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A beautiful tree was grown from the small seed. It overflowed with both Mana and Spirit Energy, energies my Inner Realm could not produce by itself just some time ago before I created my own Divinity. Although I can now produce Mana internally without requiring my System Scarf, it was another thing entirely to talk about this other energy.
Spirit Energy!
Hekita and probably her entire tribe are rather accustomed to this energy, even if they don’t seem to be able to wield it aside from class-specific skills. It appears this energy comes from all things spiritual.
Spirits, entities made of elemental energy and spiritual energy, are one such being that both produces it and can drain it from other sources.
The Divine Beast Spirits the tribe sees as their true gods are probably composed of this element, though, unlike the Gods with their Divine Realms, they were rare.
It seemed that they didn’t live in the physical plane or have their own pocket planes, such as the Divine Realms.
No, these Divine Beast Spirits live elsewhere completely; I could even call it another dimension, a dimension where spiritual energy probably originates from.
They visit physical planes momentarily to see their descendants. It wouldn’t be crazy to say that the tribes of beast people might descend from the divine beast spirits in one way or another.
But how could these people be descendants of spirits if they share none of their traits except being beast-like? I guess one of their innate traits is detecting spiritual energy, yeah.
“It is amazing, mommy, such a big spirit tree!” Hekita said, grabbing my leg and pulling my dress. She was very excited.
Honestly, she was such a bundle of cuteness that I could hardly resist giving her another head pat.
“Is that so? Well, I suppose it is quite big, yes.” I nodded. “Hekita, are you able to see the spiritual essence?”
“Yes, I can see it! You can’t?” She wondered, tilting her head.
“I can; these eyes can see everything.” I nodded. “But even then, I can tell this is not an energy that normal people could ever see or detect. Your family probably has a great talent for Spiritual Energy or even Spiritual Magic, but you have yet to tap into it.”
“Is that so?! I didn’t know!” She said, amazed. “Maybe mommy can help me learn it? Can you help me? Pretty please!”
“Hahah, well, if you insist, I was thinking of something.” I smiled. “For now, let’s tap into the strength of this tree first.”
I touched the tree’s bark and gently caressed it. Hekita did the same, imitating me. As the two of us felt waves of spiritual energy surging from the tree, its leaves grew larger and its branches longer. A beautiful tree over a hundred meters tall was formed within minutes, and once it reached this height, it abruptly stopped growing.
I could feel the spiritual energy coursing through my body. Unlike the potency of the various refined types of Ki, Spirit Energy was gentle—a very gentle and “light” energy, much more gentle than even light itself. Mana was rather dense and slightly "bitter,” if we could give it a flavor. But the spirit energy was different.
If I could give it a flavor, it would be like eating a slightly sweet, whipped cream—so soft, so creamy, and so light. I could hardly get enough of it, but I knew that if I drained the tree out of it all completely, it would die, so I let it slowly share it with me.
But it also shared it with Hekita, surprisingly. Although I didn’t experience any changes, she did. The rainbow-colored spirit energy flowed through her small body and then entered her circulatory system, spreading through every vein her body had.
Until it reached her heart, and I felt something within it forming. For a moment I panicked, thinking she might be in pain, but she looked so happy and calm, smiling while closing her eyes, as if she were drifting into a good dream.
FLASH!
The energy condensed within her chest and crystalized, forming a small, heart-shaped, and rainbow-colored jewel that was directly connected with her heart and her blood vessels.
“Ooh? Ooohh!” She was surprised as she looked into her tiny hands. “Mommy, look! I can control my spirit energy now! What happened?!”
She was manipulating the energy she was given. The tree was no longer supplying any to her, but she was now generating it herself!
I was shocked.
“This might be... Okay, this could be incredible. Hekita, we might have just discovered a way for your entire tribe to awaken a power that you all should have been born with.” I told her, her eyes widening.
“Woah, really? Makes sense! If the Divine Beast Spirits are our ancestors…!” She said, amazed. “Amazing mommy! Thank you for letting me touch the big tree!”
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She ended up hugging my legs.
“Haha, it is fine. Well, you just touched it; it’s not like I gave you anything else…” I said. “I wonder, have you awakened a system yet?”
“Nuh.” She said. “Nothing yet.”
“Good.” I nodded. “It’ll be better for you to get yourself a scarf later with my help instead of having it soul-bound.”
“Scarf?” She wondered without knowing what I meant.
“Anyways, let’s go.” We walked outside my Inner Realm, after noticing there were no System Notifications.
Although I had gained some sort of bond with the tree, it didn’t register through the System Scarf I had. Most likely because it was connected to the Inner Realm and not the outside world. Well, whatever was the case, we walked outside.
Through the spirit connection I gained with that tree, I detected a few things, however. One of them was that it had a connection somewhere. Although it produced its own energies, the spiritual soul the tree possessed was connected to another plane.
I don’t know how to call it either a plane of existence, a different reality, or maybe a dimension. Whatever the naming sense, it was something completely outside our universe, or even the interconnected array of universes that some might call a multiverse.
It was something completely and entirely outside of it all—a separate multiverse of its own, maybe? However, the naming sense wouldn’t work either, because, unlike our multiverse, what I felt with it was much different and deeper.
It wasn’t composed of stars, planets, space, galaxies, and so on. No, none of such things seemed present as we know them in that dimension; it was more like an endless expanse of flowing essences, an endless sky.
More than that, I couldn’t see; however, the connection with this tree was too faint. If I ever want to enter such a place, I’ll need to keep raising that tree until its connection with its “mother dimension” grows more.
For now, I’ll call this mysterious area “Spiritual Plane” for an easy-to-digest name.
Once we moved back to the village, we explained to everyone what happened and why Hekita was playing around with animal-shaped illusions made out of her rather vast spiritual essence reserves.
“S-So that Spirit Tree you grew untapped our inner potential?” Merkite asked. “I-Is that truly something we can do? Maybe Hekita had the talent?”
“No, actually, there might be… There might be some truth to this, not just for my daughter. I mean, I am really happy she got such amazing powers, but it might truly be something of our tribe.” Urbosa said. “You see, there are tales of our tribe when it was much larger. Back then, all the dog and cat tribes belonged to a single tribe. In our home world, which people call the Second Floor. There was a tree, a Spirit tree, that awakened people’s talents.”
“What?! I had no idea of that!” Merkite complained.
“That’s because you never sat down to listen to the elders’ teachings, Merkite! You were always just barking around, wagging your tail at cute girls, or going out to hunt.” Urbosa reprimanded her sister.
Both were the same age, as they were twins born on the same day, but it was quite clear who was the most mature out of the two. Urbosa seemed much older than her twin sister, which made for a rather cute and funny dynamic.
“Aw, man! But those teachings were so BORING!” Merkite crossed her arms. “They should have talked about that stuff directly instead of having to introduce everything through boring old tales about people talking with animals.”
“It’s our history and traditions, my foolish sister!” Urbosa sighed. “Anyway, I think we can learn more if we ask our oldest elder. Should we go after lunch?”
We were currently eating lunch together. My mother, my sister, and Juan were with us, alongside the twins’ grandmother, who had already officially begun a relationship with my mother. Quite the shocker, but my mother had her own life, so I didn’t judge if she got with someone older or not.
“I suppose we should, yes.” Their grandmother nodded. “I also remember a bit about the Great Spirit Tree. In some of our traditions, I think it says something about the tree being a gift left by our Ancestors, the Divine Beast Spirits, so we could tap into our inner spiritual powers. Or something… Unfortunately, I am a lot like Merkite, and I never paid much attention to that, hahaha!”
“Geez, you should have!” My mother reprimanded Ashen. “It is something important to your tribe; you should treasure these things.”
“Hmm, I suppose you’re not wrong, my dear.” Ashen apologized. “Now that I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to appreciate this much better. Sorry, I’ll try to be better for you.” She held her hand gently.
“E-Eh? Ah… W-Well, if you say so…” My mother became a young girl in love after her girlfriend said that, blushing like a high schooler.
“I can make little animals, Auntie Ruby!” Hekita called for my little sister, as she made a small cat. “It looks like Felix, hehe!”
“Oooh, not bad!” Ruby nodded. “Can you make, like, a bird?”
“A bird! Hmmm…” Hekita concentrated on her own hands, and a bird quickly shaped itself out of her flowing essence. “There! Bird!”
The little bird resembled a parrot of sorts, flying up and moving around everyone before dissipating quickly after. We were always amazed by her talent; it seemed she could do a lot with the spirit energy she had gained. I am fairly sure this level of talent is not normal at all; Hekita is probably developing some unique ability.
For now, I would call her “Spirit Creator," using Spirit Energy to temporarily create Spirits out of her own design and imagination. They are like temporary and useful familiars, and maybe if she can cultivate her spirit energy some more, she could eventually summon very powerful ones that would last for a while as well.
“This is really incredible,” Juan commented. “I can’t remember a single Hunter capable of doing something like this. Isn’t she literally just creating spirits? Even if they disappear.”
“Yeah!” Ruby nodded. “She could become popular as a very young hunter, I suppose.”
“Really auntie? "Can I become popular in your world?!” Hekita started getting excited again. “I wanna go! Mama, mommy! I wanna go to Earth! Now, now!”
“Hekita, enough. We will go once Bing Xue decides; do not force her.” Urbosa said.
“We’ll go next week, so don’t worry. Have some patience.” I smiled back at her.
“Okay…” She nodded. “Mommy is much nicer than Mama…” She hugged my belly.
Haha, I guess I am way too weak with children to be harsh with them. Urbosa has to take care of those things, unfortunately. But I’ll try to be stricter; I just need to learn how Urbosa does it.
“Hmph, well, I suppose that’s fine. It is very clear that you’re very weak against children; you are like a young mother, Bing Xue.” Urbosa giggled. “You’ll learn they can be little devils themselves.”
“I am slowly learning already, ahahah.” I laughed a bit.
Once we finished lunch, we moved to the Elder’s tent, and after explanations, she went into much more detail about what happened. She looked clearly amazed and happy, even excited.
“T-This is incredible! Bing Xue! Is this true? Do you truly possess a Spirit Tree?! And Hekita…!” She muttered, pointing at the girl. “My dear child, you’ve awakened what our Ancestors called a “Spiritual Heart”! It is a special organ inside your body, a second Heart that will allow you to cultivate the Essence of the Spirits!”
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