The Spirit Stone

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Now that I think about it, it's already surprising that our parents would allow us to go off on a little adventure together, so I suppose I should have assumed that they would be looking over us constantly.

Of course, I get the reasoning behind it. Even if this entire area was being protected by a powerful barrier created by Nepheline and Shade, it was still a wild area where monsters and beasts constantly appeared.

I imagined that something like an Adventurer Guild my parents had occasionally spoken in the past to be in here, but there was no such thing like that, nor was there any place where they paid you or gave you a reward for hunting monsters or gathering rare herbs.

I guess I should have assumed that as well. After all, I was in a tribe. It's completely disconnected from other human societies.

In any case, this little patch of wilderness was near the tribe's north area, where there was a river nearby.

We crossed it by jumping over the stones set in the middle of it, with Aquarina held my hand tightly as she led me around all the while. She seemed to have come here before.

"Here! Here's a nice place… where birds come to sing!"

We entered the jungle around us as we were immediately greeted by a beautiful sight. Enormous trees pointing upwards that had canopies covering a large amount of the sun's rays, a humid atmosphere, as well as the strong scent of plants and rich, fresh soil.

Not to mention the fact that there were large rocks lying around in what seemed to be a road in the middle of this place. On top of that, each rock had decorations and paintings on them, with moss growing all over them.

"Aquarina, are you sure you want to walk a bit more?" I asked.

"Yeah… it's there!" she replied cutely, pointing at a small area where there were no trees, only grass. Surprisingly, the area she pointed at was a patch in the middle of the jungle where the sun directly hit the ground.

There was a large stone in the ground there, resembling a monolith. It was engraved with multiple runic paintings. On top of that, there were even what seemed to be magic circles on it.

I suddenly felt a strange spiritual energy coming directly from this stone, as if the senses I shared with Naturia had alerted me of this strong energy.

"This stone is called the Spirit Stone! It's a special stone where… spirits come!" she told me.

"Oh! Is that so? I can feel that there's a lot of spiritual energy around it… can you feel it too?" I asked.

"Yeah…! It feels comfortable here… sometimes my head hurts because… there's too many people… but here I can be at peace..." she replied. Since she was an actual one-year-old, unlike me who already has a mature soul, she has a hard time forming her sentences. With that in mind, I patiently waited for her to finish her words.

Apparently, Aquarina's ability to detect the intentions of beings can also extend over a wide range. Due to being in the middle of a massive tribe, such an ability made it difficult for her to concentrate when there were so many people with different emotions and intentions everywhere.

I've been told by Nepheline some time ago that she used to cry while she was younger due to how her head hurt so much because she constantly sensed the emotions of so many people. Thus, she often brought her here to heal her and calm her down.

Since then, this little place had become her favorite place to come play around with her parents. She usually never came alone, but they let her come with me. Then again, her father's familiar and my mother's familiar were watching over us, so they're not really gone from a certain perspective.

Now that I think about it, she has been holding my hand all this time and hasn't even separated it from mine. Because of this, I have to walk wherever she goes…

After some time, she began to walk around the stone with a cute smile and began to hug it and touch it.

"Touch it, Sylphy! It will make you feel good," she told me.

"I-Is that so?"

Is this stone like a drug or something?

With a hint of hesitation, I extended my hand towards the large, almost 10-meter-tall stone. At the very moment I touched it, a stream of multiple energies quickly entered my body.

FLASH!

"Uagh…!"

I fell on my butt from the sudden shock. That amount of energy was… entering my soul way too quickly…

It felt strange, to say the least.

"Sylphy, are you okay?" asked Aquarina, alarmed that I fell on the ground quite stupidly.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine, I think… I just got a bit surprised there… it gave me a lot of energy. Do you usually take all of it?" I asked.

"Energy? Oh…! That's just the spiritual essence…! It feels a bit strange at first, but after it bathes your body… you feel nice and light," she replied.

How odd, perhaps I'll get used to it if I let it flow all throughout my body? Then again, what's the purpose of this stone? Where does it even come from?

With a bit more confidence, I touched the stone once more as the shock of spiritual energy washed my body yet again. I gritted my teeth as I felt this foreign essence rush across every vein of my body. It felt utterly strange. It even gave me a bit of nausea.

However, everything quickly faded away after enduring it for a few seconds. For some reason, I feel like the energy had fully opened something inside me… I think they call these Mana Veins.

From what I know, Mana Veins are special veins in the body that form when a person regularly practices magic.

I've been practicing every day, yet I have barely opened them up. Well, it's mostly because I'm a child, and they're only ready to be opened and developed once one is around 10 years old.

With that in mind, this spirit stone is amazing. It just opened them all prematurely for me, as if I had unlocked a bit more of my potential.

"See? It's not that bad!" Aquarina said while smiling cutely. Her shiny white teeth were very pretty.

"Yeah, I see..." I glanced at the spirit stone as I suddenly noticed several glowing spheres moving around it.

Could those be spirits?

"Chirp, chirp~"

Sometime later, several birds began to sing out of nowhere as they all gathered around us. From what I could see, these birds took on all sorts of colors. Some resembled parrots, while others resembled like eagles or ravens. In any case, they were all incredibly colorful.

"Ah, the birds! They're singing…!"

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