Ch4

I finally managed to walk. After whatever was paralyzing me finally wore off and I managed to stand, which in of itself was an achievement, I started practicing. Let me tell you, learning how to use 6 legs at once after my bipedal life is a whole process. Tripping over myself and just falling on my side because my sense of balance was so fucked took hours to stop happening. I eventually managed a slow and steady pace, which is hopefully all I need since I have wings, which are next on the list. And my stamina bar didn’t go down thankfully, it probably only accounts for physically straining tasks. I plan to keep the physical strain to the same amount here as I did in my old life. Minimal. I got magic, screw hard labor.

And then it was time to fly. I flapped my wings, pushing against the air. They are paper thin and delicate things, which makes their attachment to my body a concern for me. I really did not want them to be caught on a small twig and torn off. Gonna make learning a defense spell a goal.

I beat my wings against the air as hard as I could. First once every second, then twice, then I started to get a fast rhythm really going. I don’t have sweat glands, and thank fuck because I would drenched. But it was working, I could feel myself getting lighter. I was convinced I’d lift off the ground any second when

Status Effect: Exhaustion

I suddenly felt 3 times heavier and collapsed. My goddamn stamina ran out. Of course it did.

Exhaustion

This Status Effect increases the strain of all physical activity by a large amount. Status lasts until all of your stamina pool has recovered.

Oh fuuuuuuuuuck. My legs felt like dry spaghetti, like they’d snap if I put too much strain on them. On the bright side, if there was one, is that it wouldn't last that long. I’m still not happy to be physically incapacitated again. It’s fucking humiliating.

Whatever, may as well start on magic while I’m down. I started on the only place I could, that little ball of essence. At first I just sorta… poked it. Nothing, albeit it does seem malleable. Like it’s a ball of yarn I can take threads from.

Hmmm… maybe seeing it in action with one of my race spells will get me somewhere. It happened with Wish Granter, but I didn’t know what was happening, it took me off guard and surprised me before I could actually pay attention. And I can’t do it again, not until I level up my race. Which at this pace probably wouldn’t happen soon. So I looked at my other options. My passive abilities are, well, passive. So that’s a no go. My only other active ability is Spirit Walk, which honestly kinda scares me. This ability is really friggin high tier, which means a level 1 definitely wouldn’t normally have access to it. The system did say that my race is more powerful in the Spirit Realm, but my current weakness doesn’t exactly make me confident.

But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I try to recall the feeling of activating a skill. For Wish Granter, it activated as soon as I committed to granting that Wish. I try to emulate that and resolve to activate Spirit Walk. And to my surprise, that actually works.

As the spell activates, I look inside myself, back to that red ball of yarn. Strands split off of it, from every side at once. It formed a weave around itself, a web filled with patterns way too numerous and complex for me to even begin to understand, before extending outwards. It absorbed mana within it, saturating itself. I could feel myself change with it, my feeling of self becoming less stable. The strangest part of that was my apathy to the sensation. Was it because I trusted my spell? Am I just that unbothered by that feeling? Eventually the spell weave makes contact with my skin and forms a perfect shell around me. And I open my eyes.

I see an abyss filled to the brim with everything and nothing. I see an injured wolf with no wound, a fisherman with his hook in a desert, an empty house filled with joyous voices. And none of them were truly there. I don’t know how, but I could tell that they weren’t… “real”. I could see through them in more than a physical sense. They were hollow echoes, things that were and aren’t anymore. And there was something else about them, a light, a flame, a spark, that was dying. I could… see it. I could see them fading. They were losing the memories of themselves. Like dementia on a spiritual level. For a bit I simply stood there in awe and sadness of all I saw. The environment around me shifted around me from time to time. At one moment a grass field, the next a pit of bones, and then a dark forest you can barely see through. I’m not teleporting, the world is moving around me. I have no clue why, all the spirits move with the world. Maybe it’s because I’m still tied to the Physical Realm?

And then I looked at myself. This was not the same flimsy body I came here with. My legs aren’t twigs anymore, they feel like bamboo stocks. While I was only the size of a butterfly before, I think I’m the size of a small dog here. I looked inward, back to that magic lattice covering my body. I still can’t even begin to describe how intricate and complex the patterns are, looking at that specifically won’t help until I actually get an understanding of how magic actually works. But looking at its effects can still be worthwhile. I look beneath the weave, at my skin and find something unexpected. Looking at myself magically I can see that same ‘spark’ of the spirits running through me, but mine isn’t dying like theirs. If anything, It’s flaring up like crazy. I’m not glowing, it’s more like I’m sturdier, more condensed. I had expected that the spell was projecting my body into the Spirit Realm, but the opposite was true. It’s converted my physical self into my spirit. I can see my spirit, tied with my essence. It’s like a purple smoke that radiates off of my string-like magic, pouring off of it endlessly and dissipating. My essence core was surrounded by a dense cloud of my spirit.

It gave me the urge to do something extremely stupid. An urge which decided to humor because I’m a dumbass. I grabbed a few threads of my essence and weaved a cage around a small piece of the cloud. Thanks to my high mind stats, wielding my essence isn’t that difficult, albeit it still takes some getting used to. It’s like plucking the strings of an instrument, bringing back some memories of me playing a guitar. I wasn’t good, but at least the experience is helpful now.

When I finally finished the net around a small piece of my spirit, I felt it. I felt that constraint, I felt just a little bit weaker, like I was cut off from a part of myself. Which isn’t surprising because that is exactly what was happening. It reminded me of those fits of depression I went through in college, a cold apathy to my own fear, not caring about how I was fucking up my own life. The reminder of that time in my past deeply unsettled me, so I disentangled the net. The nice warmth of feeling whole again didn’t do much to ease the discomfort from the experience. That apparently was enough to get a notification. Which alerted me to the fact that I apparently missed a notification earlier.

Achievement: Realm Hopper

You have entered the Spirit Realm from the Physical Realm! These two Realms have deep connections, and vast separations.

You have gained +10 Spirit!

You have gained +10 AP!

You have gained +10 SP!

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Congratulations!

You have discovered an ability through study and practice. This skill will now be available for purchase at a discount. Since this is your first unlock, you have been awarded +5 SP.

Nice, I’ve finally got some SP. Let’s open that store, I want to see what sort of powers I can get.

The Store

This is where you may spend SP to purchase skills and spells to use! Purchases are discounted based on how familiar you are with the ability already.

Oh sweet, it looks like I can favorite some abilities to keep at the top of the list. Thank you for the well designed system! I quickly skim the list and favorite some that catch my eye.

Skill

SP Cost

Spirit Bind (Uncommon)

2

Meditation (Common)

4

Soul Fire (Uncommon)

10

Life Bond (Epic)

74

Fragment of Spirit (Epic)

202

Unrestricted Manifestation (Legendary)

638

Holy shit some of these are expensive. I can’t imagine needing over 60 achievements for Skill, even if it is Legendary. Guess I should start whittling down the prices. Let’s see what they do before I make any commitments though.

Spirit Bind

Use your essence to bind the Spirit of your opponent. Those affected by this will have reduced Spirit and have increased Mana costs until the spell ends. Effectiveness varies depending on soul binding technique.

Most definitely cheap because that’s what I just did to myself. Not sure how good this is though. It doesn’t do any damage, nor does it actually stop someone from moving like a normal restriction skill. It mostly just seems like an annoyance, even if it does inflict that disturbing feeling of ennui.

Meditation

Calm your body and mind to restore yourself. You must remain completely still while having this skill active. When this skill is active you will double the regeneration rate of your Stamina and Mana, as well as heal from injuries faster.

I will probably pick this up at one point or another, might try and whittle down the price a bit more. It’s not a game changer but a solid regen Skill is just something you should have on you.

Soul Fire

Summon a ghastly flame that burns the Spirit of your opponent. Opponents hit by this flame will be burned a small amount, their Spirit will be burned a moderate amount, and their Mana will be consumed over time.

Now this is what I’m talking about! An actual offensive spell, something I can use to survive! Idk how burning a person's Spirit would even work, and I don’t plan to try it on myself, but I doubt it’s pleasant. I don’t know how common Spirit magic is here or how much people ward against it, but I hope it’s not a lot. Plus the Mana drain is gonna hurt mages by a ton since it’ll restrict their spell casting even more.

Life Bond

Connect your lifeforce to another. You may only have 1 of these bonds active at any time. You may use this skill to connect your Spirit to that of another. This will connect you to this individual, allowing both parties to communicate with each other telepathically from any distance, as well as share emotional states. If they so choose, either individual may give their partner access to 1 Skill they own, as well as share their Mana. If one of the individuals connected by this Skill dies, then so will the other.

Hmm… I don’t think I’ll ever pick this up, as interesting as it is. The sheer amount of bonuses you gain from this is insane, but tying myself that deeply to someone isn’t something I can see myself doing anytime soon.

Fragment of Spirit

Separate a piece of your Spirit and hide it away. In doing so, you prevent your Spirit from being wholly destroyed, unless the fragment is also tracked down and destroyed. If your physical body is instead destroyed, then this fragment will transform into a copy of your physical form to inhabit your spirit. You will revive only at partial strength for both scenarios.

A get out of jail free card? This is a must have as soon as I can afford it. Immortality baby!

Unrestricted Manifestation

This skill allows you to manifest your Spirit into the Physical Realm. This will rapidly drain both Stamina and Mana to maintain.

Simple, not sure how much this is actually going to help though. I have no idea just how much more powerful my Spirit is going to be compared to my physical self down the line. Actually, what are my stats in this form?

Name: [ ]

Essence: Adventure (Common)

Race: Lv. 1 [ ]

(Wish Dragon)

Class: Lv. N/A [ ]

Mana: 706/1100

Stamina: 297/310

Status Effects:

* Exhaustion

Achievements:

* World Hopper

Race Skills:

Passive:

* Lv. 1

Arcane Affinity

(Epic)

* Lv. 1

Spirit Sense

(Rare)

Active:

* Lv. N/A

Wish Granter

(Dragon) (Unique)

* Lv. 1

Spirit Walk

(Epic)

Class Skills:

Passive:

*

Active:

*

Strength: 3(+20)

Intelligence: 42(+47)

Agility: 14(+26)

Wisdom: 47(+53)

Endurance: 4(+27)

Spirit: 115

Available SP: 15

Available AP: 10

…oh. Holy shit am I powerful at level 1. These are stats befitting a Dragon! If these keep scaling like this, no wonder it’s a Legendary ability. I’d melt kingdoms at higher levels!

Also wow my Mana is draining like crazy here. I’ve only been here for like 3 minutes and I’ve already used a ton. There’s no way all of that came from my experimenting with that net.

Now it’s time to decide. Do I get some Skills now, or do I wait?