Soulless Players

Philip silently stared at his system and noticed the addition in his Profession: Half-Dreamwalker.

"..."

He wasn't sure if he would be irritated by the 'half' or be happy since he was now a 'dream walker'.

He chuckled to himself and turned his gaze to his karma.

He realized that once his karma went back to -10, he would no longer experience sudden misfortune like before.

This made him believe that only when his negative karma exceeded 10 would it bring him trouble.

'Come to think of it, my karma stopped decreasing after the Evans was caught yesterday...'

Philip smiled and temporarily set this matter aside as he immediately focused on the reason for his failure earlier.

'There are three prerequisites to be a mentalist: First is to temporarily borrow strength from core memories; second is have at least an IQ of 150 or any equivalent measurements of mental strength; and lastly, be able to summon the illusionary door.'

Philip realized he was only capable of the last prerequisite and felt the problem may lie in the other two.

He reflected back on his life, trying to recall the time he unlocked his cores.

'So far, there were only two instances where I was placed in great crisis. First is when I escape from the hidden government unit and the second is when I flee from Steve, a soulless player.'

He suspected he had unlocked his core memories when he was only four years old. After all, it was very unlikely for a child of his age at that time to defeat a force with more influence and power than his. Only with the support of mysticism, he would be able to destroy them.

Philip had forgotten about the details of the escape and never gave it more thought after he started living in the forest.

Moreover, as he grew, he noticed that he couldn't recall them and initially thought that it may be because of his poor memory. However, now with his high mental stats, he could now try to recall them by entering into 'Spatial Cognitive State'.

Philip closed his eyes for a moment before he summoned numerous illusionary screens that showed fragments of his childhood memories without him entering an astral state.

From the screens, he watched himself eating hard bread with other children aged three to ten years old. There were also much younger but they were separated in another room.

Then, the screens changed and showed children reading books with an old man holding a stick in front. The area was dark, illuminated only by torches and lamps hanging on the wall.

All the children's actions were systematic, as though they were humans without feelings other than studying. If the child got sleepy or lazy, the old man's teacher would immediately punish the child by beating them with a long stick and not giving them food.

Philip then saw himself in the far-end corner. Like others, he sat straight while holding a thick book in his arms. His gaze was dark and lifeless, and only the light from the torches beside him reflected in his eyes.

The child, Philip paused for a moment before he raised his head at the ceiling. He darted straight to where the screen was located, as though sensing someone was spying on him from another timeline.

Once the child's and his eyes met, He felt insurmountable dark emotions surging through him, filling him with great exhaustion and hopelessness for the future. These emotions drowned him and made him forget how to breathe and live.

Upon realizing this, Philip's head immediately throbbed and quickly willed his mind to make the screens disappear.

He buried his head on the pillow and gripped his chest, trying to calm his racing heart.

This abnormality continued for minutes before he raised his head to look at the ceiling above.

Breathlessly, Philip organized his chaotic emotion and thought,

'Why do I feel the four-year-old me noticed that I am looking at him? No, that's ridiculous.'

He shook his head and laughed self-depreciatingly, trying to dispel this absurdity.

'But what I can be sure of is that I have no recollection of my agony. Yes, I could remember the other children and clearly could tell who was who, but my emotion that time? It seemed that there were none.' Philip frowned.

He realized that there was a big secret behind his lack of childhood memories before being adopted by Mother Theresa and Father Xiang.

'Did I choose to forcibly forget them because I knew it would only bring me pain and suffering?' He considered.

Although Philip had some recollection about them, like he knew he destroyed the unit and saved the children, he couldn't tell how he did them. It was as though he wasn't he before and the now him wasn't the Philip that suffered back.

At first, he wanted to keep going, but a sense of foreboding stopped him. He believed that whatever secret it was, he wasn't ready yet.

'Is this related to opening the cores?" he wondered. "I seemed to have a deep impression that I had a strong inclination towards self-destruction."

Philip didn't dwell on it, knowing his memories were incomplete. Instead, he focused on the newer memory he had.

'Come to think of it, during Steve's hunt, I remember being able to run through the forest for hours,' he thought. 'Normally, with my current child body, I would struggle to run for more than 10 minutes. Is this the memory I was searching for?'

Excited, Philip concentrated on remembering every detail of it and noticed that he had indeed temporarily possessed super endurance at that time.

'Yes, that time was indeed abnormal. Have I unlocked one of my core memories to save myself from the hunt?'

Earlier, Sam had explained that the cores had different levels - the more significant and impactful the core memory in one's personality, the more powerful the cores are. Thus, upon unlocking it, one would be granted a supernatural ability in retrospect to the core levels.

Mainly unlocking one's core was akin to an adrenaline rush and was difficult to distinguish.

Mostly, cores will temporarily boost physical prowess and mental thinking. Some of the powerful cores will give mental powers like telekinesis and mind control.

Philip speculated that the core he had unlocked was the memory of being with his adoptive parents. When his peaceful life was interrupted by an attack from another soulless player, he unconsciously borrowed tenacity and strong will from it, allowing him to outrun the mercenaries.

'As for how I close it,' he thought, 'Maybe it's when I find out my parents are still alive and are living somewhere unknown... or to the time when I deliver my revenge to Steve...'

Philip smiled, knowing he had fulfilled the first prerequisites.

'So that comes to the 150 IQ...'

He then glanced back at his system and noticed his mental stats:

__________________

Mental: 14 (+27)

__________________

Seeing this, Philip believed that he finally found the reason.

'Does a Mental stat of 14 equivalent to 140 IQ? But how about the 27 attributable stats?'

Philip thought for two seconds before concluding,

'I think a mentalist requires a base stat and not the total mental stats I have. That is also the reason why I was able to summon the door but couldn't enter it. Yes, the stat points made me as though I had satisfied all the requirements.'

'Does that mean that the attributable stat points are borrowed from the system and not considered as mine? So that's why Sam expressed earlier that my case was abnormal. It was indeed uncommon for someone to borrow mental strength from others...' Philip chuckled.

Philip felt he knew the answer and heaved a sigh of relief. The only thing he needed to do was to increase his base mental stat.

He quickly thought of ways to achieve this.

'First, I could memorize all the books in the library, understand, and master them. Yes, I can start with Conrad's collection of books. This will also aid me in acting more like Conrad in school.

'Second is to squeeze my brain to maintain a cognitive state for more than 5 minutes and stay in an astral state for more than an hour.

'Third, I can make use of the pain brought from upgrading my physique to the limit and endure it...'

Philip massaged his temple. Whatever way he chooses, it requires perseverance and hard work... and pain.

Thus after he closed the system, he immediately took all books related to Conrad's major and sat on the chair to study.

Just before opening the books, he realized it wasn't enough. He quickly went to Maris and borrowed some of her books. He believed that before he started with college courses, he had to study the primary and secondary school lessons first.

Later, when he felt it was enough, he quickly deactivated his 'Mystique Identities' uniqueness. Only when he changed into his original disabled body then he started studying.

Thus, for the whole night, Philip read all the books while enduring the restlessness and pain in his body.