His sole focus on increasing the health of his soul had led him to make several discoveries about the Astral realm he found himself in. For one, the spirit body surrounding his soul acted like a physical object to the haze energy of this spirit realm.
Absorbing the haze was like sweating in reverse since the mist would get slowly absorbed when it collided with his astral form. This gave rise to his second conclusion. The thing he was currently sitting on was either an enormous creature or a concentrated amount of spirit energy combined into a flat solid.
Ever since the jellyfish had unintentionally guided him to the ground level, he had stayed close to it in order to orient himself. As a once normal person who was born into a world with gravity, floating around weightlessly felt very disorienting. But no matter how far he explored, the ground never revealed anything new or different, it was perfectly flat and desolate.
He had tried punching and digging through it, but it acted like a stone floor. But just because he couldn't break it currently, didn't mean that that would be the case forever. After all, even with that soul fragment sent out, he had finally regained and surpassed his previous soul's level.
As he was sitting in meditation once more, he saw a drastic change in the way he used his silver magic to heal his soul. It was a change similar to when he finally managed to upgrade his body enhancement spell and the impressive improvement in performance and mana consumption it brought.
Adam Hartwell
(Astral spirit)
Status: Rogue spirit - Level 5
Soul mana: Level 3
Divine patriarch (reincarnation): [soul realm pioneer]
Spells:
- Soul circulation - refined - epic
- Soul blaze - crude - epic
(???)
He grinned at the screen as he admired his soul. It had started to become more focused and refined as it grew stronger. It only started truly growing when he figured out how to improve his soul circulation since the haze only brought minuscule changes.
Simply having the spell upgrade did feel really good though, it was like a tingling in his soul as his pathways sprouted smaller paths and channels all over his soul. Funneling soul mana into his soul now was so easy he didn't even need to really think about it. His ethereal core would almost independently grab the magic it needed and circulate it around his pathways and into his soul.
Each time his soul grew denser and more stable, his core seemed to grow too. He was now basically just in a waiting game. Either his soul mana would be able to push his soul into the realm where it is strong enough to explore what lay beneath this floor, or his soul would return with new information for him.
As Adam's spiritual body stood, he stomped down on the ground once again. But this time, a small crack appeared where he hit it. His hunch was correct, this empty realm isn't the real spirit realm… It's purgatory, a waiting room for the weak souls before being able to move on to the real deal.
He eyed the floor with anticipation as the cracks slowly healed. When his soul became strong enough, he would crack through this solid spirit energy barrier and see what lies beyond. He had a feeling it was going to be very good for him.
—
The trip across the Caspien sea usually took a few days. Aquatic Niorbos attacks make traversing the sea a dangerous journey for civilians, so hunters always accompany the trips. Many candidate hunters travel south every year in hopes of joining one of the southern cities' hunter guards. They are referred to as the last line of defense and only the marine Niorbo can elude them.
Each year, thousands perish in Niorbo assaults, most of which are hunters. Therefore each city welcomes and trains the new generation of humanities defenders to fight back against the monstrous invasion. Gender and class are culturally nonexistent in these lands.
A war for the survival of humanity has created a human race patriotically devoted to defending their race as a whole. Here, there are no nations or creeds and factions. Only cities that work together to form a wall of defense.
But it wasn't always like this. According to Dorian's memories, the used to be nations and fighting amongst humans. People would regularly kill others for profit or selfish reasons.
Then came the Niorbo, some believed them to be the envoys of the devil, others the retribution of god. But when all of the world's countries fell one by one, humanity seemed doomed to perish.
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One day, hundreds of years ago, a great warrior discovered he could get stronger by feasting on the flesh of the dead Niorbo. He gained superhuman powers and the strength to rival the invading beasts. He rallied a small group of tough men and women to fight and eat the Niorbo to take their power and use it against them. That was how the hunters came into being.
Adam had rested his new teenage body and gone over the relevant memories of the young boy. He was still a little shocked at how selfless and protective these people were. Based on all of Earth's history, such great unity like this was almost impossible for him to imagine. Abusing and mistreating others in these lands is the greatest crime, anyone who threatens or harms another person here is considered an enemy of mankind and exiled to Niorbo territory.
It was shocking but also very interesting to him. After all, even the government once had plans to fake an alien invasion to force all the world's countries to pull together in the face of a greater common enemy.
It was interesting to see that this strategy had actually worked here, and it had become both a cultural and survival method over the generations.
His arrival in the south should lead him to become a hunter, which meant learning about magic from an established organization that has fought the Niorbo for centuries, while also being a safe place from crime and gangs.
He first assumed that the south would be a lawless area where ‘might makes’ right’ behavior, yet it seemed that even on the border with literal monsters, this planet's culture of protecting all of mankind might be the perfect planet for him. After all, if having as many powerful hunters as possible is the goal, people are less likely to hoard the secrets of their strength.
“Where coming up on Malder, young hunter candidates” Shouted the captain.
Ellio woke up from her nap next to Adam. They both made their way out of the wooden cabin in the center of the boat and approached the side of the vessel.
Two stone beams were sticking out of the water with large metal doors connecting the two. The large doors began to open in the waters, revealing the doors to have wavy metal panels that let water in and out, but nothing else. There were piles of stone around the rest of the area that also served to block access to the city ahead.
Adam watched in awe as the boat passed through the gate before it was closed behind them. It was a pretty good system to stop the sea monsters from getting to the shores of the city, similar to a reef that would stop sharks from coming too close.
“I can’t wait to awaken as a hunter, I wish I become a fire mage!” Excailed Ellio with barely contained excitement.
Adam looked over at his strangely familiar new sister. ‘I really feel like she has always been my older sister.’
He cracked a smile at her. ‘Great minds think alike, ' he thought, but it quickly faded as the familial bond he felt was suppressed. This girl wasn't his sister; she was Dorian's sister. He reminded himself not to get too close. He wasn't planning to stay here forever; he was on a mission.
The boat arrived at the dock and the passengers began to disembark. He walked side by side with Ellio as they moved down the stone street and followed the crowd. All the other passengers were new hunter candidates like them, here to awaken as protectors of humanity.
Wooden street stalls lined the busy city, as the almost medieval-styled streets bustled with life and noise. The smell of cooked food wafted over from various stands and shouts and calls from merchants resonated through the streets.
“Where are we going?” He asked his sister.
“To the hunter candidate office, we need to get ourselves registered for the awakening.”
He didn’t know what ‘the awakening’ entailed but assumed it was the creation of the mana core. They walked the bustling streets for a while until they came upon a large stone building that looked rather imposing.
Making their way inside, they had to wait in a queue for a while before telling the person at the desk their information and getting inscribed into some sort of hunter bootcamp. They called it the Awakening camp.
Adam and Ellio were then directed to relocate to an area beyond the busy city streets they had just walked through. The large stone building served as an office and an entrance into the ‘Hunter school’ section of Malder city. Beyond the building, a large expanse of training grounds and several large buildings extended out in front of them.
The hunter's training school was enormous and they were only seeing a tiny corner of it. This was the waiting area for all nonhunters who wished to proceed with the awakening. His sister looked like she would jump out of orbit with pure joy, as she hurriedly moved towards the group they were supposed to join with up ahead.
Most of the young teenagers on the boat were also in the group now gathered in a wide open space beyond the city's public area. According to the clerk at the desk, they would have to wait until tomorrow for the awakening, but they needed to get their compatibility measured today.
“How do we know if we are compatible with becoming hunters anyway?” Asked a tall boy in the group.
A middle-aged man was in charge of guiding their group of twenty young hunter candidates through the process.
“Everybody listen up” He exclaimed, and all the previous chattering died down. Adam and Ellio had been among the last to arrive, so they shuffled forward to hear what he had to say.
“As of this moment, you are all Hunter candidates. This means that you have all volunteered to help fight for the survival of the many cities of humanity. For this, you are honorable and should feel very proud. But, despite your bravery and determination, you still don’t have any power with which to do so yet.” The crowd held onto his every word as he delivered his speech with practiced ease.
Today, you are hunter candidates, but those with talent will become apprentice hunters by tomorrow.
The crowd cheered at those words as many had been waiting for the awakening for weeks. It happened once every few months, and the new arrivals on the boat from the north arrived just in time to qualify as candidates before the awakening. Adam felt great relief at not having to wait months before he could regain his magic.
“However, some of you might not have the talent needed to be able to awaken as hunters. Many of the population will unfortunately never be able to awaken as hunters. This is what we will test today.”
The crowd fell quiet at this. Many had the shadows of tears flash in their eyes for a moment as they considered if their dreams of becoming hunters would end today in some cruel twist of fate.
Adam also scrunched his brows at those words. He hadn’t realized that magic was only usable by certain people. A small voice in his head told him that this might not be the same magic he knew of.
After all, the core of the tiger he first possessed was completely different from the pure mana core he had once formed.
He pushed the thought aside, it was probably just that some people couldn’t cultivate magic very easily and therefore couldn’t develop cores. After all, the similarities with his old world were clear. The powerful creatures that grant the hunters strength after defeating them. It was exactly like what he had done back in his own world to become a peak grey core wielder.
“Don’t worry too much, even if you can’t become a hunter, the are many other invaluable jobs. Hunting keeps people safe, but it isn’t the only thing that keeps people alive.”
His words were spoken with kindness and understanding, yet no one wanted to accept them.
Becoming a hunter was a sign of great prestige and honor in this world. Becoming anything else would be unacceptable to most people gathered here, including Adam who was now beginning to fear for the worst.
‘What will they do to determine our compatibility with becoming hunters? Would my weakened soul affect that?
Will I actually not become a hunter? But I need to learn about magic, what is the point of all this if I don’t learn magic? I can’t become a merchant for the rest of my life, I need to return to my soul with a foundational understanding of magic, nothing else matters.
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