Chapter 489: Records Of The Codex

The essence wave from the ten kills, six deer and two foxes, landed in Bruce’s soul-body in a doubled cascade. The deer gave the ordinary E-rank forest essence. The foxes gave something different, sharper, quicker, with an edge of awareness that Bruce could feel settling into his perception. The fox essence was subtly enhancing his soul-body’s ability to see.

His perception, which had already expanded at middle E, felt sharper immediately. He could see, when he looked back at Kael and Theron, the small subtle currents of their glows more clearly than he had a minute ago. He could hear the faint sounds of the Deepwood, small distant chimings, the rustle of leaves, a low breath-like sound at the far edge of his perception that suggested another large beast far away, more distinctly than he could have thirty seconds ago.

The fox essence was a perception enhancer.

He filed it. This was the kind of essence that would compound significantly over many kills.

Kael, looking at his own hands: "Something changed."

"Fox essence. It sharpens perception. I can see and hear more clearly."

"I feel it too."

"Theron?"

Theron nodded slowly. "The scythe pulled essence from the foxes differently than from the deer. There was, a texture to it. Something the deer didn’t have."

"The awareness quality."

"Yes. That’s a good word for it."

"Then we hunt more foxes. But carefully. They’re dangerous."

They butchered the kills, the foxes were harder to butcher than the deer, their bodies smaller and their cores buried in tricky positions, and packed everything into the rings. Their haul was already substantial after one hunt.

They kept hunting.

The rest of the day in the Deepwood was, without exaggeration, the most productive hunting day Bruce had experienced in the realm.

They found two more mixed herds. Both had foxes. Bruce and Kael developed a pattern for handling the foxes, Bruce would shape wide spread constructs that the foxes could not fully dodge, and Kael would provide cone-fire coverage that pinned them into positions where Bruce’s follow-up attacks caught them. Theron closed with the scythe.

They lost no foxes to escape after the first mixed herd, Bruce’s spread constructs improved with practice, and the second and third herds’ foxes were all killed cleanly.

They found a small unusual beast Bruce did not have a name for, a low tree-dwelling creature with six limbs, luminous white fur, and cores that graded higher than the deer at the exchange. They took three of them.

They found a beast Kael identified as a silverbark hound, a canine-like beast, larger than the foxes, that hunted alone rather than in packs. They took one. Its core was denser than anything else they had seen from the Deepwood.

By the time the pale luminous sky had started its shift toward the evening softening, Bruce, Kael, and Theron had killed close to thirty beasts across the Deepwood’s first level. Their rings were full. Their reserves were high, the ambient essence had recharged them throughout the day, even during fights. And their soul-bodies had absorbed enough essence to have visibly deepened their glows.

Bruce was, he could tell, no longer at middle E.

He was at late E.

Kael had also crossed to late E. Theron was a small step behind but close.

At this rate, they would hit peak E within two more hunting days at the Deepwood. And D-rank was, as Elenora had said through Caelen, one solid week’s worth of hunting from where they now stood.

They walked out of the Deepwood in the softening evening.

The A-rank guard at the portal saw them come out and, for the first time that day, her expression showed something.

She looked at their full rings, at their brightened glows, at the ordinary tiredness in their faces that came from a long good day of work, and she nodded slightly, once.

"Good day."

"Very good day," Bruce agreed.

"You are already late E."

"Yes."

"That is quick. Elenora will be pleased."

"Please tell Caelen, if you speak with him."

"I will."

She waved them on.

At the Guild exchange, the senior clerk was, again, pleased. The Deepwood haul was substantially more valuable than the F-rank hauls had been. Deer cores from the Deepwood graded higher. Fox cores graded higher still, the perception-quality was rare, and specific buyers paid a premium for it. The silverbark hound’s core was rare enough that the senior clerk had to consult his grading system for a full minute before calling a price.

When Bruce’s window updated:

Soul Points: 3,847

Three thousand eight hundred and forty-seven. Kael’s and Theron’s would be similar. They were, all three of them, resourced now in a way that would have seemed absurd a week ago.

Bruce closed the window without commenting. He was, he realized, beginning to become quietly wealthy in this realm.

They ate at the old soul’s again.

The old soul saw the three of them come in and their eyes went first to Bruce’s hand, to the seal on his skin, and then to the fullness of their glows and the tiredness of good work.

"Seal accepted," the old soul said.

"Seal accepted."

"Two-month term."

"Two-month term."

"Deepwood today."

"Deepwood today."

They ate. The old soul served them the standard dinner, a rich stew with careful herbs, small portions calibrated to their new rank. Bruce ate slowly, letting the essence do its work in his soul-body’s new consolidated late-E configuration. Kael ate slowly too, having internalized his own preferred pace. Theron ate slowly, having always been the one who noticed.

The old soul watched them eat with the same quiet approval of a cook watching regulars enjoy their food.

Toward the end of the meal, Bruce said: "The Library of Small Voices."

The old soul looked up.

"You have been told about it."

"It is one of Elenora’s sponsored portals."

"It is."

"What should I know about it?"

The old soul was quiet for a moment.

"The Library of Small Voices is a specialized archive dungeon that houses rare texts. Most sponsored parties treat it as a resource for buying manuscripts. That is what it is, on the surface."

"And underneath the surface?"

"Underneath the surface, the Library is one of the few places in Xiltra where you can find first-principle information about the Codex."

Bruce set his spoon down.

"About the Codex."

"About the soul realm’s Codex. Yes. Not everything. The Library does not have Codex documents themselves, the Codex does not write down its instructions in a form other souls can read. But the Library has copies of the records left by souls who have spoken with the Codex at their advancements. Nonagon members’ records. Records of the previous S-rank cases at the orb. A few other things. Rare, but present."

"Elenora knew this."

"Elenora certainly knows this. She has read from the Library many times. It is part of why her sponsorship includes it. She wants sponsored parties to have access to information the ordinary hunter never sees."

"Is she showing me the information deliberately?"