Path to Transcendence

Chapter 686: Drasilʼs Help

Now that the spirit was somewhat contained, Julius leaned closer and examined it. The spirit looked as if it were composed of pure white light, but upon closer inspection, it had a small, dense gold core. And the strength he got from it was unlike anything he’d seen from any spirit.

“Why is it so different?” he finally asked.

“We’re not sure. From what we can tell, itʼs a very unique spirit born of equally unique circumstances. But that is exactly why Lord Yoshu wants it for his daughter.”

“He really wants to risk his daughter to bond with such a volatile spirit?”

“Yes, he deems it of the utmost importance,” Walter confirmed.

Julius frowned; another issue had been bothering him. “How sentient is it? And if it is, why are you keeping it hostage? I feel like someone who is also bonded with a wind spirit should understand the importance of freedom.”

That last part had been directed towards Arlen. Julius didn’t know how buying and exchanging spirits worked, but knowing what he did with Drasil, he couldn’t imagine selling another sentient spirit off like a slave. It didn’t feel right. He’d bought Drasil as a seedling, and with his own mana, he’d slowly blossomed him into what he is today. There wasnʼt any selling or buying him.

Arlen, though, didn’t seem offended by his question. He nodded as if he expected such a thing. “Yes, usually we wouldn’t deal in stuff like this. But we have no idea how sentient it is; we assume not much, considering its current state. However, spirits are innately very free creatures, and I consider capturing and selling spirits akin to slavery. But in this spirit’s case, it cannot return to the spirit realm, nor can it survive without continuous support from us.”

Julius narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It must be due to its special nature, but for some reason, it is extremely unstable and needs outside help to keep it from exploding from the immense amounts of light and wind mana. We have been doing that so far with the help of some enchanted items like that jar from before, but as you can tell, it doesn’t work perfectly.”

“But you still want that girl to bond with it?”

Arlen wore a complicated expression and looked over at Walter for help.

“Just tell him, it’s better he knows if he’s going to help us,” Walter commented.

“Tell me what?”

Arlen let out a sad sigh. “Don’t leak this information out, but Lord Yoshu’s daughter was born with a rare curse, one that prevents her from using her wind and light mana as she should normally be able to. Rumors say this has caused the unfortunate consequence of her own mana building up over time and slowly poisoning her mana channels and, to some extent, her own body.”

Julius leaned back and rubbed his chin. That changes things quite a bit. “And when he heard you guys found a spirit that had both light and wind mana…”

“He reached out and offered a lot of money to deliver it to him,” Arlen finished for him.

“And he believes that a bond with this spirit will help his daughter?”

“Yes, he seems to believe that this will either cure or help her condition stabilize.”

“Does he know about the spirit’s volatility?” Julius asked.

The grimace on both men’s faces seemed to answer that, and he placed his palm over his face.

“I feel like that’s an important thing to mention to the guy. Something along the lines of ‘oh by the way, the spirit you ask to bond with your daughter, is a little dangerous and can explode at any moment due to its own stabilization issues’. You know something like that.”

Walter interjected. “We’d hoped to find a solution to that problem before it was delivered. We’d already gone to three separate people who specialize in spirits, but they haven’t been able to help us. They all recommended that we either let it deteriorate on its own or sell it to them so they can experiment on it.”

“Okay, but I still don’t understand why you can’t just tell this to Lord Yoshu.”

Walter laughed. “You obviously don’t know anything about Kaito Yoshu. He is one of the most important members of Clan Yoshu, one of the ruling clans of Goldmere, only behind the Golden Cauldron Sect when it comes to influence. They are also quite particular about promises and honor. And I promised Lord Yoshu that I could get him the spirit for his daughter. I would very much like to keep my head.”

Julius didn’t know whether Walter was scared of Clan Yoshu or really that greedy for the deal to go through. From what he’d seen of how Walter dealt with the villagers, he wouldn’t expect something like this from the man. The right decision seemed clear. They should just let Lord Yoshu know about this spirit and the problems attached to it. The man could figure out what to do after that.

Perhaps, this was a merchant thing that Julius didn’t understand, but it seemed pretty clear-cut to him.

“I feel that honesty is sometimes the best option,” he eventually stated calmly.

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They seem to understand this, too, because they didn’t even argue with him. They simply looked away, lips pressed tightly together.

Arlen finally took the time to speak. “I understand where you are coming from. But it’s possible that the bond will mutually help both of them with their problems. Can you at least try to communicate with this spirit? From what Nymis tells me, you have been blessed, and that’s not something very common even amongst people who have their own spirits.”

Julius sighed and didn’t see a reason to deny them that. He’d already agreed, and he still wanted some information about the Obsidian Vault from them. He was very interested in checking it out, even without Koenn asking it of him.

He could probably get information from the Adventurer Guild, but there was a high chance the information wouldn’t be as detailed as that of other organizations. Especially since he wasn’t a highly influential member of the guild. They likely saved that information for their VIPs.

He took a step toward the contained spirit who was still frantically trying to break free of Arlen’s hold. He still couldn’t believe how much energy it was releasing. There was a good reason they said this spirit was on the verge of collapsing in on itself. Even to his senses, it felt like an inch away from imploding.

He reached out and gently sent over a pulse of emotions, trying to establish a connection. This connection was immediately ripped to shreds. It felt like the spirit almost felt like this was an attack and destroyed it before it could reach it.

Julius wasn’t discouraged; he approached this matter as if it were a feral cat. He needed to stay calm and be patient.

He tried again, and all of his emotions were calm and warm. He even used his new Concept of Balance to help out. This seemed to work marginally better; it wasn’t instantly destroyed, but still, the connection was torn apart.

“Leave us,” he said to Walter and Arlen; he didn’t even bother to look back. His eyes were completely focused on this spirit, who was still leaking light and wind mana like crazy.

“Leave you? I’m the only reason why it hasn’t tried to kill you yet,” Arlen said, crinkling his nose.

“It’s because you are still pinning it down that it is lashing out. It won’t ever trust me enough to establish a connection of communication if you don’t let it breathe,” he explained simply.

Arlen wavered for a moment.

“Don’t worry about me. I can protect myself,” Julius said confidently. While the spirit was strong, he was a Tier 4 and a strong one at that. The spirit would need to do a little more than what it’d been showing to truly hurt him.

Julius even created a barrier around himself. He slowed down how quickly he created it and made some deliberate mistakes, but the barrier was still very sturdy.

Despite holding back, they were still surprised by the barrier. He didn’t know why; it wasn’t anything that impressive. But he ignored their stares and continued to try to reach out with his emotions as he did with Drasil and Seraphyne.

The barrier seemed to alleviate many of their concerns, and after a hushed conversation, they accepted his request. They got up and slowly exited the carriage, leaving Julius alone with the spirit.

The domain gradually released the spirit, and Julius was forced to block a thick beam of mana coming straight for his face. His barrier easily withstood the attack, and he tried to reach out again. It was slapped to the side by the spirit aggressively, and another powerful blast was aimed at his face. He blocked that one, too, and gently released a calming aura into the atmosphere.

If this had been a couple of months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to do this. His ruinous aura would have overwhelmed anything he did. But with his Concept of Burning Serenity, it was much easier.

The spirit kept on trying to attack him. But it didn’t bother him; instead, he settled down on his butt, staring calmly at the aggressive spirit. The little white bird was slowly tiring, and it was then that he had more success when he reached out with his emotions.

He didn’t even believe the little spirit meant to accept the connection. The spirit jolted from the sudden influx of emotions and threw another lance of mana at his face. However, this time it seemed much more hesitant.

He gently extended another tendril of his emotions. This time, he had help, though. Drasil appeared over his shoulders. He was in his orb form, but his warm and comforting presence immediately made a difference. The spirit froze what it was doing and almost felt… wary.

No, wary wasn’t the right word. Nervous was the more apt description.

Julius glanced over at Drasil with a complicated expression. He remembered that Seraphyne had a similar reaction when she entered a contract with him. Saying something about Drasil being scary.

While Julius didn’t want this spirit to feel this way, it had the benefit of calming it down. Instead of lashing out uncontrollably, it was now floating in the air silently.

He took this opportunity to extend a connection once again. Unsurprisingly, it was slapped aside again. Though it wasn’t followed up with an attack this time, which was an improvement. However, this didn’t seem good enough for Drasil. The little green orb of light floated over to the white bird slowly, pulsing erratically. Julius got the sense that Drasil was saying something to the light and wind spirit.

And even more surprisingly, it looked like it was listening to him. Its head was down as Drasil reprimanded it.

Eventually, Drasil was finished with what he had to say and gave Julius an actual thumbs up made from a bit of life mana.

Curious as to what Drasil had said to this spirit, Julius extended another tendril, and to his shock, it accepted it. The connection was tedious at best, but he wasn’t slapped away, which was an improvement.

He was greeted with a flood of emotions. It was full of fear, hurt, and confusion. The spirit was clearly not as developed as Drasil or Seraphyne, but it was pretty close. He got the impression that it was trusting him, but only because Drasil told it to.

He didn’t try to do anything with the spirit; instead, he just kept sending comforting emotions to it. Drasil was also there, a light of solace for the otherwise scared spirit. Now that he was connected to the spirit, he was able to sense how hard it was trying to keep control of its mana.

It wasn’t like it wanted to go out of control, but despite its efforts, the mana kept on running wild. There was just too much power for its body to handle, and it had no idea how to fix it. Julius tried to lend a hand; he took control of some of the mana, but it was hard.

He didn’t use wind or light magic, and so he didn’t understand how they worked. The most he could do was keep it bottled up and disrupt it before it could explode outward. Fortunately, he was able to slowly calm down the mana and help the spirit keep it contained.

There was good news, too. The more time he spent with the spirit, the more comfortable it became with his presence.

Walter and Arlen must have thought the silence and lack of mana being thrown around to be a good sign, too, because they returned to the sight of the spirit sitting cutely on Julius’s lap.

“Oh, you actually did it!” Arlen said with amazement, as if he’d never expected Julius to actually pull it off.