Chapter 13&14

Chapter 13: Extraordinary Magic Power Reserve

The Spirits were once human.

Originally, the primordial Spirit Nia divided her power, continuously refining it to form the so called Spirit Crystals, and then bestowed these Spirit Crystals upon human girls who had the talent to become Spirits.

After accepting the Spirit Crystals, they would transform from humans into Spirits.

Except for Tohka Yatogami.

She is the sole exception among the ten Spirits, whose nature is similar to Nia's.

Nia divided her power to create Spirit Crystals, but one of the crystals gave birth to its own will, becoming Tohka Yatogami.

Therefore, her true identity has no connection to being human.

Willem is still the last human in this world.

"You're correct," Willem said, gradually calming down after his initial excitement.

While the possibility of Tohka being human excited him greatly, upon further reflection, the evidence to prove she is human is still lacking.

Moreover, it has been five hundred years since the destruction of humanity, if Tohka truly is human, she could not have lived that long.

Although she might have encountered a similar situation, being sealed for five hundred years before breaking free, the probability of such an event occurring is almost unimaginably low, with a single example being a miracle among miracles.

Furthermore, Tohka's appearance looks to be around sixteen or seventeen years old, around the same as Willem's actual age, if they were both from five hundred years ago, they should have been contemporaries.

However, Willem has never heard of a person named Tohka Yatogami existing in the human kingdom.

Judging from her combat performance during the sparring with Nephren, in terms of total mana, she has surpassed Willem, the almost-Hero, by countless times, not much inferior to the true Heroes of the Hero team.

In fact, her total mana capacity may even exceed that one true Hero.

Such a person, if she truly came from the same era as Willem, could not have been overlooked during the selection of Heroes.

"Tohka, you just said that the attack that pierced through the mountain was only using 50% of your power?" Willem confirmed.

"Yes," Tohka nodded. "But I can use that kind of technique dozens of times."

"What do you mean?" Willem was dumbfounded, "Shouldn't it only be usable twice?"

"How should I put it..." Tohka raised her hand, and a violent spiritual power gathered into a sphere on her hand, easily capable of destroying this room, "It's like this, it's only one or two parts of the power I can control, but it doesn't mean I'm pouring one or two parts of my full power into it, it's just the part I can control."

Everyone looked at each other, not understanding what she meant.

Only Willem showed some enlightenment, seemingly grasping her meaning.

"You mean that if we compare your body to a bucket, the water stored inside is the mana, but you can't use all the water at once, the most you can use each time is only as much as a cup?"

"That's right, that's exactly what I mean!" Tohka nodded vigorously.

"Hey, hey, hey, what kind of joke is this," Ithea finally couldn't hold back, "You really can use that kind of technique dozens of times? Just how much mana do you have to squander?"

"Unheard of," Nygglatho covered her mouth in amazement, "I've been managing this Fairy Warehouse for some time, but I've never seen any Golden Spirit with such a massive mana reserve."

With Tohka's affirmation, Willem became more certain that she is not human.

If she truly has the massive mana she claims, she could not possibly be human.

The characteristic of the Holy Swords used by human Heroes is that they grow stronger when encountering a stronger opponent, borrowing the enemy's power to fight the enemy.

The fundamental reason for this is that humans lack mana, even as Heroes, their mana reserves are considered remarkable if they can strengthen their bones and muscles during combat.

Holy Swords, talismans, and forbidden spells, it is only with the aid of these that humans gained the capital to defeat the Demon King.

Even the mage member of the Hero team, the strongest spellcaster known as the "Polaris Grand Magus", still needed to rely on the most efficient media and the highest-grade staves to mobilize external mana.

But based on Tohka's combat performance just now, she is a warrior, not a mage.

That kind of ability to manipulate mana without incantation or medium, and moreover, it's her own internal mana, not external mana, is something that mages cannot achieve.

"Not a Golden Spirit, and not human, then what could Tohka be?" Chtholly asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

But none of the people present could answer this question.

The Golden Spirits live in a closed world, with little knowledge of other races.

Although Nygglatho has been roaming the surface for many years as a member of the foraging team, the knowledge of other races is not something she needs to know.

As for Willem, although he is an ancient human Hero, in reality, he only knows swordsmanship and cooking, and his true age is only eighteen.

They were all unable to answer the question of Tohka's race.

"To understand Tohka's true race, we need to start from Tohka herself,"Nygglatho organized her thoughts and sat in front of Tohka. "Can you tell us about your earliest memories? Perhaps we can get some clues from that."

Chapter 14: The Demon King Clan

While the two were speculating about Tohka Yatogami's identity, the girl herself remained silent.

At this moment, staying quiet is the best choice.

She knows her own identity.

She is a Spirit.

And not just any Spirit, but a pure-blooded one, unlike the other Spirits who were originally human.

She is the only one among the ten Spirits who came into existence through the self-will that was born from a Spirit Crystal.

In a sense, she is even more akin to a fairy than the Golden Spirits.

However, in this world, the concept of Spirits does not exist.

No matter how they speculate, they would never guess her true identity.

The group continued discussing for a while, but since Tohka provided so little information, they were unable to form any reasonable conjectures, and had to give up.

"But if Tohka is not a Golden Spirit, then she might not be able to stay here anymore," Nygglatho said regretfully, "What a pity, just when we had a new member join, she can't stay."

"Eh?" Tohka blinked in surprise, "Why?"

"Because all the islands related to the Golden Spirits are forbidden zones for other races."

Reminded by Nygglatho, Tohka just realized the treatment of the Golden Spirits in this world.

Since her infiltration into the Golden Spirits went so smoothly, she had even forgotten that the Golden Spirits are a race prohibited from contact with the outside.

If she really gets kicked out of the Fairy Warehouse, the difficulty of completing her main quest will increase greatly.

The main quest requires her to become the princess of the Golden Spirits. Although she doesn't necessarily have to stay in the Fourth Fairy Warehouse, she at least needs to have contact with the Golden Spirits to complete it smoothly.

If Tohka's non-Golden Spirit identity is discovered by the upper echelons of the Floating Continent Archipelago, according to the laws here, she will absolutely be excluded from the Golden Spirits.

If the people of this world were even more cruel, they might even imprison her and study her powers and body.

Of course, even if they tried to do that, they would never succeed.

Tohka is not like Mana Takamiya, who loses all resistance capability when bound by chains. Even if they use ten chains to tie her up, breaking free would be a piece of cake for her.

But if such a thing did happen, her relationship with the Floating Continent Archipelago would be completely severed.

At that time, not only would she be unable to become the Golden Spirit princess, she might even have to draw her sword against the Golden Spirits.

This is not the outcome she wants to see.

"Can you all treat me as a Golden Spirit?" Tohka blinked her eyes, looking pitiful, "I like it here, can you not send me away?"

Seeing her expression like a about-to-be-abandoned puppy, Nygglatho showed a somewhat troubled expression.

She could understand why Tohka wanted to stay.

After losing her memories and appearing in the dangerous surface, she had fought the Seventeen Beasts for two years, nearly got into a fight with the Second Regiment of the Guardian Wing, and finally found a safe haven after narrowly getting through this ordeal.

However, this peaceful respite hasn't even lasted long before she was forced to face an unknown future again because she is not a Golden Spirit.

For Tohka, whose psychological age is perhaps not much different from a child, this is definitely something she doesn't want to face.

"Let's just let Tohka stay then," Willem suddenly spoke up. "Even the military treated her as a Golden Spirit and sent her here, so we don't need to tell them the truth, we can just continue playing dumb."

"Tohka is a good child, if she can stay, I also hope she can stay."

After pondering for a while, Nygglatho looked at the adult Golden Spirits, "This is your home, what do you think?"

"I think it's a great thing to have a new member join, even if Tohka is not a Golden Spirit, she can still be a friend," Chtholly said.

"I hope the newcomer can stay! I feel like it will be very interesting!" Ithea said with a smile.

"Let her stay," Nephren said briefly.

"Alright, since everyone wants Tohka to stay, I won't report this to the military then," Nygglatho sighed helplessly, "You all be careful too, don't let slip anything about Tohka by mistake."

Everyone expressed their understanding.

Seeing that she won't be kicked out of the Fourth Fairy Warehouse, Tohka finally heaved a sigh of relief and gave a thankful look to Willem, who was the first to speak up for her.

Willem gave a slight smile, indicating she doesn't need to worry about it.

He wanted Tohka to stay in the Fourth Fairy Warehouse, also because he had his own ulterior motives.

After excluding the possibilities of her being human or a Golden Spirit, her true identity has become increasingly mysterious.

Keeping her in the Fourth Fairy Warehouse is partly out of curiosity, and partly out of vigilance.

Yes, vigilance.

Although the others don't know what kind of race could possess such a massive mana reserve, Willem has some clues in his mind.

However, he has no intention of telling anyone about this conjecture, because even he himself is not entirely certain.

Willem's gaze at Tohka became slightly more serious.

He had once witnessed a race that used mana without any restraint, casually unleashing earth-shattering power with just a wave of their hand.

The Demon King Clan.

To this day, he still vividly remembers the scene of his battle with Archduke Abyssion.

Mountains crumbling, lakes and rivers evaporating, the land melting into scorched earth, a crimson cloud of doom covering the sky, the curses they unleashed erasing all traces of life.

Under the torrential outpouring of Abyssion's mana, Willem had exerted every last bit of his strength and magic power, shattering the Holy Sword he carried, even activating seven forbidden spells at the level of national ruin, just to barely kill that formidable enemy.

And in the attack Tohka had just unleashed, Willem truly felt that oppressive presence, akin to the reincarnation of a Demon King.

Of course, this is just a conjecture.

He has no substantial evidence to prove that Tohka is truly related to the Demon King Clan from five hundred years ago.

That's why Willem wanted to let her stay in the Fourth Fairy Warehouse, so he could observe her up close.

If there is anyone in this world who knows the most about the Demon Kings, it would undoubtedly be him, the one who engaged in a life-and-death battle with Archduke Abyssion.

Although he has sustained many hidden wounds from that battle, and has nearly lost all his combat capabilities, he can still be considered the one who understands the Demon Kings the most.

"Well, even if she is somehow related to the Demon Kings, she shouldn't pose much of a threat, right?"

Looking at Tohka, who was touched to the point of almost crying because she was allowed to stay, Willem thought to himself.

"Though, the days ahead are surely not going to be boring."