#104 – NOW I can be the tentacle queen!

#104 – NOW I can be the tentacle queen! I blinked and then sat down, as the strange feeling settled inside me. A quick look at my status screen showed that Soulbound Item had changed to Soul Strike there without being unequipped. I felt... strange. I looked down at my hands and flexed them. The skill itself said that I could strike at people’s souls with my own using Ether and Intra, so... I pulled at the new mental switch and gathered Ether and Intra – kinda tricky to do both at the same time, but I managed – while still looking down at myself. “Oooh... What?” I could feel something else inside me. Different from Ether, different from Intra. It felt ethereal. Even more so than the three energies. It felt like I had to combine Ether and Intra to create something that could nudge this ethereal thing around. This was my soul? Fuck. So the skill description wasn’t just flavor text? I continued to nudge it around for a good while, watching as it reacted. Part of me was surprised that disturbing my own soul didn’t hurt or anything. Another part of me felt a bit of trepidation at the fact that my soul did indeed permeate my clothes self and my gun. In fact, when I placed the gun on the ground and took a few steps back, I began to understand. The odd feeling of ‘this gun is me’ I’d had all this time? That was because I’d literally felt part of my soul inside it. “Okay... Chat, I get it now, I think.” It made me wonder whether I could retract that part of my soul from the gun. Sure, the skill description had said that undoing a soulbind would destroy the item, but... Maybe, just like with Craftsman and Empower, I could learn how to manipulate my soul directly and then successfully unsoulbind something without destroying it. I probably wouldn’t, since I didn’t want to risk it, but it was an interesting thought. “So I can feel my soul now. At least, I think it’s my soul. But yeah, part of my soul is in this gun, that’s why it feels like it’s part of me,” I explained before looking down at my belly. “But it’s just a part. I’m not sure if it would do something to me if something were to happen to the part of my soul in the gun, but...” Obviously, destroying the gun hadn’t been enough to cause any permanent damage to my soul, so... “...I think it’s fine. I know I said I wouldn’t Soulbind anything else, but I think I understand this better now. Worst case scenario, it should be possible to retract the part of my soul back.” KaiEbikoOfficial: I still don’t know about this... KaiEbikoOfficial: messing with your soul sounds extremely dangerous “It does, but as long as there’s nobody who can touch my soul, I think it’s fine. Heck, even then, I can now manipulate my own soul, so I can counter whatever they try!” KaiEbikoOfficial: please just be careful about this “Of course,” I said with a wry smile. With that in mind, there were only two more things I wanted to do. Purchase the [Soul Strike] skill upgrade [Triumvirate] for 9 skill points? Y/N ‘Triumvirate’ skill upgrade unlocked! Down to just one point. Immediately, I brought out my Key Sword and frowned at it. It was a great weapon. Quick, capable of cutting almost anything if I added fire, and had the added utility of being an endless thrown weapon that could even explode in crystals. But was that really what I wanted to Soulbind? From what I could tell, the item I Soulbound would retain its general size and shape – as evidenced by the gun – no matter what I fused into it. If I Soulbound it, I would be stuck with a sword. Did I want that? ... A few seconds of pondering later, I glanced at the other thing I had meant to address – the skill I’d stolen from the octopus, Voidspeed Tentacle. It said that it modified a limb permanently, meaning that I was free to then toss the skill and steal something else. The problem was... did I want to change one of my limbs permanently? Would that have any negative consequences? Unlike Soulbinding, I couldn’t be entirely sure whether this would be harmful or not since it was a skill I wasn’t supposed to have access to. But it would feel like such a waste if I didn’t do anything with this... After some deliberation and some suggestions from chat, I decided to pull out the tentacle trident instead. Now, granted, I still wasn’t entirely sure how to make them appear where I wanted them to, but they were still tentacles. Or in other words, the intended targets for the Voidspeed Tentacle. Would that even work though? Would a tentacle just go back to normal after I’d unsummoned and resummoned it? It was an interesting thought and I couldn’t help but be intrigued. GonguuH: don’t forget the veil GonguuH: seems perfect for this I hummed and nodded. The veil could spawn water all over itself, and the trident created tentacles on water surfaces. The problem of not being able to use Tempor still persisted, but I had some ideas on how to fix this. I used Fusion on the Hydroveil and fused it into my clothes self, while paying close attention to what my soul did as they merged. It felt quite weird, but from what I could tell, the veil simply dispersed into Ether and then latched onto my clothes self before mixing like two liquids. At the same time, my soul permeating the clothes just expanded to include the veil as well. I quickly tried checking whether I’d lost part of my soul in exchange for covering the veil, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I’d just... created more of my soul, I guess? “So weird...” I murmured. But regardless, now I could spawn and absorb water through my clothes self at will. It was the perfect synergy with the hydrokinesis skill. In other words, I could create water out of my sleeve and direct it toward my mouth if I was thirsty. All without moving a finger. I loved peak laziness. ...Anyway. I wasn’t done quite yet. With some suggestions from chat, I had an idea on how to shore up my build, though I wasn’t entirely sure if it would work. First, I split my Key Sword and got my beautiful axe back. I took it in my hands – hey, it was lighter than I remembered – and thought for a second. I had once said that I would make this axe my third Soulbound Item. Simply because I loved axes and thought they were cool. But was that the right choice? I frowned. Well, it wasn’t as if I would have to always use the axe in melee combat. If I needed something smaller and faster, I could always just put the axe into the Soul Pocket and use something else. ...Yeah, fine. Let’s do this. I steeled myself, closed my eyes to focus on the feeling that came next, and used my third Soulbind slot on the axe. I could feel it. Part of my soul split from me and flowed into the axe, solidified there, and made it a part of me. I opened my eyes and stared at the axe in wonder. The axe was me now. I was the axe. Amazing. Now, the next step of my master plan. I picked up the trident again, narrowed my eyes at it, and then used Fusion. It turned into a mostly orange blob but with odd green spots – ah, like the spiderwebs – and glitchy purple spots – like the eyes – before I pushed it inside the axe. Just like the veil, I could feel it becoming part of myself. The trident itself and all of its functions. Including the tentacle spawning feature. “Okay... This...” The axe itself hadn’t changed all that much, it just gained a tentacle-shaped decoration around its hilt, just like the trident had. What changed was what it could do. Just like the trident, there seemed to be some kind of empty space in the middle of the axehead, waiting for me to insert Intra to continue. Doing so let me sense everything around me, including myself... and including the axe, actually. Curious. I couldn’t sense the trident when I’d done this with it, why could I sense the axe now? Well, not important right now. What was important was the other function of the trident now resting inside the part of me that was axe. Yes. Since I didn’t know how to control Tempor directly just yet, the plan chat and I had concocted was to feel around this thing with my soul to hopefully figure it out. Now that it was a part of me, surely it would be easier, right? It took an hour. At the end of the hour, I was capable of doing something that didn’t result in the weapon me bursting into tentacles uncontrollably. That was, create a thin layer of water on my clothes self – thanks to the veil – and then direct the tentacles there. A tentacle burst from my sleeve and wiggled in front of me suggestively. “Hmm... Well, it’s something,” I murmured. I still couldn’t figure out how to make them appear far away from me though. The only reason why I could do this much was because both the weapon and the target destination were essentially me. Still, it worked out. Even though my axe self was bulky – hey, don’t call me fat! – at least I had a quick melee option besides the Key Sword now. Speaking of the Key Sword... Was there any reason not to fuse it into my axe self? Sure, it was a way for me to quickly get a weapon in my hand, but I could do the same thing with the axe once I fused it, though it would be heavier and bulkier, so not as easy to use. On the other hand, I now had the power of tentacles, so if I needed to quickly snap at something in melee range, I could just make a tentacle. Fusing the Key Sword into the axe would also allow me to still use the axe as a throwable bomb that I could resummon. And also, the Key Sword was a... well, a key item, and so far, it seemed like fusing key items made for powerful results. Like that time I’d fused the bracelet with the popsicle, resulting in a very powerful Innate skill. So... I didn’t need more convincing, I fused the Key Sword – oh there were eyes in that glitchy cloud of purple... – into my axe. The result was the same axe with the tentacle ornament, but its blade gained teeth. That was... kind of brutal, wasn’t it? Chat had probably told me this before, but having teeth in my weapon rather than a clean straight blade wasn’t any more effective as a weapon, but it would certainly cause more pain to anyone I hit with it. ... Putting that aside, I quickly checked the functionality of my new weapon self. Quick Fetch, black flames, crystal explosion, omniscience, tentacle summon. That was a lot of stuff stuffed into one. Nice. The only thing left was to try and use Voidspeed Tentacle on one of the summoned tentacles to see if it worked. GonguuH: what are you gonna name it? Oh yeah. And also naming this thing to make it even stronger. I felt a grin creep into my expression as I glanced in the direction of the city dungeon, already thinking how it stood no chance against me and all my cool new toys. What would you like to name your item? Note: This cannot be undone. Once named, an item cannot then be unfused, but gains the ability to absorb Ether, Intra, or Tempor to empower itself. Y/N “I’m sure I can come up with something appropriate... How about...” I thought about it for a moment, considering everything that went into this thing and where I’d gotten all the parts. The axe had apparently belonged to a demon queen, right? And then there were the tentacles from the trident... “Demon queen’s abyssal cleaver,” I finally decided. My weapon self began to glow.