Book 1 Chapter 13: Awakening and Arrival

He strode down the steps, before leaping against the curve of the wall. Accurately pushing against the curve propelling him at an angle down the steps, he leapt off like this at an angle traversing the steps in but a few leaps. He landed at the bottom and strode forward to the wall, hesitating before opening the mechanism again. The hidden rock wall door slid open slowly, the light within from before was devoid of its previous heavenly light leaving nothing but darkness in its stead.

"Yuki..?" He asked to the silence.

"Oh yuki…" He brought a torch into the room, the crystals covering the room still warm to the touch from the passing energies. He picked Yuki up who was unconscious. He brought him to a table outside the crystalline room after clearing it off, laying him slowly down onto it. He checked his pulse to find it surprisingly stable.

He walked quickly over to the Alchemy table and mixed different powders, elixirs and chemicals together before a powerful aroma pervaded the air. He looked over to see the young lad laying there, and back down to the table before his eyes carried to the floor hanging there for a second.

He turned and proceeded to walk over, prop Yuki's mouth open and pour the liquid down his throat. After just a few breaths time…

*GASP* "uHHHuuhhH" Yuki pulled in a large mouth full of air and sat straight up.

"Gods in the fucking skies! That was insane! Meal, my ass! Drink, my ass! Gods! My ass!" Yuki blurted out as his eyes shot open.

"Calm down…calm down" The teacher was surprised to find him wake up so quickly.

"Why…why would you do that?" Yuki exclaimed in retort back to him.

"You will soon come to know…first, drink this" He handed him a potion.

"You think I'm gonna fall for that twice?" He swatted it, only to have his teacher agilely bend back and grab it before holding it forward again.

"That unlocked your potential…" He repeated word for word what the old man said to him causing Yuki to apprehensively grab the potion and down it. He felt energy course into his stomach before flowing into his blood stream getting pulled by every fiber of his body before subsiding.

"Why do I feel this way…" He felt strange, like his body could do backflips and scale mountain sides.

"To put it bluntly, you've awakened your spirit. This was your reward for surviving that, and in turn gaining it early will allow you to succeed any person you face. Try pooling energy into your hands and between them…we shall see." The teacher said with a thought in mind, Yuki could tell he was holding back something.

Yuki brought his hands together and then slowly parted them as he pooled his energies between his hands like when he had been at the magic shop. Instead of the forceful unwillingness the energy had before, miraculously, a phantom image appeared! It was…a pod? That's what he went through all that pain for? To awaken a pod! He looked livid up at his teacher only to find his teacher with eyes wide full of surprise…"It's true!" He blurted out loudly.

"What? What the hell is this?" He asked in return confused and less angry now that even his teacher was surprised.

"This…is a legendary plant spirit that has only one other in the world I know who carries it. This man was an almighty ruler of plant's…his uh, where about's unknown. Uh…but anyway this spirit is able to amalgamate the essence, energies, and boundaries between plants. Taking or giving traits or powers from plants or spirits into each other or away. This is the most powerful spirit, and you must never show a soul of it. Lest those who may know of it, only few do." He sat back into a chair staring at the image.

"Condense more energy until you feel it solidify. You should be at a level where that isn't a problem."

Yuki looked back at his hands and closed his eyes before opening them again, feeling the energies flow through his hands and thicken before out of the air the pod dropped into his hands. He felt a deep connection to it and knew this was his spirit.

"You have much to learn and not a lot of time…I'll tell you what I know of it, the rest you will have to learn for yourself…First when you open the pod, you can place two different plants of the same grade or equal or lower grade. When doing so you amalgamate, this means to combine at an atomical level or energy level together. By doing so, you can give the trait, aspect or energy of one plant or converge them together. They however have to be of the same genome family in some cases or energy type.

For an example, you can combine both steel blade grass and a titanium grass plant to create a titanium blade grass since they are related: this is plant convergence. Secondly, you can combine an ability or trait of a plant. Such as merging a fire silk with a fire grass, this is energy to energy and they at the least have to match.

You give the flexibility and silk flame of the fire silk to the grass, giving it the trait of the fire silk or… a thorn willow giving thorns to a grass creating a thorn willow grass: this is aspect to plant convergence. Creating a subtype mix with one as the dominant with a passive trait… the most amazing thing is that you can combine plant spirits as well. You combine two different spirits together, creating a divergent type of the two mixed. This is much more difficult and you must have a deep enough soul force to do so, or you will shred the spirits.

You can lastly…consume. This pulls a plant into the pod and does one of the other things, except for your spirit itself. You seem to have both and indo and exo plant spirit, meaning you have a plant actually inside of you, and this one outside.

When a beast type indo spirit vessel is within someone like a man with an aquatic related spirit, he merges with the spirit from the inside and becomes one with it. This can give him gills, claws, darkness vision in water, or increased speed within water itself. This all depends on the affinity, as well as the parent spirit in play. To have an indo plant spirit as well as exo plant is beyond rare, and only this other man….has it." His teacher said with exasperation.

"Yuki…when you gain and train yourself to a higher level, you can become a sovereign of plants. This is the almighty power of your spirit, now what you do with it…and what your indo spirit does is unknown to me."

"That…now that you say that, this pod does seem to be worth the pain…" Yuki said with surprise, confusion, excitement, and estrangement, almost all at the same time.

"You have a plant spirit right?" He asked with a thought in mind.

"I do but unless I plan on committing suicide, you aren't at a high enough level to do spirit manipulation. For now you have to train your soul which is what powers spirit types, for body types they have to train their body, and for mind types they train their mind. These are the sources of those energies as well as where they are controlled from. The more powerful your soul, the more powerful the spirit." He said slowly to let Yuki soak it in.

"I have an idea…Do you have a plant walking tree here?" He asked

"Uhh why yes I do?" He pointed over to a far corner, "In that room are the genomes of a tree family. You will be choosing three in fact to bind to your plant, and then I would like you to train with me as an assassin. Since you have a plant spirit like me, I can teach you. Even if it's a bit early, the vitality an indo plant spirit master has is beyond that of others. "

"Assas….assassin?" He looked with wide eyes to the question.

"Yes…I am not just an alchemist but an assassin. I wish to train you in both, would you be willing? I know all of what I just said in tandem was confusing, but it will make more sense…I am just giving you a general idea of what I know of your spirit by the way" He asked the previous question with a serious tone.

"Yes yes!...except, I won't leave my brothers though… and I must talk to them first." He said with absolute resolution.

"I understand…but don't mention the assassin part, secrecy is a part of it you know." He said with a serious tone even deeper this time.

"I…I promise." Yuki sat for a moment, pondering over the waking dream that had occurred in only the last few hours.

He got up after a while, walked over to the side room and stepped through the door way after opening the door. He saw all types of trees in this room, what he came for however was the walking willow. A strange type of tree with spider like legs, it walked on 6 leg's, which wasn't actually that strange, apart from stationary plant's there was indeed living plants and tree's out in the world, some even became sentient! But that was through opportunity, environment, and many years as compared to a beast.

He saw a Walking Willow that was very young.

He grabbed it as it moved at a not slow or too fast pace. He bundled it's legs and placed it into his pod spirit. As the pod opened around it and closed, the plant seemed to sense a profound energy and curl up.

Yuki could feel the entirety of the energy within the pod, the structure of the tree, as well as it's traits. He focused on its legs, imagining them appearing beneath the pod. He spent several hours combining this feeling and spirit. After he had gone through the rebirth, like Spectre, he could feel a vast amount of magic as compared to the needles from before. It was on a much greater level.

He felt the legs of the willow shift downwards a millimeter at a time, before protruding beneath the pod. It began to raise itself until it stood on all 6 leg's. The rest of the Walking willow was broken down and consumed by the pod. It stood firmly, and at Yuki's thought began to move forward at a walking pace.

"This is amazing!" He watched it lumber along, moving slowly. He walked with it and controlled it to move alongside him out of the room. His teacher watched as Yuki strolled out the door way, before looking down to see a 6 legged pod lumber beside him before stopping, "Hahaha you were right! This is so cool!" Yuki looked down at his pod like it was a new dog he had just gained, and now his favorite pet.

"Oh you little bastard…" He laughed right alongside him at this little plant before him. "Choose two more… that should be your limit. From what I know you can only have so many traits on the pod at a time, so choose wisely. Good first choice, a mobile spirit is a good one." He liked Yuki's creativity, but also was shocked to see this actually occur before him instead of words from what seemed only a legend. This meant that Yuki at a point in the future could change his spirit and tailor it too his needs. This…was an extreme heaven defying spirit.

"I shall, thank you teacher." Yuki walked around and thought for a deep while. He grabbed an explosive seed from a deadly plant in the danger plant section of the room. It was a called a Nitros Glissening Tree, a tree that shined from a secretion it created that was highly volatile. The seed's it bore were extremely dangerous as they fed upon the secretion, becoming volatile explosive seeds. He didn't plan on putting it into his spirit, but it could be useful in the future if he needed it. He as well grabbed in the life plant section of the room, an Entera Apple, one that bloomed from the middle of a large flower with the deepest of aromas that gave one vigor. He could use this as sustenance, as well as for healing as it had powerful effects on the bodies system to heal. This was his destruction and revive choices.

He then grabbed a Burien spider spore plant, this plant actually had the effect of releasing microscopic plant spider like organisms that went towards a hostile creature. Covering it, it would feed on the blood and they would grow, devouring the creature and then the spore would return and become liquid that restored the plant. This was a two-step use, he could use it to attack and obscure as well as use it to eat plant's and sustain his own spirit. He grabbed the leaves of this plant where the spores were kept, it would open like a mouth.

The most fascinating thing about the Burien Spider Spore plant, unknown to Yuki, was that it was a fossil and hadn't been seen for a millennia. However, this was a story for another time and one the man before him would not say. He was told to place this fossil here years ago, and to revive or keep it safe until Yuki was to come to him. Many plans were made unknown in the dark around these innocent children. For their future, and for everyone else's.

His last and final choice was a Enerugi Speed pod. It coalesced a good amount of energy and created a substance that when consumed would boost adrenal glands as well as enhance the senses.

These he spent less than hour merging into his plant, as he had already got a hold of the ethereal feeling of merging from earlier. 3 big leaves stemmed from the base of the pod, wrapping around it in a spiral shape. Then branches protruded between some of the leaves out and little buds popped out of the ends.

"Ah…I feel so drained…" Yuki said out loud to teacher.

"I'm not surprised; you still have only so much soul force, you've had your spirit out for a while now and also merged plants into it. This used a lot of your energy up, and thus you feel drained. Drink this..." He threw out a bottle which Yuki caught. He chugged it back and threw the bottle over into the deadly plant area where a carnivorous plant consumed the glass.

He felt energy from within his stomach go back out into his bloodstream revitalizing the energy he had lost before, 'this is a good feeling' he thought to himself as he fell back and rested his body. Teacher walked over and squatted down, "You got a long way to go kid…Well done so far. I am proud of you." He said looking down.

A cheeky grin appeared on Yuki's face, "Eh? Would you expect any less from a genius like me? Eh?"

"Hahaha you rascal. Come, let's bring you out of here, I have to leave and you gotta go see your brothers don'tcha?" He got up, and began to walk to the stairs, before looking back to see if Yuki was following. He wanted to tell his brothers all about today, obviously leaving out some parts as he had promised.

His spirit however, he could hold over both of their heads and gloat! He was excited and invigorated. A little branch and leaf covered 6 legged plant followed closely behind, "Yuki…if anyone asks uh…say it's a pet of yours. It wouldn't be too strange to have a walking willow with a 'differrent' plant growing on top like a symbiotic type. Walking willows are known for it, and you can't tell a smidge a difference. Other than your brothers, anyone who knows this is your spirit will be killed…"He said with a cold and deadly tone. Letting Yuki know that it wasn't cast against him, but that he was litterly deadly serious in protecting such knowledge and Yuki's life.

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Apollo earlier that day after training….

"Hahaha" Apollo laughed out loud as he smacked back and forth with a stick with another boy. After he had defeated the bully leader, the other kid's had begun respecting him regardless of age. They respected strength. He had actually become friends with many of them, and for the top person in the class he was also the nicest and not arrogant. Although he was defiantly competitive, he wasn't dissportsman-like. He was currently sparring without using his strength, he couldn't rely on that or training would be negated as the energy would raise his strength level, making it harder to break his limit naturally.

"Well done you two, relax and take a break before you hurt yourselves" The martial teacher grinned.

"Yes teacher haha" They laughed and dropped the wooden weapons before, going over for water and splashing themselves before hitting the ground like rocks.

"Uhn…" Apollo moaned in exhaustion as he had been sparring with multiple people for an hour.

"You really got some energy, but I still outlasted you!" The boy mused and laughed.

"Pfsh bullshit! I could've gone longer, but I had to go easy on you, I your idol can't be too mean can I?" Apollo chided back and laughed.

"Pfsh now thattt is bullshit! Haha" They laughed and talked while other boy's came for water and then sat beside them joining in on the conversation.

"Everyone listen up" The martial teachers voice boomed as a messenger scurried off back to the city.

"I will have to be leaving for a trip, due to the short notice the rest of you shall be receiving a new teacher and have the rest of the day off. However do not slack off, for when I get back if I find you all to have done so….ill have you each make up for it on the spot!" His voice carried, hitting the weaker kids who had to take a step back from the tone utilized with energy.

"Ye…yes sir!" They clamored back in response.

"Alright, everyone goes…except Apollo. Stay here, I have a severe punishment for you that must be carried out. Everyone leave!"

"Yes!" They didn't doddle, even the curious ones sprang off in different direction zigg zagging and sometimes falling on the ground only to be picked up by a friend to scurry on.

'What did I do?' Apollo sat there with his water cup pondering, but could not think of one thing that could have been done wrongly...have I slacked off? I've been so attentive, but if it is so…it is so.

"Senior I will accept any and all punishment, if I have been lacking in anyway. I am sorry to have wronged you." He bowed in sincerity.

After not one small head of a boy was seen but the one of Apollo in front of him the martial Teacher laughed heartily, "Eh?" Apollo was now severely confused.

"Apollo you aren't going to receive a punishment, but if you ever come back then they won't think I went special on you and treated you better because of what I am about to offer. That assignment is about you...since you uh, yeah that's it…Were the most outstanding in the class, I have been granted a personal attendance to receive a reward if I make you the strongest I can."

"Wait what? I'm the best?? HAHA fuck yeahhh" Apollo exclaimed in glee, obviously proud of himself. The confusion vanishing as he realized his hard work payed of.

"The punishment part is only half false though…the training shall be hell to you. You shall be remolded and forged until you are killing machine. Simply. Do you accept this training?" He asked with a vanish of his smile, revealing a serious tone in its wake.

"Yes! But…I have to talk to my brothers." Somehow the exact same line over a 1,000 feet away was being said at that exact moment by Yuki.