Wilderness

It was still noon when Zayn summoned the Human Spirit once again.

He materialized the Grimoire of the Ancient and allowed the Human Spirit to emerge outside. It grasped the long shield and the large iron mace without hesitation before looking at Zayn for a few seconds.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Zayn asked but he obviously didn't receive an answer from his companion.

The Human Spirit turned away from Zayn before it began to test out its new armaments. The armaments were not of the best quality and the Servia Warhammer had been much better in comparison but the combination of large mace and shield would have to work for the given predicaments.

'He is not sulking because I bartered his weapon, is he?'

Zayn watched the Human Spirit testing out the new armaments for a few seconds before he swept a gaze through their surrounding.

Two hours had passed since he left the town, and there was no one in the surroundings to see them. Nonetheless, Zayn continued to wear both the cloak and mask just to make sure that nobody would be able to pinpoint him if he were to be discovered with a Human Spirit by his side.

Explaining everything would be a little bit difficult since he had somehow manifested a Human as a Spirit.

That was also why he came so far out, to use the Human Spirit to become stronger and to get his hands on a second Spirit.

"A wide variety of Spirits would be great, even more so if it's a mount!" Zayn mumbled to himself just for a doubt to surface, '...but to increase the talent of my Spirit I would have to fuse the same kind of Spirits'

Zayn walked over the lush green and flourishing plains that were full of life, caressing his chin.

'…ah…no, I cannot fuse them yet…'

He halted in his tracks upon realizing something and his eyes widened slightly.

"It is possible to fuse Spirits?"

Zayn was astonished by the thoughts that flashed through his mind. It was extremely weird but he felt that it might actually be possible to fuse Spirits…

But what gave him the conviction to believe it was possible, in the first place? Was that something hidden behind the memories he couldn't recall? He couldn't tell for sure but it was interesting.

At first, Zayn was certain that Spirit Extraction and Spirit Manifestation were two of the strongest techniques within the Grimoire of the Ancient, but there was still more for him to explore, apparently.

'Either way, I cannot fuse my Spirits yet, so amassing the same type of Spirits wouldn't be too helpful…not if they do not possess skills like humans granting them numerous ways to fight and different fighting preferences, strengths, and weaknesses…'

He was still confused by many things but the thought of getting his hands on a second Spirit lifted his mood.

However, for that he would have to become stronger, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to endure the strain of having two Spirits bound to him.

Zayn had to expand the snippet of the Grimoire's empty page as well, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to store the new Spirit even if he could manifest it properly.

After the first written page had been manifested, the amount of soul particles he had to sacrifice to create the empty page, and weave the second written had increased more than tenfold.

Zayn tested this by providing ten soul particles to the Grimoire of the Ancient to see how much of a difference five soul particles made to the snippet of the empty page and to what extent it would expand.

The changes that occurred in the snippet were not much, and Zayn could only wonder whether adding the empty pages would become more expensive the more written pages the Grimoire of the Ancient had, or if there was some sort of limitation.

'Empty page…more accumulation…than the previous page?'

Zayn scratched the back of his head, trying to come up with the most efficient plan to fill the Grimoire with pages faster but his brain felt like a mess.

The only thing he could tell for sure was that he had to put aside his suicidal idea to visit the Undead Cave for the time being. Thinking about entering the Undead Cave after the thing he witnessed today gave him the chills. Thus, he chose against it and decided to do something else to take care of that issue.

Zayn needed to find a suitable monster to turn into his second Spirit, and he didn't want another Human Spirit, let alone a Goblin, right now!

While he was deep in thought, Zayn was oblivious to the sudden change in the Human Spirit's stance. The Human Spirit stopped experimenting with the new armaments it had been granted, and it smashed the mace against the large shield, creating a loud noise that attracted Zayn's attention at once.

He turned around in an instant, just to look at the Human Spirit with glaring eyes.

"Don't break yo–..." Zayn began vehemently just to shut his mouth and unsheath the Silver Iron shortsword as his ears twitched.

A group of more than ten Frenzy Antelopes was charging toward them. It was a subrace of the Antelopes, also known as sassaby, and the beasts were extremely territorial which was clearly visible just by looking at the ten large antelopes.

They were between 150 to 230 centimeters in length and each of them weighed more than a hundred kilograms.

Their average running speed rivaled that of a cheetah reaching over 90 kilometers in an hour tops, which was exactly what they were doing in rage, but their horns that were more than thirty centimeters long turned the situation even direr.

"Good gracious…fortunately, I gave him a fucking shield…"

Zayn was not dumb to think about charging toward the Frenzy Antelopes. He moved behind the Human Spirit who changed his posture, awaiting the attack of the chestnut-brown Frenzy Antelopes that were still more than a hundred meters away from them.

It would take a few seconds before the two forces would collide but the Human Spirit didn't waste any time. He got into the most suitable position to endure and overcome the impact of several Frenzy Antelopes while using the Human Spirit as his personal shield.

'Only two will be able to charge at it from the front at the same time. The rest will have to slow down or run past…' Zayn assessed the situation and their odds of survival before taking a deep breath.

The Frenzy Antelopes didn't look stronger than the human Skeletons and they would feel pain upon getting cut. Facing ordinary monsters rather than Undeads should definitely be easier.

Or so it was supposed to be.

Yet, looking at the situation ahead of him, Zayn couldn't be so sure about that anymore.