Chapter 44: Gratitude

Opening the bag, Ain saw only four items inside.

There was one cash card and three bottles of the Essence Heart Pills. Since he made it into the top ten, the cash card was worth 30,000 star coins. With this, Ain’s total savings were up to 770,000 star coins. He quickly stashed the cash card away and moved on to the three bottles.

These bottles contained the Essence Heart Pills.

Ain had been looking forward to these pills the entire day. Each bottle contained three pills, so there were nine pills in total.

An individual pill's effect was negligible, but nine pills should still result in a small increase in the quality of his spirit energy.

The spirit energy quality directly correlated with training efficiency and the strength of one's spells. Ain consumed the Spirit Condensing Pills before each meditation session exactly for this reason.

He picked up one of the bottles and read the label. There was a brief description of the pill's effects and dosage.

There needed to be an increment of at least 24 hours between consuming the pills. Furthermore, only the first thirty pills were effective, and consuming more pills would provide no more benefits.

Ain placed one of the pills in the palm of his hand and used Scan.

[Name: Essence Heart Pill]

[Rank: Rank-1]

[Attribute Traces: Fire 8.132%, Water 8.096%, ...]

The data was within expectations. But after using Scan, Ain started to see a pattern.

The attribute traces for the Spirit Condensing Pills, Spirit Recovery Pills, and Essence Heart Pills had a very similar distribution. The common attributes all hovered around 8%, and the uncommon and rare attributes were always lower.

He wasn't sure of the significance behind this discovery yet, but Ain decided to keep it in mind for now.

He glanced at the pill one last time before consuming it. He didn't expect to feel any obvious changes, so Ain began his meditation.

...

The next morning, Ain awoke at his usual time, but unlike before, he wasn't in a hurry to leave.

He had decided to only go to the academy when needed, allowing him to focus on other matters.

Due to the training sessions at school, Ain had already made it a habit to meditate in the morning. But since he didn't need to spend the extra time on his commute, the time he spent on meditation increased compared to before.

During his meditation, Ain’s hololink suddenly sounded, informing him of a message. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath before bringing up his right arm. He projected the hololink screen and glanced at the message. After taking a look, he realized that it wasn't a message but an invite to a group chat.

“Red Oak Elite?” Ain read the name of the group chat aloud.

From the description, he found that the group was created by students at the Red Oak Spirit Academy, and students from different classes with exceptional performances during the class competitions were invited.

The group leader was Frans Vaughan, an unfamiliar name to him. Although Ain didn't recognize the student, he had definitely heard of his surname before.

There were many prominent families in Duskfield City, all with deep foundations and long heritages. And among them, three families stood above the rest. The Vaughan Family was one of those three families.

Families like these were enormous, with thousands of members due to their long and widespread lineage. It was also because of the large number of members that these families had systems and statuses in place to manage them.

Ain wasn’t sure of Frans’ exact standing in the Vaughan Family, but anyone with this surname could be considered an elite, at least in terms of social status.

He didn’t think too much and accepted the invite. Ain was also curious about the group and wanted to see if he could expand his connections a little. After he joined, Ain filled in a prompt asking for his class.

There were fifteen classes in the Red Oak Spirit Academy, each with around 160 students. Ain noticed that there were 36 students in the group so far, each with their class next to their name.

Ain glanced through the list of members and memorized all their names. He wasn't sure how Frans gained information on every class competition and what the criteria for the invite was, but it didn't stop Ain from making use of this convenience.

He looked through some of the greeting messages before putting aside his hololink. Ain wasn't too keen on constantly chatting in the group. He conveniently changed the notification settings, allowing only personal mentions to alert him.

After doing all this, Ain completed his meditation before he retrieved the inheritance book and immersed himself in his studies again.

As he read, Ain noticed that the different marks on the sides of the pages served different purposes. There were videos with his mentor's voice and explanations, extra reference materials, relevant historical context, and even quizzes and tests that would automatically score Ain’s performance.

‘It's worthy of being called a spirit master inheritance.’ This thought passed through Ain’s mind when he discovered all these features.

Time passed by like a dream, and it was evening once again when Ain finally closed the book.

He closed his eyes for a second to contemplate as he thought, ‘Mentor was correct, everything I learned from him has built a foundation for the future.’

During the past seven years, Ain had dabbled in various subjects and gained abundant experiences under his mentor’s tutelage, and all of them had made him who he was today.

The boring meditation sessions, the knowledge of human anatomy that made him uncomfortable as a child, the pointless mental exercises, and many similar experiences, had allowed Ain to quickly grasp different spirit tamer techniques.

The painful physical training, the tiring martial arts practice, the agility training, and much more, had allowed Ain's physical capabilities and combat abilities to excel.

The confusing three-dimensional puzzles, easy line-tracing exercises, the demanding memorization exercises, and the quick-thinking exercises, had all improved his ability to learn and cast spells.

These were all skills integral to a spirit tamer.

Over the years, Ain’s academic and other practical studies had never lagged behind either. He had completed all the coursework regular students would complete until the spirit academy in less than a year, before moving on to more advanced subjects and practical skills.

He had learned the sciences in-depth, along with some spirit ecology. Concepts and ideas in both of these subjects were critical to a spirit master.

He had learned basic techniques used in research and development and familiarized himself with various lab equipment and devices.

In the last two years, his mentor had also included mechanical knowledge, allowing Ain to be familiar with technology. Although he was far from the level of an official mechanic, he had no trouble dissecting technological devices and understanding some components and principles.

All of these were a solid foundation, not only for spirit masters but also for various other professions as well.

A spirit master’s path was paved with many different professions.

One such profession, and the most important one, was alchemy.

It was said that not all alchemists were spirit masters, but all spirit masters were alchemists. Although both could concoct medicines, an alchemist strictly followed a pre-existing recipe and specialized in mass production. They didn’t have the knowledge to custom-make medicines and potions for spirit tamers and spirit pets.

In this era, technological manufacturing was prevalent, but it was incapable of replacing alchemists. Spirit energy was required to concoct medicines at Rank-0 and above, so only alchemists, who were also spirit tamers, could do so, and the required threshold for skill was very high. Only a talented few could embark on this path.

On the other hand, spirit masters actively researched and developed new medicines, targeting both spirit tamers and their spirit pets. They studied them deeply and had the ability to custom-make medicine and potions.

Spirit masters were even more crucial in spirit pet evolution. In order to evolve and increase their qualities, spirit pets needed evolution materials concocted from various resources, and only spirit masters could produce them. Moreover, they could create unique medicines, specific to a spirit pet’s situation, greatly increasing the evolution success rate.

And this was only one facet of a spirit master. As the name suggests, spirit masters studied everything with a spirit.

There were spirit masters who also specialized as blacksmiths and artificers. While alchemy was crucial, the other professions often provided great insight to spirit masters, so a few would branch out to learn more.

Ain hadn’t learned any direct knowledge on these professions, but he would encounter no trouble if he tried to study any of them. He could build upon what he already knew, making connections and correlations to understand knowledge that would otherwise be incomprehensible.

At this moment, Ain's gratitude for his mentor overflowed. He realized that the silent bow during his last visit was insufficient to express his true feelings.

“I'm not sure if I can pay mentor back, but exceeding the path he laid out for me will be the first step.” Ain, who rarely voiced his thoughts, couldn't help but do so with emotion.

Please comment and review! It motivates me to continue and helps me improve as a writer.

Read 1 chapter ahead on Patreon for FREE!

You can support me on Patreon to read up to 16 chapters ahead and access some bonus content!

patreon.com/ForsakenHaven