Chapter 0121

New recruits entering the courtyard of the Sphere of Spiritual Influence can be divided into four main categories: the serious ones, the helpless ones, the unconcerned ones and the ones who have no clue what's going on.

The serious recruits are generally mortals borne in the Magus Alliance. They’ve been brought up on stories about cultivators, mages and the Eternal Spirit Guild, the greatest guild and leader of the Magus Alliance.

They know about the induction ceremony the Eternal Spirit Guild hold and about the Sphere of Spiritual Influence, a magical device created by the finest craftsman. The Sphere of Spiritual Influence can breach the walls between the Cardinal Realm and the Spirit World. For a brief moment, it allows the recruit to speak directly to their spirits.

Mage cultivation focus on strengthening the affinities between a mortal and their spirits. The best way to cultivate affinities is to speak directly with their spirits. Mages communicate with their spirits through a various meditation technique.

Meditation techniques are graded as low, mid, high, mortal, earthly and heavenly. There are plenty of low and midlevel meditation techniques circulating around the Magus Alliance. The new recruits attending the events will be awarded a midlevel meditation technique. They are even allowed to make a copy of the technique and send it back to their family.

Of course, only the Eternal Spirit Guild can be so cavalier about mid level meditation technique that they pass it out like candies. Other guilds hoard their mediation technique and award it to high affinities candidates or those who perform a great service for the guild.

It is a show of strength by the Eternal Spirit Guild. They look down upon mid level mediation technique because their core members practise mortal or earthly mediation technique. It is rumored that some of the Elders have heavenly mediation technique.

Despite the many mediums of communication available, the best method is to speak to their spirits face to face. As Tempest would crassly put it, “It’s like breaking up with your significant other. You can do it through note, phone, text message or e-mail but the preferred method is still face-to-face.”

Other mages would ask Tempest if she meant woo his or her significant other as mages are trying to obtain the affections of the spirits. Tempest would smile a smug smile and skip happily on her way, leaving the questioner baffled and aggravated.

The Sphere of Spiritual Influence gave the mortal a rare opportunity to speak directly with their spirits and the mortals born in the Magus Alliance knew it was a rare opportunity indeed.

The serious recruits waited anxiously for their numbers to emerge from the Sphere of Spiritual Influence and pray they got assigned to a good group.

Fenix Arosis was one such person. The red hair red eye mages was gripping her spiritual token and praying fervently to her spirits.

“Please pair me up with a powerful water mage that is nice, kind and understanding. I need a powerful, nice, kind and understanding water mage.” The prayer repeated itself in Fenix mind over and over again.

Fenix Arosis is a mortal born in the eastern region of the Magus Alliance. She grew up surrounded by mages and was groomed to be one after the affinities test showed she had 85 fire affinities.

Unlike the other immortal potential where fewer are better due to the increase cultivation speed from having only to focus on one element or aspect, mages prefer to have as much as possible. The more the better. The rate a mage stay at a cultivation level depend on the number of affinities they have. The more affinities a mortal have with the spirits, the faster their cultivation speed.

For example, it takes one spirit a hundred thousand years to temper a mortal to the point where they can attempt to become an immortal. It would take two spirits fifty thousand years to temper a mortal to the point where they can attempt to become an immortal.

By this logic, it is better to have more affinities, thereby more spirits to temper the body and increase cultivation.

Fenix pass the requirement set by the Eternal Spirit Guild for member recruitment. She is at a disadvantage, mana pool wise and addability wise due to her single element.

Single element mages also have other issues related to their spirits. In Fenix’s case, she is prone to fevers and would literally burst into flames when she gets too emotional. She was lucky her mother is a powerful water mage who can treat her symptoms whenever the need arises.

Until she can control the power her spirits granted her or until her body is tempered to the point where her fire abilities will not harm her however she uses it, whichever comes first, she needs a powerful water mage around her to infuse her with mana laden with the water element.

At the courtyard of the Sphere of Spiritual Influence, she prays seriously for a good group.

The helpless recruits are similar to the serious group in that they are mortals born and raised in the Magus Alliance. Unlike the serious group who consider the event somewhat sacred or vital to their cultivation, the helpless group viewed the event with an air of resignation.

Graden Murkeiel, a mage with green eyes and red hair viewed himself as a helpless recruit.

Graden was born with 89 fire affinities and 51 wood affinities. The combination of fire and wood affinities marked one as an alchemist. In any other realm, a cultivator with the ability to become an alchemist is celebrated.

They are considered the treasure of the family. Wealth, status, power and prestige would be given to the due to their potential, regardless if they can realize the potential or not. Cultivation resources would be heaped upon them. Rare and precious herbs would be laid at their feet.

They would want for nothing. Once people hear they are an alchemist, cultivators would flock to them, begging them to create pills.

The status of an alchemist in the other realms is very high.

Mages, on the other hand, have little use for an alchemist. The spirits do all the work for mages. Whether it be body tempering, mana generation or cultivation, everything is dependant on the spirits. All a mage has to do is stay in an area that has abundant ambient mana. They also have to spend most of their time trying to communicate with the spirits so they can learn elemental laws and theories and apply it to their spells but that relates more towards fighting abilities rather than cultivation.

Even though alchemists are not valued in the Magus Alliance, respect is still accorded to them.

All fire and wood mages in the Magus Alliance are inducted into the Magus Alliance Alchemist Association. Here, mages learn the art of alchemy and receive cultivation benefits for an alchemist.

Despite a mage disinterest in pills, cultivators in other realms desire pills. The Magus Alliance Alchemist Association had strong ties and business channels in the other three realms. The resources allot to an alchemist in the Magus Alliance is worse off than top rated guilds.

Graden didn’t make the cut to become an alchemist. He had a high fire element but his wood element is only 51. Going by the previous rule of the Eternal Spirit Guild, he wouldn’t have made the cut. He was only here due to the loophole in the rules set by the Eternal Spirit Guild.

The group he is going to be assigned to would only look down on him as a weak mage with no skills.

As he stared at the Sphere of Spiritual Influence, a sense of helplessness overwhelms him.

Whereas Graden was wallowing in his self-pity, the un concern group followed along the crowd without a care in the world.

This group comprise of cultivators from other realms. Since most of cultivation work is done by the spirits and the spirits require ambient mana, not qi, not soul force, not mental power, there is no conflict with the cultivation method.

The heart and soul as an immortal potential are tested when the child is born. The potential of the mind is tested when the child is ten years old and the body at fifteen. Most mortal test their children right away for the heart and soul. If the child has a good or decent potential in either, then the family would send the child to the Magus Alliance or the Ethereal Depths to train themselves. If they have a better potential in the mind or body, then the cultivator can change cultivation method without wasting time since a cultivator has to cultivate the soul eventually and cultivating the heart helps with temper the body.

The best synergy occurs when a cultivator has the same elemental affinities as their spirit vein. In the history of the Heavenly Mountains, there has only been three cases where the spirit vein aligns with affinities. Everyone of the cultivator became an immortal and ascend to a higher plane.

Bei Ting Mao could have been the fourth cultivator whose spirit vein aligns with their affinities. He could have been another genius coming out of the Heavenly Mountains, except his spirit vein was shattered by betrayal.

Not wanting to be a waste the rest of his life, Bei Ting Mao came to the Magus Alliance to cultivate using his other immortal potential, the heart.

As for the Sphere of Spiritual Influence, he couldn’t have care less.

Yu Li Ming is another cultivator who does care who is unconcerned about the Sphere of Spiritual Influence.

She, too, hail from the Heavenly Mountains, but her case is different. She accompanied her fiancee, Lei Mo, with her family’s blessing to cultivate in the Magus Alliance.

Yu Li Ming desired to be group with her fiancee, however she was told it was impossible. She doesn’t understand the reason behind it but accepts it since everyone from the Yu and Lei family accompanying them told her engaged couples can not be grouped together.

Then there is the final group of recruits attending the event, the clueless.

Starm Mi Viediel fell into this category due to his age. He’s five. One day, a mage came to the orphanage he was at and told him he had to cultivate as a mage or he’ll die within the next year. He didn’t understand were telling him. All he knew was that they were going to give the orphanage money to take care of all the children and they promise him he’d never go hungry again.

And yes, he’d have the power to beat up Andreas Y’Ives, the little rich girl who comes to the orphanage and beat up everyone there because she was picked on by her siblings and her parent wasn’t going to do anything about it.

It is this eclectic group which Tempest find a part of.