The video ended and the hologram disappeared.

"That’s it," Sheila explained. "Nova is just the name of some girl that this man knew, but due to how the stolen clip ended up being corrupted while it was stolen, people thought that Nova was what people like you were supposed to be called."

"So... what are we supposed to be called?" Stanley asked.

"Well, the title would probably be something like Super-Awakened, but Nova has taken over it already," Sheila said. "Apparently, it’s also called something like Soul Artist, but that’s just something the man in the video said."

"Did he?" Stanley turned. "Is there more of that man speaking?"

"No," Sheila said. "There used to be apparently, but it was so long ago that the second half of this conversation exists only in the transcript. Even that isn’t complete from what I know."

"Does it say anything important?" Stanley asked.

"I don’t remember," Sheila said. "Hey room, can you bring up the transcriptions from the remainder of the video?"

"Accessing!" the room spoke and a moment later an image of a physical paper hung in the air.

The paper wrote the remainder of what the two men had talked about later on, but there were parts missing.

After a bit of research, the interviewer realized that the young man had indeed spoken the truth about Novas getting stronger by swallowing the souls of the dead.

However, they couldn’t swallow all the dead souls. There were exceptions, and those were of course the ones that were called Dulls so very long ago.

According to the young man, souls were what gave life to a body, what helped it think, and what helped it exist. Without souls, one would be no different than normal objects.

In the land of Valor, there were two types of souls. Good souls and bad souls.

They were categorized as such apparently based on the amount of damage a soul had taken. If the damage was low, then the soul was considered a good soul.

If it was high, it was considered a bad soul.

There were pros and cons to both types of souls that the young man gave, but the young man considered good souls to be better without a doubt compared to the bad ones.

The simple fact he presented made it apparent to nobody, but just him.

Good souls, ones that hadn’t taken much damage were capable of going into the reincarnation journey to be born into another body and live another life, albeit without any memories.

The Bad ones would not have such a chance. A bad soul that was so very damaged would not return to the cycle of reincarnation according to the young man. They were simply too weak to break through the barrier that stopped them from going into the reincarnation cycle. Instead, it would remain here, dissipating into the world, into nothingness.

However, not many considered these to be a pro or a con since from what they understood, once you died, you died. What good was reincarnation if you held no memories of the past?

You were a different person altogether. As such, you might as well have been a different soul altogether to them.

So, keeping those aspects of good and bad souls to the side, Stanley and Sheila read the next set of pros and cons. And it became very apparent which one was better.

According to the young man, Souls were objects of very high energy. They were formed of energy and apparently needed it to go to and from the Realm of Matter to the Realm of Souls.

Souls with damage and wounds to them, the ones the young man called ’tainted’ were souls that started leaking energy from themselves. And anywhere energy gathered in more than the normal amount, it started creating a strange phenomenon.

The powers that the awakened used were just that. They were the soul energy of a broken soul that leaked what it was made of. The more it leaked, the more damaged it become.

The more tainted it became.

As for the good souls, even if they had little damage, they weren’t enough to start leaking energy, and as such they could not manifest powers in those that they belonged to.

Few souls were special in this regard. They were so incredibly tainted that the energy dissipated even outside of their body. What powers they did manifest didn’t remain on them to be useful to them.

However, at that point, they did manifest some other sort of powers that only a soul could. They manifested the aura of the Realm of Souls.

Because of this aura, any soul without a living body would gravitate toward it, and when it got inside of the person, it would finally dissipate, releasing what little energy it had in it.

When it did so, it would empower the soul of the one it gravitated to. That was how a Nova got stronger by absorbing the soul of the dead.

"Wow," Stanley couldn’t help but say as Sheila read what was written to him. He couldn’t yet read the words, so he could only listen, but even listening to it made him feel his entire world had been blasted wide open and he could see so much more.

He now understood it wasn’t as simple as people getting powerful when they came of age. No, it was the soul breaking down inside of the person, leaking its power into them.

"As for the people that are known as Dulls, they are the ones without damaged souls, so they cannot leak energy into their own body to gain any powers."

"Dulls are also the ones that when they die will go into the Realm of Souls and wait for reincarnation," Sheila explained. "Because of that very reason, they have no need to gravitate toward puny souls that imitate the aura, even if they are nearby."

"I see," Stanley said. He was a bit too shocked to do anything than just nod along to what Sheila read.

"Well, that’s about it," Sheila said as she looked through the page. "It doesn’t say anything about Nova and powers other than that."

Stanley stayed silent for a bit, thinking to himself. "Is that true?" he asked. "Can what he is saying be true?"

Sheila thought for a bit and nodded. "I believe so. Everything makes sense about the world when you look through the lens of the knowledge he provided."

"Awakened, Nova, Unawakened, even the fact that Nova become strong by killing those that are near them, that all tracks," Sheila said.

"Yeah, but souls. Are those real? How do we know that this leaking stuff even makes sense?" Stanley asked.

"You can only use your power so much in a single day," Sheila said. "That is pretty good evidence of you using your Soul energy. It takes time to leak from your soul again, to let you use your power again."

"I guess," Stanley said. "Still feels kind of weird though. How does this man know so much about souls and powers?"

Sheila turned toward the page on the screen. "It says something about him finding it out while trying to solve a problem his son had. He doesn’t explain any more than that."

"Well, I believe him. You can choose to not believe him if you want to, but didn’t we see firsthand example of that very phenomenon back in your town?" Sheila asked.

Stanley looked at her curiously. "We did?" he asked.

"Wren, your Mayor," Sheila said. "He had the power to swap souls with another body. When he swapped with Yasu, he could sill use Yasu’s powers to stop time, didn’t he?"

"But that could just be our powers are attached to our body and not to our—"

"The mayor was alive for a century and a half by swapping bodies. If the new bodies had different powers, he would have never lived for that long," Sheila explained. "That is quite conclusive evidence that it is the soul that empowers someone, not the body."

Stanley paused for some thought. "You might be right," he said. It did make sense now that he thought about it.

He finally started believing that souls were real and that the bad ones had no more life after this.

"So... my mother reincarnated?" he couldn’t help but ask. "She is somewhere else in this world?"

"I don’t know," Sheila said. "It’s impossible to tell anyway, since the people who reincarnate aren’t supposed to remember their past life."

"But she’s still out there," Stanley said. "Alive, maybe she was reborn." He couldn’t help but feel emotional. "I hope she lives a good life this time around."

Sheila patted him on his back. "I’m sure she will."

However, Stanley tears didn’t fade. "But my brother... he... he no longer exists in this world, does he?" he couldn’t help but ask.

"If your brother had powers then, no. When he died, he would go to the nearest..." Sheila’s words stuck to her mouth as she turned to look at Stanley.

Stanley wondered why she stopped when he realized what she was trying to say.

"Are... are you saying that my brother’s soul... is inside of me right now?" he asked.

"I don’t see where else his soul would be," Sheila said. "Raven was nowhere near when he was killed, right? So as the only Nova in the vicinity, your brother should be with you."

Stanley couldn’t help but clutch his chest at that knowledge. "My brother’s soul... is in me right now," he said softly.

Sheila nodded.

"Your brother may have died, but his soul lives on through you."