Manifold. Soul Realm. On the "border" of Origin Realm.
Vitae watches the red soul talking to her Creator. The soul couldn't see her or any other souls, so the realm is just an endless space of white to it. After listening to their story, Vitae understands what happened. Origo wants to help the red soul reunite with its son. The goddess wants to see how he would do that and prepares to interrupt any Primal magic her Creator would cast. Fortunately to all three, Origo cast a Fire magic. Elemental magic that deals with non-physical being are considered 'Spirit' magic. It couldn't force the soul to do anything like with a Binding magic (Primal Life magic) and has to have the agreement from the Spirit, like when a magic user wants to summon a spirit.
The Fire magic Origo cast seems to be a reversed Fire Spirit Summoning. Although it deals with bridging two realms, the Spirit itself exists in multiple realms so it doesn't need to use any Laws of Space. If it would, how could there be so many Summoners?
Vitae watches the red soul flicker, turning from a Human's soul into a Spirit's soul. The effect was much weaker than when her Creator cast Spirit Binding. Of course she know why. Spirit Binding was a Primal Life magic, and her creator bound that wolf's spirit to him. This time her Creator merely guided the Spirit back to its realm, its power would be unchanged.
She peeks through the Rift then silently smiles.
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Manifold. Ethereal Realm.
Material Realm and Ethereal Realm are folded paralleled to each other. Each point in Ethereal Realm is corresponding to a point in Material Realm and vice versa. That only matters when the Spirit Projects / Shifts back and forth without a beacon or summoner. Agaric's Spirit has a summoner this time. With the help of Origo, he is being escorted by a group of red particles to Penum. Penum is paralleled to Mirage Lake Town so it wouldn't take too much time.
Glutton's Domain - Penum.
The Ethereal Realm is closer to Origin Realm and Soul Realm, so the amount of Mana here is much more richer than in Material Realm. Of course it couldn't compare to the material air around Origo himself. Meanwhile a Projected / Shifted spirit exists in both realms (plus Soul Realm) at the same time, so Glutton's breath could carry the thick Mana around its master to the Ethereal Realm.
Glutton nods after listening to the explanation. Atrament, fearing he would lose the trust of the wolf, has his nymphs explain a lot of things, including how a Spirit exists, lives, eats (absorbs), summons and be summoned.
Suddenly the snake floats to the front of Glutton, his tail pointing at it. The wolf frowns. He understands that Atrament wouldn't randomly do an act of disrespect with it. Because the snake is too big, Glutton couldn't see his head from this spot.
"What's wrong with him?" It turns to ask the nearby nymph.
The nymph silently shakes her head then looks at her colleagues. One of the other two floats up and seemingly looks at the purple sky.
"We have intruder." She says.
"Let me see.." Glutton stands up from its throne but was interrupted by the snake's tail dropping on its head. It growls, making the snake turn back and bow.
"I'm sorry, but this is probably my own problem. You don't have to worry." Atrament says then turns back.
"Red color. The closest Fire domain is.." The nymph beside her owner says.
"They are coming from the North." Another nymph interrupts her.
"Huh? Is there a Fire domain nearby in that direction?"
"How do I know? We've never left this domain." The nymph says then looks at her owner. The snake came to this domain from the South so she doesn't has much hope that he would know.
"There are a dozen of them! The leading Spirit looks weird though. What do we do, master?" The nymph turns to ask the snake.
"The other spirits, I barely feel their existence. However the leading Spirit is carrying a lot of Mana with high density." Atrament says with grim voice. "It's even thicker than when.." He turns to glance at Glutton. The wolf confusedly looks back. "..breathes out."
Glutton frowns then walks over to the side, looking up at the sky. A dozen Spirit figures, too far to be seen clearly, following a glowing red spirit. It can't sense Mana yet, but judging from Atrament's words, that glowing spirit would be very troublesome to deal with. It's still Lv7 so it couldn't deal with something that Atrament worries about.
Suddenly, some figures on the sky stop, some other keep flying downward but soon stop after noticing the snake. The snake's gaze freezes them. It's like there are just curiously following the red glow.
"What is this nonsense?" Atrament suddenly blurts out. Glutton notices the snake relaxes his coil on the floating purple ball.
Glutton pays closer attention to the glowing balls. [Lv32 Spirit]. Yes, just what is this nonsense? The nymph told it that simple spirits like this are merely food in this realm. Yet the red spirit floating down is Lv32.
"It's just Level 32.. what is this terrifying density of Mana?" A nymph exclaims.
"Halt! This is my.." Atrament abruptly stops then changes his words. "..not your domain! Leave before I have to resort to violent solution!"
Although Atrament normally doesn't tolerate intruder, especially someone weaker than him; but this glowing red spirit feel ridiculously strong. He doesn't want to take the risk.
The red glow finally descends to the ground. Suddenly a wave of Mana, carrying Fire Elemental energy, erupts from the glow. Atrament flinches. The nymphs quickly hides behind their owner. Glutton couldn't react in time and was washed over.
"This.." The wolf opens its eyes widely in surprise.
"Ah?" Atrament notices that although the Mana is dense, the Elemental energy doesn't carry any 'order', just like dissipated energy after a spell is cast. Looking back at the [Lv32 Spirit], the snake realizes how ridiculously under-powered this spirit is. "You scared me you little.."
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"That stupid dragon! You scared me!" Glutton exclaims angrily, interrupting the snake.
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Atrament looks back and forth between the wolf and the red spirit. He wonders which dragon Glutton just bad-maw'd. It can't be His Holiness, right? He might immediately kill the wolf just for that.
"Hey!" Glutton walks toward the fire spirit. "Why did that fat face send you here?"
The identity of 'fat face' aside, Atrament is amazed by how Glutton always carelessly approaches others regardless of the difference in power, as long as the wolf is bigger. He doesn't know if it's bravery of stupid.
The red spirit flicker for a moment the slowly floats toward the wolf. Not in a straight way but wavy like a newborn spirit that doesn't know how to float.
"Hmm?" The wolf's head slightly lowers, his voice carries a hint of confusion. As the red glow comes closer, the wolf leans its head to side, curiously looking.
"It's dangerous." Atrament couldn't patiently watch anymore. Regardless of the red spirit's origin, it's just a simple Spirit. A Lv32 one at that. Absorbing it could bring a lot of power.. However, it was the past for the snake.
Before Glutton's appearance, Atrament had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for any kind of spirit, wouldn't let even a [Lv1 Spirit] get away. After years he only reaches Lv40 and has three.. four Nymph servants. Currently he has a new "food source", so he wouldn't care about anything else.
"Don't worry. I think it's a meal He threw at me." Glutton says without looking back.
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The wolf just realizes that it can actually sense Mana. Just that it always stay with its master after becoming a spirit, it got used to dense Mana. The wave of Mana brought back a familiar feeling for it; so it deduces that the red spirit was sent by its master.
However, why did its master send this spirit is a question. Glutton first guess was Origo wanted to call him but didn't know how to Summon him. As the human said, its master uses Mana very inefficiently, but since he has Infinitive MP, it wasn't a problem. This red spirit is probably his inefficient attempt to Summon it.
As the spirit gets near Gluton, it feels a slight tug from the depth of its belly. It slightly looks down, confused. After becoming a Spirit, the wolf's body is just a group of Earth Elemental energy controlled by its Soul, so it never feels anything like hungry or tired. However, this time, it feels a tug with a slight desire to consume to red spirit. It leans its head to side, feeling the desire slightly growing the closer the red spirit. Unknowing to Glutton, the Fire Elemental energy earlier did carry an 'order'.
"It's dangerous." Atrament warns from behind.
"Don't worry. I think it's a meal He threw at me."
"Meal? It is Lv32, and its Element is clashing with you. Even if you could absorb it, it could still easily break you from inside!"
The red spirit flickers and hastens its speed, this time moves in a straight line toward Glutton.
"It says otherwise~" The wolf unconsciously licks its spiritual lips like a habit.
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The [Lv9 Wolf Spirit] rolls back and forth on the ground. Absorbing other Spirit doesn't give much Exp but rather a small boost of stats on Level up. Although the boost couldn't break Stats Limit, absorbing other spirits was the only way to train in Ethereal Realm. Firstly, all kinds of spirit are counted as the same race so they can't gain Exp fighting each other. Secondly, if they merely rely on the Mana in the realm to Level up, they wouldn't get any stats at all.
Atrament lets out a hissing sigh as the brown-red wolf rolling around. He warned it, but the gluttonous wolf didn't listen. The red spirit seems to accept its fate, but the Fire elemental energy thinks otherwise. Having more clashing element than one's own element in the body, isn't a nice feeling. Atrament knows how that feel. He was a white snake with Holy as highest aptitude, now living in a Darkness domain and coiling around a ball of Darkness.
Fortunately for the wolf, elemental energy without an 'order' to deal damage, won't deal damage; but it would mess up one's MP really bad when clashing with the original element energy. Atrament shakes his head. The wolf would either become a Fire Spirit, an element-less Spirit (which is worse than 'food type' spirit), or stay as Earth Spirit with lower aptitude. Even in the worst case scenario, he still has to protect Glutton until he could get to the Mana Dragon.
Contrary to his thought, Glutton's identity makes the wolf more special than he could imagine...
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Glutton feels its head hurt like spiting to two.
"That darn dragon, sending out such dangerous thing for me to eat!" Even in pain, it wouldn't forget to curse its master.
The snake told it that the red spirit is dangerous, yet it didn't listen and trust that stupid dragon instead. Although it can't (subconsciously doesn't want to) bring harm to its master, it still resolves to torment the dragon with words!
"It would be a nice revenge for this annoying status!"
[Your Mana is being Burnt!][MP 12/24]
[Mana Burn has been Extinguished!][MP 12/24]
[Your Mana is being Burnt!][MP 11/24]
...And so on...
Abiding the 'order' that was given when Origo cast Spirit Offering, the Fire Elemental energy is still trying to 'unite' the red spirit inside Glutton. The huge amount of Fire sets the wolf ablaze, then the Fire energy immediately resolves it. The cycle keeps going on and on until the wolf's MP reaches 0.
[Mana Burn has been Extinguished!][MP 0/24]
[You're now Level 10][Your Race has changed!]
"Again?"