Chapter 3 - Blood God's Inheritance

Deon stood up and smiled. He felt thoroughly rejuvenated, as if he had been born anew.

Well, he had been.

He now possessed a body, no longer needing to exist as a mere soul. On top of that, he ascended and became a shaman, a being with an origin soul and soul space!

Thinking this, Deon focussed on his soul space. The ancient demon spirit used its energy to form the walls of his soul space, but the spirit itself also resided within these walls motionlessly. Deon studied the spirit closely and saw that, as expected, his core spirit rose from 0-Star to 1-Star when his mortal soul transformed into an origin soul.

With a wave of his hand, the spirit was suddenly summoned from his soul space and appeared within the physical world.

A shadow formed around Deon’s hand. With a thought, this shadow condensed into the shape of a sword. Deon focussed more intensely, eventually managing to form a solid sword that was surrounded by a layer of ominous black mist.

“My core spirit…” Deon muttered thoughtfully, then after swinging the sword around a few times, returned it to his soul space.

The core spirit had a deeper connection to the shaman than any other spirit they bound throughout their life. A spirit’s consciousness was completely wiped out when it became the core spirit, making it impossible to pass on the core spirit to other shamans, unlike with normal bound spirits.

The core spirit also formed the walls of the soul space, meaning that the soul space would become more vulnerable when the core spirit was removed and used. However, the connection between a shaman and their core spirit was more powerful than with other spirits, so they could draw upon a greater deal of its power and manipulate it more freely. There were clearly advantages and disadvantages to actively using the core spirit.

Deon was now wondering what he should do next. He looked around skeptically.

“There’s no chance that Blood God didn’t prepare something else.” He muttered to himself warily.

As expected, just a few seconds later, the podium that previously held the golden book underwent a change.

Brrr…

A buzzing sound echoed throughout the palace hall as the podium broke apart into fine grey dust. From this dust, the faint figure of a tall and imposing man gradually formed. Deon stepped back and raised his guard, but realised soon enough that this figure was only a projection.

“My successor…” The figure stared into space and started to speak. Deon quickly guessed that this must be some sort of recording left behind by Blood God.

‘This person…is he Blood God?’ Deon wondered, examining the giant of a man seriously.

This person had crimson hair and a beard to match. In fact, it was as if all of his body hair was died red with blood! His body was large and muscular, his clothing primal yet also elegant. He was extremely impressive to look at, resembling a Greek God both in terms of his appearance and his demeanour.

“If you are seeing this recording, then you have completed my inheritance. I have three more gifts to leave with you. The first is this ring, a spatial ring that I personally refined using the universe treasure spirit. There are two barriers within the ring, each of which can only be broken through once you reach the corresponding level of power. Inject your origin energy to open the ring.”

Deon noticed a small ring falling down from the ceiling and quickly stuck out his hand to catch it. The ring was red in colour and cold to the touch, there were six symbols across the ring that he didn’t understand. He placed the ring on his finger, then injected a small amount of origin energy as instructed.

Immediately, an entire new world came into Deon’s view. He was now able to see the inside of this ring which contained a separate micro-dimension, but he realised that there was some sort of membrane blocking his path. He narrowed his eyes, then slammed against this barrier using his injected origin energy.

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A few seconds drifted by as his origin energy poured into the ring. His energy was depleted rapidly, but the barrier finally shattered. What lay beyond the broken membrane was a small compartment, perhaps ten cubic metres in size, filled with an assortment of materials and books. Deon scanned his gaze across these things and guessed that they should all be useful materials for shamans. He would definitely search through this pile carefully later on.

“The second and third of my gifts are each 1-Star spirits. The first spirit is called the soul extraction spirit, it is able to extract origin souls from unconscious or weakened shamans. This spirit can also store up to 99 souls at any one time. The second spirit is the soul refinement spirit. Using this spirit, it is possible to burn the origin souls of 99 shamans to refine another shaman into a unique spirit. These two spirits are some of my life’s greatest creations and can be considered two of the core components of this inheritance. You will find information regarding these spirits within the spatial ring.”

Deon watched silently as compartments within the palace’s marble walls opened, revealing two spirits that were slumbering peacefully.

The first spirit was small, perhaps the size of a hand mirror. The main feature of this spirit was the pitch black vortex that span around slowly in its centre. There were also some grey tendrils which silently floated around the circular vortex.

The appearance of the second spirit was similar to a genie, but it was far more evil looking than the genies from earth’s fiction. This spirit had a bright red body, its two eyes released an unending killing intent, as if its deepest desire was to destroy this entire world.

Deon quickly realised the purpose of pairing these two spirits together. The soul extraction spirit could extract and store origin souls, whilst the soul refinement spirit could use these souls to create a new, unique spirit.

Now, Deon wasn’t exactly experienced in the matters of shamans and their spirits. The golden inheritance book contained some vague information on general matters, but it mostly talked about the inheritance site’s purpose and Blood God’s desire. That said, he was pretty sure that all three of the spirits he had encountered until now were far more demonic than normal.

“My successor, I wish for you to bind both of these spirits before leaving the inheritance palace. Right now, you are an initial stage 1-Star shaman. Presently, you are able to maintain control over two 1-Star spirits, one of which is your core spirit. To bind each of these spirits and maintain control, you should first train until the early stage, at which point you may control at most four 1-Star spirits. Given your aptitude born from the ancient demon spirit, combined with the peak conditions in this palace, reaching this stage should take you no longer than one month.”

With that, the image of the imposing man vanished and the compartments that were previously holding the two spirits closed.

Deon sighed deeply. He once again realised that his own will was totally irrelevant. He was doing exactly as Blood God wanted, but there was no other way about it. If he wanted to leave this place, he needed to continue playing into Blood God’s plan.

Even after Blood God’s death, Deon was no match for such a powerful figure.

Not wanting to dwell on his pitiful levels of freedom any longer, Deon sat down and began to train.

Shamans could increase their power by taking the spiritual energy that naturally permeated the atmosphere and refining it into their own origin energy. This was a slow and arduous process that couldn’t be rushed, they could only take it one step at a time.

That said, there were ways to increase the rate of progress. The first method was by having a high talent. Talent was related to the individual’s body, but also to the spirit that they used as their core spirit. The stronger the walls of the soul space, the more efficient the conversion of spiritual energy into origin energy.

Time passed by slowly. Deon trained arduously, only taking breaks to eat the energy dense rations that he found within the spatial ring. These rations were tasteless, but they seemed to replenish his energy and somehow also quenched his thirst.

The grey mist within his soul space steadily increased in density. The grey light shone brighter and brighter, until three weeks later…

Crack!

A sound like glass shattering filled Deon’s mind. This sound could not be heard outside, but was contained within his soul space. The grey mist was now much more dense and bright compared to before, even having a faint glimmer to it.

This was symbolic of becoming an early stage 1-Star shaman!

Deon opened his eyes, feeling quite satisfied with his progress. He had managed to reach this stage slightly faster than Blood God predicted, meaning that his new body’s talent for absorbing spiritual energy should be above average. From what Deon understood, this was already an amazing result given that his soul had been implanted into this body, a process that would usually result in trash talent.

His internal talent wasn’t amazing, but decent enough. However, when combined with his external talent provided by the ancient demon spirit, his training speed was better than most super geniuses.

Whoosh…

The two compartments containing the two spirits opened once more. Deon walked across curiously and examined them. They each seemed to be held in place by some unknown force, yet he could easily reach in and out of the compartments with ease.

Deon first approached the soul extraction spirit. He pondered for a moment, then directly placed his finger onto one of the tentacles before injecting his origin energy.

Unlike when refining one’s core spirit, a shaman would usually bind other spirits outside of the body, then bring them into the soul space afterwards. Whilst it was slightly faster to bind a spirit inside of the soul space, doing so carried a much greater risk.

The soul extraction spirit shook as it resisted Deon’s energy, but eventually its form became still and lost all tension. Deon felt that he had developed a connection to the spirit and instinctively waved his hand, drawing the spirit into his soul space.

His soul space was now occupied by his soul and two spirits. The ancient demon spirit had no consciousness and was like an extension of himself, whilst the soul extraction spirit retained more of its nature, only it had become entirely submissive towards him. If Deon urged it to move, it would move. If he wanted to use its power, the power would activate instantly.

Spirits were strange like this. The spirit would be strongly resistant whilst it had free will, but after being bound by a shaman, it would become completely loyal and willing to be controlled without any reluctance.

Soon after binding the first spirit, Deon repeated this action with the soul refinement spirit. The evil genie put up slightly more resistance, but in the end, it was defeated and absorbed into Deon’s soul space.

Just like that, Deon now possessed three spirits!