Precaution

After my date with Carla, I went to the church. It's kind of weird. Why did no one try to restore this church? I mean this place is at the very least couple of decades old. Maybe even a century. You can't find this kind of architecture in the other buildings of Daxhoull.

Daxhoull was established about a century ago, nearly at the end of the rebellion towards the old kingdom. I remembered the lesson our history teacher explained to us.

"After the rebellion of Duke Nanbu, a large battle erupted in the province of Vley. Records said that battles were so fierce that locals had trouble with surviving. On the night of the 13th of January, rebels attack the capital Ariostin. It was the first victory of rebels. They invaded the capital and killed thousands of innocent people.

Because of the difficulties in the battle zone, many families start to immigrate. Two of these families come to a land far away from conflict. According to the records in those times this land was mostly swamp and barren. With these two families creating the foundation, Daxhoull came to existence."

Duke Nanbu was the distant cousin of King Luke Ariostin. Our records of history aren't clear about the reason for his rebellion. Some say he was greedy and wanted to take the power of the entire country for himself. Some others say that King wanted to invade neighboring countries which would cause our countries to collapse at that time. It's because our country was just come out victorious from another war against the other neighboring kingdom.

Anyway, no one could know the exact truth because both the king and duke along with their close ones died in the battle at the capital. Duke's army eventually came out victorious but with most of its high-ranking commanders end up dead. Well, just a couple of years after that another rebellion happened and the kingdom was replaced with the present government system.

What was I saying? Ah, the church! Well, there are several drawings of buildings from the time before the Duke's Rebellion. There are some buildings with similarities I saw there. But I don't really know. As far as I know, this building can be a replica of those old-time buildings.

***

"Like what one-eyed guy said wasn't enough, we have now corrupted spirit in our hand?!"

"Yes. It's bad. We should take care of the corrupted spirit as soon as we can."

"Is there some kind of side effect I don't know of?"

"Corrupted spirits become almost unkillable after they break their own core."

"Hold up!"

If I remember right, the core of the spirit is their heart, right? Won't breaking it make them, dead?

"I can understand your confusion. But corrupted spirits can't be explained by logic. There are many unknowns about them. We just know the process of them turning and if it's let, the chaos their final form can bring.

They break their core and assimilate their concept to the entirety of their being. The spirits core has one more job aside from keeping us alive. It keeps our concept in check. The concept of spirit is limited because otherwise it first consumes the user then the surroundings."

"Does corrupted spirits have the same problem?"

"This is the part that defies the logic. Their possibility of succeeding this is %70. Many spirits believe that it's because not just spirit itself became corrupted, their concepts became too."

"That's bad."

As far as I understand, their concept of power is cheating like power. Kairi has the water concept like the rest of her family. This gave them the ability to use water instinctively. If this power stops being restricted by their core, they can easily erase a country or more.

The corrupted spirit we are talking about has a fire concept. This is even worse. Now, I'm not saying fire is stronger. What I'm saying is, the damage the fire can give is can't even be compared to water. Fire can release poisonous smoke aside from burning everything to ashes. I don't even want to think what could unrestricted version of it can do.

"What is their final form?"

"They became the living versions of their concept. And from concept to concept their weakness changes. Some of them even became unkillable. They became closer to Fiends in nature."

"Fiends?"

"Creatures of miasma. Miasma is the other name of the negative aspect of Aether. The spirits under the order of The Council have wiped them out thousands of years ago."

Miasma. The negative aspect of the Aether. It's scary what it can do to spirits.

"What is our plan?"

"...I don't want to burden you but you are our only hope. I can't fight against it. Unlike normal spirits, corrupted spirits can recover their mana. We don't know how they do it. To stop it, you have to kill it. Can you take the life of a living being?"

"I want to protect my close ones. I want to protect my home. I want to protect the city I live in. Even if it means to take someone's life, I will do it."

I want to protect those who are dear to me. I grew up in this city. I have countless memories good or bad, with family or friends but all of them are part of who I am. Killing a living being is I never thought of it before. But if this is what it takes, then I'm ready to fight and kill whoever I need to.

"Then you need to learn the Mid Class Spell as soon as you can. Without preparing, we can't be certain of our victory. Until you are ready to take care of it, you should continue your everyday life."

"Why?"

"Akane said that humans are involved in this. You have to keep the identity of an ordinary student. I... can't lose you."

"I see... I will be careful, you don't have to worry."

I need to train magic runes and mana strings. Wait, maybe my mana strings would be weak against fire. Maybe I can use the nature change ability of mana on them. But I should give priority to magic runes. I need a strong offense to kill this spirit.