60 Transmigration (END)

"Hey brother, I see you getting good at these mind control stuff," Kedan said, rising. They were in a lush green grassland which was a cliff overlooking a sea. His brother stood staring into the vast horizons, seemingly deep in thought.

"So you managed to pull it off, I am impressed," Dane said turning around, with that same grin that Kedan knew all too well. The grin of a big brother who was bullying or taunting their younger sibling. It was the same grin that small kids usually have when they are playing 'why are you hitting yourself' with their younger siblings. You get the look and the terror it brought to Kedan's heart.

This only lasted for a moment, before expressions of sincerity came on their visage. The brothers wrapped each other in a sweet embrace. The kind warriors and war heroes have when they got to meet each other again after so long.

"Is it you, are you here?"

"Of course not, part of me is in that crystal you holding, in real life." That last part was said when Kedan turned to look at his hands to see if he was holding something.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" An eager Kedan of course. He loved this man since he had led him through countless battles. Everything he had he had acquired by his help, mostly. He could be considered a loyal dog that understood the value of his master. And as any dog owner, and politician would tell you, having a faithful junkyard dog was never a bad idea.

"That's the thing bro, where I am going, you can't follow," Dane said in a dejected manner.

"What do you mean?"

"I have implicated you enough as it is. I mean to take on the path of a villain, at least, until I get what I am owed! Then I'll just quietly walk away to my new home."

"Villain? Owed? New home?" Needless to say, at this point, Kedan had more questions than answers, but his brother wasn't helping him at all. At the same time, dark thoughts were encroaching his mind. Kedan couldn't help but wonder what his brother had in mind.

"I would love to explain to you all about it, but for now we don't have time. Plus, you need plausible deniability."

"Come on bro, we stand by each other forever, ride or die, remember?"

Dane chuckled, "You've been hanging out with mortals for far too long bro."

"be that as it may, you get my point!"

"Don't worry, this is not some suicide mission. Things will have to get dark before they can get better, and I need to protect you from all that. This is not a goodbye, we WILL see each other again soon."

"Define soon!" Kedan asked, but at this point, his vision was darkening. He was falling unconscious.

***

"You're finally up!" Joyce said, "You gave us quite a scare, what would the people say about our hero if they saw him collapse like that?

Kedan found himself surrounded by the group he had led into the cave. From their expressions, and what Joyce said, he could tell they were relieved to see him rise. While he saw care and concern in some eyes, many just looked at him as some sort of symbol, far greater than any human.

He was their source of inspiration, their benefactor, their protector, their hero. Seeing him walk back from where he had rushed off to, some even thought he had gone to answer nature's call. It had been on his re-entry when he had collapsed, falling to the ground.

When Kedan finally rose, he looked around agitatedly as though he had lost something. He even queried the group but none had seen the kind of object he described. Kedan used that device as an excuse to explain his collapse. In his story, the device was a very powerful weapon that shouldn't be handled lightly.

By doing so, he hoped to motivate the Warriors to at least join him in the search, after all, the more that took part in the search the merrier.

Little did he know that the object he was looking for no longer existed. It had broken, rather, disintegrated to nothing, its particles simply being released as molecules into the atmosphere. A complete dissolution. At the same time, as it was splitting, an ethereal being was released.

A new version of Dane had been born! One unlike any other that had ever been in existence.

The conditions to fulfill these were extremely difficult, and only in extreme conditions could such life forms even be allowed to exist by nature, and Dane had fulfilled every condition. Few even knew that such being existed, and even among those that did, fewer knew how to become one. Many just assumed that they had been born like that.

Dane currently had taken on a Spiritual body, making him a spiritual lifeform. What does it mean to become a spirit?

For starters, he was invisible. Unseen and unable to be detected through normal means. Since his body was not physical but metaphysical. As such, he couldn't interact directly with the physical matter and elemental particles. While this was a good thing, it was also a double-edged sword. In this form, he would be unable to perform any spells. Dane was essentially powerless in that form.

It was as though he existed in another dimension altogether. Currently, Dane was at Grade F Spirit. This was because he had one ability, Possession.

Pay attention, this is important.

All mortal beings were made up of 3 main parts, the Soul, Spirit, and Body.

The body was the meatshield. The physical component. The part that interacted with nature. It had its wants and needs, and desires. It needed to rest, eat and procreate. It also had the instincts, such as the fight or flight instinct that enabled it to protect itself. It was these bodies that made mortals mortal.

Next came the soul. This was the part that contained the mind and emotions. It parked the whole personality of the individual and was the hallmark of a sentient being. It also held the bloodlines, talents, affinities to elements and so on.

However, there was little that was known about the Spirit. While the soul determined the abilities, the spirit determined the output. The spirit acted as the medium of interaction with the world and the universe. The spirit determined how much power the individual outputted, and which Grade they were in.

While the elements that were being influenced were physical and metaphysical, they were manipulated using the spirit. Only in spirit did one gain access to their power. It was in the spiritual realms that magic and mana lived, and from the spirit overflowed the power. Only the greatest of needs could summon power for the first time, although subsequent summoning became easier. This was because the spirit was said to be in a dormant state, and only need could awaken it. Once awakening, then one could wield their power with relative ease.

For non-sentient mortal beings, the body was in charge while the spirit and soul were submitted. This meant that the being in question only met its physical needs, neglecting other needs. Should such beings awaken an ability, it was by activating the spirit. Since they were both subordinated to the body, the creature used the power to meet its physical needs.

It should be noted that as creatures grew in power, both their mind and body grew. However, as they grew, the needs of the body would diminish, while the will of the soul would rise. This meant that as they rose in power, non-sentient beings could achieve some form of sentience. By the time they were immortal, they would be completely sentient.

Given that a body's needs were exceedingly simple, it was very easy for a creature with superior intelligence to come in and possess the body. Non-sentient beings were the easiest targets of Possession. Even a weaker Spirit could Possess a much more powerful being and wield its power as its own. This was the fear factor of Possession.

Next came the sentient mortal beings. Being mortal, they needed to remain in a body that had an expiry date, or as mortals called it, lifespan. With sentience came thoughts, desires and a solid will. This will was the definite and sovereign ruler of the sentient beings, the persona. The total of one's decision. This was who that person was, the soul.

Possession in simple terms involved creating a connection with an individual's spirit. Using this connection, one could transmit their will to the possessed being. Whether it worked or not depended on whether one was able to break through and dominate his will above all else.

Breaking through and exerting one's will was not easily done. Only someone who was at least 2 Grades above the target could forcefully possess a sentient being. Other factors that affected Possession included IQ and EQ. Both made an individual heavily fortified, with almost unbreakable wills. The weak and forgotten were much easier targets. Finally, there was the state of the Spirit. A Super had an awakened spirit, while a non-Super's spirit could be said to be dormant.

Due to Dane being at such a weak level, Grade F, he knew he had an obvious weakness, he couldn't possess a Super just yet. Doing so could lead to him even being destroyed. This was also true for all Spiritual entities, they couldn't possess a much more powerful being than they were.

It was for this reason that Dane would never have tried to possess Kedan. As fun as it would have been terrorizing his bro, he would have been destroyed by the extremely powerful spirit that Kedan had. Instead, he chose to mind control him using some residue energy from the move. By doing so, he had moved them from the cave back to where everyone else was.

How did Dane achieve a spiritual body?

First, Dane was an immortal, which meant that his soul was not dependent on a body. He still had his main body, but he could move with other bodies and shapes. Which a consciousness that was so complex, changing or taking on new bodies had been more of a hobby. Now he realized how much he needed it.

The next part was that he needed to sever all ties to his main body. As long as he was alive, Dane's soul was connected to his body, three parts of one. There were ways of separating the soul from the body temporarily, but such means had limitations, and ultimately, the soul would still belong to the body.

Dane had consciously cut all connections with his body. He had detached this part of his soul from the rest of the soul. Therein lay the third problem. He was not a complete soul. This was more like the solution though. A normal soul without a body would follow the death laws, either enter the cycle of reincarnation or enter the place set by some powerful being.

Anyone who ended up in such a pitiful state would be called a lost soul, or more commonly known, a ghost. These entities lived like hermits. While some chose to haunt and scare mortals, many just carved out a cycle of existence, caught in a loop of their own making unable to get out. This was not a state one wished even for their enemies, but this was what Dane was.

However, he had managed to attain his form while still retaining his self-awareness and a wealth of knowledge in this sector. Back in the palace, as he was shedding part of his soul to go become a ghost, he had applied several formations in the palace. These formations were the ones that fused with the ghost named Dane to form what he was now, a Spiritual life form.

As Kedan searched around for his brother or the 'device', he didn't know that his brother had already chosen a target for possession.