As morning arose, Mark woke up from his night time training famished and on low spiritual power. Getting dressed in casual clothing he walked through the house and happened upon Agatha who was solemn but using his spare quartz and the very simple trick to focus her limited spiritual power into her hands and was pushing a trolley with some cleaning supplies.

They were very basic, a broom, feather duster, cloth and water.

“Oh, you’re finally back. Why are you moving the cleaning supplies?” He asked.

“I… have… to… do… my… part.” She said grunting from the extreme effort. As her spiritual form was very transparent.

He helped push the trolly.

“You don’t have to do this.” He said.

“It will look like a haunted house if someone doesn’t care for it.” She said.

“Yes but at this moment you completely lack the capacity to even do anything. I’m not even paying you to do this because I didn't want to impose this stressful work on you. I know the difficulties of using such a horrible medium like quartz beads, I’m just used to using them which is why I ‘can’ use them. You aren’t yet.” he said.

“I… just don’t want to remain without anything to do. Whenever I stop I feel my head go blank and something is calling and it scares me… the afterlife.” She said.

He smiled and couldn’t relate but he knew it was quite a traumatic thing. To her, she had just witnessed a massacre and had been a victim. If not for him, she would have just had her bonds broken and her soul fragments would have been reformed into a new soul in some new life in the world.

“I know this might be asking a lot but could you please get a medium for me… so that i can be able to work and not think about that.” She said with great desire in her eyes.

“Alright.” he smiled and put the trolley in the target room she was planning to clean.

“But for now, let’s go have some tea and maybe something to eat.” He said.

She nodded and they headed to the kitchen where he set up dry towels on Agatha’s chair and around her and made something for himself to eat alongside the tea just to not lose the habit and to give a small supplement.

Like before, Agatha was able to absorb only the energy and as a result, the water just poured out and she still wasn’t capable of converting matter to energy.

It didn’t matter much with their preparation and her body couldn’t handle much tea anyways unlike Mark who was starved.

After that he properly dried up the area they sat down and with her curiosity towards modern technology, she watched him search through the market.

“Alright, we don’t need something expensive, we just need a true medium to get better control.” He said and put the price from low to high.

The page changed drastically but there was still a wide variety but the lowest price was 20 spirit dollars for a very old string of prayer beads.

He quickly started moving down the list.

“Are you not going to look at those things?” Agatha asked.

“Most of them are old and likely are near the end of their usefulness. For you, even if you don’t gain the capacity to train like I do, you still need something that will last you at least 5 years so that you can grow naturally into a wisp.” he explained and when it reached 100 spirit dollars they got their first larger item.

“What is that?” she said pointing to something and he pressed it and a new page opened and they could see the picture and information better.

“Spirit altar, an item phantoms stuck in homes greatly desire. The altar acts as a stationary medium that allows them to actively move their weak spiritual energy as well as acting as a ‘bed’ to gather their bodies into a small spiritual orb despite not being wisps. This one has some wear from age but with proper care it can still last another 20 years without any problems.” he read out.

He pressed return and closed it.

“Why not?” She asked.

“Because that is the first of many more just like the other items were getting better.” He said and showed her an amulet which was far better quality.

“I… I don't feel like I would leave this place under these conditions… I think…” She said, stopping, worried.

“Don’t worry, I brought you back due to my experiment so I will get you sufficiently established.” He said and continued to look until he found a structurally sound altar for her. It looked to have no actual damage and came with an instruction of maintenance and how the spiritual aspect worked. After checking it out on the pictures and reading the details he got that one for her. It was 150 but it was still cheap. He stayed among that price range looking at the handheld ones and asked her what kind of religion she followed.

The answer was pretty obvious for an American woman, she was christian. That said she openly said to not get her a rosario because it was the symbol of death that killed Jesus condemning him after death.

In the end, the safest thing was a string of chinese prayer beads that were small like the current quartz beads.

He found a good one for 110 spirit dollars.

After that he went to the 200 and up section for himself. Agatha didn’t mind it, he was an exorcist and he couldn’t use weak objects while she got the good items. The items at this price became much more varied.

Similar to her, he wanted his own altar but one that was far easier to move around and carry unlike hers. The result, a spiritual meditation rug with the chinese bagua trigram which the description says is very good at balancing the body's karma and improving fortune and good energies. In phantoms, this was very useful to stimulate and strengthen his three primary soul pieces while weakening the Sin fragment.

Beyond that he looked for a proper medium to enhance his control and like Agatha, he avoided the spiritual rosarios. There were amulets like the pendant he got to use as a pendant of clarity, spiritual beads or even accessories but those were showy and would draw more attention than he wanted.

Eventually he found a necklace of prayer beads with quite large beads but were quite beautiful and made of a spiritual wood called Ghost wood. It was sold by soul society instead of a separate seller like many others and was marked as an exorcist tool meaning it was a certified tool.

He decided that it was good, he didn’t need it for living and only fighting so putting it hidden in his bag was sufficient. He didn’t end though, although he used 260 for the girl, 240 for the rug and 300 for the bead necklace he still had almost 700 spirit dollars left.

He added a new filter for weapons.

It seemed nonsensical for him to use a weapon at this stage but you can never be sure that he won’t meet the exorcist he had met before.

It goes without saying that spiritual items were extremely weird and even scary. Among other things there were staves with actual petrified human heads processed under spiritual power during the process of its creation. Of course in the same sense there were things that made much more sense such as jadeite weapons such as swords, knives, even halbergs of ghost wood and a green jade blade carved entirely of jadeite.

He actually had to look up about this and learned that jadeite, otherwise known as jade crystals, have an amazing capacity for spirituality. If forged under spiritual means and nurtured with spiritual forces, it can become a very powerful tool to say the least.

Most of the tools are created similar to the cross necklace of the priest and was like a tiny pocket knife barely longer than the index finger but upon being infused with spiritual power they gain their full size depending if the capacity of the user can draw that out.

Unlike any random weapon, most of these tools could actually affect and even destroy spirits as if it were a physical being so beheading a ghost with these won’t let it simply put its head back on, at least not easily.

The body might still move but once it’s been mutilated, it will find it quite hard to resist being exorcised and it is quite vital once you fight things with actual dark force or spiritual power. For phantom exorcists, this is also vital for self protection from humans as well as supernatural beings without saying much else of dark spirits.

He looked at all the weapons one by one at their full appearance, it goes without saying that these cheap items were all things wisps would get and had little to offer in term of special but most of them were useful to exorcists, clearly marketed towards them over the common ghost that would get it and could be more of a threat when armed.

“Is there a problem?” She asked.

“Well… I’ve never fought so I’m on the ball on which kind of weapon to take to protect myself with.” He said.

He completely discarded polearms, they were heavy and required extreme agility and skill to use that kind of thing. She didn’t know a wick about weapons though and couldn’t offer any real advice. “If you are that worried then get this axe, I don’t know how weapons work but can’t they help you disarm weapons as well.” She said pointing to a small axe.

He looked and actually found something strange about this one. “Jade Axe, a strange piece that was built like most others but does not accept every person to use its full power so the true form cannot be shown. The displayed size is the maximum it will display to those falling under the ‘unworthy’ category. This trait has been unable to be removed even with reforging so it was left. The weapon has only had its full power displayed at forging and is as strong as other weapons of the same kind if it displays 100% but the current power is only 60% of its actual power.” the notice said.

In the same stretch the price was 50% lower than the similar items going for 300 spirit dollars but he smiled. It was weak but it was honestly perfect for him. It was a strong weapon but not so weak that he couldn’t protect himself and use it. It also wasn’t a showy weapon and looked more like a stone axe than anything.

The best part is that all these weapons could be stored in his body like the spirit money and as he trains, it will imprint onto the weapon making it easier to control.

“This is pretty good.” He said and put it in the cart. This saved him a good 300 spirit dollars and was just right.

After that he finalized the purchase and for an extra 10 dollars he was able to hire the service to build Agatha’s altar in her room that was just one of the empty guest rooms.

His own was a rug so there wasn’t much secret to that.

When he finalized it a timer showing 1 hour appeared showing the time until it arrived.

“Wow, that’s pretty fast.” Mark said.

He put it away and smiled, “Welp that is probably it, we just need to wait now.” He said and decided to do that outside and Agatha went to the lake happy that she could get help to forget these thoughts she had.

He sat down on one of the refurbished outside benches under the shade of his house and explored the net on his phone. He did have a computer but he’s found the cell phone a bit better, maybe because he did not want to think about having lost so many things in his original pc.

He just spent the next hour like that when he noticed a light coming from above and flashed through the barrier and came down right at the door and the light faded to reveal a young man who looked around.

Mark got up and walked over.

“Mark Black?” he asked.

“Yes sir.” He said.

“Great, 910 spirit dollars.” He said.

With a nod, Mark formed the money and properly counted out the value and took back the excess and handed it over.

“Which room do you want the altar in?” He asked.

“This way.” Mark said.

Half way through Agatha met up with them by going through the walls while the two were walking like normal people with bodies and soon they reached her empty room and he took out the segments of the altar and the manual.

The man showed the construction and safe take down procedure for maintenance and cleaning before building it up step by step.

The altar looked like a small shrine and even included tiny lanterns that had small oil tubes and a small oil reservoir under the roof to feed them. It had very basic things which turned on and off the flames so it wasn’t constantly on.

When it was all established, it seemed to resonate and the ambient energy vibrated making it momentarily glow before settling down.

“Perfect, now I assume it is this miss who will use this?” He asked.

“Yes sir.” She said.

“Alright, the area to go to is the inside just over this little flat base.” He said.

Agatha looked at him confused.

“Just move your body inside.” he said.

She still felt strange but moved towards it and shockingly as she passed the first pillar her spiritual power forming her body lost shape and flowed freely until it gathered at the center of the altar and the altar began to draw ambient energy.

“W-what is going on!” a hollowed voice came from the altar.

“Don’t worry, miss, this is how you sleep and use the altar. Since your true form is a normal phantom, the altar is made to help phantoms that don’t have any control of their spiritual energies convert into a soul flame.” he said.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Soul flames are like unconcentrated wisps. They aren’t dense enough to be a wisp but this form helps immensely to train unlike their normal form. They just need someone to teach them how.” he said.

“Oh so that’s how it works.” He said.

“Just don’t try to teach her anything in your book. Most of that stuff is for exorcists and phantoms with that book are a little unique.” he said.

“How does she use this?” Mark asked.

“There are different techniques but…” he said, taking the manual and opening it to the back half. “This is the simplest method. Remember, exorcist souls use exorcist ways, normal souls have other ways.” He said.

The flame moved from the center and expanded and reformed as Agatha.

“Alright, I assume one of the mediums is for this young lady?” He asked.

“Yes, the small prayer beads.” He said.

The man smiled and took out the large necklace and small bracelet and gave it to each and Agatha reacted rather heavily as she touched it. “Woah… my body feels… so controllable!” she said as she held the beads.

“Don’t let that go to your head, you’re still very weak so don’t try anything extreme with that. The spiritual power in your body is almost completely focused on your skin now.” he said.

She nodded as she also realized this. She looked at the book and Mark smiled and gave it to her and she felt amazed that she could hold it so stably.

Holding the big necklace and putting it on, Mark felt extreme control compared to the quartz unlike before.

“It’s amazing how effective the medium works.” he said.

“Indeed they tend to get less useful once you’ve become better at using your ownpower.” he said.

He fished into his pocket and took out a tiny axe barely any different from a pendant and handed it to Mark.

“Oh is this the ax?!” He said excitedly.

“Yes, the method to store it is the same as the money.” he said.

Mark closed his hand around it and felt the axe enter his body but it had a distinct feeling compared to the money and it went to his chest where the center of his body gathered when he trained.

After a moment he felt a connection to it and with a thought it popped out and expanded to the size of a hand axe as the propaganda had said.

“Oh this is nice.” He said with a smile.

The man on the other hand looked confused at him but didn’t say anything and let him swing it a few times before calling it back.

“Now all that is left is the rug.” He said

“Right.” Mark said but to his surprise the man started to walk out. “Huh?” Mark muttered.

“Oh, the rug needs a specific place for it to work properly.” He said and Mark followed.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“No, I will remain here to read this.” she said and opened the book.

Mark smiled and walked out before running after the man as they went to the first floor and Mark frowned. “Does it not go to my room?” He asked.

“Did no one tell you about this house?” He asked.

“Well they said that it was a place that would be used by an exorcist to give lots of jobs to ghosts.” He said.

“Right so they didn’t.” the man said and opened a door to an empty storage room and walked inside and called him.

He turned on the light and looked around. “Do you have your barrier key?” He asked.

“Sure.” Mark said and took it out and the man took it before touching the door with it and suddenly the room began to shine with markings before Mark felt a subtle weightless feeling that you feel in elevators.

“This house used to have a large basement system but it was closed up and this well oiled elevator was added.” He said before they felt the room shake as it hit ground and gave the barrier key back to Mark and opened the door to an underground cavern but what was amazing was the vibrancy of the air. “Welcome to one of the ley line vents of the world.” He said.

“Ley lines? Like the spiritual energy veins of the world?” Mark asked.

“Exactly. This isn’t that big of a vent though but if humans were to find it, this cavern could easily become the center for one of their cultivator sects without a doubt.” He said walking through the empty cavern which only had some lanterns that glowed with blue fire. “Those lanterns are powered by ambient energy and they have self repairing power so they are unlikely to ever go out without removing them from this area. As for this energy leaking from down here, that is natural but it is very weak, only about 10% of this energy reaches the surface.” he said and walked to the center of the cavern which had a flat platform with braziers burning.

He lifted a ring and it shined before a large rolled up rug appeared and he had Mark help him open it and it covered only about 20% of it.

“What is the point of such a massive cavern?” He asked.

“For you to develop of course. It isn’t simply your ability to fight and purge other ghosts that make you unique. It is also why I told you not to teach that ghost your ways. The technique of exorcists is meant to develop your soul until you can affect your surroundings. You will eventually be able to open your own phantom domain and the largest ones are forged by exorcists. Your phone is already receiving the signals that you are aware of this place and you will be able to find special purchase options to develop this place. Of course it’s not cheap. Among the upgrades is a personal altar but at the moment this is sufficient for you.” he said. “This prayer mat works just like the altar, when placed on a ley line vent, it helps channel ambient energy making your training much more efficient.” He said.

He looked at it and at the man who just smiled.

“Are there requirements for anyone besides me coming down here?” he asked.

“As phantoms, beside yourself, cannot survive here. Their souls would break down into energy. Wisps and above only.” he said.

“Alright, thank you for the information. I would have hoped if they showed me this earlier.” He said.

“It was because you need a medium for training to safely use ambient energy so it was meant to wait for you to buy something like this to show you.” He said.

Mark groaned as he looked around just feeling more pressure at the resources left in his hands.

They returned up and he showed Mark how to activate the elevator and walked outside where they shook hands and the man shot up into the air and left, finishing his delivery.

Agatha soon appeared after the man left. “I…” she said, groaning.

“Let’s get some more tea, you look tired.” He said.

She forced a smile, “Just that little was painful.” She said.

“Don’t force it and get used to it.” He said and they headed to the kitchen and he prepared some tea for her and took it up to her room for her and then said he would be training and took some tea down below. Looking at the large rug with the yin yang and other symbols he sighed and walked through and his mortal shell deactivated and he gathered as a soul flame at the center. His book dropped to the ground and he began to train.

It opened automatically but this time it was different. The vibrancy in the air trembled and began to gather at his soul and because of the help from the rug to condense his body the effect was several times better and the soul flame exploded three times the normal size and he felt much more pain than normal but like always, after starting he had no control.

It went on for hours until his own spiritual power emptied out. It was almost three times as long because the rug supplied two times his own supply of energy during the process.

When he fell out he was huffing and his body was in so much pain that he twitched like a bug that was stomped on.

It was just as bad as his first time using it but the effect could be instantly felt because once he had time he forced himself to the kettle and just drank directly from the heated kettle and emptied the bag directly and converted everything to energy completely.

Even if it was a massive explosion of energy he completely contained it all and his body shape slowly lost form for a moment and his proportion started to increase as his ‘muscles’ increased.

It was only a small change but his shoulders and upper torso gained some definition but more than that after he calmed down, his spiritual power completely saturated the skin and began to take the shape of his skeleton but it was a very basic outline of it but it mean that his skin was fully solidified and would not need to focus energy into anymore.

When he reformed he was exhausted and looked fearfully at the rug and at his surroundings feeling the vibrancy that had absolutely no loss in energy.

He turned off the heater and took the stuff upstairs and went to fill up because he was still extremely hungry and to think about what he would do from now on.