Damaged Soul

Rackshar sighed deeply. There were many ways to use cores, but none nearly as effective as Kaleb's unique ability to incorporate them into his body.

The closest method Rackshar could think of was certain artifacts that could be loaded with cores to use the spells that were inside of them. The drawback to the artifacts were that once the energy inside the core was gone the core would die. It would become nothing more than a hunk of rock, with no value.

Once again, the problem was Rackshar did not have one of those extremely rare artifacts, nor did he currently know where to find one.

The next best use for a core would be to drain it and use its energy to create a new core or strengthen an existing core. Obstacles immediately cut off that route for Rackshar as well. For one, if Rackshar wanted to strengthen his explosion core he would need fire-based cores, both the ones in front of him were wood-based cores.

Second, if Rackshar wanted to even take the time to try to create a wood-based core with this temporary body, his body would still have to be compatible with the wood element.

Though, even without all those problems, there was still the rejection Kaleb's body had with mana. Rackshar could neither gather nor manipulate it. It was like the heavens themselves were rejecting his existence.

Rackshar had hoped that he could mitigate that limitation by stealing cores. Now he would have to change his plans.

"Damn human." He muttered to himself.

While cores could be used as currency in this world, Rackshar wasn't on good terms with the locals, of anywhere. The human cult hated all non-humans and the dragons hated Rackshar for various reasons that he refused to acknowledge as his fault. This made currency worthless in Rackshar's eyes.

Rackshar sighed again and closed his eyes in concentration, while taking both the cores and holding them up to his forehead.

"Well at least they won't go to waste."

Slowly, a black ethereal mist emerged from his forehead, enshrouding the cores in his hands.

After several minutes, the black mist retracted into his head and revealed two pale gray marbles. Rackshar hadn't been lying to Kaleb when he said that his soul was damaged and that he needed to recover it. The lie had been about needing rest to recover. He had actually been using that time to attack Kaleb's soul and weaken it to the point where it would break.

Rackshar needed energy to recover his soul. He couldn't get that while encased in this anti-mana body. Even while he drained the energy from those cores Rackshar had to expose part of his soul outside his body to take their energy.

A frustrated look crossed his face as he tossed the dead cores to the side while muttering "Not nearly enough!"

Part of the reason Rackshar was having trouble gaining full control of this body was his damaged soul and he needed lots of energy to repair it.

"Still," he said with a thoughtful look. "These athonexs could be useful. I'm a good match up against them with my explosion core and, they provide two cores. Hunting them will let me get used to this body while repairing my soul all with low risk. Killing with the teeth and the tail."*

Chuckling to himself, Rackshar put out the fire and went to sleep with the sweet smell of blood drifting through the air.

*****

The sky was gray and light rain sprinkled from above, sparse enough that you would almost have to be unlucky to get hit by a drop. Though unlucky seemed to be what Rackshar was.

It had been two days since Rackshar had decided to hunt the athonexs and he realized a few things in that time.

Human's sense of smell sucked!

As a dragon Rackshar had always had an easy time hunting his prey. He could soar through the skies and use his powerful vision to see them over vast swaths of land. Or, he could go down to the ground and superior sense of smell to track them down if they were hiding.

The problem was humans were always on the ground and they could barely smell a flower directly under their nose! Rackshar had no idea how to use human tracking because, as a dragon, he had no use for it.

Which led to the current scene of Rackshar sitting on the edge of a crag overlooking part of the forest. Although the rain would only lightly dust him every once in a while, he was still quite wet. Which went to show he had been sitting there for some time.

Though his face had anything but a pleasant look on it, his eyes had a sharp, determined look to them as he scanned the forest beneath him.

Suddenly a grin broke his statue like features, though it never reached his eyes.

In the distance he watched two athonexs crossing a meadow, as they made their way toward a grove of trees covering a hill.

He laughed manically as he stood up, stretching his stiff body, from sitting unmoving in the rain for so long.

He stopped laughing as suddenly as he had started. His face taking on a serious expression as he looked toward his prey.

"Found you." He said to his far distant meals.

So saying, he dove off the crag, waiting until he was below the tree line before he put his hand next to the rock face, firing off an explosion.

The force sent him reeling into one of the trees. Through the tumbling he was still able to catch a tree branch and when it had bent almost in half he released it, but this slowed his momentum enough for gravity to pull him down again. Grabbing onto the next branch on his descent, he quickly began a controlled fall by dropping from branch to branch all the way to the forest floor.

Whistling tunelessly to himself, Rackshar set out on his hunt.

* 'Killing with the teeth and the tail', a draconic saying, similar to the human saying, 'Killing two birds with one stone.' Essentially, it refers to completing two tasks at the same time.