As he slowly started absorbing her all kinds of knowledge and information started flooding in his brain. The memories of the woman, from her childhood to this moment, some limited information about this world, nearby villages and a nearby city, the language spoken in this country. All this info just flooded in his brain causing him an immense headache.
'Agh, that hurts, this is a bit too much information all at once but this is no reason to stop now, I can still keep it up'
He kept on slowly absorbing her life, her soul, despite the pain. After half an hour the pain had gotten slightly more bearable but not that much better either. It took a whole hour for him to fully absorb her soul. After he had finished and she was not alive anymore he had obtained valuable information and a level up.
'So her name is…was Anne, the first human I possessed and even absorbed. I feel bad to have done this but it was something that I had to do. Thank you for the knowledge you've provided me with Anne, I'll make sure to remember your name. Now let's digest all this info. This planet I am in is called Vespera, the kingdom I am at right now is called Astrea and at the moment I am at a small village at the very north of the country, unfortunately it doesn't seem like maps are a common thing here so I don't have a visual of my location, but just a vague idea. There seems to exist a small town called Eletta about fifty kilometers south from here, that could be my next destination after I leave here and level up some more. This is the plan then, I'll go level up some more and return when I get the materialize skill and will have a body of my own'
Leo now with a plan was about to leave the house when he heard the door open and an old lady entered the room
"Anne. Wake up, it's time to take your medicine…Anne"
Not getting a response the old lady approached the now deceased Anne and checked on her. Upon seeing her face that was now devoid of any color she stumbled back
"No, no no no, you can't die on me. My dear Anne"
Leo felt a sense of guilt at that moment and quickly left the house before an imaginary tear almost trickled down his ethereal cheek.
'Focus Leo, it wasn't your fault, she was going to die anyway, you just…sped up the process that's all. Who am I kidding, I just killed a person, sweetcoating it won't make any difference. I'll just go and hunt a bit to forget about it'
Just as he passed through the village's wall he remembered
'I almost forgot I leveled up, I have skill points I can use, let's see how many I've got'
[Status]
[Name: Leo Hawthorne]
[Age: 19]
[Species: Ghost]
[Level: 5]
[HP: 260/260]
[Mana: 160/160]
[STR: 25]
[AGI: 32]
[VIT: 25]
[INT: 37]
[SPR: 80]
[Stat Points: 18]
[Skill Points: 10]
[Unique Skills: Status Window, ???]
[Skills: Item Box (Lvl 1), Appraisal, Stealth (Lvl 1), Pain Tolerance (Lvl 1)]
[Species Skills: Invisible, Ethereal Form, Levitation, Spectral Sight, Chill Zone, Possession, Undying, Tendrils, Life Absorb, Transform]
'That's a nice increase in my stats. What is that, a new skill? Pain Tolerance huh, that explains why the pain got more bearable when I was absorbing. It's a nice addition now time to use my points. I shall throw all my stat points to my spirit as usual and now that I have ten skill points I'll use them all to buy my beloved body materializing skill at last. Here goes'
Leo purchased the Materialize skill at last, he was finally capable of materializing his body. Now it was time to test it out
'I can't wait to use this skill. Let's see, there's nobody around to see me'
Having checked that no one was around to see him he used his skill and his ethereal body materialized at once. All his senses came to him, smell, touch, everything.
"At last, I finally have a body of my own, I have my senses back, I can speak. I don't have to float around and rely on luck to find some other being to get a body"
Leo was in an ecstatic state after obtaining his body. He switched between his ethereal form and his materialized form a few times and after getting used to it he was ready to move on
"I'm gonna go test out my combat capabilities in the forest against some animals to see how strong I am"
Leo ran to the forest excited and started exploring anew. Smelling the nature, feeling the nature, living the nature from a real body and not what he was before. He went around but then he encountered something unexpected. A big bear 2 meters tall even while standing on its 4 legs stood a few meters from him. It was eating some plants casually, it hadn't noticed him
'A bear, I've wanted to kill a bear for a while now, it may or may not be the bear from back then but I don't care. This is also the perfect chance that I was looking for to test out my body's capabilities.'
He then proceeded to perform a quick appraisal on the bear
[Age: 3]
[Species: Titan Bear]
[Level: 8]
[HP: 560/560]
[Mana: 200/200]
[STR: 65]
[AGI: 25]
[VIT: 57]
[INT: 20]
[SPR: 18]
[Skills: Pain Tolerance (Lvl 4), Maul (Lvl 5), Slash (Lvl 3), Sharp Claws (Lvl 2), Iron Hide (Lvl 1)]
[Species Skills: Titan Size]
Reading through the bear's status Leo felt cold sweat run down his back, the opponent was much stronger than what he expected
'Titan Bear, with such a name if a 3 year old is already so big and strong then I can only wonder how much bigger and stronger a fully grown one would be'
Leo slowly approached the bear from behind stealthily, his stealth skill helping him suppress his presence a bit but not enough to go unnoticed. Once he was 3 meters away from the bear it noticed his presence and quickly turned around warily. As soon as it spotted him it looked at him with an angry look.
'Oh shit, I didn't expect it to spot me, I hoped to get closer and ambush it'
Both Leo and the bear stood at a standstill each waiting for the other to make the first move. The bear broke the standstill and attacked first, pouncing on Leo with its huge body. Leo swiftly dodged, but the bear managed to leave a deep wound on his forearm with its sharp claws.