"Where do I even start from?"
As far as logic went, these were all souls for now. He could summon his clones and decide to make each one of the souls dwell in his clones, but it was not a permanent thing.
Once the clone died or returned, the soul also leaves and he'd have to summon and merge them again to achieve the same results.
Honestly, that was a lot of hassle for him.
But in order to permanently merge them, he needed to continually cultivate his Cloning talent and...
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... am I not thinking about this the wrong way?"
Northern looked around intensively, then began to mutter to himself.
"The moment they become Singularity, I won't gain talent fragments when they kill monsters since all that is going into soul fragments. On the other hand, if my clones become the monsters, they'd definitely be stronger and that would go a long way in farming talent fragments."
The one thing Northern needed the most right now was a constant supply of talent fragments. He should hunt more and get more since that was his certified method of getting stronger without necessarily needing to rise in rank.
With enough Talent Fragments, he could evolve the Cloning talent even further than the second stage.
He could also evolve [Soul Eyes] and see how far it can go.
The more he grows, the more talent fragments he would need to grow.
While the idea of having a couple of powerful and independent monsters was sweet,
having an army of monsters to constantly farm talent fragments for him was a brilliant and reasonable idea.
"Or at the very least, I should see what the multiple clone route can do..."
Northern had chosen the single clone route - which gave birth to Dark Terror... Night Terror.
He let out a deep sigh and looked around the horde of monsters.
"At the very least, I should add Koll and that my neighbor over there to the list of Void Summons I have. From there we can now begin to experiment."
Hence came his objective.
He really wanted to rank up, become a Nomad and then a Master as soon as he could.
He felt like becoming a Master would put him on a different league, of course, that feeling was owed to Raven's explanation.
But he wanted to carefully do this.
Since his soul was an impossible case phenomenon, moreover, with the variable that the power of Chaos and Void posed.
A lot could change from just a single rank up, it was wise to work on making Koll and the Neighbor singularities and then he could rank up.
After ranking up, he would then begin to work on creating a horde of monsters that would be farming talent fragments for him.
He nodded with a satisfied look on his face.
"I think that's a good plan for now... yes."
Northern closed his eyes and opened them to the deep darkness, feeling a little numbness that barely lasted a second.
Not much had changed since he left, Raven still seemed to be the same way and Terence was still...
He moved his head to observe her.
Time passed, and passed. Later, Northern also sat down, thinking and sometimes observing how Raven just sat there, crossed-legged like the statue of Buddha.
Much later, he leaned against the stony wall of the cave and tried to sleep.
It was uncomfortable, the stones of the wall kept poking his back in places that the leather breastplate weren't protecting.
But he did manage to sleep... he does have a reputation for sleeping anyway after all.
However, the sleep was not long, soon he was up, staring into the distant light.
All they were waiting for was that light to become dark.
"Uhm... I'm sorry to ask, how long was I out for?"
Northern immediately turned his head to the left, likewise Raven who sharply opened her eyes.
"You're back," she said softly, then gracefully smiled at Terence.
"Yes, I'm back. Light."
Northern, baffled, asked:
Both of them turned to him.
Raven was silent for a while, then as she opened her mouth to speak, Terence beat her to it.
"I go to places, and experience a lot of things... the good part of it is that because of it, I know a lot... and the bad part is that, I also know a lot."
Northern raised a brow.
"Knowing a lot can be quite harrowing..." she added, then dropped her head with a somber expression.
The darkness was silent for an awful while, then a clap resounded and Terence's voice followed.
"Ay ay, but I have you guys here... how bad can it be?" She smiled and tilted her head to the side.
"Yeah... how bad can it be..." Northern muttered.
Following that, Raven turned to Terence and placed her hand gently on the oracle's head.
"Do you want to talk about it yet?"
Terence shook her head, causing her white short hair to flutter around her head.
"Not yet..." she paused and took note of their surroundings.
"I see we have made it to the cave, having to cater while outrunning danger must have been quite annoying."
She said, leaning her head a little to look past Raven and see Northern.
Who folded his arms and looked away.
"It wasn't quite..." he retorted in an almost mumbling tone.
Terence smiled and looked at Raven.
"I hope you didn't do anything crazy this time around..."
Raven folded her arms, was silent for a few seconds, then said:
"I knocked out a couple of men and stripped them naked."
Northern and Terence exclaimed simultaneously.
Raven, nonchalantly, looked at Northern, and looked at Raven, then she responded... with no iota of emotion in her voice.
"What? They have the clothes we need to blend in."
"Light, you can't just strip guys? Didn't you feel awkward doing it?"
She closed her eyes and replied with an indifferent face.
"What's there to feel awkward about... they are just men."
Northern stared at her for a long while.
"Ah, crap... What the hell is this girl? I feel wronged, I feel so so wrong!"