Legendary Architect of Apocalypse-Chapter 100: Soul Contracts

"Are you sure you can afford to be so carefree? What if a weak Soul Beast consumes it? It will be bound to you forever."

In Astralious’s eyes, Elias was someone that was ignorant about the ways of the world. He didn’t know so many things, that should’ve been basic knowledge for a person his age that came to the Academy.

Looking at the carefree boy, he wondered if this was one of those cases where Elias didn’t know about the risks associated with getting a useless Soul Beast as their first contract.

"Nothing like that will happen. The bead needs to have my blood, in order to initiate the contract. Even if a Soul Beast consumes it, it’ll be useless without my blood."

This was the explanation that he had received from the Painter when everyone was given these crystal beads.

If this information had come from Professor Grey, then he might have reason to doubt it. But it came from the Painter before the relationship between them had temporarily worsened.

That was also a possible explanation behind the binding mechanism, so he didn’t see a reason to doubt it.

Still, he looked at Astralious to confirm it one last time, and asked, "Am I correct?"

"That seems to be right. But are you absolutely certain your blood didn’t touch that bead, even a single drop?"

"Why would my blood..." Elias initially answered without thinking, but in the middle of his sentence, he paused and started thinking about it. He didn’t even know where he dropped it, so how could he be certain if his blood had touched the bead?

If the bead was with him when he was fighting Harbinger, then it possibly could have come in contact with his blood. But if it had dropped somewhere before that, then the chances were much lower.

"My luck can’t be that bad right?" he asked, but he only received a silence from Astralious in response.

Even Astralious didn’t know how to answer that question, since he himself didn’t know what kind of luck this boy had. Was it bad? Or was it good? It looked like it was on the extreme ends of both these spectrums.

He was unlucky enough to come across Harbinger, him, the high tier fable, and even the mid-tier fables that wanted to capture him. But he was also lucky enough to survive it all. So which was it? He couldn’t be certain.

"I suppose we will find out," he answered after a long period of silence. "If you’re lucky, nothing will happen, or you might even end up with a strong soul beast. But if you’re unlucky, then..."

He didn’t finish his sentence, and Elias didn’t want to hear either. He already understood what he was trying to say.

"Can a person only get one Soul Beast in their life?" He asked Astralious, changing the topic from his luck.

"Not quite. From what I know, a human can have multiple Soul Beasts. But it also depends on the number of times they have evolved. After every two evolutions, you can get one extra soul beast."

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"So if I have my second evolution, I can potentially have two soul beasts? What’s the total number of evolutions a person can go through then?" Elias asked, growing more involved in the topic.

"Normally, I would have asked you how you could be so ignorant as to not even know this. But I suppose we have long gone past that point."

Still trapped in Elias’s mind, Astralious subconsciously tried to facepalm, only to hear the sound of chains clanking. He wasn’t even able to slap his own head.

’Hah, this is going to be a long trip,’ he thought, looking at his chains.

"Are you there?" Elias asked after a long period of silence.

Astralious answered sarcastically, "No. I’m dead, literally."

Elias opened his lips to respond, but he closed them before uttering a single word, as Astralious started answering on his own.

"The number of evolutions a person can have depends on their bloodline and potential. That is why the stronger families have managed to maintain their dominance."

"If you’re unlucky, you can only have one evolution throughout your entire life. If you’re lucky, there can be many more. The highest evolution that I had ever heard about was the principal of the Dimensional Academy, who had gone through the seventh evolution."

"At least that was the case in my era. I am not even sure how the world outside may have changed in the time I was trapped here. Did someone manage to break past the eighth evolution? That is probably unlikely."

As Astralious thought about the outside world, it made him feel even worse about the fact that he was trapped here. It had been such a long time since he had died, that he couldn’t even count the years.

If Elias managed to leave the land of fables alive, then he was going to see the outside world for the first time after his death, something that he had only heard about while waiting throughout the years in the forest.

"The Highest Potential..." Elias remembered the measurement test, which measured their potential along with their class grade.

He had arrived late at the measurement ceremony, so he didn’t see what potential or grade the others had received, but his own potential was quite good from what he had seen. But that also made him worried.

The number of evolutions that he could have, was quite high, maybe even comparable to the professor that Astralious talked about. It made him wonder just how many evolutions he had to even wait to get the ability that he really wanted.

He thought that it was going to come with his first or second evolution, but now it didn’t seem so certain anymore. He even wondered just how strong his family actually was, especially his father.

"What was the number of evolutions that the person who killed you had gone through?" he asked the one person he believed might give him a hint.