Soul Snatch

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Soul Snatch
Alias(es)	Soul Seizing; Soul-Stealing
Occupation/Role	Gan Ming's innate talent; appraises targets and seizes their abilities after their deaths
Status	Active; documented at Level 7
First Appearance	Chapter 2

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Level 1	2	Awakened with a three-slot simultaneous activation limit. Seizure attempts have a 10-second cooldown.
Level 2	14	Activation limit increased from three to four slots.
Level 4	14	Activation limit reached six slots; all seized abilities had risen to the +4 tier.
Level 5	25	Activation limit increased from six to seven slots; every stored and active seized ability increased to +5.
Level 6	28	Activation limit increased from seven to eight slots. Fanged Charge, Bark Armor, Ambush, Beast Scent, Rotten Root Entanglement, and Potential Stimulation were all enhanced to +6.
Level 7	37 48	All acquired abilities increased from +6 to +7. Gan Ming later prepares a nine-skill active loadout.

Abilities & Mechanics

Target Appraisal

Soul Snatch automatically produces an information panel whenever Gan Ming examines a valid target. Against monsters, it identifies species, level, and skills; against Awakened, it displays tier, level when readable, innate talent, specialization skills, and ordinary skills. 2 11

• Target levels may appear as ?? when Gan Ming cannot assess them due to a substantial gap in strength. 2 7 9
• The panel lets Gan Ming identify enemy roles and builds before fighting, including defensive, assassin, ranged, healer, and dual-wielding specializations. 9 31
• It is also used for tracking targets through their available skill sets and judging whether their abilities are worth pursuing. 23 26

Ability Seizure

After participating in a target's killing, Gan Ming can touch its corpse and attempt to seize its skills, talents, specialization skills, or other abilities. 2 4

• Each attempt has a 10-second cooldown. 2
• The talent cannot seize abilities from living people, at least at its current stage. 23
• A successful use may acquire one ability, several abilities, or nearly an entire target's ability set. 13 26 34 37
• Seizure is not guaranteed. Gan Ming failed twice before obtaining Fanged Charge from his first Iron Bristle Wild Boar. 11 12
• Success improves as Soul Snatch levels up, but is also affected by the level difference between Gan Ming and the target. Targets close to his level yield more complete results than targets several levels stronger. 2 26 28 50

Skill Library and Activation Slots

Seized abilities are permanently retained in a selection pool. Only a limited number may be activated simultaneously; swapping an active ability out does not delete it. 2

• Newly acquired abilities can be activated immediately if a slot is available. 12
• Gan Ming changes his active set to suit each Fallen Zone, such as replacing woodland-dependent Woodland Affinity with Beast Scent in the Ruins Zone. 24
• He prioritizes survival, control, and mobility over raw damage when his mana pool or activation slots are limited. 24 25
• At Level 7, he can assemble a build combining defense, scent-based detection, dual-wielding, target marking, invisibility, and teleportation. 48

Duplicate Conversion and Scaling

Repeatedly seizing an ability Gan Ming already possesses converts the duplicate into Soul Snatch proficiency. 13

• Duplicate farming creates a growth cycle: more successful seizures generate proficiency, which raises Soul Snatch's level and improves future seizures. 14 28
• Every Soul Snatch level enhances all abilities seized through the talent, including inactive abilities in the selection pool. 2 25
• Enhanced abilities receive a level suffix such as +4, +6, or +7; their damage, duration, range, cooldowns, or other effects improve accordingly. 23 28 48

Notable Seized Abilities

• Fanged Charge — First successfully seized skill. It converts periodic basic attacks into powerful charged strikes and becomes Gan Ming's principal melee damage source. 12 28 48
• Bark Armor — Temporarily raises defense; its enhanced +7 form grants 155% additional defense for 15 minutes. 13 23 48
• Beast Scent — Detects living creatures by scent, distinguishes their type and direction, and reaches approximately 95 meters at +7. 24 25 48
• Shadowmeld — An innate talent seized from Xiao Jing that greatly reduces Gan Ming's presence and silences his movement until he attacks or cancels it. 34 48
• Lock-On — An innate talent seized from Xiao Tong that marks one target and increases accuracy and critical-hit rate against it. 35 48
• Double Blades and Dual-Wield Mastery — Seized from Old Wang; together they increase dual-wield damage, attack speed, and accuracy. 36 48
• Vital Renewal, Healing Enhancement, Mass Restoration, and Status Purification — Support and healing abilities seized from Old Li. 37
• Armor-Shattering Pincer Strike — A specialization skill from the Red-armored Elite Giant Scorpion that deals heavy physical damage and lowers the target's defense. 37

History

Soul Snatch awakened when Gan Ming assimilated the heart during the Awakening ritual. Its initial description immediately revealed its core advantage: the ability to seize the powers of slain targets, retain them permanently, and expand the number he could use at once. 2

Gan Ming concealed the talent during registration, falsely reporting his innate ability as the defensive passive “Iron Wall.” He considered the literal implications of stealing other Awakened people's abilities too dangerous to disclose. 3

Its first field test occurred in the West City Outskirts Woodland. Gan Ming initially failed twice to seize anything from an Iron Bristle Wild Boar, then obtained Fanged Charge on his third attempt. Subsequent kills supplied defensive, healing, movement, and control skills, while duplicates rapidly raised Soul Snatch to Level 4. 11 12 13 14

In the Ruins Zone, Soul Snatch allowed Gan Ming to reconfigure his active skills around the environment and collect abilities from Rustclaw Hounds, Rust-armored Scorpions, and Grayrock Giant Lizards. Through these hunts, he learned that the target-level gap affects how many abilities can be seized in one use. 24 25 26 28

Soul Snatch's greatest documented gains came from the four Awakened who tried to seize Gan Ming's battle with the Red-armored Elite Giant Scorpion. It took eight of Xiao Jing's nine abilities, including Shadowmeld and two specialization skills; then acquired key ranged, dual-wielding, and healer abilities from the remaining members. 34 35 36 37

By the end of the Ruins Zone expedition, Gan Ming possessed 47 abilities—four innate talents, ten mastery skills, and 33 regular or passive skills—acquired over roughly eight and a half hours. 39

Trivia

• Soul Snatch's target-reading function is valuable enough that Gan Ming believes he does not need to purchase detailed monster intelligence before entering a Fallen Zone. 9
• A Storage Ring cannot contain another Storage Ring, forcing Gan Ming to carry rings seized from slain Awakened separately. 34
• Soul Snatch can still fail to obtain all abilities from a target even when Gan Ming is one level stronger, as shown by the Dark-Hole Spiders. 50