Clouds, dark as night, were spread all over the sky, stretching towards the distant horizon, spreading darkness wherever they went. And from within those dark clouds, snow, white as Yuri’s hair—maybe a little less white— drifted down towards the ground, falling on Alnea, and on the stump of the tree that he was sitting on, along with the clearing around him.
After more than an hour of bearing the hospitality of the first snow of winter on the outskirts of the Bright Light Forest, the bed of grass around him was already covered in a thick blanket of snow, as was he, shivering, and panting. The discomfort of his body though, being embraced, and kissed by the cold as he was, was nothing in comparison to the discomfort and pain that he was deliberately making his Spirit suffer.
However, it was also because of the suffering of his body, that Alnea was able to bear the pain of his Spirit so calmly. After all, the freezing cold winds, coming along with the month of the God of Decay, drowning his senses in a world of snow and ice, were balancing the world of fire that his Spirit was being put through. If not for that balance, if not for the distraction brought by the cold winds, then he would not have been ‘Forging’ his Spirit so calmly.
Spirit Forging, a barbaric method of training Spirit that was once the only method of training Spirits known to Wanderers. It was only when they developed Arcanas that they began developing other, more advanced, and less barbaric means of training their Spirit. And since people had other, more docile means of tempering their Spirit, the Spirit Forging method soon fell into disuse. Its effects, however, could not be denied. Especially for him, since he could not use the Arcana that his master had created.
Had there been any other choice, then his master would have never asked him to train his Spirit through such barbaric means. But the more worried she was, the more his interest was piqued by the Spirit Forging method. The method itself was not very complicated. Rather, it was a very simple method that anyone could use, even his mother. There was a caveat though. Those using the Spirit Forging method to temper their Spirits had to be able to bear the consequences of doing so.
Drawing in as much Oren from the Origin Sea as he could, without letting it leak from his Spirit, and forming it into thin, thread like needles, Alnea circulated the unadulterated power of the Origin Sea within his Spirit, not leaving any part of it untouched. Considering that he could not even see his Spirit yet, that was the first hurdle he had to face in Forging his Spirit. In the end, he had no choice but to rely on his other senses to make sure that he was ‘Forging’ every part of his Spirit. Senses, such as pain.
And not just any kind of pain, but a pain that put even the pain that he had felt when using the ‘Turns of Fate’ to shame. Back then, he had only felt as if someone was stabbing him with a knife made of fire. In contrast, when using the Spirit Forging method to train his Spirit, he felt as if someone had stuffed his Spirit with Fire Glyphs, while the Oren he circulated acted like the fuel for those Glyphs, creating a blazing fire that rampaged inside his Spirit.
However, there were no Glyphs inside his Spirit. Neither was the Oren causing any kind of Mysteries to manifest. It was just pure Oren, roaming inside his Spirit, tearing it up wherever it went, making him feel as someone was slicing his Spirit apart from inside, while burning it with a Fire Glyph at the same time. And all of it came in heightened senses of his Spirit State.
Furthermore, to ensure that the ‘Forging’ of his Spirit was effective, he had to make sure that every part of his Spirit, even the remotest of its corners, was suffering the same amount of pain. If, by chance, or mistake, he missed some part of his Spirit, he would have to start from the very beginning, making his suffering last even longer. After all, only if every part of his Spirit was under the repeated suffering of Oren would his Spirit be strengthened in the most optimum way.
Not only would an uneven ‘Forging’ of his Spirit be less effective than a complete ‘Forging’, but it would also leave behind some hidden dangers in his Spirit, or so his master had said. Alnea would, of course, chose to believe in his master. Though it was not like he had any other choices left to him. With the chains of his Oath binding his Spirit, the only option left to him was to bear through the pain and keep ‘Forging’ his Spirit.
However, that did not mean that he liked the choice that he had. Once, before the Lotus clan had put restrictions on his Spirit, he had done his own experiments with Oren, and his Spirit. Back then, he had tried going over the limit of Oren that he could control with his Spirit, and suffered terribly for it. Forging his Spirit reminded him a little of that suffering. It was just that the pain and agony from Forging his Spirit was evenly distributed throughout his Spirit, and longer lasting as well.
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After all, one was the result of an accidental loss of control over Oren, while the other was deliberate ravaging of his Spirit to the point that he had even lost his consciousness from pain a couple of times in the beginning. The first time that he had experienced the dread of the Spirit Forging method, Yuri had looked at him with worry, while his master had looked at him with amusement.
“Now that you know what you will have go through to train your Spirit, do you regret your Oaths, and actions?”
“…I don’t,” Alnea had replied, though the chattering of his teeth had made him sound a little unconvincing. But that was not his fault. The dread, the pain of forging his Spirit was not something that humans were meant to go through. It was no wonder the method had been termed as barbaric, and had fallen into disuse. If there was a choice of other methods of training their Spirit, then no one would specifically choose this masochistic way of training their Spirits. Unfortunately for him, he did not have such a choice. Not anymore.
He could not use Arcanas. His Spirit Power had hit rock bottom, going back to the First Level. And his master had dealt with his secret… his dreams, making sure that they would not etch the memories of the other Alnea, his namesake from the world of Attuners, into his mind. And as he had expected, after his master had dealt with the dreams, he did not have any more problems with the dissonance of his identities. Gone were the days when he would wake up with half his foot onto the street.
However, along with his identity crisis, the increase in the growth rate of his Spirit Power had gone away as well. Though his Roots had been strengthened from his Oaths, it had not been strengthened enough to negate all the disadvantages that he had put himself in. Unless he could create Arcanas, that too, at least of the Perfect Grade, and of the Rank that his Spirit was in, for the foreseeable future, he would have to keep Forging his Spirit just to keep up with other Wanderers. As for surpassing them, and becoming the greatest Wanderer… Still, Alnea never regretted taking his Oaths, be it the one he took for his master, or the one he took for his father.
“They are a manifestation of my determination… my resolve… nothing can make me regret them.”
“Good,” his master had then said. “Make sure you remember that resolve, and keep honing it. You will need it later.”
“…What do you mean by that, master?” Alnea had asked, looking at his master with confusion, to which, she had responded with a helpless smile.
“What you are using right now is just the most basic form of Spirit Forging. There are a few more… advance forms of Spirit Forging which I am tailoring for you. They will speed up your training even more, and may even provide some unexpected benefits. But that also means that the pain and suffering they will bring you would be even more than what the normal method of Spirit Forging brings.”
“…I am fine with the normal method, master.”
“But the normal method would allow you to just catch up with the others, and that too with only those who would be training their Spirit with Perfect Grade Arcana. Even if you take your Oaths into account… At best, that would make the growth rate of your Spirit Power equivalent to those who would be training with some less effective Transcendent Grade Arcanas. Yet, there are many who would be training their Spirit with even Divine Grade Arcanas… like Yuri. How are you going to surpass all those people? How are you going to keep your Oaths?
“Becoming the greatest Wanderer… creating a path to the Rank of Origin Wanderer… Do you think that you can do all that with just the normal method of Forging your Spirit? Even rising up to the Rank of a Grand Wanderer is a hurdle that traps people for centuries, let alone a Supreme Wanderer. The mythic, and illusory Rank of Origin Wanderer… There is no lack of talent in the world. If become an Origin Wanderer was going to be easy, then people would have already done it. So, not only do you have to surpass all your peers, but you also have to surpass all those who came before you… even me. Yet, even surpassing your peers has become difficult for you… How are you going to keep Oaths, Alnea?”
His master… could be pretty convincing when she needed to be. With what she had said, Alnea had no choice but to pray for the blessings of Enn, and say, “But I would be even better with the advanced methods of Forging my Spirit. So please let me train with them. Rather, I refuse to train with anything else other than those advanced methods of Spirit Forging. Only such advanced methods are worthy of me, Alnea Oathkeeper, the greatest Wanderer of future.”
“…They are still in development.”
“…However, everything must have its time. And right now, it is not time for me to train with them, so let me train with just the normal Spirit Forging method, master.”
“…Your cheekiness has increased once again,” his master had said, as she had pinched his nose, while smiling at his antics.