The first thing Soren did was to familiarize himself with Shades that were consumed, but he already knew their powers.

A few of these were the Madman's Bulb, Vass's Salvation, Tommy's Booger, Pencil's Strawberry, and Ivory's Frog.

These were the big hitters in his arsenal.

There were a lot of reasons for this. Firstly, Bulb could multiply any attack.

Soren discovered that "any" literally meant "any and all."

Basically, it was not restricted to just combat skills like punches.

When Soren released Vass's flames, he could literally multiply the output.

Sausage Neck as the experimental dummy was roasted alive.

But Soren did not want it to end here and just killed himself.

[You died]

...

Next, he needed to know the upper limits the Bulb's ability could reach.

And so he pushed the ability, riddling Sausage Neck's body with attacks.

Soren discovered a few things. He could multiply the attacks up to 10 times their normal strength if he was using just hand-to-hand combat techniques.

And 5 times the normal strength if he was using Vass's flames.

But even that had conditions. After all, Soren had consumed Vass's soul, not once but twice.

The first time was back in his hometown against the Eldritch, Vass had not achieved First Form then.

The second time was the deaths of all his classmates in the cafeteria. By then, Vass could already use his First Form.

Yes. Soren had two versions of Vass's Shade that had been consumed.

Both of them appeared as different entities in his mind. It was like they were from different timelines.

This was incredible news. It meant that if Vass were to make any improvements in the future again, and Chronovore devoured it, Soren would have access to it.

While this was great, Soren quickly hit a wall that sent him back to the drawing board.

It happened when he attempted using Vass's First Form for the second time.

He had used it too much, and now, memories... like ghosts of a haunted past, swarmed his mind.

He could see images.

Flashes.

Young Vass, at six, screamed at his mother, "I hate you."

—the last memory he had of her before news of her death reached home.

His tears and his pain swarmed into Soren uncontrollably.

Soren felt like he was being swallowed, consumed by it. Rage.

Against the world.

'The world should feel my rage.'

The emotion stormed his senses.

His eyes slowly took on a reddish color. However, before he could be swallowed by it, Soren quickly brought his dagger to his neck.

[You died]

...

Soren lay on the prison bed breathing hard.

Slowly, eventually, he got control of his breathing.

But sitting upright, the banging headache was still there.

He would have to rest some more.

Unfortunately, Cynthia came to pick him up.

Regardless, he settled his mind, thinking carefully about what happened.

While he did not seem to have inherited the curse of a Shade, if he used its abilities a little too much, he got to feel memories of their warriors' most emotional moments.

Soren frowned at this. What he needed were even more experiments.

[You died]

...

[You died]

...

[You died]

...

(15 deaths later...)

Soren sat upright—confirming certain theories in his head.

After a bunch of fails and successes, he knew more.

The limit for how many times he could multiply an ability was dependent on many factors.

The first was the initial 'form rank' that the madman. Was able to reach before the Bulb was damaged.

While the Sixth Form was the minimum requirement now for Soul Mecha pilots, it was not about thirty years ago during the third generational war.

Soren reckoned it was probably the 5th or 4th form.

This estimate was as a result of Bulb's injury.

Yes.

A wounded Shade had their capabilities reduced.

It was the same way Ivory lost a significant level of her capabilities because she fed her shade to an eldritch.

Then again, the extent of the Shade's wounds determined how much of its ability had been affected.

Furthermore, Soren could not use Vass's first form more than once; this was not simply a limitation of the Shade's injuries but a limitation of his own.

Basically, Soren's F–rank shade did not have enough soul energy to execute the technique.

The realization made Soren chuckle to himself.

To think he was so blessed and yet so cursed by his own limitations.

But this was not all; there was more work to be done.

Next, Soren experimented with Tommy's Booger.

The moment he willed it and multiplied its effects, Sausage Neck was left in uneven, segmented layers in the air, screaming in pain and begging for death.

He died in a puddle of his own blood.

Soren sighed. Sausage Neck was starting to die too easily.

He still had more things he needed to try.

Once more, a dagger to his neck.

Scchhhlll...

[You died]

...

[You died]

...

[You died]

...

(A couple more deaths later...)

Soren chuckled to himself. To find out so much was relieving.

He was right about the heavy hitters in his arsenal.

However, there were some more: Goldsworth's Shade(s) and three more exceptional Shades from his classmates.

However, to Soren's greatest surprise, Lady Linda Bloodshine's shade was not among the consumed shades.

Soren clearly remembered her death. She had died in his arms, and yet, her Shade was nowhere.

Did Chronovore skip her Shade, or was it unable to consume it?

Yet, more questions. Soren threw it to the back of his mind.

The remaining Shades Chronovore consumed were either too wounded to squeeze out any value from or just too useless.

Like one that simply allowed water to suspend in midair.

And another that simply turned any object to water.

Unless he was trapped in a desert, that was an obviously useless combat ability.

No wonder it was D–rank.

Soren shook his head, driving the thought away.

He made up his mind. Today would be the last day he tortured Sausage Neck.

But he was going to make it count. After all, he did promise the brute that he would make him swallow his teeth.

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