Yami and Long Wei

Waiting for the potion effect to start, I suddenly felt a surge of information entering my head.

Information about the basics of my affinity.

Information that changed my muscle memory.

Information that engraved itself in my mind.

I felt like I already used the soul affinity for months if not a year. As if I always knew how to use it. It was truly magical!

Instantly, I enhanced my eyes with soul aura and took out a mantis' aura core.

My eyes were able to see through the core directly. Inside the core, there was a spectral mantis looking at me furiously.

"So, all the time it was a soul!"

Finally, one of the questions that were in mind got solved.

But wait, how did that work?

If the soul existed inside the core, then what about Exalted and orcs that have 2 cores?

What about the normal people that don't have cores at all?

What happens to the soul when someone absorbs a core or breaks it?

How would a soul attack affect the body? How did the soul-bound artifacts work?

I had many, many questions and more tests to do.

But I was excited about all of them! I had to know all of them!

Unfortunately, I didn't have much time for all that, so I had to focus on the fighting for now.

*BONK!*

"Hey!" Yamato suddenly hit my head.

Shifting my gaze to master Kai. I found him smirking at me.

"Yami." He muttered. "From now on, your name is Yami Ishido. That way I would have Yama and Yami by my side."

"...."

I… had complex feelings about the name.

On one hand, it was a good name. I wasn't nameless anymore. I got a real name! And that… meant a lot for me.

But on the other hand, did that sword just become my brother?

"Yes, it's your honour to be Yamato's brother."

"...."

'Does he really can read minds?'

"No, I can't." Master Kai suddenly declared, even though what he did was the opposite of what he said. "You are just easy to read. Your face says everything."

"I…" I tried to say something, but eventually I gave up and let the matter go.

I won't let the small problems ruin my current happiness for getting a name.

"Well…" Master Kai stood up and grabbed Yamato. "Let's go test your affinity. It may help us with the boss. The parasites aren't a problem."

I nodded, wore my new ring and followed him, though I couldn't hide the happy smile on my face.

We first told everyone about my new name and my affinity, getting congratulations from everyone — especially Braham. He looked too happy about the news.

Then we told them about our leaving to the forest. They refused at the start — because of Ruby's death— but they finally accepted after taking 3 people with us for more safety.

They were Braham, Drax from team 8 and Long Wei, the leader of team 8.

After making some preparations, we left the camp and entered the forest together.

•••••

"Huaah, where are the monsters when we need them? Are they too scared of my might? Long Wei yawned, clearly bored of the situation.

It's been half an hour since we entered the forest, yet, we didn't encounter a single monster.

"Looks like the monsters aren't infinite." Drax suddenly said, rubbing his chin with his hand.

*Slap!*

Long Wei suddenly slapped Drax back.

"W-Why?!"

"Idiot! Don't say something too obvious. You are embarrassing me in front of another team!"

"Y-yes captain Long! I'm sorry!"

"...."

We kept walking silently as if we didn't see anything.

But I couldn't help but look at Long Wei again and narrow my eyes.

Long Wei was a long man standing at 2 meters, towering over all of us.

His long, silky golden hair flowed over his shoulder reaching his back. And his golden draconic eyes were sharp as if he could pierce rocks with only his gaze.

His face features were sharp and handsome. It could be even compared to people like Braham and master Kai.

He was wearing a hanfu that was a perfect mix of gold and white, giving him an ancient charm.

But what took my attention was his soul.

I discovered earlier that the body contains a soul — or at least part of it — that covers every part of the body completely, but some people had extra parts out of the body.

Every soul I saw until now was different.

My soul was a dark humanoid soul that I couldn't see through.

Braham's soul was a golden soul with a pair of white wings and a halo above it. And a small part of his soul reached his necklace.

Master Kaito's soul was wearing ethereal blue samurai armor with part of it reaching Yamato.

Then come the souls inside the cores.

They were small versions of the original soul that cover the body. Each time the core was used, the soul inside it would move instantly and start working with either the core or the mana and turn them into the affinity that I wanted.

It was the real system behind the Instinctive usage for the aura and mana.

But Long Wei was different.

His original soul was shining with a bright golden light. It was so bright that I had to narrow my eyes or stop enhancing them everytime I looked at him.

Two golden horns rose from his head, but they were in the front of his head instead of the sides.

His soul had 2 sharp claws instead of hands and multiple places on it had scales covering them.

Inside the aura core in his head, there was a similar soul that looked perfectly like the original, but it was completely humanoid.

But the problem was in his mana core.

The soul inside his mana core wasn't humanoid at all nor looked like the dragons I saw in the books.

It looked more like… a snake.

It didn't have wings and it's body was too long that its legs were too far from the hands — yet, it didn't look weak at all but even more dangerous than the normal dragons.

His trait was supposed to be dragon transformation, but did the traits affect the souls?

There were many things I had to test.

"I found one." Master Kai suddenly said, pointing at a green wolf far away.

"Oh finally we found something!" Long Wei said excitingly, his lips turning into a wide grin.

Instantly, a pair of horns grew in his head and his hands turned into sharp claws.

"Grrr?" 

The wolf turned its head towards us, but all that it saw was a golden claw reaching its neck quickly.

Before it could even react, Long Wei gripped it tightly, raised it to the sky and slammed it to the ground!

*BOOM!*

Long Wei pinned the poor wolf in the ground with his leg, his grin widened before looking at me.

"Yo little Yami, your first subject is ready!"