“My lady, something the matter?”

“no, just had to deal with something”

She waved Jean's question off before sitting back into her chair and entered deep contemplation.

She easily made the connection between the arrows that killed Einalam and the arrows that were shot at her clone.

‘by the looks of it, the arrows ignore obstacles that’s not their target’

She thought, the first three that took out her clone were unexpected but the last one was easily to dodged thanks to the Byakugan, it seems to an extent the arrows will be invisible until they’ve already hit their target, with her healing factor she isn’t threatened that much by them but that doesn’t mean she’s immortal, two shots at the eyes blind her for a moment and the enemy gains an advantage.

‘Stupid God who didn’t want to make me immortal’

She thought, The problem currently is that the person who shot the arrows was mostly likely trying to silence them, she knows who it is but she has no evidence. She could kill him but that wouldn’t be ideal because she has little information on him, she needs to investigate.

However more than anything right now Elia was intrigued by the words “spirit art” that thing mentioned it when he ambushed that knight she was keeping an eye on.

“hey Jean”

She called out to Jean who was standing by the door at the ready in case there was an attack, there are also other knights standing just outside the door also ready for anything.

“Yes Milady?”

He snapped his head towards her direction quickly, surprising Elia a bit, it seemed that he was a bit tense due to what had happened, which was good as a knight he needed to be sharp and attentive.

“do you know any spirit arts?”

She asked, she was aware of what it was. Warriors can’t cast spells since their circuits are close ended but with the help of a spirit they can achieve spell casting, however the way Garrick used it was different from how she thought it was used

“Phrasing my lady, do I know information about spirit arts or do I know a spirit art and can use one?”

“semantics, Jean. You know what I meant”

It seems that he was not as tense as she had initially thought but the again maybe it’s because he is tense that he fixated on the Phrasing of her words

“Well no, I know the basic information but I don’t have a spirit”

“Hm figured, tell me all you know then”

She demanded with a bit of rudeness in her tone, to an extent Elia was displeased, by the looks of it her guards were weaker than she had initially thought Which brought concerns regarding the strength of the guards back home but that was fine for the time being, she knows a bunch of training methods from anime hope fully they work.

“Well…”

The spirit arts, like the name suggests, it is an art of fighting while using spirits or the power of a spirit. There are various types of spirits that exist, ranging from Evil/cursed spirit that are detrimental and need to be taken care of, to Elemental spirits like fire, water etc. there’s also null spirits who are neither cursed nor possess any element. In order for a person to use spirit arts they must either capture a spirit and enter a contract with one or they can capture one and seal it within themselves with the added benefit of being able to use that spirits power.

Spirit arts are largely used by warriors, people who can’t out put their magic power, in most cases skilled warriors use spirit art as a way to cover their weakness of distance as such most spirit art users have a spirit that will cast spells in their stead and the spirit takes their mana as payment, this means each time the spirit casts a spell the warrior’s mana is depleted, like a mage however unlike a Mage the depleted mana isn’t usually equivalent to the spell casted hence warriors even with a spirit cannot rapidly fire spells.

“What about a spirit that doesn’t cast a spell but instead does something else?”

She curiously asked and Jean answered almost as if he was waiting for her to ask that very question.

“There are three types of contracts one can have with a spirit, depending on the type of spirit it is, [Elemental contract] [cursed contract] and [Null contract]. An Element Contract is a it is sounds, one makes a deal with an Elemental spirit that will cast spells of its own Element, a fire spirit can’t cast any other spells aside from fires spells.

 A cursed contract (wouldn’t recommend) is rather quite dangerous as it deals with spirits that are hostile meaning getting the spirit to form a Contract is hard and it’s called a cursed contract because it’s similar to how curses work, only this time the sacrifice is your life span. Each time you use the spirits power your lifespan is decreased by the amount of time you used the power, the Spirit determines how much lifespan it will take depending on how many seconds you use its power, for example if you use the spirit’s power for 10 seconds the spirit can decide to either take 10 hours off your lifespan or take 10 years. Cursed spirits Include wraiths, Banshees and poltergeists and more

Of course depending on the relationship you have or have cultivated with the cursed spirit you might not even lose your lifespan when you use its power but only a few individuals in history have been able to do this.

“Like the cursed Mage Marl storm, right?”

“Yes him but from what I understand he was able to enslave his cursed spirit so I don’t know if that counts as having cultivated a relationship”

Jean expressed and Elia rolled her eyes and gestured him to continue with his explanation, she did not think him the type to get hung up on the semantics of things.

“moving on, a null contract is probably the least detrimental as it is simply an agreement between you and the spirit to share a body and in exchange it assists you during battle, for instance by letting a spirit live inside you, you might get invisible extra limbs that can attack and block for you. The only problem with this is that if you aren’t careful the spirit might actually take over your body like a Laura(La-u-ra) an alternative to this is having the spirit become a your servant you just have to find it a vessel.

also it’s illegal to form a Contract with a cursed spirit”

Jean added that last part as he concluded his explanation and Elia stroked her chin seemingly thinking, it was clear that Jean was lying when he said he knew basic stuff about or maybe that was basic, she’ll need to read up more on it and get a clear idea of how the spirit art works. In her home library there weren’t any books pertaining to spirit arts.

“How many back home can use spirit arts?”

She asked curiously, she did happen to have acquired an individual that can use Spirit arts so the question was more than just a bit of curiosity.

“ it’s probably just one person, it’s probably the captain”

“You don’t sound sure”

“that’s because spirit art users keep their cards closer to their chests that’s a rule they live by and since he was employed before I was I’ve never seen him use it but I think he has a spirit art.”

“In other words, you guys are weak?”

She aptly concluded. While she was not trying to insult him, Jean could not help but feel a bit in adequate, he could not deny her words but he still tried to regardless, the idea of being thought of as weak by his employer felt weird and came as a reminder that he needed to do better.

“well… not exactly, it’s pretty rare to find spirit art users so actually normal for us not to have any spirits arts.”

He scratched the back of his head and tried to explain but it felt like he was making excuses instead after all there’s nothing stopping him from training harder and becoming stronger and he has been doing that but he just lacks talent or maybe he isn’t training hard enough.

“don’t worry I wasn’t insulting you or anything, simply saying as soon as this is dealt with, I’ll teach you some techniques to make you stronger”

Elia explains, She figured teaching at least one person the Eight gates technique should be sufficient or at the very least See if the method actual works here and then moving to teaching all the knights of the Saxonwold territory.

While Elia and Jean were finishing up their conversation, Morris entered the room accompanied by a bunch of unfamiliar individuals they wore knight armor with the royal family’s symbol on the breast plate, most likely the royal guard. They were lead by a man with white hair and silver eyes, he had a tall and buff figure with an aging face, he seemed to be in his forties. The man entered the house with an intimidating frown on his face.

“My name is Commander Adrian Benretti, I wish to know exactly what happened here.”

His voice was deep and commanding, He stared at the uninterrupted crime scene with a stoic face as he spoke and Jean seemed a little bit intimidated by the man

......

A/N:  and we're back, sorry for the sudden disappearance.

Anyway I won't have an update schedule for this because I usually ended up feeling like writing is a chore something I don't want but I'll try and update weekly and keep some level of consistency.

Again I apologize for just disappearing.