Strafe was seriously beginning to wonder what form of monster the Sovereign of that World sent to this world.

“Pseudo-Saint Body.” Strafe lifelessly mentioned as he was still wondering what freak this Dyne was.

“What?”

“Pseudo-Saint Body. It is one of the things martial cultivators of my world go through to slowly reform the body. Be it Soul, Body, and Mind Cultivation, each path needs to undergo several changes in its nature. The problem is that all three of their bodies, Soul, Mind, and Body are affected by the Death Energy. And so, they go through the process of changing it. If there is too much death energy in their body, they will be unable to acquire that Saint Body body. To fix this, the Path that I had for you was to be reborn in Breath of Fire 4’s world as Ryu. This would have allowed you to easily a powerful pseudo-saint body and will be perfected when you merge with Fou-Lu.”

“Oh... Then should I just stop doing this? Am I wasting effort?”

“No. There are many ways to go through this process. The one I had planned was a physical rebirth. I used my own physical body as the foundation. I divided my body into two forms which you will use. But due to the death energy within your body, I opted to only give you a small portion of my body as a start and make you merge with Fou-Lu, which has a larger portion of my Divine Body.”

“But this isn’t one hundred percent of your body?”

“Correct. Fou-Lu's and Ryu’s bodies barely constitute 50 percent of my own. But if you can develop a stronger Pseudo-Saint body, you could acquire a larger percentage of my divine body and become stronger. The technique I imparted to you is one of my Master’s techniques. But I never tried it for I cultivated to be a Divine using another method.”

“Alright. I don’t really get it, but basically, I should do this. Hey, Bertugo and Brod! You should do this too! Oh, wait... I can’t seem to teach them yet. Strafe, why can’t I impart that experience-absorbing technique to my Slimes? I mean, I am linked with them, right?”

“It’s because Slimes have little or no Mental capacity. In short, they aren’t as smart as humans. Even Bertugo would find it hard to understand that even if you can control them like these Slimes.”

“Ugh. And here I thought I could evolve them. Wait... What if I bring them to Brigandine’s world? Don’t that world have ways to evolve a monster?”

“Very perceptive. Yes. You could evolve them. But even if you do evolve them, it doesn’t change their ability. Remember, various monsters in Brigandine are limited to only a few attacks, even when they evolve. They have MP-based attacks that are given by their body. But for Bertugo or this Slime, they would be like Lizardmen or Scorpions who don’t have any special magic attacks.”

“Are there ways that I can improve the mental abilities of my monsters?”

“There is in Breath of Fire 4. But that’s still too far away from where you are. Your other option is to look for inheritances, magical fruits in my world.”

“As long as there is a chance. For now... I guess I should continue this torturous training!” Dyne laughed.

The group continued to attack and kill as many Gimards they could find. Some wandering Drake Ghost could wander around the area every now and then, and the group would steal more Power Elixirs from them and kill them.

Three days passed, and they finally cleared the entire fourth level and the third level of Gimards.

All there that remained were humans possessed by Gimards. The Slimes and Brod had complete souls now. The process was shocking even for Strafe. The souls they received from the wandering Drake Ghosts were from different souls, but whenever Dyne would remind them about Alos Vasilous, the souls would somehow find a way to merge and grant the Slimes and Brod its own original soul.

“Ugh. Why did I introduce you to the citizens of Alos Vasilous? You seem to be having an easier time in this world!” Strafe complained. The souls were actually submitting to Dyne as they could feel a powerful sense of gratitude that Dyne had to the souls.

Dyne had just killed another Drake and bestowed its soul to Brod.

“Hm.... For some reason, I feel that the Bertugo has a bigger potential than Brod.”

“Of course. Bertugo received one powerful sentient soul. Brod received scattered souls. The soul in Bertugo is so powerful that it forcibly caused Bertugo to become a Gomboo as it imbued a surge of Life Energy into Bertugo. Frankly speaking, if Bertugo finds the right opportunity, he could grow up to be a Monster King of this world. If you can awaken a Genesis Tree, then Brod might have a chance.”

“Why can’t I do what I did before? I mean, make the souls from Noaru  valley move here?”

“You think what the souls did was easy? They sacrificed a lot for that. They forcibly broke through without the powers of a Ra-Seru. They don’t have the energy to do that again. Your choice is to awaken another Tree if you want to make your monsters grow powerful.”

“Wow. This world really loves me.” Dyne laughed.

Dyne went back and relaxed in the Room that was without any Mist. He continued to teach the group how to speak and instructed them to prepare for the next day.

The next day, Dyne stayed near the canal of flowing water and continued to immerse himself with the water.

Dyne decided to meditate so to understand more about water energy. He ordered the rest to try to go on the lower floors and steal from Drake Ghosts and Gimard and to be careful.

After teaching Bertugo and Brod how to open and lock the door, the group left, and Dyne mediated on the waters with peace.

Hours passed, and Dyne continued to absorb the energy and pushed the lingering soothing energy to his body and circulated it in his meridians. He knew that there was a possible trauma for using the Gimards soul to purify his body and the soothing cold energy was just right to heal it.

“So the water here has thick life energy. But how come it changes when it reaches the Hunter Springs?” Dyne pondered.

Strafe laughed in secret. He knew the answer why but refused to tell Dyne.

Dyne continued to meditate, and several hours passed again.

“A Slime colony?” Dyne suddenly asked out loud.

“Wha...” Strafe was confused at Dyne’s sudden words.

“Could it be that the underground river houses a Slime colony? Makes sense.”

“WHAT?!” Strafe was angry.

“How did you come to that conclusion?!”

“Oh. Simple deduction. First, how can the Slime survive in that Gobu Gobu filled world? Second, the ambush we met. The Slime could bury itself underground. I tasted the water and compared it to this one, and I realized that the water in the Hunter springs has potent nutrients. Since I've been using Number 1 as a blanket, I felt a strange familiarity with the Hunter Springs. So I'm guessing there is a Slime colony somewhere in between the underground river here and the Hunters Spring. The Slime feeds primarily on that water and multiplies, and I guess the nutrients that the Slimes release make the waters rich and vibrant that allows healing. Green Slimes carry healing leaves, so I'm guessing that like the Gobu Gobu, they somehow collect those.” Dyne presented his deduction.

“So it wasn’t Astral Projection?”

“Astral what?”

“Never mind.” Strafe sighed in relief. It would be shocking if Dyne could already perform Astral Projection.

“That astral thingy... I felt that there were a group of slimes somewhere south of here. I could feel their presence when I was connected to the water. Was that it?” Dyne asked.

“...”

Strafe was silent. While this wasn’t Astral Projection, Dyne was already beginning to step on this powerful ability that Soul Cultivators had. It was the ability to sense the area around them. But Dyne could somehow commune with the water and detect the Slimes.”

“Also, is this river connected to the sea west of Mount Rikuroa? I felt a powerful soul energy over there... Kinda scary though... I was trying to sense it more, but somehow it got mad and pushed me out.”

“Monster... monster...” Strafe could only mutter in shock and didn’t bother to explain.

Two more days passed like this. On the third day, the Brod and Bertugo reported that they were once again able to steal items from the monsters they found and brought in their spoils. They had been marking the monsters they stole from and realized that the items from the Drake Ghost materialized again.

Dyne nodded as he expected this and explained why it was.

“I sort of expected this. You see, Drake Ghosts are souls, remember? I’ve been telling you many things about the soul. So your ability from the Evil God allows you two to steal things that are either items or something that these creatures craft. So the Power Elixir is something their soul creates.” Dyne happily explained to his monsters.

They had a confused expression but nodded anyway.

Strafe was stunned at Dyne's explanation.

“You are very perceptive.” Strafe couldn’t help but comment.

“I was trained to be.” Dyne laughed.

“Your right, though. You just have this very child-like look that I forget you were the best of your world.”

“This explains how humans learned the Spirit in this world, right? They fought against monsters and acquired these items. The Fury Boost, The Power Elixir, Speed, Defense, and maybe even the Wonder Elixir. These must have been Biron’s ways of growing strong.”

“On point. The ability of these items made the humans here find a way to imitate it. And so, a Soul Cultivator was born and ascended to a Soul Divine state.”

Dyne continued to explain everything needed for his monsters to learn and finally decided to begin Soul training for the monsters.