But none of them got up and approached him, even if he looked away and pretended not to be prepared.

Ryuji even felt a little brave and checked the sand to look for the signs of any Buried vines underneath. He had to get dangerously close to all of them to do that, But he was ready to do that as long as he knew he wasn't getting ambushed.

When Ryuji finally concluded that every single of these plants was a cactus, he took a deep breath of relief and sat down.

After resting for a while and catching up his breath, he carefully took one of the four remaining cacti out of the ground and opened it up.

The Cacti wasn't similar to any of the kind he had seen on Earth, but it was still almost the same. The only reason Ryuji could tell was because of how deep a cactus was lodged into the sand. Normal species of any kind of Cacti didn't even grow in places like this.

He was on a different planet... world... dimension...?Whatever now. It was weird that it still looked similar to life on Earth. But Ryuji didn't care right now. He needed his hard-earned reward.

He cut off the Cactus horizontally from the center, Splitting them into two parts.

'Thank the Heavens.'

Wait... Should I even be thanking the heavens right now? Am i not on heaven itself? Or at least the place that was supposed to be...

Ryuji devoured the soft insides of the Cactus as fast as he could. He was spent. They didn't contain Liquid water but... The white translucent insides of the Cactus were cool and soft on the tongue.

Moreover, He could actually crush it to squeeze out the water, but it'd waste more than it'd help him. Even if he craved liquid water, he had to suffice with this. It was better this way.

After a while, Ryuji dismissed the upper part of his armour covering his torso. Not much blood had flown from the wound for a while since it was tightly held back by the [One's Resolve]. But it was necessary to treat it in some way.

Ryuji tore off a part of the white cloth he was wearing under his armour and tightly wrapped it around his wound.

He carefully treated any wounds he could since there were simply too many of them. One caused by the vine that wrapped around his arm during the first few seconds. Second was the laceration on his leg, and third... Were the numerous amount of thorns that were lodged into his body.

Since Ryuji was circulating the Flames through his muscles and Veins, None of the thorns could cause him any serious damage. Plus he was also protected to a great extent by [One's Resolve].

That application of his flames was new. The thought somehow hit him in his head. He wasn't sure how, but he suddenly knew he could do that, and it saved his life.

Now after experiencing this, he had a question in his mind about what other applications could the strange flames of his possess.

Perhaps he'd have to train more to find out. This fight was enough of a proof that Ryuji was extremely lacking in front of these Abyssal Creatures. He needed to be able to utilise his powers properly to have a chance of surviving here.

Casting those thoughts aside, Ryuji summoned the runes and glanced down on his Remnants. A new line of runes had joined it's place.

Remnants: [One's Resolve], [Blamed Scholar], [Maroon Sight], [Spirit Of Thorns]

'Let's check it's description'

Ryuji summoned the Spirit Of Thorn's runes and turned his eyes towards the new glowing string.

Remnant Name: [Spirit Of Thorns]

Remnant Type: Weapon

Remnant Rank: Embered

Remnant Tier: II

Remnant Description - ["A Scholar was thrown out of his village and banished to the Thirsty Deserts. They thought he would finally stop creating useless stuff, but he proved them wrong and made a Gauntlet out of just sand and mud. He thought if he could have immense grip strength, he could squeeze water out of plants and animals alike. But ofcourse, all he managed to squeeze out was their life. "Tsk, weren't bodies supposed to be 70% water?", he said. He had created yet another useless thing..."]

**

'I have a feeling this is the Blamed Scholar again...'

Somehow, Ryuji had ended up with two of the Blamed Scholar's things again. The first one was useless, and judging by the way runes talked about this new Remnant of his, It was supposed to be useless too. But Ryuji felt it wasn't, and the reason for that was another long string of runes under this weird Description.

Remnant Enchantments - [Giant's Maw], [-Rogue-], [-Rogue-]

There were supposed to be three enchantments on this thing, but the last two enchantments were showing the same weird word -Rogue-.

'This better not be a dud.'

Ryuji lowered his eyes and started reading the lines of runes written below the Enchantments.

[Giant's Maw] Enchantment Description - "Blessed by a Giant, This Gauntlet can increase your grip strength in proportion to the essence you feed it."

[-Rogue-] Enchantment Description - "Information missing."

[-Rogue-] Enchantment Description - "Information missing."

'Increased grip strength? I wonder how much will it increase it.'

The first enchantment was useful. It gave him a stronger grip. He could need it anytime in a battle.

The other two enchantments... For some reason he couldn't see them.

He saw the same word -Rogue- written here. Perhaps the runes used it to describe something in a state it doesn't understand.

He knew it wasn't a big deal the first time he saw it. Since he didn't have a Soul Core, the Remnants were just randomly moving through his soul. They were bound to eventually get destroyed inside him.

But the reason for these two weird enchantments of this Remnant to be -Rogue- was unclear. Perhaps he should just use it and see it for himself.

Ryuji summoned the [Spirit Of Thorns]. Soon, thick gauntlets appeared around both of his hands. They were of a dim gold color with black highlights and numerous small spikes around it's knuckes. The joints were made from golden-black layers and didn't restrict his movements even one bit. What's more? Their weight was alright. There wasn't much difference or struggle in how he moved his hands.

The gauntlets fit him perfectly.

Ryuji poured some essence into the Gauntlets but felt no difference. He checked the runes again to look for any signs of the last two enchantments revealing themselves, but there was nothing.

Perhaps it was just not possible, or maybe the gauntlet's inner workings were somehow damaged and left the two enchantments useless. Was that even possible?

Ryuji couldn't know that even if he wanted to. At least not right now.

'Keeping that aside, How about i check it's effects?'

Ryuji dismissed one hand of the gauntlet and walked a bit further. He knew he had spotted a small boulder of some kind of dark red stone somewhere nearby.

Soon, Ryuji found it. It was a huge boulder, almost as tall as Ryuji and an uneven and jagged surface.

Ryuji grabbed one of the protrusion in the rock with his bare hand and tried to crush it. The rock did not move. Neither did anything happen. He kept at it for a few more seconds, but nothing happened.

'Understandable. Now... For the real part.'

He grabbed the same protrusion in the rock with the hand in the Gauntlet, poured some essence into it and gripped it tight.

At first, nothing happened. But soon, small and thin cracks started appearing on the rock around his fingers.

Then a little more. He couldn't grip it hard enough to cause any actual damage, but this was still a lot. He could use it in so many ways!

And yet the Scholar dared to call it useless.

'Come to think of it... Does it just enhance my grip strength? What about punches?'

Ryuji again compared his bare-hand punch with the hand-in-the-gauntlet punch. The bare-hand hurt a little, ofcourse. But it was pretty much the same. There was only a slight difference in the damage done by them since the gauntlet seemed to be made out of some kind of a hard alloy.

One thing was clear, The more essence he poured into the gauntlet, the stronger his grip got. And perhaps the stronger he got, the grip strength this gauntlet gave would increase more.

Now, the only thing left to check was the meaning of the message:

[Your Soul devours a part of their Soul]

He ran through all of his runes.

It didn't take him a lot of efforts to spot the difference.

Soul Fragments - [1/1000]

The Soul Fragments counter under the Resurgence Core now showed [1/1000].

'Oh! Is this how I'm supposed to collect Soul Fragments?'

He didn't feel much different from before, but he was sure his Core did indeed get at least a little more powerful. Maybe his body has gotten stronger too, but the effect could be so minute that he didn't notice it.

After looking at that new advancement, Ryuji glanced down at another string of runes. But he was slightly disappointed.

Souls Accumulated - [0/1000]

This specific section of strings under the Oblivion Core was still the same. He thought it'd have changed too.

So the thing The Resurgence Core needed to grow was Soul Fragments, while the Oblivion Core needed Souls themselves?

Then...

Was the [Soul Steal] attribute of his related to the Oblivion Core somehow?

In that case... To increase the Souls Accumulated counter, he had to absorb Souls...

Ryuji lingered for a while as a few dots connected in his mind. Then, he slowly started walking towards the charred remains of the Cactus and stood beside it.

It sounded Omnious. Being able to absorb someone's Soul even sounded a bit wrong.

He needed to learn about it though...

Ryuji extended his hand forward and the [Soul Steal] attribute came into effect. Black strings flowed from the cactus's body into Ryuji's fingers. And then a black orb the size of a golf ball appeared out of the Cabalist's body.

It levitated between the black flow of energy between Ryuji's fingers and slowly entered his palm.

Ryuji felt a warm energy entering through his palm and slowly floating towards his heart.

Slowly, The energy disappeared somewhere in the depths of his heart and he even felt receiving a slight amount of Soul Essence.

[You have acquired a Shrouded Soul, The Scheming Cabalist]

Ryuji didn't feel much different than before, but perhaps he felt a slight change in the way the Oblivion Core absorbed the Soul Essence from his Resurgence Core.

He wasn't sure what the change was though.

He summoned the runes and glanced at the familiar counter.

Souls Accumulated - [1/1000]

A slight smile somehow found it's way on Ryuji's face.

'Now that's what I'm talking about.'