Bittersweet

'Take me out', Fiona said as her eyes shone decisively.

Leonidas was speechless. This little girl was proving to be more troublesome than he anticipated.

Leonidas sighed helplessly but still conjured to retake control of the situation. The carrot and the stick.

'Fine, but only after you manage to cast your first tier 0 array.' Leonidas said while looking away from the girl.

'Yeah. As long as you manage to move that pencil with your mind, I'll take you wherever you want to go and we'll do whatever you want for a whole day. Sounds good?'

'Good.'

Fiona was determined and she felt she could definitely do it. When she thought about Leonidas' promise, her heart rate increased a little. Was this not a date?! A date!

Leonidas of course knew what the girl was thinking.

He could only sigh helplessly and blame the universe for making him too handsome.

'Okay tell me more about how to cast runes.' Fiona said excitedly.

'I already told you before that runes are biased on the smallest unit of energy. In order to know how to cast runes, you first have to know how much energy youa re able to weild' explained Leonidas carefully so as to make sure she understood.

Runes themselves are the foundation of energy manipulation. But the base is founded on a practitioner's ability to sense and move their energy according to their will.

'Look into the energy center and find the spiritual soul.' Leonidas instructed, after explaining to her the things she needed to pay attention to.

Fiona did as instructed. It took a few minutes to regain focus, but after some effort she was inside her energy center. A glowing indigo sphere leaking bright lights was seen floating in the middle of the space.

That was her spiritual soul.

Leonidas continued, 'Then you have to make your awareness enter your soul. It won't feel awkward or weird. You'll be transported to a different space.'

Leonidas continued to tell her about the sights she might see, like the Soul Sea, and the cloudy walls of the Soul Space.

She did as instructed and felt her awareness shift all of a sudden until she was in an unknown space. Oddly enough she felt that this space was an important part of her, to the extent that it's always existed even before her.

This was her spiritual Soul Space. She looked around and saw a cloudy wall of indigo lights all around except the bottom. The bottom was an almost fluid existence, that did not feel fluid at all.

It was neither warm nor cold, neither soft nor hard. Just ethereal and profound. The 'fluid' had a greyish silver color to it and it would occasionally move around out of the blue. This was her Spiritual Sea.

'Did you find it?'

'Yes! Hahaha' Fiona's excited voice transmission made Leonidas shake his head. He remember when he first saw his Soul Space. He had a similar reaction.

Although Fiona's awareness was in her Spiritual Soul, because they were communicating by way of telepathic connection, which was being shouldered by Leonidas, she could hear him as if he was right next to her.

'Great. So here's the fun part. Move the Soul Sea.'

'...'

'...'

'You meant me to move the sea?' Fiona almost cried. How could she possibly do that.

From her perspective, the sea bellow her stretched for kilometers. She could not imagine doing it at all.

Leonidas sighed and knew that he had to handle this correctly. He said, 'Before you throw a tantrum, I have a question for you.'

'Shoot.' Fiona said dismissively. She wasn't going to throw a tantrum. She was just about to express her inability to understand.

'Whose spiritual sea is that?'

'...'

'...'

'Mine..?'

'Are you sure? Why does that sound like a question? ' Leonidas expressed his annoyance.

'Yes it's mine'

'Good. Now you as the owner. As the ruler of that space. Don't you think you could do literally anything inside it?'

Fiona was stunned. This...

This was in her expectations. But for Leonidas to say it straight up. If she could, Fiona would have drawn in a breath of cold air. But there was no air in the Soul Space.

Leonidas continued, seeing that she was still in thought 'Everything in there is yours. No. Everything in there is a part of you. No... Everything in there is YOU. So of course you can move it.'

Fiona calmed herself as best as she could. She imagined waves rippling on surface of the sea. But nothing happened.

She tried again and again tenaciously, but the same result occurred. She could only seek Leonidas for some advice.

But Leonidas' response left her stumped.

'Do you imagine your hand moving before moving it?'

That's true... Everything clicked into place. Humans don't imagine their hand moving. They just move the hand, and by the time they realise it, it's already there.

It isn't a question of imagining, it's a question of feeling.

Fiona didn't dally as she immediately tried to apply her situation according to her understanding. She thought of imagining the sea as her hand,but immediately dispelled the thought. Imagination was not the key here.

She commanded the sea to ripple. Nothing happened.

She didn't stop. She knew she had an innate connection to the sea. As long as her intentions reached the sea, her wishes would come true.

And after an hour, they did.

Small tiny ripples glided outward from the center of her awareness.

'Haha!' she celebrated.

After another hour She was able to create several whirlpools on the surface of the sea. She had done it.

'Okay, now that you can move it based on intentions alone, you're going to separate a unit of Spiritual energy from your sea.'

'How big is a unit?' Fiona asked with a puzzled expression on her beautiful face. She had her eyes closed right now, fully trusting of the boy in front of her.

'It's not about size as such. Your spiritual sea probably seems huge doesn't it? But what if I told you that you only had 5 units of spiritual energy in there?' Leonidas teased.

Fiona didn't believe him though. When she looked over her sea she could sense that it stretched over several kilometers until it reached the walls. There was no way she only had 5 units right?

'I can tell you don't believe me, so I'll show you. All you have to do is separate a chunk of energy into the space above the sea.'

Leonidas continued, 'your energy is mostly connected right? Chose one chunk and just pull it out and make it float above the sea'

Fiona had felt that her energy that seemed fluid was actually tightly bonded together. She randomly chose a bonded section and started pulling it up.

As the fluid started floating up, more and more fluid from the sea followed until a huge sphere was in the space above the sea.

When Fiona looked down she could tell that the volume of her spiritual sea had decreased visibly. To the point where she started believing that Leonidas was actually right.

'Now keep doing that. Just pull chinks out of the sea until there is no sea anymore.'

A few minutes later, Fiona's soul space looked vastly different than it had a few minutes ago. Instead of a soul sea at the bottom, there were now 5 floating blobs of fluid.

Fiona was proud of herself for having managed to separate the energy. But she also felt mad that Leonidas was right. She let go of the floating balls and brought her awareness back to the real world.

When she opened her eyes and saw the smug handsome face of Leonidas sporting a smile, she couldn't help but curse him silently to herself. So annoying.

'Told you so...'

'Oh Shut up!'

"pfft hahaha" Leonidas couldn't help but laugh. This girl was a handful, but she was very entertaining.

Leonidas also couldn't help but marvel at her natural talent. The time from awakening to being able to draw out units was only 3 hours.

Insane.

This was far better than him in his first time as it took him 6 hours to do so. Of course Leonidas had no guide at the time, but the fact remains that she was able to best him.

Leonidas was very happy with Fiona and felt that teaching her was one of the best decisions he's made since coming back.

'You know there's one thing I still don't understand...' Fiona started.

'What's that?', Leonidas asked, while grabbing a canned soft drink for himself and for Leona from the table.

'Why did you insist on being around while I was awakening and while I'm drawing my first runes?'

Fiona had been wondering this for a long time. Leonidas had said he wanted to protect her. From what exactly, she was yet to find out.

'The world is a stranger place than I'd like to admit. There are creatures out there that feast on souls, there are other beings that cultivate, and there are even organizations on Earth that suppress sacred knowledge. I definitely had to be there to protect you.', Leonidas said casually.

Fiona's face was blank. Wait... What?

'CREATURES?' Fiona said visibly wincing while goosebumps rattled her back.

'I'll ask you another question. What do you think happens when someone dies? Now that you understand more about humans and souls you should be able to give me some kind of good answer right?'

Fiona paused. She unconsciously placed her pale fragile hand on her chin as a myriad of thoughts flashed through her mind.

After some time she gave the best answer she could.

'When people die, their energies dissipate back into the universe.'

'Okay good... That's true but energy doesn't just dissipate. Especially if it's in some protective container right?', Leonidas explained.

'So there has to be a way to separate the energy from the soul!', Fiona realized.

'Ding-ding-ding, well done. That's exactly true. The universe has to have a way to recycle all that energy, whether it's leftover from sorcery or from death. It had to continue the cycle'

Leonidas paused to take a sip of his soft drink, to the great annoyance of Fiona. After noticing this he smiled and carried on.

'That's why we have *Reapers*'

'Reapers?!'

'That's right. Reapers are the cleaners of the energy dimensions. Actually they are special existences which can exist partly in and interact with the physical dimension.'

Fiona's mind was blown, but Leonidas continued.

'Actually, they are not in the physical dimension. They are in the in between. In *Limbo*.'

'So when people die...' Fiona started and looked at leonidas so he could continue.

'Their souls get released into *Spiritual Limbo* and that's where these Reapers are. When Reapers sense a soul, they immediately go and devour the soul, possibly with the purpose of recycling it to spiritual energy.'

'Isn't it fascinating?' Leonidas rambled on.

'I mean we don't know much about them. But they're so coo-', Leonidas stopped when he noticed the tears streaming down the eyes of Fiona.

'M-m-m-m-my mom. My mom she...'

Thats when Leonidas realised his blunder. He wasn't talking to a seasoned practitioner or an academician. He was talking to a young girl who had recently lost her mother to an accident.

Leonidas immediately went over and hugged the girl.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm an idiot...'

Tears that were like raindrops before, now flooded all over her face and she started wailing. Leonidas kept quiet and held her as long as she needed.

After a few minutes they separated and leonidas gave her some facial wipes, which she accepted gratefully. She was still sniffling and breathing heavily as she tried to calm herself down.

It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that she transmitted.

'My mom was a Christian. She believed that when she died God would take her to heaven where she would live eternally. She prayed everyday. Everyday.' a year streamed down her face.

'I can't believe she was praying for nothing.'

Leonidas looked on as Fiona's face was colored with disbelief, frustration and unwillingness. Leonidas couldn't help but sigh at this. Religion has misled so many people.

Religion was meant to be a way to ground people and make them feel like they have a place in the world.

It wasn't until the advent of mass control politics that Religion was twisted and turned into something that served to control the population. All from what they think to how they react to stimulus.

Even Christianity was tainted with political sophistry. Let go that the true story of Joshua was never told, the story that remained was a watered down and washed up psy-op meant to institute mind control into everyone who was forced to believe in it.

Leonidas couldnt help but be frustrated when he thought about how insignificant beings like humans thought they were somehow partial to the attention of higher beings like Gods. Because of the pathetic nature of humanity, a pretty girl had to cry in front of him.

Annoying.

Leonidas realized that If it wasn't for the fact that he had already experienced the death of his parent 160 odd years ago, he would probably be crying too. So he kept quiet.

Leonidas didn't speak. He merely listened as Fiona cried her heart out. At the end of the day, Leonidas walked her over to her house and watched her as she opened the front door preparing to go in.

"Thank you." Fiona said meekly.

"Anytime" Leonidas said with a smile.

And that's how they parted ways that day. With bittersweet feelings and the setting sun in the horizon.