Spirits

"What the fuck is that?"

"A spirit."

[See! I told you he noticed us]

[But he didn't notice before?]

[He got stronger!]

[He got weaker too!]

[Shhh! He'd tell us to shut up again.]

The voices Evan had been hearing for a while now, were the voices of the spirits.

His 'Loved by Nature' title had already taken effect but he did not notice this due to being unable to sense nor hear the spirits.

Now he had awakened his mystic eyes, he could sense, hear, see and interact with them.

"Ah! Your 'Loved by Nature' title. That means that you could be a potential spirit contractor!?"

Laurene who finally understood the severity of the situation shouted out loud, luckily Evan's room was soundproof so the shout could not be heard outside.

"Yeah, I know."

Evan picked up the little spirit who was still growling at Laurene and placed it on his lap. It stopped and hopped around, visibly excited.

The spirit looked like a slime, the weakest monster you could find, yet it was actually a mid-rank spirit.

Spirits had 4 ranks, low ranks, mid ranks, and high ranks. Then there were the great spirits, where only one of each existed for each attribute.

Governing over all the spirits was the spirit king, an existence over level 700. He was the most powerful spirit and he had the power to use all attributes available.

Then there're contracts.

The ones who were able to make contracts with these spirits were called spirit contractors.

Spirits sadly had a below-average growth speed, however, they became stronger nearly two times faster than normal if they were contracted with an individual.

Being able to hear and interact with spirits was the first step to becoming a spirit contractor.

Of course, just because one could hear the voices of spirits and form contracts with them, it did not mean that they could form a contract with any random spirit.

A spirit contractor could only form contracts with spirits on the same wavelength as the contractor's soul.

As the quality of the contractor's soul increased, he would be able to contract with more spirits. However, for now, Evan could only contract with one.

And he chose the one jumping happily in his arms.

|Name- Unknown

Race- Spirit

Level- 50

Existence Level - Bronze

Titles- Medium Rank Spirit [], [].

Class - None

Health – E+

Energy - E+

Strength – E+

Agility – E+

Durability – E+

Intelligence - E+

Condition- Happy

Magic Tiers- Lightning Tier 1.

Skills- Lightning Magic (Extreme)

Unique Skills- Body Transformation. |

It was a lightning spirit with the ability to transform its body into any form it recognized.

While it was currently in the form of a slime, upon contracting with it, he could supply it with the necessary mana to transform into more forms.

There was something weird about its race and titles but Evan's existence was weird in itself, a few more weird things won't cause any trouble.

"You know how spirit contractors are treated, right?"

"Like birds in cages, trust me you won't walk out that door if you are going to tell your father.

It's not a threat, just a fact."

Evan's sudden deep voice and cold glare gave Laurene chills, she instinctively knew he was not joking. She didn't even have to use her lie detection.

'This guy...He's serious!'

His tapping of the crest at the back of his palm only increased the amount of fear she had.

Due to the situation with Evan suddenly collapsing, Laurene had conveniently forgotten about the thousand-year-old demon that Evan had recently contracted.

A demon that possessed the power to effortlessly wipe out a country if provoked, even if weakened, Laurene expected that she should be able to take out a few dozen Level 300s.

She was a Peak Ranked Demon, after all.

Of course, Laurene knew that the seal on Pride had weakening effects, but she never would have expected it to weaken Pride to the extent where she could barely take on an Upper-Low Rank Knight.

Evan purposely withheld this information from her so he could make the Princess do his bidding for a while.

However, he only made her think he was going to unleash the demon to 'clean up' loose ends, to give Laurene the wrong idea. He didn't dare kill a member of the seven heroes after all.

At most, he could only trick her into forming a magic contract with him. One where she was prohibited from disclosing that fact to anyone, nothing more, nothing less.

'But that's probably unnecessary.'

Evan was considering how he was going to exit the Ducal residence as after the events of the day, there would be a higher amount of security around him.

'I could use that guy sleeping in my shadow.'

There was a spirit of the darkness attribute that had been sleeping in Evan's shadow ever since he left the dungeon two days ago.

To be precise, it entered his shadow right after the lightning spirit in his lap started following him around.

He was ready to use its shadow travel, an ability he had seen it had when he appraised it to run away if need be.

'The Duke and Emperor aren't fools, when I leave, they are bound to consider all the potential methods I could have used, and they'd definitely consider spirits.

There's also the chance that the Empress knows about the one in my shadow, her earlier reaction is unsettling.

In the end, stopping Laurene from telling them about my affinity for spirits is pointless as they'd discover it eventually.'

As for why he said the contractors were kept like 'birds in cages', this was because of the role of spirits in Aidos.

The spirits were beings that were closely connected with and affected nature.

They were also wilful, carefree and playful existences, especially the lower-ranked ones.

As the number of spirits reduced as you went up the ranks, there were very few high-ranked spirits to keep the hundreds of thousands of lower-ranked spirits that could reside in one country in check.

This meant that the spirits could cause disaster or blessing depending on their moods.

Lower rank spirits were more susceptible to doing this.

As one 'Loved by Nature', a large number of spirits would gather around Evan, this would also affect the surrounding area.

There could be blessings of nature like good crop yield, good weather, good health for the individuals there etc.

However, this only applied if Evan was in a good mood, if he was not, although not instantly, the spirits would eventually begin to feel the same emotions as him, and the surroundings would be affected based on that.

Just like a few minutes ago when Evan fell unconscious, the water spirits felt sad at this and that sadness was reflected in the weather.

However, now that he was awake the weather had returned to normal. This was because they had sensed him happy.

This was just one of the few reasons spirit contractors were excessively overprotected to the point it felt like they were kept birds in a cage.

There was once an ancient country that had a spirit contractor as the leader of its military. During a war with a nearby country, he and his contracted spirit wreaked havoc on the enemy.

This made the enemy have no other choice but to think of a way to remove him; assassination.

However, he had a high-rank spirit at his side, it was almost impossible for them to succeed.

'Almost' being the keyword here.

They were able to create a barrier that prevented the entry of spirits, and this made them succeed in separating him from his contracted spirit.

Eventually, he was murdered after getting stabbed by multiple poisoned daggers, and naturally, his contracted spirit sensed his death.

At that, the spirit was enraged, and with the power of a high-rank spirit, it commanded all lesser-ranked spirits in that country to do one thing.

Destruction.

Pure, absolute destruction.