Spirit energy

The Oak tree possessed 9.7 points of spirit energy, far surpassing Aru's 3.0. Doubt crept into his mind as he questioned whether he could establish a connection with it.

'It's worth a try.'

Half a second later, Aru selected the yes option on the system screen.

Suddenly, he felt something warm flowing through his body. The spirit energy inside his body was getting excited. It began to flow irregularly through his body like a wave.

At times, it rushed towards the skin of his body, then it fell back just as fast in an oscillating motion. The oscillation increased with time and his body began to feel warmer.

Seconds later, the riled-up spirit energy focused to a point on his chest before flowing out of his body in an instant.

"Swoosh…" Like a giant tidal wave, it left his body leaving him in exhaustion. Aru felt like a deflated balloon when it left him. His legs became weak as he slumped onto the snow-covered ground.

"Huh!" He drew in a deep breath to stabilise his body.

'Did it succeed?' He thought while sitting on the ground, his chest heaving up and down.

However, he spoke too soon. He didn't get any system message about completing the link. Aru felt lost.

Thus he turned to look at the oak tree.

What happened?

He wanted to know it immediately.

And he noticed something different this time. He could see a glowing blue cloud circling the tree. He could feel something familiar about it.

'That's my spirit energy!' He exclaimed.

The cloud of spirit energy was trying to infiltrate into its body. But the oak tree was somehow preventing it from entering.

Whenever the spirit energy tried to cover the oak tree, it was bounced right back by a thin layer of energy that was being released by the oak. A fight was taking place between the oak and the spirit energy Aru released.

As time went by, the energy Aru released was diminished and dissipated.

In the fight between the tree and Aru, the tree was won. Aru realised it from the side.

His first try in establishing a link failed.

The tree was far too big to be conquered by his meagre amount of three spirit energy.

"Sigh."

Aru was expecting that it would be easy to establish a link with a tree since it didn't have any consciousness. But that hypothesis seemed to have failed this time.

Even though the tree didn't have any consciousness, it had something like an instinct that defended against his attack. Currently, with his limited amount of energy, it was impossible for him to break the oak tree's 'spiritual defence'.

Rubbing the snow off his butt, Aru pulled himself up barely. He felt exhausted beyond words after his failed attempt because he only had 3 points of spirit energy. And all of it was used by the system to try and establish a link. And due to the failure, he had lost all of it.

Aru tightened his clothes once again to protect himself from the cold.

'I think I should learn from my failure and not attempt a similar dumb thing again.' He noted in his mind.

Then, he waddled across the backyard towards his house. With no spirit energy inside his body, it would be impossible to try and establish a link again. Aru realised this fact and decided to rest for the time being.

At the same time, he wanted to test out the things he learned from the chief today. That was the only option he could think of to recover spirit energy fast and to recover from exhaustion.

Dragging his small body, Aru stepped into the old dilapidated building he called home. It looked just like he had seen in the original Aru's memories.

The house was made out of stone, wood and mud. It was rectangular and had a fireplace and a chimney on one side and two rooms on the other.

One of the rooms was supposed to be Aru's parents. But it was empty now.

The other room was used by Aru.

Although the house looked neglected from the outside, the inside was clean and cosy. The kid Aru did seem to have tried his best to keep the house clean.

'The kid was too small to clean and fix the outside of the house. That's why it looked like a mess from the outside. As an orphan living alone, he really tried his best.'

After making his way into the house, Aru went into his room and sat on the bed.

Lifting his feet from the cold floor, he placed them comfortably on the thick quilt. He began to recall the things he learned from the chief.

'Spirit energy is a magical energy that every living organism in this world has. Some can use it consciously while others do not. Humans can be considered the former.'

'After awakening their spirit through the trinity totem, humans can sense and use the spirit energy with their will. Similarly, animals awaken and become spirit beasts before they can use the energy inside them consciously.'

'There are three ways to increase the spirit energy a warrior can store inside the body.'

'The first one was through natural growth. As a person grows from a child into adulthood, the spirit energy they can store inside their body will also grow proportionally.'

'The second way was by meditating. Meditating trains the mind and helps a person control more spirit energy, thus helping a person store more energy in a condensed form.'

'Third was by training the body with intense exercises. This also helps retain more spirit energy inside a person's body by improving the vitality of the person.'

'But only opting for one was synonymous with stupidity for a warrior. Humans are smart and a smarter way to approach increasing the spirit energy was by maximising all three ways.'

'Eating nutritious food to grow, training using intense exercise and finally by complimenting meditation, a person can vastly increase the spirit energy he holds. Thus, becoming a better warrior.'

'But all that is something I should do later.' Aru concluded.

Currently, he doesn't have an ounce of energy inside his body. He needed to quickly recover it before doing anything else.

'To maximise recovery of spirit energy, a warrior must eat a large amount of food and meditate. But I don't have that luxury now. I must simply meditate today to recover.'

Aru was an orphan and all the food he ate was given to him by the villagers who were close to his parents or by the tribe. The tribe was responsible for taking care of the orphans of the warriors from the tribe. But, they wouldn't indulge anyone by providing more than what is required.

So, eating a lavish meal was out of the question.

With that thought in mind, Aru sat upright and closed his eyes. He was about to start meditating.

Meditating was a simple process that even six-year-olds could learn. He just had to imagine the spirit energy flowing back and forth inside his body like a warm current.

But first, doing it was nearly impossible for a first-timer. Because one had to first feel the spirit energy before controlling it.

However, Aru didn't mind the challenge. He already knew how the movement of spirit energy felt while he tried to establish the link.

Even though he failed, the feeling was imprinted deeply into his mind.

Aru controlled the rhythm of his breathing and immersed himself in the process of meditation. Slowly, he began to recreate the feeling of spirit energy circulating inside his body.

Suddenly, he felt something spark inside him.

He felt a minuscule amount of spirit energy reacting to his will. He imagined it flowing through his body, just like what he felt during the link process.

With each passing moment, the minuscule amount of energy began to interact with the cells inside his body and began to grow larger. It rhythmically flowed back and forth creating a larger current. Finally, he began to feel the spirit energy inside his body recover.

A smug smile formed on Aru's face.

'Doing it on the first try was too easy.' He thought.

Without stopping, he focused and continued to recover.

–

It took him a couple of minutes to recover his 3 points of spirit energy to the full.

Once Aru realised that his body was filled to the brim, he stopped his meditation. Due to the meagre amount of spirit energy his body could store, it was comparatively easy for him to recover all of it.

He could have continued to increase the maximum limit of spirit energy his body could hold. But it was something he decided to do later.

Before that, he wanted to check something.

Getting off the bed, Aru walked towards the oak tree once more. He wanted to do some experiments.