Capítulo 64: Spirits: Divination, Apparition, Mind Sight & Manifestation

Alex slept for most of the day, and as a result he woke up right as the clock struck midnight. The next round for the open Dantian competition starts first thing in the morning, and if things go according to plan, it should all be wrapped up and the competition for the next realm commencing. Either way Alex was well rested and prepared for it, but there were things he needed to understand, and that was how the spirit ranks worked.

He made his way outside and placed his mask on his face, he was slowly learning to be more in control of Nezha's flames, and at times like this he could make it so that it doesn't even show up in the first place. Alex appeared within his mantle, in that circular platform that led to seven archways, one of which was lit a blazing red. Alex sat down just as Nezha's voice resounded within this inner world of his.

"If you're here about advice for your mother, then you've come to wrong place. I didn't have that much luck with my mother either, and considering my father tried multiple times to kill me or have someone else do it while she watched, I'd say you lucked out with the kind of parents you have, at least they care." Alex felt pity or at the very least sorry, Nezha must have had a much more worse childhood than he did. But family issues were not the reason he was here.

"I'm not here to talk about my mother, I want to know more about the spirit ranks, and about what I can do now that I'm a spirit soldier?" Alex asked as he paid attention to what Nezha had to say.

"Well I guess a little lesson is required. So far you understand what spirit energy is, you know what spirits are, and you know what or who a spirit king is. However the ranks of spirits and spirit cultivation are the same for a reason, and that's because of spirit pacts. As you well know, not all spirits are sentient, the spirit world is very much like the human world, we have animals, monsters and special existences. And anyone who cultivated spirit energy becomes capable of forming spirit pact with any sort of spirit. Husbands and wives use it when they get married, some do so for their children, some with their slaves and followers.

For all intents and purposes, spirit energy cultivators are Summoner or tamers, but Summoner is more in line, at least as far as the human world is concerned. At the spirit embryo stage, you become capable of making a pact with an embryo stage spirit, becoming capable of summoning it in battle and drawing strength from it. You can say that it's much like the masks, however all of the spirits that your masks will connect to or either create, all have a definite level of strength that's very high and even though you can manifest our power and abilities, we can not be summoned to truly fight for you, not our real bodies at least, and it's only until you get to the spirit world where my real body still resides, would you be able to summon me. For every stage except the Embryonic stage, you can make a pact with two spirits, in the embryonic stage you can only have one, a prime spirit that's like a root or foundation for all of your next spirits.

And you can only summon another spirit, when you embryonic spirit has reached a certain level of strength. And every level after has to have strong enough spirits for you to be able to make a pact with a spirit of the next level. Now these spirits unless you meet them and make a pact within the human world, are always weak. You have to train them, so in a way it's more like taming than summoning, or a very close combination.

Either way as a spirit soldier, since you're not practicing magic like the mages of the Albion empire, you would have to follow the paths of the spirits. At the Embryonic stage there's not much of a difference except for heightened senses and the ability to make pacts. As a commoner you become capable of sharing energy with you pact spirits, plus then you can have three. As a soldier your pact spirit becomes capable of using special techniques, you do too. You will be able to use spirit school techniques of DIVINATION, APPARITION, MIND SIGHT and MANIFESTATION. I won't tell you about the other stages until you reach them, because of the way you advance, your foundations are a bit shaky, so we will work on those first.

Thankfully your rate of advancement has slowed down considerably, I can feel it. You're cultivation speed is still maybe two or three times as fast as normal humans, especially when special circumstances are involved. But now you can advance in a good enough pace where refinement of you energy and improvement of your techniques will be the true basis of your power and not your cultivation base. We can skip the first two stages of spirit ranks, and focus on the soldier rank and the abilities that come with it. I would advice you to wait until the four month training within the alternate dimension to summon your embryonic spirit and train it. Plus doing so would prepare you for your post as spirit King, you will be commanding a lot of spirits in the future. So what do you want to learn first."

To Alex if was almost as if the world was a whole lot bigger than expected, he doubted there was much knowledge if any at all about the ranks from spirit cultivation, which In more ways than one is a caste system within the spirit world, however that was a world that's nowhere close to earth, it was an entirely different dimension. And even though it seemed as if Alex had so many things to learn, he wholeheartedly wanted to know more about the spirit realm, because quite frankly it was something that set him apart from the rest of the human beings on this planet.

"Just tell me everything you can." Alex said to Nezha with undisguised glee in his voice.

"well then, since you're in the spirit soldier rank, and that's the rank where the true power of a spirit begins to get displayed, we'll focus on that. The powers of a spirit are divided into four different schools, much like how cultivators have different elemental roots and physiques. Once a spirit gets to the soldier rank, it's core would have settled down enough for it's power orientation to be revealed. 20% of spirits can only use one school of power, 50% can use two, which makes them the majority, another 20% can use three, and only 10% can use all schools; but even then extensive training is required.

The (Divination) school has to deal with quite a few things from tracking, locating a person, predicting odds, divining the past and to actually prophesying the future. Spirits with (Divination) abilities are very rare, and even for those who have such abilities, it's hard to train or they're not talented enough in using it. Which means of the entire spirit population in existence across the universe, and within higher planes, only 8% have divination skills, and only 1% can claim to be proficient in it, much less having mastered it.

The next would be the (Apparition) school, more often than not only spirits with close relationship with death can use this ability. Common spirits like wraiths, ghosts, or powerful spirits like Liches are masters of this school. They have the ability to manipulate the metaphysical in more ways than one, they can possess a person, create illusions, lay curses and cause diseases. And most of them do not have tangible bodies, they're stuck between spirit and physical forms, even within the spirit realm. You can't rely on physical or straightforward attacks to deal with them, sometimes even special skills like my flames won't work, and you would need things like a ritual to bring them down.....rituals were once the specialties of your ancestors, the spirit kings that came before you, could kill a person millions of miles away with rituals, and rituals fall under the school of (Mind Sight).

This particular school is a bit weird, their abilities are quite varied and more often than not are based on emotions. Their rituals can interfere and change the laws of nature, of course there's always a price to pay and even then failure either means death or a very terrible curse that would make you wish for death. They have telekinesis and telepathy, and other abilities like astral projection and share a common ability with the (Apparition) school to siphon life and energy. They are the only school capable of blocking the power of Divinations. During the time of your ancestors and even now within some parts of the dark continent, people who have succeeded in learning the ways of the (Mind Sight) school, are called witch doctors, herbalist, witches, warlocks etc. And some who have both Mind Sight and Divination can be called Mediums, gypsies, oracles, and shamans with their abilities being very varied depending on the spirit they have a pact with.

And finally the (Manifestation) school, which is the school I actually fall under.

It's the only school of abilities I have, but based on what you've seen I'm sure you have a basic idea of what Manifestation abilities are like. We're the spirits that can shoot fire from our hands, call down lightning and make the seas rage in anger.

Of course the Mind Sight school can also achieve some of those with their rituals, but we can do it instantly. In every battle, we're right at the forefront, leading the charge. And like I told you it's quite rare for a spirit to only have a single school of power, and even rarer that it's manifestation. It doesn't mean we're weak though, it just means we have more focus on a particular school, and as a results my attainments are a whole lot more than other spirits who have two schools. So any questions?"

Alex looked up at the red archway and just shrugged his shoulders and asked. "when do I start?"