Chapter 43: Spirit Master Inheritance

"Spirit Masters study the natural spirits, manipulating the essence and the form, following the laws of Heaven."

This was the first sentence in the book, and Ain tried his best to comprehend its intent and meaning.

After a few minutes, he still wasn't sure of his understanding. He found it to be extremely broad and profound, with multiple interpretations. He wasn’t sure which one was correct. Ain wasn't disheartened and continued to read. This was just the first sentence; there might be explanations in the following passages.

A few more minutes passed, and he stopped again to ponder. The explanations he expected never appeared. Instead, it was just more profound and general statements. Reading these passages, Ain felt like there was a dense fog hindering his enlightenment, as if he was trying to grab at the illusory moon in the water.

‘Let’s try Analysis,’ Ain thought and activated the ability. When he sensed his spirit energy being consumed, Ain’s expectations rose, as countless thoughts and ideas formulated within his mind. This process lasted for over ten minutes before Ain consciously halted the ability.

Next, instead of Analysis, he used Deduction. After only a few minutes, Ain stopped again. There was a slight frown on his face.

‘Although there are results, I only deepened my understanding of what I already comprehended. What I’m lacking is proper guidance, showing me the correct path.’

At this point, he finally understood that only those with distinguished backgrounds and proper connections could embark on this path. It was impossible for ordinary people to do so. Without a legitimate inheritance and guidance, one could only fumble around, with hopes of eventually hitting the mark.

Despite that, Ain was still grateful for this spirit master inheritance that he received from his mentor. The book had already narrowed down the path; he would just need to carry on through study and experimentation.

At the thought of this, Ain’s spirits were raised, and he returned to the beginning, trying to change his perspective. As he read through the first passage again, Ain’s attention was drawn to a mark on the side of the text. When he read through for the first time, he chalked it off as a design on the pages, but on second thought, he became suspicious. Although all the pages had these marks, their placement was different.

Ain focused on the marks, trying to glean any information from them. He flipped back and forth between pages and found a few different types of marks. Seeing this, a guess arose in his mind. He still hadn’t forgotten that this was not an ordinary book but an artifact instead.

Artifacts were a broad category, containing various mystical items with diverse effects. They could be naturally born or artificially created. The book in his hand was the latter type.

Artifacts were divided into five grades. Their grades were only relative to their power. Their specific effects could be good or bad.

Although the book in Ain’s hand was only a Grade-1 Artifact, its content elevated the book’s value beyond that.

After some thought, Ain used his spirit energy and focused on the mark next to the first passage.

An almost imperceptible amount of his spirit energy was consumed as the text on the page began to shift and change, like a colony of ants migrating. The black text slithered around as the passage was replaced by tiny and dense text, looking no different from dots. But with his hand on the book, Ain felt his vision zoom into those tiny words. Not only were there texts but also numerous diagrams, figures, as well as annotations and questions.

Moreover, the vague passage from before had changed as well and was replaced with the author’s understandings and remarks about the passage.

Surprise painted Ain’s face as he observed these extraordinary changes. He focused on the new explanations and began to read through them with relish. He didn’t care about the spirit energy consumption and activated Analysis and Deduction, dramatically increasing his learning efficiency.

About half an hour later, Ain looked away from the book and deactivated his abilities. He let out a sigh as he contemplated what he had just learned.

It hadn’t taken him long to recognize his mentor’s teaching style in the additional content. Although the original text was also written by him, it seemed more like a formal textbook, allowing Ain to use his understanding to gain a perspective. Ain couldn’t say for sure that he completely understood everything, but the vague text from before was starting to harmonize.

Having found his way forward, Ain forgot about time and immersed himself in his studies. Because he was using his abilities more often, Ain consumed Spirit Recovery Pills periodically, allowing him to maintain a higher spirit energy recovery rate.

Just like that, a few more hours passed. The evening sun was ready to change colors, painting the horizon with a deep yellow hue. The lights in Ain’s apartment had turned on at some point, like a campfire in a dark jungle.

Ain finally found a good place to stop and closed the inheritance book. He naturally wanted to continue studying, but he didn’t want to delay his training because of it.

What he read today was just the introductory text, and he had yet to truly learn any techniques or skills. Although that was the case, many questions in his mind had finally been answered today.

The first one related to his ability, Scan.

What he innately understood about this ability was that it could allow him to obtain the present parameters of anything with a spirit. And so far, he only had a vague idea about what had a spirit.

Only after today did he truly understand its meaning. Anything that could absorb, transform, and control spirit energy had a spirit. The three abilities mentioned were also called the three fundamental abilities.

Initially, Ain expected that regular humans didn’t have a spirit, since they couldn’t absorb, transform, and control spirit energy, and the same could be said about plants that weren’t even Rank-0. But his understanding was completely overturned today.

According to the inheritance, every living being, including humans, beasts, plants, other civilized races, and even some objects, possessed a spirit. They could all absorb, transform, and control spirit energy; it was only a matter of whether they could do it consciously and to what extent. This fact was a shocking revelation to Ain.

From what he understood, what separated spirit tamers from regular humans were the three fundamental abilities. But now he knew that what truly separated them was only the extent to which they could display the three fundamental abilities.

Although it wasn’t stated explicitly in the book,  Ain could hypothesize that innate abilities strengthened the three fundamental abilities, allowing regular humans to become spirit tamers.

Therefore, the awakening crystals, that could allow humans to awaken their innate talents, and subsequently strengthen the three fundamental abilities, were the lifeline of their species.

If one could realize another way to strengthen the three fundamental abilities, it was possible that every human could become a spirit tamer, whether they awakened their innate talents or not.

Thinking up to here, Ain felt as if he was finally touching some core secrets of this world. He felt a veil of fog slowly giving way to its mysteries. At the same time, Ain felt an unknown burden suddenly swallow his heart, a sense of unfounded responsibility as a human, to surpass, succeed, and contribute.

“Meow~” But at this moment, a soft cry pulled Ain back from his stupor. He shifted his gaze from the closed book and looked at the cat, that had at some point climbed onto the table.

“You’re hungry? I’ll go get your food.” Ain instinctively assumed the cat’s intentions and was about to get up. But at this moment, Nox, who was floating beside Ain, voiced out, “Wooo…”

Hearing this, Ain turned to look at the cat’s half-full bowl. Nox had already fed the cat while he was busy.

Ain turned his attention back to the cat, as it continued to stare at his face. He brought forward his hands and gently scratched the cat’s chin before sighing, “I was thinking too much. I’m only a Rank-1 Spirit Tamer; I should just focus on what’s before me.”

Although he was still curious and wanted to continue with his thoughts, Ain knew that it was a fruitless endeavor. If even a beginner like him could figure this out, then most spirit masters should already be privy to this piece of knowledge. He decided not to waste his time on it.

Ain looked out the window and decided to begin his body tempering training before it was too late. He got up and made his way toward the park.

He first practiced Shield and Spirit Blast, approaching mastery. Then, Ain consumed a Blood Refinement Pill and began his body tempering training. He allowed Nox to practice its skills as the cat watched on.

After three weeks of training, Ain could now hold the Prowling Tiger stance for 26 minutes, and his own physique was now equivalent to an Intermediate Rank-1 Spirit Beast. With Nox’s possession, he estimated his physique to be at the peak of Advanced Rank-1, almost crossing over the threshold of Beginner Rank-2.

When he was utterly exhausted once again, Ain returned home amidst the darkening sky.

After cleaning up, he sat on his bed and retrieved the bag that contained his rewards from the class competition.

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