Chapter 34: Learning the New Spells

Ain rejoiced at the gradually accumulating Heavenly Whispers. The quests were too simple for him. At this rate, it didn’t seem improbable to spare a few Heavenly Whispers to test Heavenly Secrets. He just lacked a suitable target to use this ability on.

Ain set these thoughts aside for now. There was another pressing matter at hand. He held the newly upgraded Nox before eagerly using Scan. Streams of information spontaneously appeared within his mind and organized themselves neatly.

[Species: Ink Revenant]

[Aspect: Ghost]

[Quality: Ancient | Max Quality: ???]

[Rank: Rank-1]

[Innate Skill: Possession, Haunt]

[Skill: Phantom Claws]

[Aspect Traces: Ghost 97.5%, Fire 0.9%, Wind 0.5%, ...]

Rapidly sorting through the information, Ain soon discovered the three variances.

“As I thought, you’ve evolved from Noble to Ancient. Now, you can reach Rank-4 before the next evolution. Moreover, you’ve unlocked another innate skill and even upgraded to Rank-1!”

“Wooo…!” Nox cheered at his mumblings, enjoying Ain’s palms petting its cloudy form.

With his spirit pet’s comprehensive upgrade, Ain’s own abilities were strengthened. This was the mutual passive feedback spirit masters experienced upon contracting spirit pets. It wasn’t apparent before due to the difference in ranks but now this sensation was extremely vivid.

“Not only did my aether’s quality and quantity improve, but even my body benefited a little…” Ain smiled while clenching his fists. He felt slightly stronger than before.

“Wooo…! Wooo…!” As he examined himself, Nox called out to him repeatedly. Like an innocent child, it was eager to show him something. Perceiving its thoughts, Ain simply laughed to himself. From Scan, he knew it’d unlocked a new innate skill but pretended to be oblivious. He revealed a confused expression, “What is it?”

“Wooo…!” Nox voiced while jumping out of his arms, asking him to observe carefully. Ain watched on curiously as it hovered above the desk, transmitting thoughts of concentration and focus. A few seconds later, accompanied by faint fluctuations, its gaseous white body slowly dissipated into thin air, completely vanishing from sight. Nox had disappeared!

“Is this Haunt?” Ain’s eyes widened in surprise as he questioned aloud. He swept his hand at Nox’s previous location but failed to discern anything.

“Wooo…!” The familiar ghostly wail sounded from beside him. Due to their contract, he’d never truly lost track of Nox but despite sensing its presence, he couldn’t see or touch it.

“Seems like Haunt is a stealth skill. Moreover, it’s an innate skill.” Ain quickly established.

Previously, while exploring evolution on Cyberspace, he also gained a brief understanding of skills and innate skills. There were two distinct differences between them.

First, skills and innate skills were similar in effect yet dissimilar in origin. Regular skills had to be unlocked, learned, or taught manually whereas each evolution after Common granted one innate skill. Taking Nox as an example, it only had one innate skill, Possession, at Noble. Now, upon reaching Ancient, it unlocked its second innate skill, Haunt. Innate skills were constant throughout a species. Individuals within a species unlocked the same innate skills unless a spirit cultivator meticulously interfered.

Second, skills and innate skills had vastly different advancement methods. With increasing rank, regular skills had to be constantly upgraded through practice and training whereas innate skills automatically upgraded to match the spirit pet’s rank. If applied to Nox, upon reaching Rank-2, it would have to vigorously train and practice to upgrade Phantom Claws. Contrarily, Possession and Haunt would be strengthened automatically, matching its new rank.

Another interesting discovery was that skills weren’t distinctly classified into either category. Possession, an innate skill for Dark Specters, was also a regular skill among ghosts in general. It could be both an innate skill and a regular skill. Regardless, there did exist special innate skills unique to particular species, or even a particular individual, that couldn’t be replicated. These unique innate skills were often targeted by spirit masters to form contracts with particular spirit pets.

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Possession and Haunt weren’t unique. However, as one of the only two Ink Revenants in existence, Nox definitely had hidden potential, as suggested in Sage’s letter.

“I wonder what’ll happen once it reaches Transcendent.” Ain wondered, looking forward to the future. As he was pondering, Nox reappeared close to his face and attempted to scare him. “Wooo…!”

He pursed his lips to stifle a laugh, completely unfazed. He could sense its location the entire time.

“Wooo…” Nox, failing in its ploy, whined dejectedly for a moment before instantly cheering up. It coiled around his neck like a scarf, exhibiting a greater resemblance to fabric than before. “You look like a real scarf now! Good job!” Ain praised generously.

“Wooo…!” Nox’s eyes nodded happily. After accompanying its merriment for a while longer, he unsummoned his spirit pet and left the room with some excitement. Within minutes, he entered the special hall on the first floor with a matte-black floor, gray metallic walls, and numerous target dummies scattered about randomly. This was the special training room for spirit masters. It was specifically designed to withstand all forms of attacks below Rank-2.

It was an hour before noon and a few young spirit masters were already training inside. Someone practiced striking a dummy with blasts of wind from afar while another conjured a wall of fire, struggling to maintain it. There were even a few spirit masters training in martial arts, sparring against one another.

“Looks like they’re also here for Arcane Heart University’s recruitment.” Ain silently judged. Only young spirit masters here for the recruitment would reside in a hotel. Native spirit masters naturally had personal accommodations elsewhere.

He curiously observed for a while, taking special note of the different spells, before searching for an unoccupied corner to begin his practice. The previous day, he’d received an offensive ghost spell, Spectral Blast, and a defensive core spell, Aether Shield. Aspectless spells such as Aether Shield were commonly referred to as core spells.

“Let’s start with Aether Shield.” Ain decided. Spectral Blast and Aether Shield were straightforward compared to Temporal Blitz. Spells could be invoked through visualization, incantations, rituals, spell arrays, or any combination of these methods. Visualization, tracing spell runes with aether, was used in Aether Shield.

With his eyes closed gently, the knowledge imparted by Livia flashed past his mind. He started scrutinizing the spell rune for Aether Shield. The spell rune consisted only of a few straight lines, lacking any sharp twists, turns, or curves that could heighten the difficulty. Moreover, unlike Temporal Blitz that required the spell rune within his fist, Aether Shield’s spell rune was to be visualized inside the ethereal space where his aethercore resided. This was much easier.

Ain’s aether control was above average, having trained with the Chronarch Precept and Temporal Blitz. The first spell rune he’d visualized was extremely complex. Aether Shield was naturally not a challenge. Within a minute, the simple spell rune was visualized successfully. The moment it manifested; the spell rune absorbed his aether to conjure a transparent golden membrane in front of him.

“Aether Shield!” Ain thought with bright eyes, the excitement within palpable. The visual impact of the luminescent shield was much greater than Temporal Blitz’s displaced shockwave.

“Its duration is dependent on the aether injected upon casting and any damage sustained will slowly consume it. Moreover, the spell is stationary and cannot be controlled or altered once it’s conjured.” He continued, thinking through the spell’s description.

This was his first attempt, and despite his skillfulness, the shield wasn’t perfect, and disintegrated soon after. Ain wasn’t disheartened. Casting it successfully upon his first attempt already delighted him. With a smile on his face, he briefly rested before continuing the practice, casting Aether Shield repeatedly, improving the integrity, casting speed, and strength at an astonishing rate.

This was a phenomenon he had already noted with Temporal Blitz. Once he visualized a complete spell rune, or even just part of it, Ain didn’t have to consciously visualize it again. He could effortlessly achieve the same progress with just a thought and continue onwards from there. That’s how he’d mastered Temporal Blitz, a martial art with an extremely complex spell rune. After tracing it once, he could visualize it instantly. If he hadn’t possessed Wisdom Root, with his current skill level, he couldn’t visualize even a fraction of Temporal Blitz’s spell rune. In a sense, he’d forcefully mastered the martial art, a technique far beyond his skill level.

Settling his thoughts, Ain’s relentless training began. He practiced for nearly half an hour before an issue suddenly cropped up. It wasn’t something unexpected. With mild panting, he wiped his temples with his sleeve and thought, “I haven’t trained for long but my aether reserves are already running low…”

During this time, he glanced around occasionally, observing the spirit masters consuming elixirs to aid their training. With his enhanced cognition, a name appeared from his memory – Aether Recovery Pills.

“One of the empty pill bottles in Mason’s bag was labeled as Aether Recovery Pills. Maybe I can use those during training.” Ain pondered. Already intent on taking a break, he sat down on a nearby bench and started browsing through Cyberspace, searching for information regarding Aether Recovery Pills. Not long after his search began, one of the young spirit masters training nearby suddenly approached him.

“Hey, you’re also here for Arcane Heart University’s recruitment, right?”