"Hmm…" Aurus could not help but ponder as to what trump cards he could make with the skills he had at hand. While he was pondering over what skills to use, he could not help but recall the skills that already had plans to be made into trump cards.

"First off, I can ma.s.s produce equipment using [Ancient Modular Flux Equipment Fabrication], allowing the other alliance members to at least have a boost in survivability and combat power," he started to mutter away to himself as thoughts formed in his mind, clas.h.i.+ng with one another as the thoughts gave birth to more thoughts, with the intent of finding a good skill to turn into a trump card.

"As for [Nine Realms' Myriad Spellswords], it has four incredibly offensive moves. In other words, under the right circ.u.mstances, they're pretty much four trump cards that's just waiting to be used." At this point in time, the thoughts in his mind had a general idea on what trump card he wants made, but he had no idea where to start.

"[Lesser Portal Creation] would allow me to transport a great number of the alliance members towards one spot, buffing them up at the same time. Even if the enemies cross through the portal to fight against us in an ambush, it would still allow us to have an edge since they're going to be debuffed. That's also a trump card I can use." Not long after, the thoughts condensed into one giant thought, which had a solid form, but had no idea how to make it work.

"Now that I think about it, I don't have any defensive trump cards at hand," Aurus muttered as the giant thought veered off to the side of his mind, a new thought forming regarding the defensive trump card he was thinking about. Thankfully, this thought lasted for a while as it exploded into intangible particles as he said, "With Mythic level equipment, the Barrier skill I have, as well as [Darkflame Manipulation], that would probably be enough for me to withstand a lot of hits."

"I'd have to be careful around Pseudo-Inanimates and Animates though," Aurus added as the original thought in his mind started to grow larger and larger, as if it was just waiting for that critical element to burst into multiple intangible particles that would allow him to finally make the trump card.

"Speaking of which, [Omnipresence] would also help in defending myself as that would put me far away from the sidelines," he muttered after a moment of realization. Not long after, he could not help but lightly chuckle. "Then again, it would be stupid for a mage to be in the frontlines."

"Hmm…I've basically gone over all of the trump cards I've made so far, what else am I lacking…" It was then that the thought in his mind grew at an incredibly fast rate, his sense of vision affixed to the list of skills in front of him. By the time his eyes landed on one of the skills on his skill list, the thought bubble exploded into an array of colors as tons of inspiration started to fill his mind.

"Ah! Reconnaissance trump cards!" Aurus said as the thought bubble had finally burst. Although it did not seem like it, reconnaissance in the midst of war was still a crucial element in order for one side to win in the end. With his vision affixed towards one of the skills he had, he could not help but say, "[Nine Worlds Soul Morphosis]…would creating a soul vessel allow me to do such a thing?"

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

With that hypothesis in mind, he started to manipulate his soul in order for it to form a soul vessel outside his body. Due to the grade of the skill being greatly improved when compared to before, the speed at which Aurus formed his soul vessel was more or less near instantaneous, only taking around a second or so for it to be formed.

He could not help but look at the soul vessel, which was hovering in front of him, as the gears in his mind turned. He was thinking up of a way to make this soul vessel in front of him a trump card for reconnaissance. Although it took around half an hour for the idea to pop up in his mind, Aurus could not help but want to try it out as he willed the soul vessel in front of him…

To be split in two.

Swis.h.!.+

At the very instant he was finished manipulating the soul vessel, two smaller versions of the original soul vessel appeared in front of Aurus' field of vision. Seeing that this was the case, he tried to move the soul vessels according to his wishes. He noticed that he had no problem controlling the two soul vessels if they were moving at the same pattern, but felt a small burden on his mind when he willed the two soul vessels to move their own paths, allowing his soul vessels to cover more ground.

Nonetheless, realizing that the burden on his mind was more or less negligible, he decided to split the soul vessels into two once more, giving him a total of four soul vessels. At this point, even when he was doing nothing, he felt the same level of burden he felt while controlling two soul vessels independently. Of course, that meant that the burden for controlling all four at once to move at various directions had increased by a few notches, slightly hampering his thinking process.

Did he stop here? Surprisingly, he did not as he thought that reconnaissance trump cards should cover a lot of ground at once if they wanted to be obtain as much information as possible at once. Of course, he did think that one soul vessel was enough for reconnaissance, but as he split up the soul vessels into smaller and smaller part.i.tions, he could not help but think of another purpose for this trump card.

And that was to attack the enemies from behind.

He split up the four soul vessels into eight, the burden on his mind naturally stepping up as he felt that he was nearing the limit of what his mind can handle. He also tested moving the eight soul vessels independently, which brought his mind to a state where he could only maintain a basic form of protection around him. Then again, for someone like him that wasn't in the front lines in the upcoming war, a basic form of protection would more or less be enough.

He then arranged the eight soul vessels in a line in front of him, with each being one-eighth the volume of the original soul vessel. He then commanded the system to identify one of the soul vessels, wondering if the thought of using these soul vessels offensively could be executed.

Ding!

________

[Aurus' Soul Vessel]

Grade: Unknown

Soul Strength: 47

________

"Soul Strength of 47?" Aurus could not help but ask the system about Soul Strength after reading up on one of the soul vessels' information. A few seconds later, he found out that Soul Strength was the manifestation of the soul's combat power, equivalent to the Soul Power stat he had, but doubled.

With the system saying that, he could not help but fuse the soul vessels into one once more as he looked at the Soul Power stat he had through the Soul Enchantment System. After making a few speedy calculations in his mind, he realized that that was indeed the case, with each soul vessel after being split having the same portion of Soul Strength within them.

After knowing that, he willed the soul vessel to be split into eight once more, manipulating the soul vessels to transform into soul blades not long after. He then tried to control these eight blades in a way that would allow them to attack with great power in just a single attack, ending up with the idea of having one blade attack after the other, with each blade hitting the same position.

Although he had a feeling that such an attack would allow his soul vessels to show great power, he would have to test it on a dummy that would allow him to see the damage he dealt. Unfortunately, the room he picked right now within the Tower of Seclusion did not have a dummy like that inside.

Putting the offensive portion of the trump card aside, he wondered about how he was going to solve the problem of obtaining information through the soul vessels. To be honest, this was supposed to be the first problem he needed to solve, but due to the spark of inspiration he obtained out of the blue, that was delayed only to pop up right now as he looked at his skill list once again, wondering if there was any skill that could remedy this problem.

It did not take long for Aurus to find a fix for the problem, his sense of vision fixated on [Eye of the Soul], which was the skill that allowed him to see in the first place. Not only did it allow him to see, it even allowed him to see things that could not be normally seen by other Inanimates. He had the thought that since the skill had relations to the soul, would the two fuse into one, allowing him to see the surroundings through the split up soul vessels?

Although he had a feeling that it wouldn't work since [Eye of the Soul] was a pa.s.sive skill, he tried it anyway.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

With his thoughts commanding the system for [Eye of the Soul] to affect the eight soul vessels that were in front of his field of vision, an intangible energy that seemed to resonate the power of the skill started to circulate throughout Aurus' body, heading towards the eight soul vessels through intangible strands not long after.

Swis.h.!.+ Swis.h.!.+

A few seconds later, these strands of intangible energy were a.s.similated by the soul vessels, his current field of vision dimming as it was replaced by eight perspectives not long after. Seeing that he was able to see everything from eight perspectives, he could not help but deem the experiment a success, although he was not sure how he was able to infuse [Eye of the Soul] into the soul vessels.

He then manipulated the soul vessels to move farther away from one another, changing the view that Aurus was able to see. Surprisingly, rather than having eight perspectives like before, the views of every soul vessel connected with one another, st.i.tching each view to form something along the lines of a bird's eye view of the room Aurus was in.

Not long after, he willed the eight soul vessels to come back to him, removing the infused [Eye of the Soul] from each and every soul vessel. He then willed the soul vessels to meld with his body, returning the strength of his soul back to normal. He was quite satisfied with the trump card he made, with the offensive portion of the trump card just being an added bonus.

Just as he was about to head towards one of the rooms within the Tower of Seclusion that contained a dummy, a sudden thought popped up in his mind. This thought in his mind could not help but make his mutter inwardly, "Why the heck did I not think of that while I was fusing skills?"

"Oh well, better late than never," Aurus said with a sigh of relief, commanding the system to open up the Skill Fusion screen.

Whoos.h.!.+

"System, fuse [Nine Worlds Soul Morphosis] and [Eye of the Soul] together," he commanded, to which intangible strands of energy headed towards the Skill Fusion screen not long after. These intangible strands transformed into the names of the skills, radiating quite a decent amount of light.

Ding!

'Would you like to fuse these two skills together? The user has two choices, the first choice being that the fused skill would take on the highest grade out of the two skills, costing 5 levels. The second choice would be the opposite, with the skill taking the lowest grade out of the two skills, costing 3 levels instead.'

Since Aurus had gone through something like this before, he did not hesitate to choose the former option, dropping his level down to 10 as the usual process of skill fusion did its work.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

Ding!

'Skill Fusion is successful. The hybrid Species skill [Unified Soul Control (Special)] has been created.'

Seeing as the skill fusion was successful, he then activated the skill once more as he said to himself, "Time to see if there's any improvement."