Chapter 9 - Choosing a 1-Star Spirit
As Deon listened to General Senlin's introduction, the words of pride and glory continued, making him feel a bit bored. He had hoped that this general would provide them with some actual useful information, but it seemed like this ceremony was just basic indoctrination.
Deon expected this though.
What nation wouldn't fill its subjects' minds with thoughts of prestige, glory and loyalty? This type of brainwashing method would be used by any ruling party, and really, Deon didn't disagree with it so much as he was simply unable to buy into it. He understood the kingdom's need to gain the loyalty of its people, but someone like himself who entered the military solely for his own self-serving goals would never fall for such an obvious tactic.
The speech came to an end and everyone started to make their way towards their respective classes.
This wasn't a school to educate children, but a military institution. They weren't expected to make friends, to show kindness to each other or even to get to know one another. The lessons existed to provide them with the knowledge that they needed to possess before entering the true military.
Of course, it wasn't all just classroom lessons. They were also required to participate in daily physical training drills, close combat sparring, rifle practice and other such things. At the shaman military academy, the amount of rifle practice was lower than for the ordinary soldier divisions and many of these classes were actually optional, as most shamans would prefer to utilise other attacking methods.
Deon for example had the ancient demon spirit. With this spirit, he could form a sword so sharp that he could probably decapitate a horse in one blow.
His first week of classes consisted of the introductory classes which were taken by all military personnel. They were detailed on the current political landscape between nearby nations, the military's organisation and structure, as well as the rules that they would need to obey during their time in service.
The following week, classes were set and timetables were handed out. Deon was somewhat dismayed to find that the troublesome girl he noticed earlier was not only in his physical training drills class, but also his shaman training class and his military tactics class.
These were the three main classes which were mandatory for all new military shaman recruits.
Deon quickly learned that this girl was actually quite special.
"You are addressing Remi Restari, the third princess of the Restari royal family!" The young girl stood up and pointed at the military tactics teacher with an arrogant expression. It was the second day of class and she already couldn't take it that someone of common birth kept talking down to her.
"Miss Restari, I am well aware of your background. You should have been informed that after entering the academy, background becomes meaningless and all students are to be treated the same. If you continue to disrupt my class then I will expel you from the academy."
At the old woman's rebuttal, Remi sat down with a bright red face. Deon glanced at her in some amusement, this girl had obviously never been spoken to like this in her life.
The teacher noticed that some people kept glancing at Remi, talking to each other excitedly in hushed voices. The old woman shut them all up by hitting them on the top of the head with a cane.
Military punishment was tough. The fuss around Remi's background quickly died down under the threat of violence.
It seemed that it was true that in the academy, background didn't matter. This was good for Deon, since he had literally no background in this world.
Three days into his second week, Deon's class for shaman training finally received the news that they had been waiting for. It was their turn today to choose their free spirit!
Upon entry into the military shaman academy, all students would be given a 1-Star spirit free of charge. The selection of spirits was slim though, they could only choose between the kingdom's five most common spirits that were mass produced using their secret methods.
"Remember, this is the only spirit you will be gifted for free until the moment of your graduation." This was the reminder they were given before being taken to the spirit hall.
The spirit hall was a large hall on the far West side of the academy. It was guarded at all times and entry was only possible under the supervisor of the on duty captain, a late stage 1-Star shaman.
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Deon waited in line. When it was his turn to choose a spirit, he was taken into one of the many rooms attached to this hall.
This room was tall, with wooden shelves stacked up to the high ceiling and stretching back for another few dozen feet. The room was circular and allowed one to view all of the spirits when they stood in the centre and turned around.
There were a total of five curved shelves, each holding crystal jars containing the spirits. This was the kingdom's standard method for keeping spirits, they were stored within the crystal cases and fed with various herbs and materials weekly by the attending keeper.
Deon recalled the information on each spirit.
Sustenance spirit, a small white worm that removed a shaman's need to consume food. With the use of this spirit, they could survive off of their origin energy alone.
Poison thorn spirit, a one foot tall tree covered in thorns rather than leaves. This spirit allowed the shaman to fire sharp corrosive thorns from the palm of their hand, it was an effective long range attacking method.
Rapid step spirit, an illusory ghost that gave a shaman the power to quickly travel over a few feet in distance. It would make anyone far more formidable in close combat.
Iron skin spirit, a flat, paper thin bug with six legs and a metallic sheen. Unlike the previous spirits that Deon had encountered which resided in the soul space and had a function that was displayed during the spirit's activation, this spirit was actually a one time use spirit. After binding this spirit and bringing it into the soul space, it could then be burned to ash with origin energy, this was its single time use activation method. The result of using this spirit was that the skin would toughen up like a thin sheet of iron. It was a popular defensive spirit, as it only required a single use to provide a permanent improvement to the body.
Finally, dense muscle spirit, a fat slimy blob of green goo. Looking quite similar to a beast found in this world known as a slime, this spirit was used over time to permanently improve the strength of the muscles in the body. It would reach a limit at some point. Upon reaching this limit, the shaman's muscles could no longer be improved further with this specific spirit.
These were all ordinary class spirits. They had been taught about the classes of spirits the day before, though Deon was already familiar with the concept as it was mentioned by Blood God in his texts.
Besides their star ranks which corresponded to a shaman's level, spirits also possessed a 'class'. The lowest class was ordinary, then bronze, followed by silver, gold, platinum and finally mythril. The higher the class of a spirit, the greater its value. A mythril class 1-Star spirit could even be worth more than an ordinary 2-Star spirit!
Higher class spirits tended to have effects that were extremely significant for the corresponding power of the shaman. Aside from this, some high class spirits had unique and obscure effects which couldn't be considered only in terms of 'strength'. It was also much more difficult to raise a spirit's class than to raise its rank, and not all spirits could even increase their class. Then again, not all spirits could have their rank improved smoothly either.
Although, one theory suggested that all spirits could potentially be evolved in terms of both their rank and their class, it was just that the methods of doing so and the corresponding advancements were not yet known to the shaman world.
Deon had considered all of the five spirits thoroughly in the past few days.
The sustenance spirit was essential if ordinary shamans wanted to wonder the world alone, but for now, this spirit was not the most useful to him since he could store food within his spatial ring anyway. Besides, he didn't intend to leave the kingdom for some time.
Rapid step and iron skin were also tempting, but Deon ended up turning them down and taking the dense muscle spirit.
The main reason that he chose this spirit, was because he would be unable to pass the academy's physical fitness exam in one year without it. This test was designed for healthy adult shamans, his small and young body simply couldn't compete and he didn't want to waste away his years in this academy. The only way that he could catch up to the rest was by using the dense muscle spirit.
The dense muscle spirit was actually the most popular choice, and for good reason. Any healthy spirit could be brought back and traded for another at the spirit hall. Since the dense muscle spirit was something that eventually became useless to the shaman after using it on the muscles for a certain period of time, it could be returned and exchanged for a different spirit later on.
The dense muscle spirit and iron skin spirit actually held some significance to Deon, relating to his body's unique constitution.
The method for Deon to raise his internal talent, was to collect a certain five different mythril class spirits and to use them to improve his body. These spirits were the mythril skin spirit, mythril muscle spirit, mythril bones spirit, mythril tendons spirit and mythril organs spirit.
There were five spirits that were commonly grouped together and known as the 'body tempering spirits'. Each of these spirits originated from the 0-Star vital physique spirit and were known to have advancement paths from 1-Star to 6-Star and from ordinary class to mythril class. Not all spirits could have their rank evolved all the way to 6-Star like this, or at least, not all spirits had known advancement paths.
Any 0-Star spirit that could be advanced all the way to 6-Star would certainly become a desirable spirit to use as the core spirit, since it wouldn't hinder a shaman's progress all the way until they became a 6-Star shaman! Of course, there were many other factors involved in a shaman's advancement, but the potential of their core spirit was a huge limiting factor. It was for this reason that the vital physique spirit was the most popular core spirit amongst shamans.
Even fewer spirits could be improved to mythril class so cleanly whilst retaining their original use. Since they had known advancements from 0-Star to 6-Star and from ordinary class to mythril class, the set of five body tempering spirits were extremely famous throughout the spirit continent.
If Deon could collect all five of these 1-Star spirits, then raise them to mythril class and use them on his body, his talent would increase from high level 3 to low level 4! If he could do the same with the 2-Star evolutions of these spirits, then his talent would again improve from low level 4 to mid level 4, and so on. This was Blood God's devised method to improve the internal talent of his body. Others could not do this, this was the unique constitution of Deon's body.
Deon was aware that this was a long term goal and was something that couldn't be rushed. In the first place, body tempering was a process that every shaman caring to do so would take step by step. He couldn't just immediately use a mythril class body tempering spirit, he would need to start with the ordinary class, then move on to the bronze class, and so on.
Once he had used the 1-Star mythril class spirits, at least he could then go on to use the corresponding 2-Star mythril class body tempering spirits immediately. On top of this, the 1-Star mythril class spirits could be evolved into the 2-Star mythril class spirits directly, though there was always a high chance of the class dropping by a stage with this process. The only exception was with core spirits, their class would never drop unless they were severely damaged.
As he thought about these things, Deon thought about his own ancient demon spirit. He knew that this spirit was classified by Blood God as 'ancient class', but according to the academy, mythril class was the highest class in this world. He guessed that ancient class must be above this level, it was just that a mere mortal nation wasn't privy to this knowledge.
Deon remembered that 90% of shamans used an ordinary class spirit as their core spirit. Even the pampered princess Remi Restari, whom was also a genius shaman, had only managed to use a gold class spirit as her core. Everyone in their class had been so shocked to learn this, it made Deon wonder how they would react to his situation.
Naturally, they would never know about that though.