I have Nine Lives

A small white scroll appeared in the old shaman's hand as he looked at Felix and asked:

"How do you want me to give you this?"

Felix's fiery aura would burn the scroll to cinders if the shaman just threw at him.

Felix shook his head as he said:

"Don't be ridiculous, just open it for me to see, or can't you just transfer the contents of the scroll directly to me?"

The shaman shook his head as he said:

"I didn't learn this technique, so I can't teach it to you. While we ravens have quite the collection of soul training techniques, that doesn't mean we trained in all of them."

Felix frowned as he asked:

"Then why do you think that technique would be good for me?"

The shaman shrugged as he said:

"You said you wanted a quick training technique, so I got you the best that we have. However, it does come with side effects."

Felix cocked his head to the side as he narrowed his eyes and asked:

"What type of side effects are we talking about?"

"Hmm... well, they aren't anything harmful to you. Those side effects would only work on those that don't have a good soul base. But in your situation, your soul is already very sturdy, and it should be able to handle the power of the technique with no side effects... besides a lot of pain."

Felix looked at the white scroll. He didn't care much about the pain, as the fire lotus was already continuously torturing him. He could get used to it.

The old shaman opened the white scroll letting Felix scan his contents with his eyes.

Felix's eyes started to shine the more he read, and he contemplated the technique for a few seconds before nodding and disappearing. He had understood the technique perfectly, and he was ready to leave to a good place where he could train in it.

The shaman shook his head as he saw Felix's disappearance and left back to the city. He hoped he wouldn't meet Felix again, but he was ready for another possible visit.

Felix's body appeared back into the ocean as the flames were suppressed. His eyes were closed as he floated in the water while sitting cross-legged.

The technique that the old raven had given him was quite special.

It was akin to a whirlpool that could strengthen the soul.

He could use his soul to create a centrifugal rotation force in his mental place where the soul would have to fight back against the suction force of the centrifugal force. It was akin to gravity training but for the soul.

Felix was currently creating the centrifugal force in his mental place...

Felix's translucent soul was floating in the void. His mental palace was emptied as he was standing cross-legged in the middle of the darkness.

Suddenly, his body started to move as a small whirlwind appeared in the darkness, releasing a small centrifugal force.

Which was continuously increasing in strength, height, and width, the power of the whirlwind increased the more Felix concentrated upon it, to the point that his sturdy soul was actually getting moved from his place.

The movement of the whirlwind didn't affect Felix very much. But considering that the technique could actually move Felix's soul at all. It showed that it was a genuine technique, that the stronger it got, the more beneficial it would be for the user.

Felix continued to increase the centrifugal force until his soul was being thrown around- as if it was a kite in a storm.

However, Felix's soul, while moved, it wasn't injured at all, which showed that the power of the whirlwind wasn't strong enough yet.

So he concentrated further, using his soul's powers to increase the centrifugal force even more, to the point that it was resembling the power of the spatial shards that he encountered in his fight with Marshallo.

Felix's soul eyes started to glow with an intense red light as gashes started to appear on his soul body, which quickly replenished themselves. In the surroundings of his body, all of the hex energy was being rapidly absorbed by his body and soul, his strength rapidly soaring.

However, that soar was kept only for a few seconds before it stopped, and his soul only continued to get battered by the whirlwind. Immense pain starting to creep into Felix's senses, almost overwhelming him to the point that he almost blacked out!

That old shaman had said that he would experience immense pain upon using this technique. But he never thought that it would be this intense!

It was almost as if he was being skinned alive while getting salt and vinegar poured into his wounds every second of the skinning.

Felix's pain endurance was something that he found to be rather high, but even he was wavering due to the intense pain that was he was currently experiencing. It was a bit too much even for him!

The pain was traveling everywhere into his soul body, as gashes continued to appear on it, but this time, he didn't get stronger anymore. The soar from before happened only once, and as Felix continued to mull upon the technique, he realized why no one in the raven tribe trained in it.

The technique had 5 levels in total, and after one completed one level. They would get a moderate soar into their soul strength. However, after the completion of the level, one had to endure 3x times the pain of their current soul strength's endurance for 5 days before they could go to the next level.

Also, if they failed to endure the pain, they would revert to the first level and do everything again.

Felix frowned as the pain continued to transform. He felt jittery all over his body. Seemingly as if thousands of bugs were crawling all over under his skin and pinching his blood vessels.

His head started to move up and down as blue blood started to drop out of his soul forms' nose and mouth. However, Felix endured everything as he used his arm to clear the blood from his mouth and nose.

He gritted his teeth as he continued to endure. Time passed very slowly under the torture of the technique to the point that he almost didn't know what day it was anymore.

Was it a night, was it a day?

What was happening to his body?

These were questions that arrived at him as he woke up with a numb soul. His eyes were red as he clutched his chest. But, fortunately, the pain that was racking his whole body had stopped for the time being.

That meant he had passed the tribulation of the first level of the technique, and he had permanently increased his soul strength by quite a few percentages. Now, if he used his soul to leave his body, he would be 10% stronger than the last time that happened.

Even though he felt like shit right now due to the soreness that invaded his soul, he also felt a sense of completion as he sensed the increased power that was now dwelling in his soul permanently.

It was quite a self-destructive training technique, but it did the work if the one that practiced it would be able to endure the aftermath. After all, he did get strong quite fast as 5 days wasn't much at all for someone like him who had a lifespan that could be counted in the tens of thousands of years.

Felix's breathing started to stabilize as the pain receded, and so did the soreness. Even though his soul didn't have the overpowered ability to recover as his body, it still healed quite fast.

He breathed in and out to make sure that everything was ok with his soul and that his strength increases fully stabilized before he created another whirlwind that he started to power up. He still had 4 levels left to do!

A similar event happened once again with Felix. But this time, his body was cut, and his soul's blood dropped into his mental space, trickling down into the darkness to be never seen again. And now, the whirlwind was pushing him around even worse than before.

Level 2 of the technique was way more brutal than level 1, so much that Felix couldn't actually withstand it!

As blood trickled down his soul body, Felix's consciousness was starting to fade. However, at the last second, Felix used all of his power to stop the whirlwind from massacring his body. The attempt was a failure, his eyes were red as he closed them and fell into the void that was his Mindscape.

The blue blood that he shed landed at the bottom of the mindscape creating a small pool that Felix's unconscious soul body dropped into slowly after.

His consciousness remained muddled as a splash was heard reverberating in his mind, but he was too injured and too exhausted to care anymore... he needed to rest if he wanted to continue with the levels of the technique.