? Is it really dead now? Or could it..."After saying this, Beta formed another arrow and shot it at the motionless corpse. A few moments before it hit the corpse's body though, it moved. Rapidly. In the blink of an eye, it was before Beta, reaching out with its bloody hands. Beta, as if he expected this, shot another arrow at it. Earlier he had prepared another arrow before attacking the corpse.The corpses' hands quickly vanished due to Beta's arrow and the rotting corpse fell to the ground with a thud. But seconds later, it stood up again."How troublesome How am I supposed to kill this thing? I guess I'll just have to immobilize it first."Beta willed his soulpower out and formed a small scalpel. He then cut off the corpse's arms and looked at it."Time to experiment a little!"Beta's eyes were glowing brightly as he examined the corpse thoroughly. It still kept on wriggling as if it wants to attack him, which annoyed him quite a bit, but he was still able to find out a thing or two about it. The "living corpse" wasn't exactly alive. It was merely held together and manipulated through soulpower. Not just any kind of soulpower at that. It felt like the element of death, that he himself had. But it was a different application from what he had noticed so far.Instead of changing physical matter, it somehow changed the soul. Although Beta didn't find out how exactly it worked, he surmised that an orb was necessary. It was made out of soulpower combined with what seemed to be the core of the organism. He deduced that it should be the container for the soul inscribed with additional instructions and a set of restrictions for its mobilization. As soon as Beta used the scalpel to slice it, the orb somehow turned into a fluid which flowed back into the corpse, vanishing completely."The fluid didn't get absorbed by the corpse, so where did it go? Was it a fluid to begin with? Though it felt like soulpower... well, it was more likely soulpower. For now, I'll just assume that someone used soulpower and trapped a soul inside it before hardening it to form the orb. Within this soulpower were a set of rules which the soul had to conform to. Heh The death element seems to be trickier than I had ever imagined. I already thought that the void element is strong, but now I have to reconsider. I need to do more experiments with my death element in the near future... Not like I could train it the past few days though since I'm currently focusing with my void element. After all, I'm given this rare opportunity of meeting a void master. That would be stupid of me to let this chance go. Once these tests are over, I'll be able to start training properly with my death elemental soulpower again. There's still so much to learn about it. Too bad I can't start yet. Plus, I also don't know how Chugum would react to the 'evil' path..."After noting his analysis down in his mind, he prepared to leave the scene and venture deeper into the tomb. As he got up to move forward, he noticed the corpse suddenly started to rapidly decay in front of his eyes. It was at a speed even a normal person could see without any problems."Looks like the body was even kept from decaying. Shouldn't that be due to the use of something like a life element? Hmm how strange The more I learn about my own element, the more I feel like I know nothing at all. This tomb might be just the right place for me to take notes for later experiments. Once I'm out of this personal world space, I definitely need to find some test subjects.", Beta happily mused.Until now, he had always thought that the only ability of his death element was to make things decay. But it seems like he barely scratched the surface about the truth behind the death element. Knowing that it could stop decaying and even ventured into the area of soul manipulation, this discovery filled his complete being with excitement.Beta didn't dawdle around any longer and proceeded deeper, eager to find other undead creatures to gather more information for further research. He wasn't disappointed at all. Only a few minutes later, he found a dog-like beast which seemed to be enjoying the meat of a corpse. However, when it noticed Beta coming in, it quickly threw itself at him. Its sharp claws were aiming at Beta's chest, while its teeth tried to dig themselves into his neck. Beta, of course, was expecting it, thus he quickly counterattacked. He had formed three arrows beforehand and let them all loose. The first one eliminated both front legs, while the latter two took care of its hind legs. Beta didn't try to hit its head because he didn't know if it's an undead as well. If it was, he'd like to inspect the brain without damaging it.However, as he got closer to the limbless beast, it died. Blood was streaming out of all of its stumps, killing it quite fast."So, not only the undead inhabits this place. Truly too bad...", Beta thought while dissecting the beast. But of course, just because it wasn't an undead didn't mean he would let it lie on the ground unused. As they all say, waste not want not. There was still information to be gathered from the corpse so he wouldn't let it go to waste.In its stomach, Beta found a few half-digested corpse parts and a small silver ring that must have belonged to the corpse nearby. He kept it so that he can sell it later. He was sure it would fetch a nice price for him. Beta then checked the liver. This organ is used to filter the blood coming from the digestive tract. Since this beast was able to consume rotten flesh without any repercussions, there must be something different compared to a human liver. Its texture is just as rubbery and reddish brown in color. But he noticed that there are some minuscule differences in its structure. Seems like this kind of liver was way more efficient. Beta was sure that if someone were to be poisoned while having this liver in their body, that person would fare much better than a normal one. Weak poisons might actually benefit the person instead!"It's too bad this liver is too small to be of use to me... But that doesn't mean that there aren't any other beasts with similar kind of abilities in this tomb. I won't be able to transplant it here since Chugum is probably watching me though, but if I put it into my personal space, there shouldn't be any problem with doing it later."With a new goal in mind, Beta strode into the next corridor. The deeper he got, the more he benefitted from this tomb. His expectations for the bottom level were boundless. He truly wished to just take everything with him and then analyze it in silence after getting out of this tomb, but sadly that wasn't possible with the time limit given and with his, still way too small, personal space.On his way down, he encountered a few other undead, but they weren't much different from the others he already encountered. They, just like the first one, were powered by what he now called a soul core. Their brains were mostly mush or similar to a goo-ish kind of mashed potatoes."I should hurry clearing this place up."
