“T-that’s the last one, great spirit…”
Beatrice called out while slumping against a tall bookshelf. She was stuck running through her noble house’s library touching every single book that was here. Even if it was a cookbook or one with poems, her summoned spirit requested her to give all the books a nudge.
The girl wasn’t sure what this was all about by the spirit gave her a demand and as his summoner, she had to take care of it. She knew that a spirit could hold a grudge if their summoners didn’t treat it properly, even more, if they were a highly intelligent one that could even speak directly to her.
“Was that it?... I guess this will do for now, when we return to that magic academy of yours we will have to go visit the library there.”
“The a-academy library?”
Beatrice went pale in the face, the library at the academy was many times larger than this. It would probably take her ten times longer to touch every book there. Those would also only be the books that she was allowed to browse as a lower tier student. If the gates to the better books were opened this time would be doubled.
“Sure, the more information I get the faster I can increase your mana capacity.”
“My mana capacity?”
“Oh, I guess I haven’t spoken to you about that part. How should I say this without hurting your feelings Beatrice… you’re kind of… behind your peers when it comes to many things, mana included…”
Beatrice flopped her head down in shame. She knew this fact well, her talent was mediocre at best. The three girls that were egging her on after the summoning ritual were all better than her when it came to mana and spells.
Even though she was a summoner there were certain low level spells that every mage type could learn. She had trouble maintaining those simple spells and she trailed behind most of the other students. The only way that she was able to make up for it was through slightly better grades that came at the expense of hard studying.
“Your mana capacity is too minuscule to summon me fully into this world, that is why at most I am able to materialize my body parts. Even then you probably noticed the headaches?”
Beatrice nodded with indignation, she had a suspicion that it was her fault that the spirit couldn’t fully appear. Though this brought another thing to light, just how strong was this heroic spirit? Even though her mana capabilities trailed behind most of her peers, it wasn’t by such a staggering amount. Adabelle was able to control her snake without much trouble, she felt like that would also be something that she could do.
“Yes… I’ll try to increase my mana, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that. With these basic spellbooks I should be able to convert some of my own techniques… but you might have to prepare for some harsh training if you want to get stronger…”
When the word ‘stronger’ was uttered Beatrice thought back to what she and her parents discussed. Her grandfather had been disposed of by the main family that they were serving. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, in her heart there was only rage and vengeance.
“Don’t even think about that, at least not yet.”
“Great spirit?”
“We are connected, I know what you want but you won’t find any answers at the end of that road.”
“But…”
“Well, for now, go back to your family and rest. I have some work to do…”
The connection between the two was cut as if Zhang Dong turned off a phone. It seemed like she wouldn’t really be able to control this heroic spirit at least not till her mana somewhat matched his.
In his soul dimension, Zhang Dong looked at a tired Beatrice leaving the library. While she was touching the books he was able to absorb all the knowledge into his system. This knowledge was now part of his and thanks to it he already knew the situation in this world.
It wasn’t that different from where he came from, just as he thought before the noble houses here were analogs to clans in his own. The biggest difference was the size which was much lower, this world's planet was also much smaller than the immortal type world that he came from. It was about double the size of his old earth but compared to the giant landmass he traveled daily as a nascent soul master this place was quite tiny.
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“I guess when the gaps in individual strength get large enough and a single person can topple governments by themselves, worlds like these are the results…”
He mumbled to himself while waving his finger around. As he did the scenery shifted to something more familiar, his old crafting abode. Instead of him now teleporting into it through the system it was created directly in this soul dimension. He needed the facilities here to combine a few things together, mainly some cultivation manuals with the magic manuals from this world.
“They are quite similar to the ones I’ve studied but it will be safer to do this through the system.”
Through the years he had become quite an expert but this didn’t mean that he was all-knowing. He had a general idea on how to boost Beatrice’s mana reserves through some soul arts but it was better to spend some points first. He had gained quite a bit of them after absorbing that corrupt cube.
Zhang Dong arrived at a familiar-looking desk with a lot of drawers. This was the device that he used to upgrade almost all of his and his sect’s techniques. With a little wave of his hand, he produced a book of magic. This one had the main mana technique that Beatrice’s branch family was using.
It didn’t seem like much out of the ordinary, he even tried emulating some of the spells that this place had to offer. With his massive amounts of spiritual energy, it wasn’t that hard to convert it into mana. It only required him to change a couple of things while using his soul as a medium to cast spells.
At least in theory as he was still doing this in his own soul dimension. He would also have to get the hang of this as he left, like utilizing his old techniques would be hard to reproduce in this world. Certain fundamental laws were different here but most of them were quite similar.
“I guess I’ll give her the old heavenly lightning treatment… it is my best technique…also there is also that one way… think it should speed things up a bit...”
He popped in the magical book into the shelf to put it up as the base while the other one had his Heavenly Lightning cultivation manual. He could add more points to get most out of it, things were dire so he decided to go all out. This wasn’t the time to be a miser, the faster the girl leveled up the sooner he would be able to go out into this world.
He still had no idea where one of those cubes could be at. Cultivators were people that lived long lives so he wasn’t panicking just yet. Before anything would be decided months or years could pass by. Everything depended on how well the Saint Fist Sect could hide the fact that they weren’t weakened.
Even then, the people from his own sect might not help them out if the Yggdrasil Sect came knocking. Which would give his family and friends more time, they were already quite strong without him. Qiang and Liena could somewhat contend with late stage cultivators and they would only get stronger.
“They will be fine… unless they offend someone…”
He shook his head while trying to bury his worries inside. The faster he got out of here, the better, it was time to see if he could get this girl up into fighting condition. If she was able to summon him fully, it would already be a victory in his eyes.
….............
Beatrice closed her eyes as she curled up in her large bed. The day went by quickly, after getting the library part done she took a long bath and then went straight to bed. She was tired but also couldn’t really sleep due to the big revelation today. The death of her grandfather was still on her mind.
Her parents weren’t going into much detail about it, not saying more than that the main family was responsible. They didn’t mention anyone in particular so she didn’t have a target to focus her anger on. The only thing on her mind now was to get stronger.
After rolling around in her bed for an hour her body finally gave out and she fell asleep. But what should have been a fast awakening in the morning turned into a strange dream event.
She found herself on some kind of tropical island with strange trees. Beatrice looked around and could see clear water everywhere. This all felt so real but something was off about it.
“Is this a dream… I never had a lucid dream like this before…”
This looked like a dream, the biggest telltale sign was the giant golden dragon in the distance. She could see it shaking its ass around like a cat before pouncing on some kind of strange monster fish.
“I’ve seen that you made it, we can begin the special training!”
Beatrice turned around to see a familiar figure. It was her summoned spirit but this time around he was regular sized. This didn’t mean that he wasn’t imposing, he was still a large man while she was a smaller girl.
“Training… how did …”
“Ah yes, you’re probably wondering how I brought you here? Well, let’s just say that this Leigong has his ways.”
He started talking while getting closer, she wasn’t sure about this spirit's motives but he didn’t seem like a bad person to her. He was also the only spirit that answered her call which made her see him in quite the good light.
“I’m not sure if you know this, but the mana techniques that you are using are just a form of soul manipulation… but the ones you are using are just imitating the real thing, quite ineffectively.”
Beatrice perked up as he continued to speak. This heroic spirit seemed quite wise so if he was sharing some of his knowledge with her, she would listen. She wasn’t really sure what he meant by soul manipulation.
Casting spells consisted mostly of drawing mana from the air and condensing it into magic circles. With the correct sequence of the circles, a spell would be produced. She never heard anything about the relation between magic and the soul so this was quite the interesting reveal.
“Well, it’s better to just show you… this isn’t your true body, I just pulled a shard of your true soul here… In theory, you should be fine…”
“Fine with what?”
She asked while Leigong her spirit moved over and gave her forehead a poke. The moment he did a jolt of electricity followed along with a torrent of information. This caused her pain followed by her face planting into the warm sand in front of her.
“Well… maybe not… but you are still here… so it was a success!”
The heroic spirit laughed while Beatrice was squirming on the beach sand while holding her head.
“Let us begin the training!”