Azalon gaped at the small figure floating before his eyes. Raka who had been lying on the bed opened his eyes and the golden pupils gazed at the Lightning Spirit. LILY was even more interested than the other two. She flapped her golden cicada wings and floated towards the Spirit. She folded her arms before her chest and was circling around the Spirit observing every part as if she was the judge deciding a participant.

“Merup…” Azalon called out softly. The Lightning Spirit that had been looking around with interest swirled towards him. It slowly floated as he called out it’s name.

Azalon carefully observed the Spirit in front of him. The Spirit was around the size of the palm of a child or the fist of a new born. Azalon felt that he could conceal the Spirit completely if he held it in his fist.

The skin of the Spirit is a bright purple color, but it was not a thick and harsh purple that would be difficult to look at. The purple skin had a light sheen and a soft glow to it that made it very pleasing for the eye. It had a round face and a bell like body with two thin legs dangling down from it. Two long arms that were ape – like reached the knees of the Spirit, that ended with long and thin needle like claws. A gray colored chain with black lines running on it was around the neck of the Spirit.

Two wings extended from the its shoulder blades, but based on their appearance they were clearly not used for flying. The wings were in the shape of the lightning bolt symbol that was used back on Earth to indicate high voltages. Four thin needles dropped down from the lightning bolt shaped appendage at four different angles that made the overall shape look like a stretched wing.

A wide grin split that round face above which a small nose was present. Two eyes that looked shockingly like a newborn baby’s eyes, except for the purple pupils that flickered with flashes of lightning, were constantly moving filled with wonder and excitement observing everything around it.

Azalon thought that this guy looked cute in a particular way!

“Merup” Azalon called out more confidently this time and the Spirit’s attention was now completely shifted on to him.

*Chi* *Chi* *Chi*

It suddenly laughed with a weird noise and *Swoosh* it dived into Azalon’s chest. It spread its long but tiny arms and was trying to hug Azalon. The grin on its face grew happy and excited as very very small lightning flashes started snaking on its body. But unfortunately, Azalon was in direct contact with it and there was no insulation or grounding to his body. That led to only one outcome.

Azalon’s body stiffened as the shocking amounts of voltage contained within those tiny electric sparks electrocuted him. The voltage should be around 220 – 230 Volts that could have killed a human back on Earth. It was unimaginable that those small purple lightning snakes contained this much voltage.

Merup quickly discovered its blunder and immediately retreated to a distance. But the damage had already been done. Azalon’s limbs were twitching as the electricity overloaded his nervous system. Smoke rose from his mouth and nostrils and his face was charred black but there were no third degree or second degree burns on his body that would have appeared with electric shocks.

A Cultivator’s body was a far cry in resilience from a normal human’s body. LILY was giggling uncontrollably watching Azalon twitching just like what would happen in some old cartoons. Raka was also looking with pity and humor in equal parts reflected in those golden pupils of his.

“God, Dadh HUSD!” Azalon found out that his limbs were not in his control at all. He tried to revolve his Spirit Energy and finally managed to regain some control of his limbs and tongue. His body was still numb and stiff but he was alright.

But his hair was standing up on their hands giving him an Afro but just with spiky hair instead of curly hair.

“Oh, stop it, LILY. That’s not funny alright. You can try it on for size.” Azalon snapped at the Fairy Spirit who finally couldn’t hold back her laughter any longer and was rolling on the ground holding her stomach and laughing merrily as she watched Azalon trying to smoothen up his hair.

“No, Master. I am happy with just watching. Right, Raka?” LILY replied between laughs and the three Spirits grouped together. LILY was talking, Raka was *Croo* ing and Merup was *Chi* *Chi*ing and gesturing whatever that meant.

Azalon had no way to join their discussion so he concentrated on revolving his Spirit Energy to flush out the numb feeling in his body.

After some time, Azalon opened his eyes and a thoughtful look flashed on his face. He lifted his hand and Spirit Energy flowed in his meridians before coming out onto the surface of his hand. After covering his hand with thick layer of Spirit Energy he shifted his eyes onto the group of Spirits that were conversing among themselves. By the looks of it, the two Spirits had already accepted the newcomer into their group.

“…Merup” Azalon called out carefully and the Lightning Spirit turned around to face him with the grin plastered on his face. His eyes flashed with happiness when he heard Azalon call out to him and flew slowly towards Azalon. Azalon carefully extended his hand that was covered in thick Spirit Energy and placed it on the head of the Lightning Spirit.

“Spirit Integration.” He closed his eyes concentrating on the link between him and his Spirit and softly spoke out. His Spirit acknowledged his intention and the link between them started growing stronger. The man and the Spirit finally reached that state where they were just a step away from existing in perfect harmony.

But just as the link between them was about to reach the harmonious state and the Spirit Integration succeeded, a mysterious force emerged from deep within Azalon. It slammed against the link between the man and the Spirit, forcebly severing it. Azalon was started awake and he became muddle headed as his consciousness suffered a backlash from the forceful severing from the harmonious state.

After a few moments, he woke up and took deep breaths as even his sub – conscious mind had stopped working for these few moments making his lungs stop breathing and his heart stop pumping blood. If that comatose state would persist for just another few moments, he would surely die of heart failure or asphyxiation or even blood poisoning!

Even though he was a Cultivator that broke past the mortal state, he was still a human. He may survive for a long time even if he was not breathing, but if his internal organs stopped working, no matter how much powerful he became he would simply die!

“Another failure, huh.” Azalon muttered bitterly as he kneaded his temples. His consciousness experienced the violent backlash and suffered an injury. It may not be as serious as the time of injury from the Soul of the Thunder Horned Stag, but an injury to the consciousness even a small one was not to be taken lightly. He will take a few hours for him to recover, so he rested in his room watching his Spirits and thinking.

During these three weeks, he had completely analysed and cataloged the dump of information provided by his grandfather and Hank. He had a much better understanding about a lot of things than before, but the questions he had never seemed to decrease and instead with this new torrent of information, the number of questions even grew!

Azalon had his doubts even after Hank explained to him about the Spirit Integration on that day. So he pestered Hank for the process to initiate the Spirit Integration. He first tried it with LILY as she was already fully integrated with his consciousness as opposed to his other Spirits. And the same thing happened to him back then like ti did today. In fact the backlash he suffered on that day was 10 times worse than what he did today.

Even though he knew that it may not be the plausible explanation, still Azalon believed that he couldn’t Integrate with Raka or LILY because they were at the [Infant Stage] of their growth that was stage for the Spirits of Spirit Condensation Cultivators while he was still in the Spirit Sense Realm.

But today, that force once again appeared when he tried to Integrate with the Lightning Spirit that was in the [Embryo Stage]. It clearly made sure that he could never Integrate with his Spirits.

“What is that mysterious force that doesn’t allow me the bond between me and the Spirits?” Azalon had asked himself countless times, but couldn’t find an answer. “More importantly, why is there such harmony between me and the Spirits even though I couldn’t perform the Spirit Integration?”

According to Hank, talented Cultivators will take around half a year to a full year to achieve the harmonious stage with their Spirits and don’t talk about low level Cultivators. They may never achieve such a state all their lives and never inherit any abilities from their Spirits. But he was clearly different. He couldn’t Integrate with his Spirits, but he still Inherited abilities from both Raka and LILY. Moreover, he Inherited not one but two abilities from Raka, even before he evolved Raka to the [Infant Stage]!

“Alright, who’s up for hunting?” Azalon asked when he felt his consciousness return to normal and he no longer suffered from headache. He pushed the questions that still plagued him to the back of his mind. Even though he got a lot of information from his grandfather and Hank, it was still basic information and not any kind of research material that he could use. He decided to wait until he was enrolled into any Academy that was sure to contain dome exclusive and extensive libraries that would provide him with all sorts of information, that couldn’t possibly be found in the public libraries established by the Kingdom for the general public.

3 pairs of eyes turned towards him.

“Yaayy~~~” ‘Croooo…’ came the reply as one Beast and one Fairy jumped towards him. The third one looked confused for a moment before he too jumped in with a *Chi* *Chi* *Chi* laugh. Aaand disaster strikes again!

A boy’s shout, a Fairy’s shrill scream and a Beast’s pained whines along with Zap! Zap! of lightnings echoed from the room Azalon resided in.

Two days later, deep in the Wilderness…

Azalon swept through a 40 mile radius area during these two days like a storm. Right now, he had tens of Class 1 Spirit Cores, 14 Level 2 Spirit Cores and 3 Level 3 Spirit Cores. The Souls of these Spirit Beasts had been consumed by his three Spirits. Raka and LILY are almost at the peak of the [Infant Stage] and they just need a small number of Souls for them to evolve to the third Stage. But his head ached when he saw the small Imp that was with them.

Raka and LILY were about to advance to the Third Stage of the [Soul Embryo Cultivation Technique], but this little guy even after consuming that much Soul Energy still was no where near enough to the [Infant Stage]!

“Another thing added to the List – of – Mind Fucking things!” Azalon simply became numb to these ever growing number of mysteries he was facing almost every day. “No wonder they say that the amount of things you know may be a small hill, but the things you don’t know would be a sky piercing mountain range!”

Azalon was currently standing on the top branch of a tall tree. Below him a huge corpse was lying on the ground with its body flipped over. Its eight long lance like legs were dangling lifelessly and a human face like appendage could be seen on its abdomen. It just had eight eyes in the place of the two on that human face appendage.

It was a Level 3 [Eight Eyed Human Faced Spider] that was equivalent to a human Cultivator at the Peak Stage of the Spirit Sense Realm. This Spider had been a tricky opponent for Azalon amongst all the Spirit Beasts he had fought. But a Beast is a Beast and its instinctive battling style couldn’t match up with the intelligent and effective style of humans.

Even though it had the strength equivalent to that of a human Cultivator at the Peak of the Spirit Sense Realm, without any adept control behind that massive strength , it was simply like a mindless brute waving a massive club. Azalon had to simply direct the flow of the battle to exhaust the Beast and take it down in a single move.

But saying it easier said than done! Who could have access to high – level movement techniques like the [Ghostly Illusion Flash] that could allow the attacks of the opponent to pass through their bodies? Who could possess that still – enigmatic attack technique like the [Infinite Pulse Fists] that could send out waves of fists in single punch? AND finally who could Awaken three Spirits that were uniquely powerful and supportive in their own regards to support him in the battles?

Three beings surrounded the corpse of the Spider, one being a gray tiger cub, one Fairy and the final one a purple Imp.

An apparition of the [Eight Eyed Human Faced Spider] appeared in the Azalon’s vision as golden veins spread in his whites of the eyes. Three streams of Energy flowed from the apparition to the open mouths of his Spirits that were absorbing the Soul Energy to form their Soul Embryos. Raka and LILY consumed around around one – third of the Soul Energy of the Spider and left the remaining for the newcomer of the group.

*Chi* *Chi* *Chi* Merup was also not polite and immediately started consuming the Soul Energy with gusto. Raka laid down on a pile of leaves under the tree and it’s golden pupils watched the Imp devouring the Soul Energy. LILY flew up to Azalon and settled down in her spot, her back against Azalon’s neck and her legs stretched over his shoulder. This had become LILY’s permanent spot and she wouldn’t allow any one to occupy the same position as her. She wouldn’t leave even when he was fighting with the Spirit Beasts. After the incident in the room where Merup electrocuted all three of them, LILY passed a decree that Merup was not allowed to come closer than 2 feet to Azalon!

“Master, tomorrow is the date for the convoy of the Academies to come to take the candidates to the Selection Grounds.” LILY reminded him in a soft voice. Azalon simply nodded.

“Mmm. I have always been dreaming of this day, but when the day actually came I am nervous and even a bit fearful. After all this world is not like Earth where any one can go any where without any fear of the obvious except for some extreme cases. But this world is different. My current strength couldn’t be even called as the starting line in the race but I am still in a race. A race to reach the starting line of the main race.” Azalon said absent mindedly as he watched the orange ball of light sink into the horizons painting the silver clouds with a splash of colors.

“Don’t worry, Master. LILY will protect you. Humph. If any one dares to bully you, I will beat them to a pulp!” LILY waved her tiny fists as she spoke fiercely. But with her size and her cute appearance, the effect was lost and instead she looked cuddly and lovely.

Azalon smiled and said nothing. He knew that LILY may look cute when she said those words, but she was serious in every sense when she said that. He just remember that day when she exhausted her Spirit Essence to save him from that Soul of the Thunder Horned Stag. He was sure that she would do that once again without a single ounce of hesitation. That was also one of the reason why he had to get stronger faster! He wanted to protect these existences that shared life – and – death with him and stay with him all the time.

During these three weeks, Azalon completely memorized the contents of the three scrolls given to him that day. He concentrated the most on the [Soul Embryo Cultivation Technique] the most. There were 4 Stages of Spirits that were recorded in that scroll. [Embryonic Stage], [Infantile Stage], [Peak Form Stage] and the [Demi – Human Stage].

Only after getting the information from Hank about the stages of growth of the Soul Spirits did he make the connections between the normal stages and the stages recorded in the scroll.

The technique behind this cultivation method was pretty simple actually. Each Stage was divided into 3 steps to be performed to Evolve a Spirit to the next stage. [Soul Embryo Formation], [Imprint Tampering] and the final [Spirit Awakening].

The first step is the most straight forward step of the entire process. It’s utilizing the Soul Energy of living beings to form a Soul Embryo around the Soul of the Spirit. Once the Embryo has been formed, it had to nurtured through any kinds of methods. For example, he could just supply more Soul Energy to the Embryo as nourishment, and the scroll recorded it as the most hassle free and fastest method, but it comes with some risk to the Cultivator as he had to continuously hunt the Spirit Beasts for the Soul Energy.

The other method is to use the Spirit Energy a Cultivator refines as nourishment, but this is the slowest and the safest method of all. But during this time, the cultivation level of the Cultivator will stagnate without any improvement. Azalon thought about this option but discarded it in the end. The other options spoke about something called Soul Treasures but Azalon didn’t mind that.

The Second Step was the most important as the Cultivator has to project an image on the Soul Embryo tempering with the Soul Imprint of the Spirit. The Spirit would Evolve following the guidelines of the [Imprint Tampering] by the Cultivator. Azalon didn’t understand the workings of this step at all! But he had a general idea of how it worked.

And the final step is the one Azalon understood all too well. It was simply waiting for the Spirit to Evolve and Awaken!

But Azalon didn’t feel that the method of this kind of evolution of the Spirits was right even a bit! Even though following this method a Spirit will become powerful in a short time than normal Spirits, that strength will be obtained by sacrificing the potential of the Spirit. Look at the stages that were recorded in the scroll. The Fourth Stage was the [Demi – Human Stage] Spirit. But what about the later stages of Evolution?

After the [Demi – Human Stage], the Spirit may be Evolved into a complete Human Spirit, then what? Will the Human shaped Spirit start cultivating just like it’s Master? Even in this world where the World Energy is thousands of times more abundant than Earth, the Evolution stopped after the Humans entered the fray!

In the words of the scientist on Earth whose theory completely changed the way humans looked at the world, “Nature is always the perfect Selector to decide from a set of Choices.” The Darwin Theory of Evolution created a massive impact in the scientific world back on Earth and Azalon felt that this theory held true anywhere Mother Nature was involved, let it be Earth or this World.

Azalon decided to discard the steps described in the scroll until his Spirits completely used up their potential of Evolution. He would let Nature run its course and give it complete reign in the initial stages. Only after the ‘Natural Evolution’ finished will the ‘Selective Evolution’ begin! In this way, his Spirits may not be very powerful in the Initial Stages of Evolution but after enough time passed, his Spirits could very well be simply heaven – defying!

A Fairy and a boy silently watched the orange ball of light completely sink into the horizon and the Lady of Darkness finally opened her eyes. Merup finally finished absorbing the Soul Energy of the [Eight Eyed Human Faced Spider] and was bothering Raka who was sleeping on a pile of leaves.

Azalon quickly collected the Spirit Core of the Spider and collected some important parts after carefully dissected the corpse like the poison sac, its fangs, thick slabs of meat, its toughest bones and its eight legs. All of them went into his [Void Ring], one of the most infuriating mysteries Azalon faced. With a *Swish* his figure flashed and with his three Spirits in tow, he returned home. Tomorrow is a big day and he wanted to rest as much as possible.

The next day, the morning rays brought with a wave of celebrations in the city. It was the day where the proud sons of the city would go out into the world to test their luck and fortune. This day decides whether they would emerge as

Dragons that would soar into the skies or fall into the mediocre masses! Each and everyone of the ten candidates were shouldering the burden of the hopes their close ones had for them. Countless enthusiastic children were on the city walls looking out for the people that would come from the legendary Academies to take their brothers and sisters to join them!

Far away from the city walls of the Blue Wind City, high up in the skies, two white and beautiful birds were flying. The birds were covered in white feathers that looked like flakes of pure snow and the wings of the birds were tens of meters wide. Each flap of those massive wings would create a small tempest in the air propelling the birds tens of meters with just a single flap. The aura emitted by the birds silenced the various Spirit Beasts living in the Wilderness below. Only after the birds flied for a long distance would the Beasts that were cowering in fear would dare to move again!

But there were two people that were sitting on one of the birds and they looked completely unruffled by the movements of the birds or their wings.

“Just what are the Elders of the Alliance thinking? Do they really think that some heaven – defying talents would emerge in this backwater villages? Fairy tales may be good enough to listen as bedtime stories, but real life is very different from the tales. For a Cultivator to advance in their cultivation, they require Medicinal Pills, Spirit Stones and countless other Cultivation resources. Without having a reasonable background supporting them, even geniuses would fall behind those foppish lords that would be showered in priceless medicines and pills!” It was a slightly obese man that spoke with slightly irritated tone. He was wearing bright yellow colored robes and appeared to be in his late – 20s. With his plump body, lazy eyes and relaxed posture he looked like a Lord of a city rather than an examination invigilator.

“You can’t talk like that, Senior Xan. You know about the rumor that was floating in the Academy for quite some days about a powerful Seer’s prediction that a great calamity would occur in the Shandra Continent and that the Era is changing and that would bring many changes that would shake the entire world. It was said that The Alliance has been formed by the Academies for exactly this reason! And they are looking all over the Continent for students to enroll them into the Academies, and within the vast Continent if they can find geniuses and talents who has enough aptitude they will become a force that could at least ensure the survival of the Academy.” A tall and skinny man spoke with a gravely voice. Wifts of in the black hair indicated that this person was quite aged and experienced. He was wearing a plain blue colored robe and the overall temperament of the man was like an amiable old scholar.

“And even though these corners of the continent would have almost no access to cultivation resources, the main occupation for the Cultivators in towns like this would be Spirit Core Farming. This makes them accumulate battle experience and even go through life – and -death battles. Their instincts would be honed in the Wilderness and they can serve greatly as soldiers on the battle field if trained carefully.” The tall skinny man continued and the plump man grumbled before going silent. He knew that he couldn’t change the decisions that were out of his control so he can only complete the work assigned to him.

“Ah, that should be the Blue Wind City. The last of the list of Cities assigned to us for the candidates. If I remember correctly, the Alliance should have allocated 10 Spots to this City.” The city walls of the Blue Wind City appeared as a speck at a distance and the tall and skinny man was the one to see it. The plump man also turned his head to look before looking away after a snort.

“Sigh. At least don’t scare off the candidates when we arrive at the city.” The tall and skinny man gave a resigned sigh at the behavior of his companion. Even though they were of the same generation and were almost of the same rank in their respective Academies, their view on the world was completely different and even opposite to each other. But they were friends for a long time and were quite familiar with each other.

At the same time where the skinny man looked at the city, the ten candidates gathered at the City Square along with their family members. Azalon and Sophie Wheld were from the Wheld Family and Eren Wheld, Grandma Doctor and Hank stood beside them waiting for the Academy representatives. Raka was sleeping in his arms and LILY and Merup had been dismissed from manifesting themselves.

Azalon knew that Spirits are physical existences and they couldn’t be made to appear and disappear like he could do with his Spirits other than Raka. He had a slight suspicion on that, but he couldn’t be sure for the lack of information.

He couldn’t directly ask Hank or Eren about his suspicions and the information he got in the roundabout way was not sufficient. He was really impatient to get his hands on some good material where he could scourge for info.

Azalon carefully observed the candidates from the other two families and the four candidates that were selected from the commoner ranks in the City. He could see other four candidates from the two families and three people that were selected from the common public. Before he could wonder about the last candidate, some one shouted from the city walls.

“I see them! I see them! Look, there in the skies. Those two birds!” A 6 year old boy was shouting while jumping and pointing excitedly and everyone lifted their heads to look in the direction that boy pointed to.

Azalon lifted his head and he could see two white birds approaching the city at a fast pace. Before they could react to the appearance of the birds, they already reached the City! Azalon was shocked by the speed at which the birds traveled! The snow white birds flapped their wings lightly and among a massive cloud of dust that was blown by their wings, they landed in the City Square.

Azalon’s heart rate increased that this day, he would take his first step into the wide world out there. He was excited, anxious, nervous and afraid about his future. But no matter what, he had to go out and he had to face the challenges if he want to gain real strength.

“A New World…” Azalon muttered and his fists tightly clenched as his emotions slightly calmed down. He lifted his head and looked at the pair of men sitting on one of the white birds. They lightly jumped and landed in the center of the Square…