Leonel chuckled as James left. That annoying guy had a way of making him feel better and yet annoyed at the same time.
Once again, he didn't hesitate to give something so valuable away. In fact, this might even be more valuable for James than the Transcendent Whetstone would be for Emna.
That disk didn't seem to be very related to James, but if one thought about it, it was essentially James' Ability Index in treasure form. It could take in Force, absorb it, expel it. James' strongest ability was nerfing a specific type of Force within a certain region, and the treasure also had that ability as well. The only thing that James couldn't do was convert one Force to another type of Force, but with that treasure, he could obviously use it as a medium to do so.
That said, Leonel didn't want James to rely on the treasure like a crutch. Rather, what he wanted was for James to study the Runes of the treasure and gain a deeper understanding of them. Then he could use the treasure as a jump off point to improve his own Ability Index and Lineage Factor.
It had to be remembered that both Emna and James were Sparks. Emna had a taller mountain to climb and more hurdles to jump over, which was why she was so much more powerful than James. As for James himself, his hurdles were lower because he was already born with great talent as a person of Earth, he wasn't a particularly introspective person either, so much of his advancements came naturally and without much effort.
If he made full use of the bronze disk, his abilities should take a massive leap forward. By then, he would become the second person on par with both himself and Aina. At that point, they would truly be unstoppable.
If one added Elorin, Old Hutch's grandson, and Amery to the equation, the core of Leonel's formation would be nigh undefeatable.
Elorin may have lost handily to James, but Leonel wouldn't necessarily say that James was undisputed, James just happened to be the perfect counter to Elorin.
That said, Elorin ran into similar problems as James, but for different reasons. Elorin was very introspective and had grinded every day to improve himself. His issue was that his Ability Index was far too special and it took him walking 10 miles to see through what someone would see walking one, and that was despite having impossibly high talent already.
As for Amery, his problem was only life and death experiences. But very soon he would get much more of that.
These weren't things that Leonel was worried about, instead, the true problem with these two was whether or not they would follow him without causing problems. The more powerful a person was, the more difficult it was to guarantee such a thing.
'I wonder, though... Why didn't the Suiard family force me to hand back Amery immediately... Unless they assumed that it was useless to ask until they brought forward compensation.'
This was, indeed, an odd situation. But Leonel felt that that answer was probably true enough.
Regardless, he felt that investing in those around him so that he didn't always have to do everything himself was an excellent best. He hadn't given nearly enough to his brothers and those around him.
After a slight nod to himself, Leonel took out the Omann family's treasure. This was the third of the treasures he was most looking forward to. Although the Pyius family was a bit interesting, with how low profile they were constantly, Leonel didn't believe that they would put forward anything of great shock. And, since Shield Cross Stars and the Void Palace weren't participating, this was definitely the top of the line compensation.
That said, Leonel didn't really expect very much from the Spirituals Religion either. With their pacifist tendencies, they didn't seem to have entered the Heir Wars for victory. If they were planning to lose, what could they have brought forward?
If Leonel had to guess, this treasure was one of two things. It was either completely useless, or something that they were certain that only Spirituals could use. And sure enough...
Leonel took out an orb. The moment he touched it, he felt a familiar feeling. It was the feeling of his soul trying to be sucked out of his body. The last time he had felt this, Wise Star Order had been trying to trick him into learning a technique of the Spirituals. Back then, Leonel had had no idea that the Spirituals protected all of their techniques so that all non-Spirituals that tried to use them would be harmed.
However, Leonel wasn't the Leonel of the past. Aside from a slight tug, he felt nothing else. His soul strength surprised even himself, quite frankly.
But there was something else more curious, why didn't Ancestor Hito warn him about this? Leonel's gaze flickered, but he shook his head after a long while.
'That old man is quite... something,' Leonel thought with a chuckle.
He didn't believe that Hito was trying to harm him. In fact, he was certain that that old man knew what would happen and allowed it anyway because he was confident in Leonel.
After Leonel looked at the introduction, his brows shot up.
'Interesting, so this isn't just a protective mechanism, this so-called Soul Extraction Orb is precisely designed to pull your soul out from your body. Is this how Amery succeeded in separating his own?'
Leonel only knew a single crude method for separating the soul from the body. Whether it was himself or Raylion, both of them had to destroy their bodies first before succeeding. But it seemed that the Spirituals had a far more elegant method.
'I see, so I've wrongly accused them. They weren't trying to harm me at all. That said, this item is pretty useless. Without the methods of the Spirituals, separating your body and soul only allowed you to be a bit more immune to death than the usual person, but it doesn't grant you anything else. Maybe...?'
Leonel pulled out the silver dictionary again.
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