Consciousness gradually began returning to me. I felt some tension in my body, but you could hardly call it unpleasant. It was more like the result of a good workout, when you've worked all muscle groups well and your body feels lighter.
The attempt to open my eyes, or at least what replaces them for me, was successful. And the first one I saw was Wong — he was looking at me with considerable concern. A series of recent memories flashed in my head. I remembered that residual energy from that dark spirit had entered my body.
I immediately began diagnosing my condition, and not noticing thirst or any other factors indicating my entry into dark spirits, I exhaled with relief. Though there were plenty of other changes.
First, some part of the energy lines that enveloped my body became blue-cyan in shade. Second, energy density increased, and its quantity also substantially increased. And my body itself grew in size. I became more like a humanoid: something resembling a head appeared, a pair of arms and legs. I think there's a chance I'll regain human form as I raise my rank. This can't help but make me happy.
Beginning to delve deeper into myself, I saw my energy source, or rather sources... Next to the transparent sphere, a new sphere of blue energy floated, as if consisting of real water. So this is how a surprise works. I hope that with the addition of a new element, no new problems are foreseen.
"Ahem," Wong interrupted my thoughts with his light cough.
Stopping my self-examination, I paid attention to Wong, who was shifting from foot to foot and continued anxiously waiting for my answer.
"Everything's fine, Wong, it seems I didn't turn into a crazed dark spirit," I said with a smile to the worried spirit.
"Apparently, I got myself too worked up," he said with a relieved smile. "I sense water magic in you — perhaps you're anomalous even for the Spirit Realm. A place where the most mysterious things can happen."
"I don't really understand what's happening myself... As you know, I became aware of myself here quite recently," I said with a crooked smile. "Better help me figure out what happened."
As far as he knows, even in the Spirit Realm there are certain laws that are maintained by the world itself. It happened that he managed to communicate with more or less adequate dark higher spirits. They said that they can only take about twenty-five percent of all energy from a defeated spirit, and when digesting this very energy for themselves — they get even less, while the remaining part is always absorbed by the world itself.
And precisely what goes to the world most often carries no aspirations or emotions. Absorbing such energy would be much safer for the dark ones themselves.
Many high-ranking dark spirits still try to bypass this rule, but no one has succeeded yet.
"Then I want to ask you to keep this secret," I said in a serious voice.
"No problem! I don't betray my friends," he said, hitting his chest with his hand in a supposedly cool pose.
"I think it's worth seeing what I got from this 'update,'" I said, starting to walk toward that water body. "There's still much I don't know — I'd like to hear your assessment."
The closer I approached the water, the clearer I began to feel a strong and intrusive influence on me from the heightened water energy background. I irresistibly wanted to get into the water as quickly as possible and swim-swim-swim, thinking about nothing else.
This isn't good — it seems I still got some side effects from the upgrade. Good thing that for now it's just a simple small desire to stay closer to water. Such impulses are easy to suppress, but even this already gives food for thought.
Asking Wong this question, I didn't expect to hear new unpleasant discoveries. As it turned out, our nature affects us spirits more strongly than I initially thought. For lesser and middle spirits, it's normal to always be closer to places saturated with their element — that's how they feel much more comfortable. They can leave to search for new housing only if the situation requires it urgently. As he admitted, even being a higher spirit himself, out of habit he still finds it more pleasant to be in the forest near trees.
For spirits, the statement "being determines consciousness" will be true. Until you enter the elite, most of your aspirations will be conditioned by your body, not your mind. This is bad. I've been here for almost nothing, but gradually it's as if the world itself is trying to adjust me to its certain rules...
Stopping at the water body, Wong began guiding me along the path of elemental control.
"The closer you are to the source of your element, the easier it is to control it," this was the first thing he said.
I had to go right into the water. Then, following Wong's advice, I began trying to feel the very "essence" of water.
At that moment, some techniques that the dark spirit had used came to mind. There were only two of them, but even this was good news for me.
The first turned out to be some kind of water film over the body that increased protection from attacks. It helped evenly distribute received damage. I decided to call it "water armor."
The second technique derived from it. In close contact with an enemy, the spirit I absorbed could sharply direct the armor away from itself to knock down an attacking enemy. But even such powerful techniques for me didn't save that middle spirit against the raw power of a higher spirit.
Besides this, I could simply move water within two meters of myself by force of thought. With increased energy characteristics, I'll be able to control the element farther from myself, and with much greater volume.
"Now try to saturate your body with energy — this comprehensively increases your strength, agility, defense, and reaction speed," Wong gave a new exercise. "As you develop, the improvement coefficient will increase, plus this passively improves your energy conductivity."
"How do you know all this?" I asked with curiosity — after all, he doesn't look like someone who would measure and analyze all this. In my opinion, it's easier for him to hit harder and be done with it.
"When it gets really boring, I used to come to Wan Shi Tong — the spirit of knowledge. He's only too happy to read you lectures, though the classes quickly bore me, and I quickly get distracted by something else," he said with a foolish chuckle. "As soon as he noticed my inattention, my body was already flying out of the Library. At each subsequent meeting he grumbles about ungrateful spirits, but continues hammering knowledge into me."
So his library is here too, and there might be knowledge of the spirits themselves — I'll definitely need to visit him. Only first I should figure out my abilities and become at least a little stronger.
Beginning to saturate my body with water energy, I almost immediately felt a positive result: my body seemed to become stronger, time itself seemed to slow down for me. But this state consumes energy too quickly — if I didn't have a source, it would only last about thirty seconds, but as it feels now I can hold out for several minutes.
This time I decided to try using the neutral source. Directing energy through my body, I got a much better effect. It felt like I became twice as strong. Hmm, so for enhancement it's better to use this source.
Then I began experimenting with doubled enthusiasm. I liked feeling the energy flowing through my body, seeing the results of my actions. I was satisfied with simply realizing the fact that now I wield real magic!
Now that something resembling arms appeared — I can strike with them. Hitting a tree, I left only a small roughness on the surface. Weak.
Next time I decided to saturate my body with water energy. This time the blow left a small dent. Now that's better!
Now let's use neutral energy. From the blow the tree shook noticeably, and a large tear appeared where my limb contacted the bark. I think in strong wind the tree would fall immediately.
But this still wasn't enough... In battle I'd have to let the opponent get too close to me — I should look for new solutions in the element. The idea of creating a shield and sword from water came to mind — since there's spirit armor, I'll become a kind of water knight.
Beginning to condense water, I started compressing it into sword form. In the end, I spent only fifteen minutes creating it. Too long... No one in their right mind would give me that much time to create a technique. [ image ]

But already the second time it took only about three minutes. It seems the water remembered the needed form, or I already knowing the whole process — could do everything much faster.
I decided to test the obtained result on another innocent tree. At the first strike, a small cut appeared. Not getting too upset about this, I decided to direct water along the blade under constant pressure. Too hard to hold the sword in this case, and the consumption is high. But the result was definitely worth it! I got an even line of a sufficiently deep cut.
The next victim was a stone. This time I had to apply more force, but the stone was also cut in half.
With such a sword I even began to feel more confident. All that remains is to consolidate this technique at the subconscious level to create it in a couple of seconds.
Recreating the shield turned out even faster — it was like heavily compressed spirit armor. Thinking how to test it, I saw Wong. With this magic I completely forgot that I'm not alone — I should be more careful, this way I might miss an attack. [ image ]

"Wong, can you help me test my new techniques?" I asked my new friend, simultaneously beginning to condense sword and shield, which was extremely difficult.
While water energy is spent on skills, neutral energy will strengthen the body itself. Thanks to such distribution, I should become several times stronger.
After a small sparring session, Wong was very thoughtful.
"Already now you can defeat a weak middle spirit — the shield can withstand several of his attacks," he said after several minutes of thinking. "I'm even a bit envious — at your rank you can defeat an opponent stronger than you by a whole level."
"But," he frowned, "don't get too cocky — there are still many spirits much stronger than you in this world," this was said in a more serious tone.
"I wasn't thinking of it," I immediately agreed.
Having spent the entire reserve on practicing skills, we decided to return to that tree. As it turned out, this is his home.
I spent the whole day mastering new possibilities, but still didn't manage to understand the mechanism of absorbing energy from killed spirits. Tomorrow I should ask Wong to take me to other places where dark spirits gather. And I need to start practicing my skills myself in battles with other spirits, but I'll still ask Wong to back me up just in case.
***
In the morning, if you can even put it that way, since depending on the area, somewhere it can always be day or night. So in the morning I noticed a clay pot standing nearby, only according to Wong, he gave me this item yesterday...
Here's the first bell that my mind has begun to "degrade" — loss of attention to details has seriously dropped. Before I would definitely not have forgotten to find some vessel for carrying water — fighting without my main water bender tool means definitely bringing death upon myself. After all, water sources aren't always nearby. Alas, I still don't know how to condense water from living organisms or somehow take it from the air... I can only dream about such abilities.
I didn't forget to thank Wong for finding such an invaluable thing.
"By the way, where did you get it?" still curious where he obtained it.
"It was made by spirits under my protection," Wong said. "Don't be offended by them — many of them have been attacked by other spirits, and still don't like showing themselves to new faces, so they're hiding for now," he finished apologetically.
"No problem," I nodded calmly. "I understand everything, you can pass on my gratitude to them."
Wong has lived in this area for a long time and remembered where dark spirits usually come. So knowing the exact places, we prepared for my first hunt.
We reached the first place quickly — it wasn't far from that forest where I saw the first battle. Going a bit further, we saw a cave. Near it there were already several lesser stone spirits — they looked like that giant, only more miniature.
"Be careful," Wong instructed me. "Don't relax until you're absolutely sure of victory."
Having prepared in advance, I created armor, sword, and shield. Beginning to circulate neutral energy, I ran straight at the enemies. Noticing me, they began gathering nearby stones for additional protection. It seems stone spirits are primarily focused on defense. Right now — this is more a plus than a minus.
Without slowing down and continuing to spin water on the blade, I attacked the first spirit. The resistance was much stronger than from a simple stone. Still, spirits don't forget to saturate themselves with energy, and it's what makes penetration difficult.
Breaking through the defense, I cut the spirit's actual "body." As soon as it disintegrated into energy, most of it tried to absorb into me, but a feeling of some "oversaturation" appeared and the particles simply disappeared into the air.
"Not now!" — I'll figure this out later. Two more spirits are approaching. Seeing the uselessness of their defense, they went into swift attack.
I took the first blow from one of the spirits on my water shield — it calmly absorbed all the damage. After a few seconds of struggle, the two remaining spirits were cut by my sword.
As soon as the enemies fell, I sharply tensed all my senses, trying to catch the entire process happening with residual energy. Here they flew closer to me — a feeling of body fullness appeared, and they simply dissolved into the world's energy.
So I shouldn't expect another enhancement. But for accurate confirmation, I should hunt spirits of other elements.
Then throughout the whole day we went from place to place, looking for refuges of different dark spirits. By the end of the day, an accurate result appeared. I can no longer absorb energy from enemies — my body simply won't withstand the appearance of a new source. I should think about this when transitioning to middle level — maybe the possibility of absorbing other elements will appear when raising rank.
Absorption didn't occur with any elements except water, and even rare spirits like derivatives from them gave no effect.
When absorbing the water element from lesser spirits, slight pain appears throughout the body, which somewhat interferes with further fighting. And when a middle spirit disintegrates, the pain becomes even stronger, which already seriously interferes with battle. I'm not used to this yet, so in the first encounter Wong saved me when another middle spirit was ready to snack on me.
The absorption effect only works if the defeated opponent is no more than two meters from me.
After each absorption of a water spirit, the source became denser and larger, and the quality of the energy itself increased considerably. The "feeling of water," already considerable, jumped even higher. Plus creating and maintaining techniques became simple.
But I still couldn't transition to middle level. Now I'm infinitely close to this level. It seems the stronger I became, the more attention the world itself paid to me. Still, I wasn't born here — maybe it sees me as an enemy, so it sets limitations. Another reason for visiting Wan Shi Tong's library as soon as possible.
After the battle with water spirits, I caught myself thinking it would be nice to just stay here and splash in the water... Especially since the place is very good, the heightened water energy background contributed to this.
Sharply shaking my head, I drove such thoughts away. Here's another problem — I'm becoming closer to the mind of a lesser spirit.
Walking to Wong's dwelling place, I thought I shouldn't linger here long — I need to solve my problems, and sitting in one place definitely won't solve them...
Of course, under Wong's protection I can develop peacefully, but still I don't want to lose my personality, even if temporarily. Who knows what will result when reaching higher spirits. And I don't think that without radical steps on my part I'll remain at the lesser level.
In the morning it felt so good to realize my uniqueness, when problems immediately appeared. Though without such problems on the path, it wouldn't be so interesting. Still, solving them — we become better.
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