We enjoyed the most congenial breakfast on the Pirate Islands so far. It was a late morning. Even I woke up late. I hadn’t realized how hard I had been pushing myself to keep up my normal level of enthusiasm with lesser sleep.

We sat down at the table and mother fixed us eggs, bacon, toast and fruit.

“Why are you two basically shining?” Veena asked grumpily as she received her poached eggs. “Thank you, Ramona.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie.”

Veena’s cheeks flushed and she looked down at her eggs. She was still getting used to not getting treated with deference. I’d say it was healthy for her.

“It’s true,” father said. “I’ll say I slept great, but you and Luka are…”

“Is this some new magic you learned?” Alik asked between bites.

“Not really,” I said. Then I got up and came back a moment later, levitating the brass bell. I flicked it with a finger and it floated towards mother who caught it.

“I’ll use this to call you for dinner from now on,” mother said and rang it.

A beautiful sound rang, and I could sense a pulse of happiness from being used with my Spirit Connection. A feeling of warmth and ease descended on the table.

“Oh, this is nice,” father said. “Is it an artifact?” 

“Something like that,” I said. ”I think the bellwright-spirit left a part of himself in it.”

“How curious,” Danek said and leaned over the table. His stack of bacon strips was so tall, it smudged his shirt. “It must be valuable.”

“We are not selling it,” mother and I said in unison.

After breakfast I went outside to seek spirits. I went to the beach next to the docks. It was at the foot of a rocky strip of jagged stones that created a wall between the docked ships and the ocean. I figured there were bound to be water spirits here.

I found some instantly. There were many lesser spirits, that were but wisps in the air. They noticed me, and came to circle around me, and I gave them a bit of purified mana to play with. They sent gusts of wind at me, and I splashed little water bullets at them. These of course passed through them harmlessly, but it amused the spirits. Then I tried using my Passage Between Spirit and Magic, because I wanted to try to use it as an anchor for a spirit pact or something like that. Not exactly a pact, but a companionship. Whatever the hell the terminology for Spiritcasting was. I could have gone to ask Jalani, but I doubted he was feeling cooperative since yesterday.

But the spirits recoiled. Their attitude changed in an instant when I suggested this. They had been playful and cheerful, but the moment I suggested a deeper connection, they took one look at my Arcane Body hand, and sent urgent pulses of fear.

I asked them what was going on, and they pleaded with me to not force them to jump into the hand. I couldn’t understand. Even though I assured the spirits, I only wanted to try it out and play, they ran off, as if the hand was going to eat them.

I sighed and sat down on a rock. I watched a pirate ship casting off with a crew of twenty. Bombasar was there shouting and boasting. It seemed like he was going on another plundering trip. I decided to go closer and watch him interact with the spirits.

The tall Trola man was blue and clad in black, apart from his red boots and giant red hat, with skull and bones resting on the rim. Using my Mana Sight and Spirit Connection, I now saw more clearly what was happening. Bombasar was releasing spiritual energy from his fetish and called spirits. Then he negotiated with them like he was their old friend. He promised one of them could join him on his plunder, and reside in his hat and eat his mana. He promised he would offer a small favor and do the spirit’s bidding. All these were pulses of emotion that he sent back and forth between the spirits. I saw him notice me watching, and he gave me a gold-toothed grin. I waved at him.

So the skull and bones of the hat were the medium. It was the conduit through which Bombasar influenced the spirits. And he offered them mana and favors so that they would do what he wanted. 

Finally one of the spirits slipped into his hat, and Bombasar told the crew to set sail.

I watched them depart and thought to myself. If Bombasar could offer the spirits mana and dwelling, why couldn’t I?

Did I have too low Skills, or was it something else. I walked to the docks and pinged the larger spirits that were left over. Three of them approached me. They were translucent masses of swirling energy, that were vaguely humanoid in form.

These were not as playful as the smaller sprites, but were immediately interested in what I had to offer. Maybe they had learned to be transactional with Bombasar, who knew. I asked them about what had happened, and they refused to tell me anything for free. I gave them some of my cultivated mana, to which they responded eagerly telling me that the barter had happened as I had seen it.

Then I asked if any of them would like to go into my cultivated hand and try out my new power sharing Perk with me.

They all were very interested in my hand, and circled around it. Then one of them brushed it, and immediately recoiled.

There was urgent pulses of emotion between them as they went back and forth so fast I couldn’t even keep up with what they were talking about.

Then the one who had touched my cultivated arm sent a pulse asking me if I could water the energy of my cultivation down.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

The spirit concentrated and asked me to focus only on it. I did, and focused my Skill directly at it.

It spoke in the voice of a mature woman in my ear.

“This font of power you have, we thirst for it,” she said. “But it is far too potent and far too vast for us to inhabit. Have you something you can put this pure mana into? A vessel, a fetish?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But then I think my Perk won't work. It requires me to use my cultivation as a conduit.”

“There is no spirit in these waters, who would dare form a pact with you. The lesser spirits would instantly be obliterated and lost in the vastness of the sea of your power. Us larger spirits would strain to keep our sense of self together and suffer greatly.”

“I don’t need you to pact with me,” I said. “I just wanted to try it.”

“Without obligations?” the spirit asked. “This cannot be done. A spirit cannot inhabit an anchor without a pact with the Spiritcaster.”

“Then how about this,” I said. “You can sit in my cultivation and do what you want, as long as I get to test my Perk.”

The spirit shook her head. “This cannot be Your offer is generous, and I would love to sample your mana, but it is too potent.. Your seas are too vast for my waters. You must find a spirit significantly more powerful than I to propose such a pact.”

I let the matter be, and instead proposed a loose trade with the spirits. I would give them strings of purified mana, and they would give me their power over the waves.

This pleased them, even though they regretted not being able to pact with me. This also engaged my Passage Between Spirit And Magic, even though it felt very inefficient, without having a spirit reside in my hand.

I gave the spirits so much mana, that they were basically fawning over me. They were all eager to give me command of their waves, and I learned how to control the spiritual energy.

It was very similar to my cultivation and how structuring mana worked. I imposed my will on the waves and directed the spiritual energy towards them. It was shoddy work, but I did manage to make some waves that rocked a small boarding boat flapping against the dock. It was abandoned and dilapidated, but the resin had not yet yielded enough to sink it.

My Spiritual Power was ticking up to make a clear difference. Since the evolution, every level gave me four points instead of two, and I could definitely appreciate that. Earlier, I had struggled to keep the water moving once a natural wave pushed against it. Now I could hold my intent and make the water keep going where I wanted, even forcing the flow against the waves coming from the ocean. My technique was still pretty crap, but having more strength to practice with certainly helped. 

“This way you are doing this, is not how the Spiritcasters normally do it,” the matronly spirit said.

“How so?”

“Bombasar only gives us mana, and we will do his bidding. That is Spiritcasting. You are giving us mana, and asking us to give you our power instead. This seems wasteful. But we do not complain, for your mana is delicious. But you would command more power if you let us do it for you.”

“But then how would I learn to do it myself?” I asked confusedly.

“Mortals do not learn it,” the spirit said. “This thing you are doing, poorly as it is, is only possible because of this strange Perk you have.”

I grinned happily. So the Special Achievement God’s Favor had indeed given me something powerful and exclusive. Nobody else could directly control spiritual power? I kind of liked the idea of that. 

I had to admit that I was doing a poor job controlling the spiritual energy, but I had endless mana from my cultivation to give to the spirits, as long as I kept using Mana Transmutation to top it up.

After several hours I had a full crowd. I held court to a constant audience of fifteen spirits. They would all pool their spiritual power in exchange for my purified mana that they delighted in so much. The original spirits were long gone, after I had completely exhausted their reserves of power. The spirits kept exchanging. Small and larger ones came and went. The only problem was that they were light weights. Only after four or five infusions of my purified mana and exchanging their spiritual power, they were exhausted.

Some of the nicer ones were so happy with the exchange that they stayed and taught me to wield their power. In this way I leveled up extremely fast. I asked why, and they told me that it was because I was using Spiritcasting in a way that was not conventionally possible. They believed I would eventually receive another Skill Evolution because of my special Perk.

[Mana Manipulation level 26!]

[+2 Mana Flow]

[+1 Magic Power]

[Mana Absorption level 18!]

[+2 Magic Power]

[+2 Focus]

[Mana Transmutation level 13!]

[+2 Magic Power]

[+2 Mana Flow]

[Mana Resonance strengthened to 12%] 

[Spirit Connection Level 12!]

[+4 Spiritual Power]

Because I had slept so well the previous night, I engaged into meditation and threw myself at this new practice with a gusto I had not felt in a while. I continued deep into the night, and exhausted dozens of spirits. After I was thoroughly exhausted, and the dawn was almost breaking, did I call it a day. I told the spirits that I would return and they better continue teaching me.

They responded with mixed emotional pulses. Excitement and fear intermingled, but they promised to indulge me. After this promise, I went to sleep, had breakfast with my family and returned the next day. This continued for weeks until I finally felt comfortable using spiritual power. On the last night of my training, I took a satisfied look at my Status, and went to bed. But before leaving, I directed spiritual power towards the abandoned boat I had rocked earlier. Waves engulfed it from all directions and closed in on it like the jaws of a shark, and threw it in the air. It flopped nose first back into the water and started sinking. Fortunately the water wasn’t deep there. The spirits cheered and excitedly sent pulses at me, to which I responded as well as I could. They sure were a rowdy bunch.

But now it was finally time to move forward. Bombasar had returned from his pillages. There had been another close call with the Leviathan, and the man looked particularly pale.

Good. That would work to my advantage. I had been training hard and had news to share. It was time to go out to the open sea and challenge the Leviathan.

Name: Luka

Attributes:
Perception: 122
Focus: 73
Mana Flow: 125
Magic Power: 134
Reflex: 4
Spiritual Power: 36

Skills:
Magical Trance (Rare): 27
Mana Sight (Mythic): 21
Mana Manipulation II (Uncommon*): 26
Spellcrafting (Rare): 20
Mana Absorption (Epic): 19
Mana Transmutation (Epic): 15
Heightened Senses (Uncommon): 4
Spirit Connection (Epic): 14

Total Level: 146
Skill Slots: 8/8

Cultivation:
Arcane Body Art — First Layer: 12%
Insight: Purified Mana

Perks:
Sage, Contemplative, Unique, Magical Insight, Arcane Convergence (24%), Mana Weaving, Continuous Casting, Lingering Casting, Perfect Initiation (Mana Absorption), Mana Augmentation, Mana Resonance (12%), Multicasting, Apex Predator, Prodigy, Arcane Deconstruction, Purification, Keen Mind, Spiritual Presence, Passage Between Spirit and Magic

Special Achievements: Awakened Mind, A God’s Favor

Achievements: First Skill, Unique, Cultivation, Beastslayer I, Prodigy, Attribute Milestone I — Perception, First Evolution