『 Exploration 』

〚 Story by: AyyyZelos 〛

The newly named ghost, Keal, after processing the memories of his meal decided to explore his surroundings.

Adam had been knocked out and bound by his siblings so he didn't know what the area actually looked like, only knowing if it from the map of the Towshire Moors region that hung in his father's study.

Keal slowly floated up to get an aerial view of the graveyard before realising how barren it was, devoid of any creatures besides a few insects and being decorated by the canopies of the surrounding forest of grey trees.

Further away from the graveyard the trees grew more sparse and spread out letting cracks of sunlight penetrate into the area and touch the ground.

Directly outside of the black metal gate at the front of the graveyard was a path made out of gravel that lead to the bottom of the small hill that the graveyard was situated upon.

Travelling further along the path should allow you to reach the end of the moors and reach the closest human settlements but Keal couldn't see that far away due to the thick fog that blanketed the area.

Descending to the ground Keal approached a small cockroach, wanting to see if it could grant him the same feeling of euphoria that devouring the human boy did.

Slowly but surely a wisp of blue energy escaped from the cockroaches tiny body as it froze in place and shrunk in size, being sucked into Keal's mouth and becoming his food.

"Not nearly enough to satisfy me." He muttered.

Being a ghost he didn't really need to eat food but he instinctively knew that he needed the blue energy coming from the insect to live.

Energy he now knew as 'spirit'. Due to his state of being as a creature primarily comprised of spirit, it was for him the equivalent of a human's flesh and blood.

Since the cockroach that he 'ate' didn't actively absorb any spirit from the environment to strengthen itself it had much less spirit than the human Adam, a rank 1 body refining warrior.

From Adam's memories, Keal knew of the initial five spirit warrior ranks, the first three being body refining, transforming and transcending all pertaining to strengthening the physical body. And the last two are spirit imbuement and controlling which Adam didn't know much about besides that they involved using spirit to attack or make potions, both of which he found boring.

Keal didn't know how this would affect him as he didn't have a physical body to strengthen but he assumed his existing ability to float around and absorb spirit from both the environment and selected targets would improve.

Speaking of the environment, it was currently almost devoid of spirit which confused Keal as from Adam's memory Towshire moors was rather plentiful in terms of spirit, but he couldn't have known that his 'birth' used up all of the spirit around the graveyard.

Deciding to think about it later Keal floated over to one of the corners of the graveyard where there was a small shed, he reached out for the door handle before slipping through the door into the shed.

"Huh, neat." He exclaimed in slight surprise.

Taking in the sights before him with his 360-degree vision he spotted two things of note, a glowing green shovel and a scratched up silver ring inlaid with a light blue jewel.

The ring he recognised as a spirit tool that could be used to store items, with the light blue jewel being a spirit gem.

Spirit gems could be used for three purposes, increasing a spirit warrior's spiritual strength, powering spirit tools and being used as a currency between spirit warriors.

Normal people usually bartered for their goods, though in some of the more affluent regions there was a lesser form of currency that was a small circular plate of metal.

The shovel that was glowing with a dim green light, however, confused Keal.

He truly didn't see the value in enchanting a shovel to become a spirit tool, nor did he see a spirit gem inlaid into the shovel to give it its green glow.

So he slowly approached the shovel before being surprised as a green apparition gradually leaked out of it and floated in his direction.

The mass of growing green light jiggled around and turned into a haggard ghost with cracks covering its body and a nasty snarl on its transparent face.

As it jumped at Keal at an incredibly slow pace almost as if in slow motion. A suction force appeared in front of Keal's mouth as the green ghost turned into hundreds of tiny light fragments and was devoured.

"Oh, didn't know there were more of me around here. I hope I can eat a few more to achieve the body refining rank. " Keal stated in a flat tone.

Keal wondered how that weak green ghost could hide inside of the shovel, was it something all ghosts could do? Or perhaps was the shovel somehow special?

Touching the now rusty shovel that was devoid of any glow Keal didn't feel himself being drawn into it as he expected, so he actively tried to shove his gaseous body inside of the object.

And he succeeded, inhabiting the object for a few seconds before it broke due to its already compromised structural integrity and the fact that it wasn't built for the purpose of holding any spirit.

"Guess I'm just too awesome to be contained inside a garden tool." He chucked.

He then pulsed his spirit through the storage ring checking if it contained anything valuable to him before realising that it was too badly damaged to be of any use.

Truly a shame but that didn't affect Keal as he instead decided to absorb the spirit gem that was connected to the ring.

As the spirit flowed into Keal he felt as if he went through a wall similar to when he phased through the shed door before his form became slightly less transparent and had a stronger glow.

He had achieved the body refining stage.

This left Keal with a feeling of great power and fullness as if he was now whole, but he knew that was just an illusion formed from his breakthrough.

But what wasn't an illusion was the rush and exhilaration he felt from his new strength. The addictive feeling of power was something he craved, more, he wanted even more power.

So with this thought in mind, he rushed outside of the graveyard at a much higher speed than previously, following along the gravel path for a short amount of time and subsequently leaving the region with thick foliage overhead before being afflicted with searing pain and jumping back.

"AAH!" He screamed in pain.

Forcing himself to calm down, he looked around to find the cause of such pain, was it an enemy? Possibly a trap to stop ghosts from escaping the graveyard?

Then he realised.

"Oh... Sunlight."