CH 1: Realm of Spirits

I woke up reluctantly, but I was finally awakened by the incomprehensible pokes in my body. When I opened my eyes, I certainly didn't think I would see a parody of Sun Wukong. Even as a monkey, he was more human than any other life form I had ever encountered. Most importantly, he could talk. Not by transmitting thoughts through emotions, but in a simple language that I could understand, though it looked more like a mixture of Eastern languages from my past life.

[T/N: Picture...]

"Interesting," he said after a few more pokes at my body.

I didn't really care what was interesting at this point, but I did get a non-aggressive and reasonable representative of the local fauna.

I moved and began to get up. All this time he was looking intently at something in me, as if peering into the very essence of me, it was a little unnerving.

"Hello, who are you?" I decided to stop our mutual staring and start a dialogue. It was getting easier and easier to convey my thoughts. This form of communication seems to be instinctive for people like me.

At that moment, his squinted eyes from under his bushy eyebrows became round, and his mouth opened into an O. He jumped a few feet away from me a second later.

"Are you sane?!"The monkey started yelling and pointing his finger at me.

"You too?!"I decided to keep up with him.

When he calmed down he came close to me and started sniffing me. Honestly, it was strange and I was taken aback for a while. Before I had time to get indignant I heard him:

"Where are you from? Why don't I feel the element in you? How did you come to be reasonable as a lower spirit?"The questions began to pour from him.

"Wait, wait, wait, let me first explain where we are, who you are, who I am, and then I will answer your questions"I managed to say before he began to ask new questions.

"Well, my name is Wong, I'm a baboon spirit, the highest spirit in my 730 years"he finished his sentence with pride. Judging by his constantly twitching tail, he wanted to know about me right here and now, but decided to abstain.

For a few hours, listening to all the incoming information from the wordy Wong, I began to understand what world I was in.

As it turned out, we are now in the spirit world a place even its inhabitants don't fully understand. As Wong says, you can walk down a familiar road, but end up in a different place altogether.

There are two main kinds of spirits here, these are spirits of darkness and chaos, and of light and harmony, but that doesn't mean that these spirits command darkness or light, no it denotes their path of development, or the focus of their energy. All spirits become smaller, but stronger and more intelligent as they live, this applies to both the first and the second. The main difference is that light spirits themselves are peaceful by nature, they do not see the point in senseless violence, they become stronger and smarter as they comprehend themselves or the world around them, and as the quality, density, and quantity of their energy increases.

[T/N: Picture....]

While dark spirits are more prone to chaos and destruction, they can become stronger from killing spirits absorbing their energy. This can not but affect their already not very adequate mind, the spirits themselves and are energy, that is, when absorbing another's energy spirit absorbs into itself and the essence of the other spirit, which is strongly unsettles the psyche. It is not often possible to meet adequate dark spirits, which immediately will not attack you. Inherently not strong-willed dark spirits can rarely, when they can stop from the easy way to become powerful, they are no longer just dark spirits, but possessed.

As he said, it can be very difficult to determine what kind of spirit it is if you don't see outward signs of what it refers to, or you can't feel its energy. And there are a great many different kinds, both dark and light spirits can be the spirits of water, a cat, or even an inanimate object. But the main inhabitants of the spirit plan are the spirits of the four elements: fire, water, earth and air, as well as the spirits of various animals. Then there is a set of derivative spirits of these five types, such as for example the spirit of a stone badger, the spirit of nature, if his energy is properly mixed with the energy of water and earth, and the list goes on and on.

The spirits themselves can live indefinitely, but the oldest spirits are no longer interested in being, and they dissolve in the energy of the world. According to him, he became a higher spirit in spite of his young age by the standards of spirits.

" What kind of higher, lower spirit?"I ask in bewilderment, it often slipped into his stories.

There is a gradation of spirits, all spirits are born inferior of course, except for the great, those already remembered spirits have always been. My friend the head leaf turned out to be such an inferior spirit. Their characteristics are the mind of a child of 5-7 years, low density of energy and a small amount of the same, usually can not control their element away from his body. The next stage is the middle spirit, the energy itself is already more dense and the very reserve of such spirits several times more inferior, the mind is already more like a teenager, owns its element much better, already consciously trying to know themselves, the world, as well as their abilities.

Already the elite spirits are the highest, not much different from the average person, more often in some matters even wiser, some can turn into different beings. All energy parameters are several times better than average spirits, and the most important is the appearance of the source of their energy, i.e. he does not need a highly saturated place with energy to replenish his reserve, he has enough generated energy to live and in the human plane. He can use his element as he wishes, and already begins to have an understanding of the related areas of the element, such as water is not a knowledge of pure water, but generally the liquid as something whole, it is blood, clouds, even just mud.

Ancient spirits are almost the very concept of something definite, appeared maybe a little later than the great spirits. Stronger than the higher ones, there are often some cracks, so it is better still bypass them if you are not sure exactly what kind of spirit. May not be attached to a particular element, as well as being almost an incarnation of it, it is as he knows Tui and La, the Spirits of the Moon and Ocean who have not been seen on the spiritual plane for a long time, or the Mother of Persons. At the mention of her, he turned a little pale.

And I repeated after him, at the same moment. Immediately the cartoon Avatar came to mind, and now I could really see the similarities between the creatures that inhabit it and those I had seen in the cartoon series. It even made me much happier with this news, after all, if the story goes according to the script here, I will be able to participate in these events, and maybe even become like the main character with a harem. After all, I have too many shows and books on all-powerful heroes with lots of girls in my mind. It is only worth finding a way into the world of people, and most importantly to become human again, of course in the life of the spirit can be found pluses, but I am closer to being a man.

The most powerful spirits are the great spirits Rava and Watu, as Wong knows, they have always only fought each other, you could just leave them alone to live on in peace, their parity lasted for centuries. What comes out of his mouth is that with the advent of the avatar era, the life of the spirits has changed, the balance maintained when the great spirits fight is gradually destroyed. Rava, while living on the spirit plane, unknowingly supported and helped the emergence of light spirits, while Watu took away the surplus of dark energy from the dark ones. Now the dark spirits outnumber the light spirits, and they are much more aggressive. As he knows spirits often used to be at enmity with people, but now we have to tame the dark spirits. On the material plane, most people no longer remember the spirits, human life is short, as is memory. But many spirits that were able to adapt in terms of people have mutated into different animals, and some had the strength to remain the same, such as dragons and the spirits of the place that passively feed their existence.

When he finished his story, Wong began to question me about everything I knew about myself. He had not yet seen a purely neutral spirit in his life, one that had a small source of energy and little density. And to be at the same time an intelligent lower in his opinion is unreal.

I did not tell him about my origins, I do not think he needs to know that yet, after all, I know him only a little, though he seems quite friendly spirit.

Without getting any coherent answers from me, he waved his hand, but he looked quite pleased. Almost all the sentient spirits he knew were very dull, he thought. Every now and then they were either asleep, meditating, or minding their own business and asked not to be disturbed. He is not willing to get in touch with those who can keep him company, because they have too many cockroaches in their heads. He can be understood by the standards of the spirits, he is very young and cannot sit still.

"What's your name?"he asked, rubbing the back of his head embarrassedly, only remembering that he didn't know my name.

I had been loaded for a few minutes myself, a lot of names came to mind, but it was as if I felt with my soul that the time for a name had not come yet.

"Hey it's not a problem, I actually learned my name when I was a superior and it just sort of came to me, I guess you're not ready yet"said Wong, seeing my difficulty "let me just call you friend for now!"

"Do you mind being my friend?"he asked excitedly.

Agreeing with him, I was struck for the umpteenth time, his joy of simple communication, he was lonely without a companion, if he was so happy about simple things in my understanding.

And I was not against his company, for I was safer with him, no dark spirits would threaten me. Seeing that I would be with him, his face took on a happy expression. For a spirit, his facial expressions were too lively.

"Well friend let me show you how strong I am," he said puffing his chest with a wheel, just recently at the nearby reservoir settled the dark spirits that attack the light under his protection.

In order to do anything to help their lesser brethren, they wrest their territories from the dark ones that are eager to snack on the peaceful spirits, not all are able to fight back, some do not even have attacking abilities.

As they walked together he began to talk about the time when he was just beginning to realize himself and how he was bugging everyone with his questions. The other spirits seem to have just decided to give him the task of protecting the spirits, to get him off their backs at last. And he was happy to help the defenseless.

We followed the beaten path to a small body of water, where dark water spirits that looked like overgrown Earth piranhas had settled. There was a whole pack of them, led by a middle spirit and a trio of inferiors.

- Stand behind me, usually the medium spirits already know how to use tricks," he said with a serious expression, his whole look taking on a certain animal grace and a springy stride.

Obediently standing behind him, we began to approach. As the distance shortened, the spirits began to growl and move closer. Though the leader still sensed that the monkey was carrying danger to them.

Almost approaching them, I began to feel their emotions, there was excitement and just a huge sense of hunger. In my head, I kept hearing, "food, strong, mine," from the inferiors, and the middle one was silent and preparing to attack.

Tension was building, as sharply dark spirits in a single rush jumped at us, Wong was not confused, increased his wooden staff by almost five meters, and in one blow killed the inferiors. Seeing such a swift massacre, the middle spirit slowed down a bit, but continued the attack nonetheless. The spirit was already a meter away when Wong bound its body with his elongated tail and simply flattened it into multicolored particles of energy.

No sooner had I been surprised by such quick carnage and the strength of my new friend, than most of the energy from the destroyed spirit flew around Vong and into my body.

With the last particle entering my body, my mind was flooded with pain like a nerve in a tooth, only the focus of it was my whole spirit.

"How's that?"I managed to hear Wong say, unconscious.