We passed through deserted corridors with high ceilings until we finally reached the central part of the tower. There was a teleportation formation here, which I recognized almost as soon as I saw it. It was not as huge and complex as the one that brought me from Outland.

The formation activated and we appeared on another floor. Melrose led me further and we went into one of the offices. He ordered me to sit down and wait for him. A short time later, he returned holding an elegant box in his hands. He opened it and showed the contents.

A small ball the size of a fingernail in dark blue. When I looked at it, it seemed to me that I was being pulled inside. However, I soon threw off this obsession.

- This is the Soul Pearl. It is cleansed and ready to contain the soul. Your task is to place it next to you and constantly interact with it until a connection is established between you. The pearl will become a vessel for your soul, so I advise you to try hard. Most difficult stage of the experiment is connected with Soul Pearl. The process can take months to years. But obviously the sooner you complete it the better.

The experiment itself is pretty simple. In the first stage, you will try to make a breakthrough like any other acolyte. Naturally, your flabby body will die before the soul of a True Mage is formed. My ancient formation will help your soul stay intact for a while even if your body dies, but the time gained will be very short, maybe ten seconds. Whether you manage to form the soul of a True Magician or not depends on you.

But even if you manage to form a True Soul, this does not mean that everything worked out. The soul and the spiritual body are not the same. Without a spiritual or physical body, your soul will still die. The main test will be the transition of the soul to the Pearl of the Soul. Even a True Magician will die if he loses his body or vessel. The soul of a True Magician cannot exist without a body. Although I will buy you some time, if you do not manage to merge with the Soul Pearl, then your soul will still be scattered forever.

I will give you a detailed description of the points that you should be aware of. You will live in the tower, you cannot leave it. You will have free access to the first three floors. If you have any questions ask now. - finally finished Melrose.

- I need advanced knowledge on golem creation, gravity, and teleportation formations. In return I can offer an ancient elemental enhancement formation and an ancient stabilization rune. - I said.

As I understand it, almost all the knowledge found in this world was usually attributed to the so-called ancient Magicians. Melrose condescendingly mentioned that I would not be able to use the knowledge gained before becoming a True Magician, but at the same time praised my positive attitude.

Seeing the formation and rune I suggested, Melrose lost concentration for a while and I sensed a kind of madness in his mental wave. It seemed that the souls of the dead were flying around and whispering something into his ears. But he soon calmed down and promised that he would send all the information on the requested topics to my room in the near future.

I was forbidden to use the teleport, so I went down on foot using the stairs. Golems stood guard over every transition from floor to floor. Although they did not move and looked like statues of different types, it seemed to me that their eyes were directed at my back.

On the third floor, I first saw a man who was waiting for my arrival. He was 2.5 meters tall and mighty-looking bull. With dense red hair all over the body and massive and sharp horns. He were dressed in a black cape that poorly hides his huge torso and spacious leather shorts on relatively short but strong legs ending in large hooves. In humanoid muscular hands he had a huge ax with which he picked the floor out of boredom.

Such mixed people were rare in Outland, but here in the Southern Continent they were much more numerous, although they still remained in the vast minority.

His life energy was an order of magnitude stronger than mine, it turned out that he was a Great Knight. Although I have already killed some during my adventures, it was definitely bad idea to relax in their presence. In addition, he was also a rank 2 acolyte.

I had a harder time dealing with a Great Knight than a rank 3 acolyte, although this was due to my unique fighting style and limited sound spell variation. The sonic stun had almost no effect on the Great Knight.

-Finally...

In a deep bass and lifeless tone, the bull wearily spoke, turning to me.

- I'm Harlem. I'll show you what's here and how, let's go.

- Hi Harlem. I am Sam. - I answered and followed.

Harlem didn't waste much time on me. Having shown the location of the library and the dining room, as well as talking about the general structure of the tower, he was going to say goodbye.

I tried to make friends with him, or at least talk to him a bit more, but he turned out to be a tough nut to crack and all my attempts were useless. I had to catch the scarce information between the lines.

- Wait. Where are the rest of the acolytes? - I asked.

- On missions. - Harlem replied and left.

Apparently Melrose really killed almost everyone. Perhaps Harlem refused to become a rank 3 acolyte because he was afraid become another victim. He was silent on all such questions.

A couple of days later, a humanoid golem came into my room and brought the records that I asked Melrose for. I tried to contact the golem by asking questions, but he ignored them. However I increasingly suspected that these were not ordinary golems.

Perhaps Melrose found a way to keep the remnant of the soul of the True Mage even after his death. At the very least, that would explain the presence of so many autonomous golems in the tower. Although these golems did not show signs and I could not scan them with mental energy, but I believed that my intuition did not fail me.

Anyway, it wasn't that important right now, so I put it out of my mind. The golem brought as many as three containers with a bunch of scattered entries on topics of interest to me. Unlike the academy where the records were structured, Melrose obviously didn't bother too much about it. I will have to spend a lot of time among these papers.

The soul pearl was tied to my forehead with a bandage, I tried to constantly interact with it with my mental energy, while continuing to learn.

After almost half a year, it was time for the experiment. Although I was ready early, I wanted to finish with the study of Melrose's records first.

We went to the 7th floor and went first to Melrose's laboratory, then he took me to a small room about 30 square meters. Heavy doors closed behind and the room was isolated from the outside world. Patterns of multifaceted formations glowed dimly on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Melrose stayed outside in his laboratory and watched me with his tracking formations.

I moved forward and sat down in the central part of the formation, laying out Mortal Tears and the Ascension Potion in front of me. I was already very close to the requirements of the level of mental energy before coming here, Melrose helped me take the last step and bring the level of mental energy to 15 units. Well, the spell of the 1st rank will be Sound Explosion. The simplicity of this spell ensured that I could easily form it during a breakthrough and it wouldn't become an obstacle.

First of all, I closed my eyes and felt as if my mind had become a part of the Soul Pearl, or the Pearl had become a part of my mind. I could control it like a part of my own body. With one thought, I placed the pearl in the groove of the formation in front of me.

Opening the vial of the Ascension Potion, I watched a ghostly silver mist burst out. It took the form of a girl's ghost. She hung in the air with her legs crossed with her hands and her head bowed. Suddenly, the ghost abruptly straightened up and raised her head to the ceiling and let out a soundless cry, waves of mental energy rushed in my direction. A powerful mental wave shook my mind, trying to suppress it.

In my mind, the central mind rune was spinning at a high speed. Around the central rune were three mind runes at equal distances from each other, forming a triangle. In turn, the triangle was covered with nine more mind runes, creating a circle. The mind formation fully activated and repelled the attack without any problems.

At the same time, one of the formations in the room itself activated, trying to help me overcome the first obstacle, even though it was no longer necessary.

The ghost continued its attempts to shock my mind, at the same time I recited a spell and my eyes lit up with a bright light. The mental energy of the ghost began to slowly seep into my mind. The ghost of the girl herself, sensing the opportunity to penetrate my mind, immediately took advantage of this and melted in my eyes turning into silver smoke.

Now the ghost materialized in my mind and started attacking the outer mind formation runes. The attacks became even more frantic, but my mind remained unshakable. At the same time, the mental energy of the ghost gradually dissipated and its crumbs were absorbed by me. However, the process was extremely slow.

Opening the vial of Mortal Tears, I drank the contents and my whole body shuddered at the same moment. All the cells of the body writhed and a hissing sound was heard, which was accompanied by a black haze emanating from the body. My already old body gradually dried up even more, devouring the remnants of life energy as a catalyst. Blackened bloody tears flowed from my eyes, escorting me to another world.

The first important step of advancement has come, the formation of a full-fledged soul of a True Magician.

Ignoring the suffering of my body, I completely entered a meditational trance using all the powers of my mind to hasten the absorption of the ghost for my own breakthrough. All the runes of the mind glowed bright red like a red-hot core. The ghost's attacks continued as if he didn't realize what was happening. With each attack, the ghost gave away a part of its soul to help me build the foundation of my own soul.

Finally, I managed to go into deep meditation and suddenly felt myself inside my own mind. At first, only a bright point was formed that held my nature, realizing what had happened, I wasted no time focusing on the process of forming the image of my soul. Soon, the little ghostly person was fully formed and hung in the air at the very heart of the central rune of my mind.

I opened my eyes and looked around. There was a huge blue space around, but I knew perfectly well that it was rather that my soul was incredibly tiny. I felt that I was in the central rune of my own mind. I could also feel everything that was inside my mind formation, as well as outside. However, the size of my soul was not fundamental in this space, rather it was a reflex forcing my soul to form in the safest place of the runes of the mind.

Closing my eyes again, I began to diligently absorb the ghost's mental energy while strengthening my own. If I do this for too long, even the Soul Rescue Formation won't help me, and my soul will shatter. Under my guidance, the runes of the mind glowed even brighter and began to radiate an attractive force, accelerating the absorption of mental energy. The image of my soul began to increase dramatically as I aggressively consumed the Ascension potion.

Meanwhile, outside, my body had already turned into a dried-up mummy, and soon began to crumble into dust. As soon as Melrose saw that my body would soon lose all signs of life, he activated the formation. The runes in the room glowed brightly and created a soul preservation cage around my body. The body froze and ceased to collapse.

Although Melrose had seen this many times, he still nervously beat his fingers on the table while watching the process on the hologram.

- Come on you bastard. Show me what your meditation technique is capable of.

Suddenly, a bright star formed in the soul formation cage. Apparently the first stage was successful. Now it remains only to immerse the soul in the Soul Pearl. Melrose narrowed his eyes and nervously waited for the continuation.

The Soul Pearl began to attract the soul of the True Mage. However in the next moment the soul suddenly sank into the remains of the body on the floor in the blink of an eye, ignoring the pearl. Melrose was amazed and did not understand what had happened.

Among the remains of the body lay a small white battered figurine. The black hole instead of the face of the figurine suddenly came to life, it seemed that an infinite universe was hidden under the hood. It was this figurine that the ownerless soul of Sam was absorbed into.

At the same time, gray clouds began to form in the clear sky outside the tower.