It was a bad idea. Obviously, James knew that but he couldn't stop himself. There wasn't anything urging him to grow stronger but he just couldn't wait any longer. At first, when James made his discovery that he was different from all the other souls it was fine but the more time he spent knowing that his soul was different-better, than everyone else the more he felt truly alone. Knowing that they were not 'true' souls like him made it impossible for James to bond with anyone else. That's why even though he knew it was a very bad idea he couldn't go back even if he could just step back and forget about it. It's not like anyone would miss him and James needed his soul more than him. Truly, James was not the kind of person who put worth on someone based on their living condition and wealth but he needed his soul if he wanted to stop feeling so lonely. The plan was simple, once again. Complicated plan only made things complicated. Back to the plan, the reason James felt lonely was because he couldn't bond with anyone because they didn't have true souls so all he had to do was become good enough to modify someone's soul to become similar to his own. Afterwards, making friend would be easy by knowing that they had real souls like his own. But, to get good enough at modifying souls for his plan James needed to get more training meaning more training targets.

That basically resumed why James wanted to kill someone, specifically that homeless guy who kicked him out of an alley when James first arrived. There wasn't any reason why it had to be that why except that James didn't want to kill anyone who didn't have anything to do with himself, yet.

Finally when it was dark enough and the chances of his target being in the alley were high enough, James stood up and started walking towards the alley. Strangely, he didn't feel that nervous- at least not much more than when he was experimenting on dogs. Maybe it wasn't that different from what he was used to doing.

James arrived in front of the alley and spotted his target dead drunk on the floor and sleeping. 'Huh, this is gonna be easier than I thought.' He walked slowly with determined steps knowing he would be killing for the first time tonight. Once James was in front of him, he crouched to get to his level and raised his steady hands towards him. No reaction on the homeless person's side so James approached his had to his target's chest to use "Idle Transfiguration" on him. Just before James could touch him, the homeless man opened his eyes wide and upon seeing James tried to back away. James immediately pounced on him and locked his arms together with one hand while blocking his mouth with the other and then successfully used "Idle Transfiguration." Now unlike the other times where James only modified slightly the soul, he directly put all his strength into crushing it from all sides to make the soul as small as possible. After doing this the effects were seen immediately. The homeless man started having every bones in his body getting softer and then breaking before disappearing. His skin looked like it was incredibly tight around his flesh. As it went on, he started getting smaller and smaller until he was only a small brown piece of flesh, small enough that in one hand you could fit about four of him. The only he left was his belonging on the ground which James immediately dropped in the trash.

James went back to his bench in the park with his brand new toy in his his pocket. With a soul that James could experiment on without fear of getting caught or harming himself his strength would grow much faster. He started modifying the soul as soon as he was sat on the bench and that he made sure no one was around.

After the night, James stopped and went to the animal shelter to signal he would no longer be coming. He came to that decision after having trained with a human soul for one night because in just one night he learned more than all he learnt in a full week so it made no sense to come here all the time just to waste valuable time he could instead use to get better using a human soul. After that was done James went to the homeless man's alley. Now that no one lived there any more James could use it to train in peace during the day since the park was usually visited by children when it wasn't dark outside. 

With his new training tool James predicted that in about 7 years he would be at Mahito's strenght when he died if he didn't use any other souls except for the one he already has. James wouldn't be able to last 7 years without going crazy from feeling alone all the time, just thinking about that possibility filled him with dread. No choice, if he wanted to get stronger fast the only way was by getting more souls and fighting. If he did all that, getting to Mahito's strength would be entirely possible in only about three fourth of the time Mahito needed to get his strength. The reason for that is that Mahito had already told James about all his abilities so while Mahito was going blind when he was born, James knew exactly what to aim for and how to get to them. First was perfecting "Idle Transfiguration", his first ability, so James immediately sat down and started studying even though he had already spent the entire night doing that already.