Chapter 8: When Spirits Walk the Land

Okay.. got that taken care of.. Should I keep grinding for a bit, or work on more classes? I thought curiously to myself. If I unlock more classes, my stats will slowly rise and I will get more varied abilities. However, grinding one class will mean that I will get a sharp increase of stats, but fewer powers.

For now.. let’s take care of the Spirit Tamer, since I have a dead monster at my feet. Out of curiosity, I decided to ask Terra a question. “Oh great Goddess of Fate, I beseech you for advice.”

There was another light giggle in my ear before the voice of the catgirl goddess spoke. Yes, go ahead.

“How long do the spirits of the dead remain behind? Important knowledge, I’d say.”

After a brief pause, she answered. Currently, there is no afterlife system in place. So, the spirits will forever remain after death. They may thin over time, or manifest as undead, but they are currently unable to depart from the world.

“That seems.. kind of sad.” I furrowed my brows as I thought about the implications of that. Sure, I might not have believed in much of an afterlife before this whole Keeper thing started, but actually knowing that there is a higher power at work changes things. Especially when I am that higher power. “How much do afterlife systems cost?”

The response this time was much faster. They can be anywhere from fifty to two hundred points, depending on the system chosen.

I nodded my head at that. Once I get some more income, I’ll look into that system. For now, there’s not enough to really worry about it yet. And besides, the ones I could afford right now would likely not be very good.

Anyways, back to business. Guiding the mana into my eyes, I looked down at the rabbit beneath me. As I did so, I saw a faint white smoke clinging to the dead form. Looking around the grassland, I saw the same kind of smoke rising from various parts of the ground, likely indicating the more recent past deaths that occurred here.

Spirit Tamer class unlocked!

See Spirits ability unlocked!

Well, that was easy. Let’s see if I can take this a step further.. I took a deep breath, and tried to will the spirit out of the rabbit. If I could successfully extract a spirit, I should be able to gain a considerable amount of experience for this class.

Unfortunately, no matter how I focused, the spirit would not budge. And, I knew it was no use asking Terra, since she wasn’t allowed to tell me game mechanics that hadn’t been unlocked by the people yet. So, I could only experiment randomly until I figured it out on my own.

Since mana in the eyes lets me see spirits, maybe mana in the hands lets me grab them? I mused silently to myself, before trying it. Just like how I used it to see the spirit of the rabbit, I guided the mana to my hand and reached down. Sure enough, I managed to grab a bit of the white smoke, which seemed to be struggling to escape my grip.

historical

When I pulled the spirit up, a translucent image of a horned rabbit gradually floated up from the corpse. As soon as it was fully separated from its body, the spirit began struggling more violently, even seeming to fade away slightly. Out of curiosity, I let go of the spirit and watched it move back to the body, latching onto it as if it were afraid to leave.

Spirit Tamer has leveled up!

Okay, well, that’s a start, but I won’t be able to get the next class ability until level four or five, so I had to keep going! Thankfully, mana regenerated fairly quickly outside of combat. There was no passive combat regen, but otherwise mana could recover rapidly. Health, on the other hand.. You needed to get healed with magic, level up, or wait for natural recovery.

Once again, I pulled the rabbit up from its body. Hoping to follow the same pattern as before, I drew a strand of mana to my mouth in an attempt to communicate with the spirit. “Stop struggling.” I said in a gentle tone. However, much to my surprise, the rabbit let out an almost audible screech, its astral body ripped to shreds in my hand.

I was left there, blinking, and looking at my now empty hand. “Uhm.. the fuck? Seriously, what?” Since mana in the hands let me grab it, did mana in the voice count as an attack instead of communication? Then, how was I supposed to tame these spirits?!

Spirit Tamer has leveled up!

I felt my eye twitch slightly, not having wanted to level up this way. I want a spirit beast, and by Terra I will have one! Standing up, I looked for another creature, and a few minutes later found one. This was a level two razor boar. Unlike the rabbit, it was slow, but with thick skin and strong, sharp tusks.

Too lazy to bother with fighting it in melee, I decided to test out my magic. Now, this is where the class abilities come into play. I hadn’t really experimented with them before, but it was easy to use once I tried. As soon as I focused on the fire spell, the diagram appeared in my mind. It was a strong, unshakeable image, and I wasn’t able to alter the foundation of it if I tried. All I could do was fill in the center, design the shape that the spell would take.

Holding out my hand towards the boar, who now noticed my presence, I drew a straight line in my mind. Once that was done, my mana surged beyond my control, filling the pattern and triggering the spell. A small fire burned in front of my hand before shooting off like a bullet to collide with the boar.

-10

A red bar appeared above the boar’s head, which seemed roughly half full after the spell’s effect ended. The boar let out a mad roar, its eyes seeming to glow as it charged at me. I tried to fire the spell again, but discovered something rather unexpected.

Cooldown remaining: 0.52

The countdown quickly ended, and half a second later I activated the spell again. While jumping back, I formed another straight line in the center of the diagram that appeared in my mind, just as the boar arrived at my previous location. When the fire struck it this time, the last of its health faded away, and it fell to the ground in a smoking heap.

So, system abilities have a cooldown associated with them? I furrowed my brows again, and punched at the air two times in rapid succession. Then, I activated the Warrior ability Punch, and found my body adopting a more natural form, punching out with more power than I normally could muster. However, as soon as I was done, I tried to do it again..

Cooldown remaining: 0.31

So.. half a second cooldown between punches, and maybe a one or two second cooldown for the fire spell.. However, there was a preset form for system abilities, which was the equivalent of having been trained to do so manually. So, as someone that never got into any real fights before, the Punch ability was stronger than my normal punches.

Once I was done sidetracking myself, I manually guided the mana to my eyes again, so that I could look at this boar’s spirit. It was notably thicker than that of the rabbit, and I was able to pull it out of its body just the same. However, when it was outside of its body, the boar’s spirit seemed to enter some sort of rage, struggling until it broke free of my hand and then dropping to the ground.

I watched as the spirit began running in random directions, letting out silent roars at anything that it could, and apparently oblivious to my own presence. So.. it probably hates me for killing it? Only natural, right? But, it can’t see me, so it just charges recklessly? Then..

At this point, I tried a different method to connect with the spirit, closer to the path of using Natural Energy. Rather than using mana, I tried to send my will out directly to the rampaging ghost. This was.. easier said than done. For about five minutes, I focused on it as it ran back and forth, before suddenly it seemed to freeze in place. Afterwards, it slowly turned to face me, that same anger in its eyes.

Okay.. I guess I made the connection.. now to tame it? How do?! I shouted in my mind, as the boar spirit began to charge directly at me. Well, it definitely knows where I am now. I focused on it again, and faintly felt as if there was a wall blocking my mind from touching the boar. And what do we do when we run into a wall? Go around it? Screw that, blast right through!

Relying on my enhanced Keeper stats, I put all my focus on smashing that barrier that stopped my mind from connecting with the boar. I heard a small cracking sound in my head, and right as its charge reached me, it felt like something shattered. The boar leapt into the air as if to tackle my chest, but simply phased into me. When I spun around to keep an eye on it, the boar had seemingly vanished.

Successfully contracted level 2 Razor Boar - Stage 1

Oh.. well.. now what? I looked around myself curiously, before a thought occurred to me. Closing my eyes, I sent my senses inward. If I’m right.. there it is! I spotted a faint wisp of ethereal energy inside my body, the same energy that had been identified as Spiritual Energy by Terra. And when I focused on it more, it seemed to take the shape of a boar.

Though.. having come this far, I was completely incapable of doing anything with it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t call that boar spirit back out of me. And.. since there was not a cooldown timer or anything appearing, it didn’t seem to be a system restriction. I’ll have to figure that out later..

Name Dale Mitchell Race Human(Keeper)

Health 28/28(184/184) Mana 34/34(64/64)

Strength 5(10) Ki 0/0(33/33)

Stamina 5(10) Intelligence 7(9)

Dexterity 5(7) Wisdom 8(11)

Luck 5 Charm 4

Class List

Druid 0(3) Farmer 0(1) Hunter 0(4) Leader 0(2) Mage 1(5) Monk 0(3) Priest 0(3) Scholar 0(1)

Scout 0(2) Shaman 0(1) Spirit Tamer 3(3) Warrior 1(12)

I nodded my head happily at the changes. Although it wasn’t much, I now had more health, mana, and it seemed that my Wisdom had increased by a point as well. Still.. compared to my Keeper abilities, my power hadn’t changed at all. But, that was only natural, as I had just barely been grinding for an hour. For most people currently, they would rarely encounter an enemy, and will probably use the system abilities when they do to defeat it. Seeing as I didn’t level up my Mage class when I defeated the boar, you probably don’t gain much experience when you fight with the system powers.

Well, anything else I should get before I head back? I thought about it for a few minutes, and decided I might as well go back to the Admin Room now. I could come down and train any time I wanted, but as it stands there are no creatures here strong enough to really test myself. Not that being safe is a bad thing, of course.

Opening up the system menu with a thought, I navigated to the exit button, and let myself be enveloped by the blue light again. I had definitely learned some things after descending this time.