Even though Geto said that earlier, he had still told Kenmei everything he wanted to know. Kenmei got a lot of ideas from Geto and was now putting them into practice.
A brilliant blue-white chain made entirely of psychic energy firmly bound a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit. It sat in the center of a white carpet, upon which a complex magic circle was drawn in bright red runes.
[Talent 'Soul Siphon' triggered. Restored 6 Mana.]
"Psychic Binding" counted as a spell attack, so it returned Mana. Kenmei, eyes closed and fully focused, ignored the system prompt.
His right hand was splayed open, facing the Cursed Spirit, which was smoking and sizzling from the psychic erosion. The magic circle beneath his feet was composed of runes designed to increase a psyker's casting efficiency .
Kenmei seemed to be chanting something silently.
"Overlay..."
As the first syllable left his lips, the air in the room—previously quiet enough to hear a heartbeat—suddenly turned violent. A small tornado flashing with dazzling blue light was born in the center of the circle, completely engulfing the bound Cursed Spirit.
This majestic psychic storm was composed of energy Kenmei had released and infinitely weakened beforehand; it would only slightly suppress and corrode the Cursed Spirit.
"Deconstruct..."
After Kenmei spoke the second word, the scattered psychic storm began to coalesce. The color deepened from pale blue to dark blue. The Cursed Spirit inside began to weather away, as if ravaged by the passage of time.
Even though the energy was infinitely weakened, as it concentrated and its density increased, it achieved a decomposition effect, albeit slowly.
Only when the Cursed Spirit's form completely melted, swallowed by the psychic storm and turned into a flowing, iridescent ball of light, did the second step end.
Some might notice that what Kenmei was doing looked very similar to Geto's process of exorcising and absorbing spirits with [Cursed Spirit Manipulation].
Yes, this was the special technique Kenmei had learned from Geto.
Geto had been eating Cursed Spirits for years and had long since summarized a refinement method more suitable for "human constitution." Excluding the time he spent striking poses, the process from exorcising to absorbing a spirit took less than a minute. It was highly efficient.
Because Cursed Energy and Cursed Spirits share the same origin—both are manifestations of human negative emotions—converting between them is relatively easy.
But psychic energy is different from Cursed Energy. It has a completely different attribute from Cursed Spirits and is a higher form of power than Cursed Energy. This made the difficulty of the intermediate steps increase infinitely.
So, by the time he reached the second step, Kenmei's forehead was already beaded with sweat. It was clearly consuming a significant amount of mental energy. The last word was squeezed out through clenched teeth.
The third step was the most crucial one.
"Reconstruct..."
Kenmei needed to separate as much of the mottled Cursed Energy impurities and the majority of the psychic energy from the light ball as possible. Otherwise, a concentrated block of Cursed Energy containing psychic power would be a deadly poison to low-level Cursed Spirits, not a tonic.
The dark, tough-to-crush filth floating inside the light ball was the impurity. Kenmei, eyes closed, was manually removing these impurities while simultaneously decomposing and expelling the psychic matter. It was exhausting work.
After some time passed...
"Done!"
Kenmei opened his eyes again, looking at the crystal-clear, pure essence extracted from the energy of a whole Cursed Spirit.
Just as his hand touched its soft surface, the smile on his face froze. In the next second, it exploded.
[Talent 'Soul Siphon' triggered. Permanently increased Max Mana by 7 points. Current Mana: 676 points.]
Damn it. Kenmei would have preferred not to see that system prompt. From the moment he had this idea to now, his Max Mana had gone from 400 to 676. That was a gap of 276 points.
It showed just how many times Kenmei had failed—and how many Cursed Spirits had exploded in his face.
"Ahhh!"
Kenmei scratched his head in frustration.
"Why does it keep failing?"
This was the closest he had come to success, yet he still fell short at the last moment.
Only something related to his sister could make Kenmei put in this much effort.
This inspiration came from Geto. Kenmei had seen the light ball formed when Geto swallowed a spirit. Although faint, Geto's total Cursed Energy did increase slightly after eating it. The main issue was that Geto had swallowed too many powerful spirits before, so a small quasi-Grade 2 spirit offered limited enhancement.
But for others, it would be different. Kenmei immediately thought that perhaps his Cursed Spirit sister could be upgraded into a more powerful spirit this way.
According to the information Kenmei gathered, only high-level spirits, like powerful Special Grades, developed self-awareness.
Although he didn't know if his sister would awaken Isayama Sakura's memories upon becoming a Special Grade, Kenmei had no choice.
The worst had already happened; the future couldn't be any worse.
It was certainly better than standing in front of his sister, Isayama Sakura, and having her only thought be to disembowel him and eat his pancreas.
Thinking of this, Kenmei spoke to the empty room.
"Uncle Blue, go to Room C and grab two more Cursed Spirits for me. Thanks."
The third floor of the Isayama house, originally empty and unused, had been renovated by Kenmei into a place for his small experiments. The stairs leading to the third floor were sealed with a welded iron gate covered in blood-red "Suppression" runes. Several rooms on the third floor were converted into holding cells for experimental Cursed Spirits.
"I still need them."
As soon as Kenmei finished speaking, a voice devoid of emotion, like a cold machine responding instantly to its master's summons, came from the room.
"All is dust..."
It was a phrase in a language that didn't exist in this world, sounding incredibly ancient. Just these four words contained an endless, suffocating despair.
Kenmei was used to it. Hearing "All is dust" meant the recipient had understood the order.
The voice came from beside the wardrobe behind Kenmei. It belonged to a giant "can" wearing massive cobalt-blue ceramite armor, tall enough to almost scrape the ceiling.
This thing stood motionless like a statue when Kenmei didn't order it. Who would guess it was alive?
Calling it "alive" wasn't accurate, either.
More precisely, due to the curse known as the "Rubric," it had transcended the boundary of "life and death," becoming something neither human nor ghost.
Its soul was forever bound to the empty shell of armor. No thought, no fear, no emotion.
Only eternal loyalty to its master (the Sorcerer).