Chapter 643 – Bernir Ascends.

“Ugh… what’s that strange feeling…”

Bernir grasped his chest with his prosthetic arm as he felt something forming within him. His awareness fully returned to his body as the ascension trial concluded. Now, similarly to other tier three classes, a change was taking place, though it was something far less common among crafting professions.

Manufacturing and other non-combat class holders like him had no stat multipliers. Even upon reaching tier three, their power did not surge in any noticeable way. Their true strength came from the skills and abilities they were granted. In terms of raw strength, they were comparable to a tier one class holder who had never obtained a powerful class or advanced to tier two.

“Are you feeling unwell, Master Bernir? Your blood pressure appears to be elevated.”

Sebastian was in the room with him, commenting on the changes occurring during his transformation.

“Aye, I’m fine… it doesn’t hurt… actually… this feels rather refreshing.”

It was the same warmth he had felt when leaving the trial area. Something had been forming in his chest, something new and pure. For a moment, his eyes lingered on Sebastian’s golem shell, where he noticed strange coloring along its surface. His gaze then shifted to the white room, which contained little besides the memory recording machine. Even that, along with the monitors, carried a faint glow, though it was not very bright.

“I can truly see it, the souls within items, just like in the trial!”

No longer hesitating, he brought up his status screen and glanced at his classes. There, he finally saw it.

“Hah, I did it!”

Bernir was so overjoyed that he jumped out of the retractable chair he had been sitting in.

“What’s this SE?”

He looked over the text describing his new class, the Soulsmith. He had never heard of it before, and even the research his boss had done never truly explained it. SP was related to stamina, meaning he would not get as tired as before. This was similar to his old crafting classes, which typically focused on minimizing stamina usage, as it was the primary resource for crafting. All of his skills relied on stamina, so this was a significant boost, but it still did not explain what SE was.

“Oh… was that always there?”

After glancing back and forth a few times, he finally noticed something new. Besides the MP and SP bars, there was another one, the SE bar. Compared to his stamina, it was quite low, holding only a hundred points. When he focused on it, the world system responded and provided an explanation.

“I see…”

Bernir tried to recall his trial, as he had not clearly noticed this resource bar back then. However, he did remember feeling unusually tired and weakened after crossing a certain threshold while making soul equipment. Now he understood the reason. Soul Energy was responsible for that exhaustion, and it was now a class resource that belonged to him, something most other craftsmen could probably only dream of.

Soul Sense and Soul Infusion were both still there, no longer temporary skills but permanent parts of him. There were others as well, though one in particular caught his attention.

Bernir stared at the description for a long while, his hand still pressed against his chest.

“So… it is not just a skill. It is a part of me now.”

The warmth he had felt finally made sense. The Soulsmith Heart was not a metaphor or some abstract system construct. It was a true transformation, an additional spiritual organ layered over his physical heart.

“Boss will have a good time analyzing it.”

He chuckled, knowing Roland would likely uncover the secrets of this new soul organ far faster than he ever could.

“Aye, now then… the next one is… my old partner!”

The final skill felt both new and familiar at the same time as it included the white hammer that he had used throughout the ascension trial.

Back in the trial, he did not have his prosthetic arm, yet he could wield a hammer even then. Now that he was back in the real world, his runic prosthesis had returned, and he was curious about how this would work exactly. To test it, he activated the skill whose knowledge had been imprinted into him after his success in the trial.

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“Hmm… this is strange.”

He summoned his Soulsmith Hammer, and it answered his call. It appeared around his right arm, glowing brightly. The sensation was unusual. It felt as though the prosthesis had become a metal gauntlet, with a real hand beneath it. He could hold the hammer and even touch it with his other hand, yet there was no weight to it.

The first thing he noticed was that the hammer could interact with physical objects. When he struck the nearby chair he was sitting on, there was a clear response. Even so, it caused no real damage, and no matter how hard he hit it, there were no dents.

“It’s different from the one inside that space. That one felt more like a normal hammer…”

This would be the tool he used for his soul crafts. One thing he quickly realized was that summoning it cost only one SE, and no additional resources were consumed while he held it. The skill implied that as long as he had even a single point left, the hammer could be used. That meant he only needed to worry about energy expenditure during infusion.