~ The night before

"SIR! Ava disappeared!" Karen burst into Harry Philips room.

As if Harry knows about Karen arrival, he didn't seem to be surprised.

"You meant, she is still hiding within the mansion?"

"No sir, I saw her disappearance with my very own eyes. She dresses herself up as a commoner and carries a small bag. The last I saw her, she was talking to someone while touching the back fence. Seconds later, her body went translucent and disappeared from the spot."

Harry frown upon hearing the news. He turns towards his door while calling out Gilbert. Without noticing his presence, Karen is spooked seeing Gilbert appearing at her side.

"Deploy Grizzle squad, find her at all cost."

"Right away sir." Gilbert disappears as fast as he appears.

"As for you Karen. It may not be your fault, but you let your guard down. Tomorrow, go find Joseph, he will train you once again."

"Y-Yes, sir." Karen bends her head down as she accepts the punishment. She then slowly walks out while cussing Ava.

'Seems I was right all along, someone is trying to manipulate my daughter. Sigh, Ava, why can't you listen to me. I tried my best not to drag you into this war by marrying you to Nigel.'

Harry, got up and pours wine to his cup.

'Nigel is a businessman. He doesn't intend to continue being a soldier at all despite his chance of being able to be promoted to a knight.'

Harry's face saddens as he regrets not telling her daughter about his decisions.

'Be safe, my dear daughter.' Harry gulp the cup of wine in one shot. He continues drinking the night away.

~ Back to the present

'Is this book acceptable?'

[Yes. Let me read this while you learn about the spirits.]

'I get it. You don't have to repeat it so many times.'

Ava didn't think that dressing up as a commoner would have so many restrictions on herself. She wasn't allowed inside the library as the guards don't believe that she could read.

In the current times, education is expensive as no commoner could afford the price of hiring any teacher. At the same time, there isn't a need for them to read and write. Sending their child to school would cost them at least a year of their revenue, and it doesn't bring them back any profit unless they are sending their child to work as a merchant.

Nevertheless, it's rare to see any ordinary folks would go out from their comfort zone. Most of them would sign up in becoming an adventurer. Where they would journey out to help other villages in need or gather supplies for other merchants which usually expose them to risk that could cost their life's and future.

Ava is forced to sneak inside the library after breaking the lock at the back door by freezing and hitting it with her dagger. She immediately gathers the book that could help them, unfortunate enough, the books that they needed is old, thick and dusty. It would take a considerable amount of time before they could finish analyzing them, thus after gathering the books they needed, she sneaks back out slowly.

Ava is fortunate not to be found out as she covers the books using her extra pair of clothing. Last but not least she uses inferior blink when she got near enough to the room in the inn. They affirm to each other that, Ava father, Harry, would have deploy soldiers to search for her. Thus, it would be good for her if she would use inferior blink to get back to her current safehouse.

Ava proceeds to open two books while lying on the bed, as they communicate, Connor reveals to her that he can move ten meters around her and is usable for scouting as he can walk through walls. Connor goes on reading the book on how the world come about while Ava concentrates on the topic of spirits. How do spirits allow their host to use their power, their strength, and weakness and most importantly on how do they know that they are facing an Emperor rank spirits.

Silence prevails over them as they focus on reading.

~

Meanwhile, three soldiers reached Harry's room to report on their findings, accompanied by Joseph that sent them away.

"Sir, something terrible has happened. Roukitz village has been decimated."

"Did you see or find out about the culprits?"

"No sir, we weren't able to get to find the culprit, but it appears that the village was ambushed, as there's no evidence of infighting or destruction of the surroundings. All of the victims are killed by decapitation or loss of blood."

"Sigh, find Clara, tell her to report to me. As for the rest of you, get ready to be deployed to Roukitz village, to bury the dead."

"Yes, sir!"

After the soldiers left Harry's room, he started pouring himself a cup of wine.

'Things are happening one after another. Clara, I failed to protect your promise.'

Clara, one of Harry's Philips promising commander, even though she's a commoner, her spirit rank commander was the one that remarkably changed her life, but Clara didn't let it go over her head.

Clara continues to take care of her parents and always goes back to her family at Roukitz village as the village is half a day away if she pushes her horse to go fast enough. Often, Harry told Clara to bring her family to the kingdom so that she could spend more time with her family.

Clara refused as her parents once said that they do not intend to move away to preserve the memories of where they are born and more importantly their first meeting of each other. Clara too agrees as she knows far too well that the things in the kingdom are indeed much more expensive and there's a lot of people with a bad intention that could rob the lives or money of her parents.

Thus Harry usually sent patrols to Roukitz village once every two days to kill monsters or bandits that tried to harm the village.

...But with such a thing that has happened. Clara might blame herself for not bringing her family to the kingdom. Nevertheless, Harry needs to be the one that forwards the message to her.

In fact, there are too many sons and daughter that leave their parents in Roukitz village in search of fame and wealth or even to make their parents proud. If news were to spread, Harry's reputation would be at stake. Thus he decided to journey to the village personally and overwatch the situation and find who's the culprit and finally deal with it.

'Sorry Ava, I need to fix this issue first.' Harry is compelled as being brought up by his father as so. Reputation is first before anything else. It might be the reason why his relationship with his family is not the best, but he is well loved, by the people that he is managing.

Possibly a trait brought down from her father, Ava too unconsciously think about her reputation first before anything else.

~

Connor sigh as he finished reading the entire book that is mostly filled with prejudice and propaganda. He summarizes within his own words but unsure whether the book is telling any tiny bit of truth in it.

The god, Sebastion, created his very first world in which to his dismay is fill with entities that don't comprehend his orders.

The beautiful world that he has created which took most of his time were covered in dust within two years. The war between races kept raging on. There weren't any pause which forces most of his creation into extinction. Sebastion, on the other hand, pulls out all of the spirits that he has released into his realm. His decision immediately created a drastic change in the Warfield.

Every race that relies on the spirits were almost decimated. The one that prevails unexpectedly is the dwarves. Their genius invention and hard work have pushed their technology too advance that no other races were able to compete.

But 100 years ago, their latest invention leads to their downfall. They weren't able to keep it stable resulting in a massive catastrophe. Most of the technology that the dwarf had invented were lost within the rubbles. Thus bring most of the races back to their initial amount when Sebastion started.

The love for his creation is too great that he decided to release the spirits back to the world. The spirits aren't exactly the fault for the war. It is their contracted owner that chose killing another being to show their greatness. There were a few more pages after that, but someone tore it.

Those pages might give him clues to why he is chosen to stop the war. The god, Sebastion, knew that things are going to repeat itself, but only he knows why he picks Connor, taking the risk of adding a being that doesn't care to what happens to the world and would offer his life away to be back to his wife once more.

Possibly Sebastion, don't have a choice to choose in the first place. Similarly enough, gods rarely intervene in the mortal world unless their creations will be doom to fall if nothing changes.

At the same time, Ava finished her book and started talking about it while lying lifelessly on the bed. The book that she read talks about the superiority of the church in this world.

It's told that they are the ones that know the real reason why spirit resides in the realm and if anyone else tries to do anything, they will be punished in the name of god. Spirits are creatures that born to serve the human, not other beings as such they declare war on others to show justice.

From another point of view, the church is indeed the main reason why there will be the next major war. They hold most of the kingdoms in check and could decide the rise and falls of these kings.

Spirits is an embodiment of mana in the world. Spirits will gather towards locations that has a vast amount of natural quantity of mana. Also, these spirits allow the conversion of the mana in beings in turns of magic ability.

From there they devise the ranks of spirit. Their view shows that they blame human being that doesn't pray to their god for ruining the statistic. Spirits will gather to those that follow their prayers and have a higher chance of being contracted by spirits with a higher ranking than others.

Upon contracting, the owner could freely converse and visually see the spirit. Contracted spirits can see other contracted spirits, but they are unable to see one that has not been contracted any longer.

The ranks are as follows;

God Level

Continent Level

Emperor Level

King Level

General Level

Commander Level

Knight Level

Squire Level

Peasant Level

There is another chapter talking about the differences in the ceremony. It didn't state, but Ava knew about it and explained to Connor. There are a total of three different types;

Premium summoning, the pope will come up front to draw the circle of ceremonial. It is told that only the wealthiest people within the land can get it. Ava shakes her head when Connor ask about the pricing. Rumored to be said that Sophia Hagen contracted her four spirits and the king has paid an enormous amount of money to make sure that his daughter would live a good life.

Next is advance summoning. Similar to premium summoning, but Archbishop is the one draw the circle of ceremonial. Hearing the insults thrown to her, she knows that her father, Harry Philips, paid twenty million gold to get the ceremony done but still failed to get a spirit of her own. Nobles and merchants are the regulars that would get this summoning.

Last but not least, is the normal summoning. The price can range from one thousand gold to a million depends on the different rank of the priest that the people want. The prices show that not everyone can get contracted with a spirit as they need to have strong finance to be able to change their lives.

Peasant family often save as much as they could to allow their children to prosper. As such they even sell their life to the governor in charge of the land to get a ceremony down for their children. It's possible that her father, Harry Philips, the governor of a vast plot of land have done it.

The priest rank is as follows;

Priest

High Priest

Bishop | Cardinal

Archbishop

Pope

[So this is how the church can decide the rise and fall and ultimately make money out of it. Ava do you know how to read the magic circle drawn on the ground?]

'No, we aren't allowed to know about it. Only those involved in the church knows. What? You think they might have done something during my ceremonial?'

[It's just a guess. Any chances of you abducting a priest?]

'... I'm in.' Even though Ava reply calmly, her hands still shakes whenever she thinks about her first killing.