chapter 121: the fairiest of them all

While I was waiting for Leowynn, I sent a message to Terra, asking what the minimum distance was that I had to be from a settlement in order to use my full power without being noticed. To my surprise… it was actually quite a long ways, roughly five hundred miles for most races, and over a thousand for the heroc, due to their innate sensitivity. Either way, that gave me the starting point I needed to figure out where was safe to descend. Given my track record, I was worried that they might be able to sense my presence somewhat even if I was on the other side of the continent.

Either way, once Leowynn returned to the room and entered my spiritual world, I descended onto the human continent. The area I chose was a forest roughly two thousand miles to the south of their southernmost city, so it should be more than enough distance for me to conduct this test safely. If not, then there was really nothing that I could do in secret anymore! I mean, two thousand miles was half the continent back in my previous world.

Father, what did you want to do down here? Leowynn’s voice broke me out of my thoughts, and I could faintly feel her confusion.

“I’m going to be making history.” I said, in a purposely cryptic tone, before explaining. “There are two classes that don’t seem to be able to be unlocked naturally, due to the restrictions on the classes themselves. Only specially created entities can get them. So… I’m going to try to create them.”

As I spoke, I could feel Leowynn’s excitement growing stronger. Can I come out? She asked in a hopeful tone. I want to watch it myself!

“Sorry…” I shook my head slowly. “I can’t risk it. I’m going to be messing with a lot of spiritual energy, and I don’t want to accidentally drag yours into the mix. If I thought it was safe, I’d let you out, but for now… you’ll just have to watch it through me.”

Aw… I could feel Leowynn pouting from within me, but there was really no helping it. I had had so little practice with my full power that it wasn’t funny. To be precise, I had NO practice with my current full power, and didn’t even know what my full power was! Well, I could at least remedy one part of that quickly.

I… couldn’t help but cough in surprise when I saw the various stats and levels. No wonder Terra said I needed to be at least five hundred miles away! I even began to wonder if I had truly gone far enough. Everything was so much higher than it had been the last time that I looked that I couldn’t help but worry.

Still, Terra had never directly lied to me before, so when she said that five hundred miles would be a safe distance, then naturally that meant I would be safe where I was. It just… took me a moment to accept that reality.

Taking a deep breath, I focused inwards, taking down the wall that I had built between myself and my Keeper power. I could feel the energies washing over me, but the changes did not end there. Beneath my feet, the ground began to crack under my suddenly increased weight. Blue and golden lights circled around my body before rising into the air.

When the light hit the skies, the clouds began to darken, lightning arcing within them. I blinked in surprise as I watched the strange phenomena which were caused simply by releasing my full power. However, it only lasted for a short time before the lights were absorbed back into my body.

With the increase in my strength, it was only natural that I didn’t notice the change in my weight, myself. If anything, I actually felt lighter than before! Yet, from the sounds that rang out every time I took a step, like a heavy rock being dropped onto the ground, I knew that the change must have been significant.

Wow… Father is powerful! Leowynn called out in surprise from within my spiritual world, having noticed the unconscious display of strength.

“That was… an accident.” I chuckled softly, shaking my head. “Now… let’s get started, shall we?” I glanced down to my wrist, where the golden bracelet I had previously formed still resided. There were questions about some of my status that I would have to ask Terra later, but for now I had to focus.

Leowynn was clearly excited to see me perform whatever miracle she expected me to achieve. Yet, knowing myself, I was bound to disappoint her if she was expecting a success on the first try. After all, I had never attempted to merge spiritual energy with anything else.

First, I lifted my right hand, my golden bracelet shining slightly. “Gather.” I commanded, and I could sense as the natural energies of the surrounding forest gathered in front of me, as if awaiting further instructions. It was so dense that I could even see a hazy image with the naked eye, like the air had been scorched.

Smiling slightly, I infused a small amount of mana into my eyes to begin looking around, finding all of the nearby spiritual energies. Since I was so far from a human settlement, I didn’t have to worry about grabbing a sapient soul by mistake. “Gather.” I said again, though this time I was commanding in a different manner.

Silver smoke filled my vision, rising up from every inch of the ground. No doubt, the countless little insects and other critters that would typically escape the notice of the patrols had piled up for a while. I wasn’t about to complain, since it would give me the perfect materials for my own endeavors.

As the smoke rose up, it began to gravitate towards me, much as the natural energy had. However, this process was far slower, as I did not have a convenient tool to help me control spiritual energy. At the same time, I was working to refine it, filtering it through my mana to work out the impurities.

By the time the smoke arrived before me, it had turned into a large mass, several meters high. Although it appeared to be a solid in my vision, I knew that I would lose sight of it if I stopped channeling the mana to my eyes. “Okay… I’ve got the ingredients… now how to make this work…”

For the spiritual energy, I knew that I would likely need the entire mass in order to create a living World Spirit. The creature needed to have a physical form, and that required condensing the energy until it was a fraction of its current size. Now, that might not be the case when I create a Martial Spirit, but that is because ki in itself is the essence of the physical. It might be able to make spiritual energy solid more easily.

Anyways, for now I just had to be careful. “Merge.” I spoke softly, slowly gathering the natural energies around me and sending them into the mass of spirits. The important part right now was to find the ‘formula’ that would allow spiritual and natural energies to mix. Go too far on one side, and the natural energies will be repelled. Go too far on the other, and I may just destroy the spiritual energy.

Given that natural energy was far more abundant, I decided to start small on that one. I took control of the energies myself, focusing as I let them gently press into the mass of spiritual energy. Only once I felt that they were just barely starting to sink in did I relax my control, focusing instead on keeping the spiritual energies in place.

Of course, the problem now was that I had no real unit of measurement for natural energy, unlike any of the other types. So it was hard for me to accurately note down what the ratio was, aside from an instinctive feeling. But if that is all I had to go by, then it is what I would use.

Once I had the spiritual energy mass filled with natural energy, it became apparent that the two were still not mixing. Instead, it seemed to be a bubble of spiritual energy surrounding natural energy. Which is… not what I wanted at all. I could come up with three possible ways for the two energies to mix, but any one of them failing would likely mean having to relocate and start from scratch.

The first attempt I made was the most delicate, trying to modify the balance of energies to find the proper point for them to combine. If I were to take chakra as an example, then forcing the two together could end with explosive results, and instead a delicate touch was required. Unfortunately… this delicate touch soon showed more harm than good.

As I was adjusting the ratio, moving the natural energies out of the bubble slowly in order to affect the balance, I noticed something strange. With the reduced resistance, the spiritual energy suddenly caved in on itself, attempting to reclaim the area taken from it. Naturally, this in turn caused the spiritual energy to temporarily condense. Ultimately, it resulted in the spiritual energy being torn apart by the rebound.

With a slight sigh, I kicked off the ground and ran even further south, until there was enough spiritual energy nearby to try again. This time, I tried a more forceful method. With the bubble formed once again, I attempted to condense the spiritual energy around it, with the intention of forming a physical body for the natural energy to reside in.

As one might imagine… this did not go so well either. This time, there was an actual explosion, and the ground beneath me seemed to shatter. Everything within ten meters of the ‘experiment’ had been blasted back, with the exception of myself.

Moving south once again, I tried the third and final option. What do you do when two items refuse to mix properly? You shove them in the blender! By this point, I was admittedly somewhat irritated at having to start all over again. When I had the two energies gathered, I began violently mixing them, spinning them around and containing them much like a blender would. This method was honestly the one that I thought had the least chance of success, hence why I saved it for last.

And yet… I was not wrong. The only thing that seemed to come out of the third attempt was the spiritual energy being torn to shreds repeatedly. Although I did notice a slight change to some of it, it was far from being able to make me excited. However, it did give me another idea to try.

So… moving south again, I started over for the fourth and final time. If I failed this time, I wouldn’t have anything else I could try without going back and buying a guide off the market. Which, honestly, was not a bad idea. But was it so wrong of me to want to figure this out for myself?!

Anyways, this last attempt was a sort of mix between all three. First, I gathered the two energies together, keeping them separate. Next, I slowly began to push them together, while focusing on condensing the spiritual energy.

Finally, as the spiritual energy was just starting to become physical, I noticed a change in how it interacted with the natural energy. It actually became easier to fuse the two together, at which point, it was back to the blender! Grey smoke turned into a light green whirlpool in front of me, one which I could see even without focusing my eyes.

Now, I probably need to give it a shape…The last thing I wanted was to get this far, and to only end up with a blob of mixed energies. So, I began working again, doing my best to mold the energies into a humanoid shape. However, it was at this point that another problem appeared, and that was just how much energy there was.

In short… not enough! The grey mass that had been dozens of meters tall, when condensed and merged with natural energy, was barely bigger than my palm. I know I agreed to make fairies, but I didn’t think they’d actually BE fairies!

Yet, it was too late to go back on it now, so I just did my best to succeed. I focused my mind on an image I knew from my youth, that of a tiny woman with transparent wings behind her back. Her limbs were thin and frail, her hair short and golden. To my pleasant surprise, the energies seemed to move according to my will quite easily, perhaps thanks to the token of nature I wore.

When I was done, I had in my hands an actual fairy… curled up in a ball, her arms hugging her legs, she looked vacantly down at my palm. I started to think that I might have failed, when she slowly looked up at me. In her eyes, I could see the briefest hint of intelligence, like a newborn child that didn’t know what was going on.

What… An unfamiliar voice echoed in my mind softly, and I realized it must have been coming from the fairy in my hand. I was going to be amazed that it knew a language, but then I realized that it seemed to be more of an instinct than an actual word, as if that most simple of thoughts had been transferred to me. Thankfully, my appraisal ability was kind enough to inform me that I had, in fact, succeeded.