Chapter 13

Aldrin took in a deep breath and a wide smile formed behind his helmet, slowly he began to descend the hill and into the valley, these soulwings would probably be the greatest harvest of this expedition, this much was sufficient to help promote quite a number of grandmaster to supreme master but he wasn’t about to let anyone get his hoard.

If it were anyone else who wasn’t a grandmaster then they would have no use for the soulwings except to just stare at them because if anyone lower than a grandmaster were to attempt absorbing one, the excessive energy contained within would instantly blow up their souls, perhaps a master could attempt to absorb one under careful supervision and help of a grandmaster but they couldn’t take beyond one and yet within the valley was about a hundred of them but Aldrin on the other hand had a spirituality at the same level as that of a grandmaster, absorbing the soulwings wasn’t impossible.

Soon he was in the valley, most of the bones here were in a complete state despite having an ancient aura emanating from them, he tried as much as possible to avoid coming in contact with any from fear of triggering anything. Soon he was right in front of a soulwing that fluttered around beautifully, its neon glow softly illuminating its surroundings like a firefly, he stretched his hand and the soulwing landed on his finger.

[Spirit Essence: Formed from pure soul remnants]

[Absorbing spirit essence]

‘So its true name is spirit essence’ Aldrin thought to himself as the ‘butterfly’ dissolved into motes of light that melded with his hand, suddenly he felt a warm rush of energy surge through his body almost making him moan in delight.

[Absorbed spirit essence; Spirituality +500]

Seeing that notification Aldrin’s smile became even wider as he scanned the valley filled with soul essence. He took another step forward and with a swipe of his hand he grasped two ‘butterflies’ that soon melted into his body filling him with a rush of energy that made him moan in pleasure.

[Absorbed spirit essence; Spirituality +500]

[Absorbed spirit essence; Spirituality +500]

He was about to go about chasing ‘butterflies’ when he suddenly recalled his advancement quest, with a thought he pulled up his status window

[Profile;

Name: Aldrin Draca

Race: Human

Age: 20

Title: Trash

Class: Spirit Practitioner

Subclass: Summoner

Grade: Mortal

Level: 20 (Maximum Level; Advancement Quest) 

Stats;

Strength: 197

Agility: 198

Stamina: 198

Vitality: 200

Spirituality: 5400

Zen: 0

…]

He stretched his hand and clicked on advancement quest and the view before him changed

[Advancement Quest: Contract all four elemental spirits

Progress: 1/4]

After a moment of thought he felt like this was a good place to try contracting the other spirits, contracting the salamander was pretty hard due to his low spirituality which was quickly drained in just a few moments but now he had almost thrice that number and most importantly he didn’t need to wait to recharge naturally every time he ran out of juice as he could just catch a ‘butterfly’ or two and go again. This was a great chance to improve his strength before going to find the bone general or whatever his name was.

He completely descended into the valley and tried finding a clear spot, along the way he accidentally hit some bones but unlike what he feared they didn’t suddenly spring to life, after some time he sat down, there were some ‘butterflies’ around either perching on the skeletons or just floating about.

Sitting in a lotus position he tried meditating to calm his mind but found it a little difficult to do so, after a few moment he remembered that the armour he had on had a detrimental effect on his mind so he quickly unsummoned it before calming down and his mind became clear and tranquil devoid of all stray thoughts.

Following his previous experiences he separated his astral body from his physical body and without a second thought he flew into the air and in the next moment he reached the peak of the demiplane, he took a moment to look downward before realizing that the entire demiplane was just about 10,000km2 in size, in that downward glance he saw a particular location which he kept in mind before passing the almost inexistent world barrier and appearing in the void beyond.

He spread out his spirituality seeking a spirit he could contract like with when he summoned the salamander fire spirit but this time he was more focused, setting his mind on the three elemental spirits of water, earth and wind.

[Searching for contracts…]

[Searching for contracts…]

After a few moments he could feel his spirituality reaching critical levels when suddenly that popup appeared with the system voice accompanying it.

[A Wind Spirit is seeking to make a contract.] 

[Do you agree to contract Wind Spirit? Y/N]

Without hesitation he selected yes before diving back into his body, his first attempt and it was a success, he grinned from ear to ear quickly pulling up his status window and going to the contracts part.

[…

Contracts:

Salamander Fire Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons a salamander fire spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.

Sylph Wind Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons a sylph wind spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.

]

He stood up and stretched his back, there was a slight headache bothering him but he knew it was due to his rapidly exhausted spirituality, he moved and the Nightwalker cape flowed behind him when suddenly a thought appeared in his mind.

The Nightwalker’s passive effect was to erase his presence during the night or when he was within a shadow or in a dark place. ‘What if the reason everything has been so smooth for me was because of the cape?’ he couldn’t help but ponder and for a moment he was tempted to take it off to test his theory but decided against it after seeing the swarm of skeletons in the valley he was within, it was better to be safe than sorry.

‘I guess all my accumulated luck is finally being put to play’ he thought with a smile as he caught a single ‘butterfly’ that suddenly pushed his spirituality from less than three digits to its maximum of over five thousand again.

“Quite interesting, I thought I was going to have to catch a few to refuel but it seems that’s not necessary.” He muttered to himself before adjusting a skeleton and sitting on the ground again to seek for contracts, this time focusing only on water spirits and earth spirits.

‘If only I had more knowledge about these spirits then it might have been easier he thought to himself.’

…

[Searching for contracts….]

The text in front of him kept blinking; this was his third attempt after successfully contracting Sylph, and two times he had run out of spirituality without any success.

[An Earth Spirit is seeking to make a contract.] 

[Do you agree to contract Earth Spirit? Y/N]

He agreed before diving back into his body, this time he hadn’t exhausted much of his spirituality as it didn’t take long before he found one.

[…

Contracts:

Salamander Fire Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons Salamander a fire spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.

Sylph Wind Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons Sylph a wind spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.

Golem Earth Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons Golem an Earth spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.

]

[Absorbed spirit essence; Spirituality +100]

“Oh, is it because I still had about half of my spirituality before?” Aldrin thought to himself as he absorbed a spirit essence, before each time he caught a spirit essence to absorb the message he got was [Absorbed spirit essence; Spirituality refilled] but this time there was a +100 which pushed his maximum spirituality to 5500. He then decided to absorb one more ‘butterfly’ which pushed his maximum spirituality to 6000.

A few more trials and finally he contracted the final spirit.

[…

Rusalka Water Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons Rusalka, a water spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.

…]

The moment his astral form returned to his physical body a popup appeared

[Advancement Quest: Contract all four elemental spirits

Progress: 4/4]

[Do you want to begin evolution? Y/N]

Without a thought Aldrin selected Yes.

[Beginning Evolution…]

Suddenly a small fiery red orb appeared in front of him and within the orb was a familiar serpentine like reptile looking closely it was a miniature version of Salamander Fire Spirit, next an aqua blue orb appeared, it was like a drop of water and within it was a mermaid, a creature Aldrin had once read about to be the ancestor of the oceanfolk of the fiend races, a third cyan orb appeared and within the orb was a tiny human figure with wings, this creature he found quite strange and the fourth orb appeared, it was a khaki coloured orb and within it was a stone golem.

The pulsed softly with light before they began to revolve around him, after a few revolutions the four orbs came together and began to slowly spin in a circular motion and slowly began to fuse into a larger orb containing all four colours and creatures, after a few moments the four coloured orb approached his chest and began to fuse with him all it took was a few breaths and the orb had completely fused, suddenly his mind head began aching and sounds akin to an explosion resounded in his mind.

A set of figures appeared in his vision and was reducing drastically, it took a moment to realize that it was his spirituality value.

“Damn it, why didn’t you tell me it would drain my spirituality” He cursed under his breath as he quickly stood up to catch ‘butterflies’, since the ‘butterflies’ couldn’t sense him he found it easy to catch them, his spirituality entered a state of rising and falling like a roller coaster with Aldrin cursing under his breath as he wondered what would have happened if he had tried advancing somewhere else without the seemingly endless supply of spirit essence.

After five minutes a popup appeared and everything settled down.

[Evolution Complete]

[Strength +50, Agility +50, Stamina +50, Vitality +50, Spirituality +500, Free Points +50]

[Spirit Evolution Complete]

[All spirits now at grade 2]

[Summoning Skill Forcefully Evolved to spirit grade]

[New Title Acquired: Spirit Summoner]

[Passive Skill Acquired:

 Spirit Sense {Mortal; Level 3}: Allows host to detect spirits and spirituality fluctuation.]

[Congratulation to host on taking the first step on the journey of evolution]

After reading all the notification Aldrin finally let out a sigh, at least in the end it all worked out somehow but he was still feeling aggrieved.

“System why was there a sudden drain on my spirituality during the evolution process, if I wasn’t in a place with abundant spirit essence something bad could have happened.” He couldn’t help but ask

[Normally the host was supposed to grow each contract till they reached the maximum of mortal stage before slowly binding with them but instead he went ahead and contracted all four spirits within a short amount of time and fused them without consolidation, to balance things out a high amount of spirituality was required.] The system explained both in text and audio leaving Aldrin stunned

“But you didn’t tell me any of this.” He complained feeling very wronged

[The host didn’t ask.] The system replied curtly leaving Aldrin stunned, he couldn’t help but feel that the system was quite sarcastic in its reply despite its mechanical tone.

“Tsk, whatever time to hunt.” He said with a sigh as he stood up, summoned his crimson armourset and glanced around at the remaining fifty odd butterflies.