Florence

Having no other choice Otis opened his car door and jumped out of the car he starts rolling like a log down the hill until he hits a tree

Ugh.

Otis groans and gets up he feels a sharp pain on the right side of his ribs that makes him wince in pain. Ignoring the pain he looked at where the two cars crashed and saw that two men were slowly getting out from the flipped car. His car was upside down and the chauffeur was lying in the car either unconscious or dead. Otis did not have time to worry about the chauffeur as he saw the two burly bodies slowly limp out of the car.

Otis looked at one of the men scanning as if looking for something until he locked eyes with him and the man's mouth rose into a predatory smile. Looking at that smile made Otis's hairs rise and he felt a tingle through his body. He continued to look at the man until he saw the man start sprinting towards him as fast as he could with his injured leg. Otis wasted no more time and dashed away from the men aiming for the gigantic mountain.

Otis's footsteps could be heard on the grass as he sprinted while occasionally slowing down because of his ribs. The two men were catching up to him, they probably had some training or experience. While Otis has not run in forever. The only thing keeping him going was adrenaline.

Otis finally arrived at the mountain and knocked on the stone

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Nothing happened

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Still nothing happened. Otis looked back to see that he was losing ground

"Open the fucking door!"

Ugh

Otis winced in pain as he screamed, the door still not open and he looked back they were less than one hundred feet away now and he could not wait. Otis started to climb up the mountain hoping to find a crack or some type of terrain he can hide behind. Otis climbed a fair bit of the mountain before he saw a large rock and looked behind him and saw the two men climbing after him, he desperately climbed towards the rock he was on all fours now and exhausted by the time he arrived at the big rock and disappeared behind it.

Huff! Huff! Huff!

Otis sat down on is butt and leaned his back against the rock to catch his breath he was now exhausted and the pain in his ribs intensified.

Should I just let them catch me? I can't run forever and they are clearly faster than me.

Otis contemplated giving up and as he was thinking this his eyelids slowly began to close, before they shot open again

No I have to stay awake

Otis fought against the urge to fall asleep but everytime he fought it seemed like a mysterious force continued to push him to sleep. His drowsiness seemed unnatural.

Otis continued to fight until the next time he opened his eyes he saw the inside of a cave. It was cold and wet, the stones were rough and in the middle was a small pond.

Where am I?

" An illusion" A sudden voice echoed throughout the cave

Otis jumped at the sudden voice and scanned his surroundings but found nothing.

"Don't bother looking. I am not physically here, I am not even really alive. This is a piece of my consciousness that I left here."

After somewhat calming down Otis touched his ribs and chest and his eyes widened when he realized that he was no longer hurt or tired

"An illusion?" Otis questioned

"Yes you are not actually here, only your mind is." The voice explained

Otis eyes widened and his mouth opened when the voice said that

"I have to go then. I can't stay here, my body is in trouble." Otis exclaimed in panic.

"Don't worry, an hour in the real world is only a minute here." The voice explained

Otis breathing became more steady and his tense body became more relaxed after hearing that

"So who are you and why am I here?" Otis questioned

"I am Florence, a user of the trick spirit and one of Origin's children."

Otis froze, never did he think in his life he would meet one of the legends from the stories.

"You mean the world creator, spirit gifting Origin right?" Otis said hesitantly

"Yes and no."

Huh. Otis thought

"It is true that his body made this world but when did he gain the title spirit gifter?" Florence asked puzzlingly

"His heart made the spirits did it not?"

This time it was Florence's turn to be puzzled.

"Sigh"

Florence sighed as if understanding something and told Otis to tell him everything that they were taught about in history.

"I see."

After listening Florence seemed to understand something after taking a moment his voice echoed through the cave again

"Some of what you said is true, however a lot of the information has been twisted to fit my ten brothers and has a lot of missing information. I don't have the time to give you a whole new history lesson, however I can say that the idea of spirits coming from fathers heart is completely false. I assume they made this lie so that they can be looked upon as Almighty gods in this world and have ultimate authority, but spirits have been around even before fathers birth just like the stars. They are mysterious and powerful all we know is that they have wills of their own and certain characteristics i guess you can call them. The only way to wield a spirit is to open a spirit gate. For that you hav-"

"I know how to open a gate, you have to drink the blood of a previous essential and consume the corresponding spirit from a potion. What I don't get is if the spirits are not controlled by the ten pillars then why are there no spirits users outside of the pillars?" Otis question

"HAHAHAHAH! So they call themselves pillars now huh? That's funny, anyways in order for you to become essential your blood has to become spirited. Spirits cannot spirit your blood, so the only way to do that is to drink the blood of a previous spirit user of your intended spirit when that happens your first spirit gate will open and you will be welcome to drink your spirit potion. If there are no previous essentials of a spirit then no one can become a user of that spirit, this is why my brothers killed all other spirit users. "

"What happens if you drink a spirit that is different from the spirit blood you drank?" Otis questioned

"You will throw up. Like I said spirits have a will of their own. If you drink a spirit that is not the same as the spirit in your blood the spirit will not be attracted to your spirit gates and will simply turn around and go back where they came from."

"I see." Otis said with his hand on his chin he was deep in thought after obtaining interesting information.

"However!"

Florence's voice rang out interrupting Otis's thinking

"Do not think that we are the ones who control the spirits. They allow themselves to be controlled because they enjoy doing what they do. My conscience has spent too much time talking and I now have limited time so I will teach you one more thing before I go. There is one more thing that can help someone become a spirit user."

As Florence said this a rock broke and revealed three items inside two if they were round glass bottles Otis guessed them to be potions. The last one was a metallic white rock, it was half the size of hand but it gave off a majestic aura he has never felt before

"Stars."

While Otis was looking at it Florence introduced the white rock.

"They were the most prized possessions of us children, starting many wars."

Otis looked at the star with an open mouth

"I-I-I thought that these were gone" Otis said, stuttering as he spoke.

"They are all gone, or at least I think they are gone. One can never be too sure with my brothers."

"Then how do you have this?"

"There were always few trick spirit users so when father handed out the stars to all of us, I decided to give one to all my fellow trick spirit users and hide the rest. When my brothers started going crazy over them I decided that I was never going to release my star or use it in fear of my brothers wrath and greed. I stayed out of the war and didn't join any alliance, despite that when my twelve brothers decided to kill anyone outside of their elements I was not excluded. My people were slaughtered and I was forced to retreat into this cave with only a part of my consciousness."

Otis stood there just thinking, he didn't know what to say Florence's past seemed tough but who was he to judge the past of someone who was over nine thousand years old. Seeing Otis had nothing to say Florence continued,

"So I and the trick spirit have waited for someone to come here to-"

"Wait, wait, wait, you mean in all of these years I am the only person to come on here" Otis interrupted

"No, three others went to the same rock as you on that mountain but like I said before spirits have a will and they don't typically hang around people they do not like. You are the only person who went to that rock the trick spirit has liked."

Otis head nodded as he began to understand

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I want nothing, the trick spirit however wants you to become its user."

Otis was not that surprised as he had come to a similar conclusion when he saw the potion in the rock, however Otis did not want to become a spirit user. Once one becomes a spirit user they have to join the military and follow absolute and strict rules. Essentials have no freedom and unless they are high in they are no different than slaves of the kingdom. Otis knows this all too well because he only gets to see his dad three times a year.

On the other hand once he leaves this illusion he will be a dead man anyway so if becoming a spirit user can help him out of his current situation he will take it and deal with the consequences later.

"I accept, but how will I become a user without your blood" Otis asked

"Ah! That brings me back to why I showed you the star. I lied when I said that there was only one way to become a spirit user. The star can be used as a replacement of spirit blood. All you have to do is crush a piece of the star into powder we call stardust and put it into the spirit potion."

Otis walked over to the star he picked it up and set it down on the flattest rock he found. After doing that he walked over to pick up a big rock and marched back towards the star. Seeing this Florence panaked

"WAIT! WAIT! You don't need all of the stars to open a spirit gate, you only need about a finger's worth!" Florence quickly informed

"Oh." Otis said as he looked down at the gigantic rock he was about to use to crush the star.

Otis searched for another rock this time a smaller one and he arrived back to where he placed the star. He grabbed the star and squeezed it attempting to measure its strength, surprisingly despites its strong aura it was as soft as gold, He then began to carefully break off a piece the size of his finger after succeeding he wiped off the sweat on his face and as his eyes followed the sweat to the floor his eyes suddenly narrowed and his face scrunched as he asked

"If this is an illusion, how am I able to feel and touch things?"

"It is one of my myths" Florence casually responded

"Myths?" Otis said confused at the new word

"Yes Myths. There are two types of spirit users, essentials and Mythics. Essentials are people who follow the spirit gates path and can only use the abilities the spirits will allow. However when consuming stardust with the spirit potion, the stardust acts as your own will and combines with the spirit gates allowing you to gain additional abilities that represent your own will named myths making you a mythic. That was a dumbed down explanation as you will have to find out how it works for yourself down the road."

Otis once again granted with knowledge he did not know before nodded his head

"Now stop standing there and get back to work. I'm running out of time."

Hearing Florence's words Otis grinded the star on the flat rock until there were only little specks of dust on the rock. He then swept the dust into his right hand using his left hand and walked over to the potion and glanced at the bottle next to it. The bottle had a similar shape as the potion bottle but inside of it was a bronze necklace, it looked rather dull and bland so he skipped over it and poured the dust in the potion and the potion turned white as it glowed

"Drink it now!" Florence ordered

Otis picked up the potion and chugged it all. When he was done he sat the bottle back in its original place and stood up when he did he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him and it sent back to the floor his eyes slowly closed and heard a familiar voice as his conscious slowly faded

"Be careful child, the gates of the trick spirit are unique but they are not for everyone, tread carefully and goodluck my kin."

When he opened his eyes again he saw a Giant gate in front of him. The gate was bigger than the tallest and widest building he had ever seen. The gate was silver and it had star shapes engraved all over it. Otis looked around and all he could see was black everything he looked at his own body but he could not see it. It was as if his body was not here, only his mind.

After noticing he has no body, he turned his vision up and he saw a sea of sparkling lights. It was a beautiful scene but his stargazing was interrupted . by millions, maybe even billions of tiny purple glowing specs. He looked towards the group of glowing specs as they rushed towards the gate and rammed against it. As if succumbing to the pressure the gate quickly busted open with a grand opening beyond the gates was a yellow glow he went to go check it his conscious for the third began to fade before his vision turned completely black he a voice or more like a thousand voices speak at once

"HAHAHAHHA, Finally!" the voices said