The year came and went, completing Mark’s first new years after becoming a ghost. That said it was far from being the most peaceful year to be reborn into.

The covid disease that had been spread became a worldwide pandemic. China was also under intense scrutiny for being the ones that made and spread this disease while trying to hide the fact until it was too late.

It got so serious that 80% of everything stopped for a good part of the year and made Mark’s job ten times harder to transport his tools to many places that bounties existed and became a big pain because of the order to remain in lockdown so many times.

Many times when highways were locked down he could only sigh and stay home training and several times this went on for a few months at a time before it lightened up until it was tightened up but he got irritated half the time and eventually looked for and purchased anything that could hide his items.

He surprisingly found it. It was a technique that bent light around himself so he learned how to do that and left the car behind and flew through the air out of normal people’s view and began hunting and when he did, he noticed an explosion of specters.

Many of the fragments in the air of most towns were getting damaged and there was twice as much negative energy in any town he visited.

Eventually he actually met Billy during one of these times because of a phantom that had woken at the same time and was close to his job at the time.

“Hey, is it possible to get paid for passing on fragmented souls? I mean, it is more time intensive but give it a day or two i can sort through entire segments of a town and start passing them on to the afterlife. Most of them built from all pieces don’t have regrets.” He said.

“I’d have to check honestly.” he said and called in to check but this had to go up the ladder and surprisingly they accepted. As such he worked in a town and cleared the specters before calling a few investigators to watch and when it was time, to count the number and it was agreed on a 100 dollar basis for every collected unit of souls that were passed on.

He spent about a week to gather all the fragments and sort them outside of the town, except those that were already used for specters, and after calling he cleared out a lot of souls and it even shocked the investigator who had to wait roughly 6 hours while he went through all the groups but the most surprising was that it also sucked up negative energy from the city as well and when the last one went, the density had dropped by roughly 60%.

It also meant that for a certain amount of time this kind of thing would not happen.

Following this, for the rest of the year he continued doing this kind of job after clearing the specter bounties and cutting the source of specters at the root despite the work required. Even if he had to return every day to his home for the flowers he didn’t mind as he could rest.

As for his soul, well every specter was a drop in the bucket but he didn’t do a small number, just specters, his phone registered roughly 2000 but if he counted the fragments that were rebuilt then this number had already surpassed 10,000.

During that time he also trained of course and after every major job his soul would naturally blend without much difficulty with his karma. Although he didn’t notice, his spiritual power was getting more effective against spirits. Even if it was tiny drops in a bucket, droplets eventually accumulate and 10,000 droplets was not a small amount.

On the altar, his soul was glowing a bright golden that even he noticed wasn’t normal when compared to the pale white or light blue of other phantoms on their altars.

His soul was already reaching critical mass and despite it barely being 10 months since he was back and 7 months since he was a wisp, the karma drops that constantly filled him enhanced his spiritual power and the double density of ambient energy coming from the stone above caused him to grow much faster than others thought he would and his wisp body soon sucked all the flames before cracks appeared on the orb and eventually finally broke and waves of spiritual fluid known as ectoplasm bursting out before gathering back.

The orb fragments melted and gathered back while at the center was the core of his psyche and it spread out and took the form of his mortal shell but it was different now.

His skin formed and fully solidified and soon his bones followed but that wasn’t all. The core of his soul moved to his head while his ectoplasm moved and solidified into his heart and then his arteries and veins before muscle fibers spread and finally the organs. All of them reformed from ectoplasm but they were still a spiritual structure but his entire body had taken shape now.

When it calmed down he smiled as he felt the change and he knew he had advanced to what is considered a 10 year old phantom, a poltergeist.

He looked at his hands and the energy in his body. It was totally different from a wisp and he faced his hand forward and with a thought, his clothing flew to his hand as his spiritual power gained a lot of energy and force.

“Wow, so this is true poltergeist. The ability to control items at will like ghosts.” He said and then tried to gather it and it actually gathered into a small orb but it was glowing golden unlike the dull yellow it once was.

During this time he had learned exactly what had happened. It was exceptionally rare except for people who hunted huge amounts of specters and souls and properly made them move on. In simple terms, his soul had evolved into a virtuous soul. It also explained why his spiritual power was having so much higher effect on specters.

“Now I don't need to worry about vengeful spirits either but I’ve got to eventually work at my rank.” He said thinking about dark specters. He had actually seen one from far when it had escaped its home. Most specters are land bound or bound to an item but dark specters begin to break that barrier and the closer to breaking that bond it gets the more dangerous it gets because it means it is close to turning into an evil spirit that has broken it’s bondage.

He called his book and opened the next training step to become a walking corpse.

“The process of making a walking corpse consists of forging a new mortal shell. If you were able to obtain your old shell from the start then by the time you become a poltergeist you are already halfway there as the skin and bones would have already fully reformed but they aren’t perfect. They are still comparable to common mortal bodies though your strength has already surpassed human limits thanks to the spiritual power in your body.

You will reforge your body starting at the skin to make it elevate to a powerful spiritual state similar to how human cultivators train. Skin than bones, the two structural bodies to maintain your form, then your heart which transfers energy through your mortal shell, your muscles to enhance your physical strength, your brain and nerves to be able to enhance the reaction capacity and finally your organs to solidify the rest of your body. When it is done a normal poltergeist will have a much stronger zombie like body that is pale and cold but it is humanoid and much stronger. For those with their mortal shell, they will reform a nearly functioning human body however it lacks normal vital functions like reproducing or blood flow. The heart will pump energy and maintain the flow of your body.”

He saw an amazing diagram of the human body and many different things drawn out.

He sighed because he knew his growth was far from over but his speedy growth was likely done. Wisp are 5 year old phantoms and poltergeists are 10 year old. From there it is a 50 year old walking corpse and a 100 year old stiff corpse.

He put his things down after learning how to regenerate spiritual power and laid down and absorbed his fill but he found that the pressure of the spiritual energy had drastically dropped. His spiritual power was almost 3 times denser than what the stone was producing. Still he spent quite a while regenerating before thinking about what he learned about the stone.

Of course the soul society knew he had the fragments and Billy openly asked to confirm it when he had met him. He had told him that besides the 15 extra, the 180 were merged and he smiled. He described it making him nod.

“When you become a poltergeist, take some time to infuse your spiritual power into it, it forms a link with you primarily and your spiritual power reacts to what is in it and will continue to grow. It will become a bit more valuable if you do that.” he said at the time.

When he was full he put on his clothing and floated up and looked at the pulsing stone and touched it and it seemed to pulse more to his touch and finally he started to channel energy.

The pulsing shined and stabilized as a firm yellow light and from his hand, the dull yellow released golden light that consumed the yellow spiritual power and replaced it and the stone stopped producing energy and just started to suck it up and he could feel his energy dropping but his capacity was much larger now but it still had an amazing pull.

10%, 20%, 40% until finally it stopped at 95% and he was huffing but it was glowing and finally rejected his power and pushed him back while the stone began to glow and once more change while it infused that spiritual power through the entire structure down to the center and as it calmed down it had turned from a stone that glowed yellow light to an actual yellow stone that pulsed with golden glow.

It began to suck up spiritual power and pulse but shockingly he felt it in his heart even though it wasn’t beating yet and the light filled the cavern like a star and he felt something strange.

Touching his chest, it was like something was trying to come out and he thought before going to sit down and maintaining his mortal shell he opened the book with it floating and he started to train while reading.

When the spiritual power dropped on him he felt suffocated when it fell with 5 times the density of his own power and it began to gather in his heart that began to beat and he didn’t know what to do except push but it kept gathering and his body began to lose form and it became ghostly while his heart started to form a transparent orb and he raised his hands as if to hold something and it slowly came out and he felt something pulling like something was forming but didn’t belong inside him. The stone constantly made his body produce something that constantly flew into this orb and he became trapped like this for an unknown amount of time until the final piece formed and his eyes opened wide and he spread his hand and it suddenly expanded and passed through anything and everything until it reached the walls of the cavern.

It slowed down before touching and infusing into the walls before the entire area began to warp and change in a very confusing manner.

At the same time, half of the golden light of the stone above split and gathered into an orb of spiritual energy and flew up to the top of the cavern and pushed and seemed to force some kind of barrier back.

The ground changed but the formation was still there and the warping was strange and continued for a while as the spiritual energy spread and filled this warped space until it stabilized and reached even the top wall where the glow was but it wasn’t pulsing, it was solid and it split and half of it dropped down ‘below’ the wall but Mark seemed to sense it as it changed to a white light while the rest remained yellow and filled the cavern with light like a sun.

The light from the stone was duller now and just pulsed like it did before but the glow wasn’t nearly as strong.

When it all ended his body gathered up and reformed and he jumped off the altar huffing. “W-what is this!” He exclaimed and looked around in shock at the expanse on all sides before he ran out and looked up at the glowing energy ball that was slowly moving until it stopped at one side, no longer moving.

He turned and looked at the stone. “Wait… this feeling… it is like the tavern but is it supposed to be this big of an effect… and why… Why do I feel like there are so many… problems.” He said turning his head to so many points in this space that felt like a glaring hole in it’s formation that it was nearly driving him crazy so he could do one thing and he called the first soul society contact he trusted.

“Howdy.” Billy said from the other side.

“Hey… I need some help. I feel like I’m going crazy because of these feelings… I think I formed a phantom domain and the ‘holes’ I’m feeling are really, really causing me a lot of distress.” He said.

“Huh… phantom… did you become a walking dead?” he asked.

“No, a poltergeist. Can you come over and maybe with someone knowledgeable to help me out before i go crazy and do something stupid.” He said.

Billy didn’t even talk and just shut the call.

He didn’t want to keep feeling it so he put his clothing on and quickly left. Thankfully the feeling drastically weakened outside but he could still feel it because it had been formed by him.

He waited and soon Billy arrived in the air with a serious looking ghost.

“Kid… this is earthbound spirit Thomas Hooker.” he said.

“Huh… that name sounds familiar.” Mark said.

“I hope so.” Thomas said, “You’ve likely heard of myself in school or when looking through the internet. I am a puritan religious leader who helped early america settle what would become the USA.” he said.

“Ah!!” He exclaimed.

“That is beside the point, Billy, this boy is really a poltergeist but are you sure he really made a phantom domain?” He asked.

“He said he felt many ‘holes’ and was going crazy because of it, I’ve not heard of anything similar.” He said.

With a nod he looked at Mark, “Lead me to the domain. This is quite serious.” He said.

With a nod, they got into the elevator and headed down and walked out into the new domain and instantly Mark got irritated to the point of itching himself despite not actually having any direct requirement for it.

“This size… how big was this place pior?” Thomas asked.

“Uh… the elevator to the altar was about 120 meters and it was equal for all around. It used to be about 20 meters high.” He said and they looked up to find the ‘transparent’ walls and the ‘star’ in the sky.

“What is that light?” He asked.

“It came from the stone of spirituality.” he said and led them to the altar and pointed to the rock and with one look Thomas’s eyes widened and looked at him.

“Let me see your spiritual power.” he said.

Mark channeled it and he examined it and nodded. “You’ve sent at least 10,000 souls to the afterlife, yes?” He asked.

“Yes sir.” Mark said.

“Really! So fast?” Billy said.

“I sent a lot of fragments as well to stop the birth of specters.” Mark said, still irritated.

“I see. Well let me say this, you’ve produced something known as a virtuous soul. You have a tier 1 soul and your Stone of Spirituality has transformed into a Virtuous heart. It is the same type of spiritual item as the Dark heart from the Elizabethtown incident. However, karma has blended with your soul and spiritual power to the point of producing a rare form of spiritual power called holy force.” He said.

“Like dark force.” Mark asked.

“Yes but infinitely harder to produce because producing positive karma is so much harder than sin. The fact that you could balance your sin with under 10,000 souls is amazing and you’ve only hunted specters.” he said.

“Can we deal with these holes.” Mark finally asked because he was extremely irritated.

“Indeed, they are normal to find in newly formed domains. Don’t worry, I’ve come prepared.” he said and took a number of coins.

“They are already built for this, it just needs your spiritual power.” he said.

Mark nodded and walked to the altar and began to absorb energy while directly infusing it into every one and sensed all the faults and stopped infusing after filling the required number and got up.

“Alright, you have the capacity to move the domain so you can also move the unique energy, this includes small parts of it so pull this faulty area out.” he said.

Mark didn’t know how until he tried to will the domain to move but it would barely rise and he just got irritated and bent down and grabbed it and it actually worked to lift up the segment like a sheet, weirdly enough and he took one token and tossed it into that area.

It shined and broke down before releasing a lot of mystical energy and spiritual runes that filled the area and adjusted to the rules of his domain completely and when he released it, the domain returned to normal but energy flowed through it so naturally that it shined and surprisingly a sprout formed.

Thomas smiled and bent over, “Ah, the gifts of the heavens are so unique. Even without a seed, life is born from the power of a soul somehow.” he said and they moved to all the faults, including in the ‘sky’ that still was still a solid ceiling but it was an illusion that produced some kind of sunlight.

They went through them all and when the last one was fixed Mark felt an intense relief but the domain trembled and surprisingly expanded by a small bit as it glowed and its faults were fixed making it achieve a perfect system.

“Oh this is normal. This is why we thought it was amazing. We’ve never registered a poltergeist making a phantom domain before. The earliest is a walking corpse and most of them are small and can only be used for things like taverns but this is quite immense for a poltergeist. It will grow into quite an amazing domain.” He said.

“Grow?” Mark said.

“Every evolution you undergo your domain will also grow and more often than not it is never less than double the size it is when perfected.” Thomas explained.

“So the current size is…” he looked around.

“Roughly 2 km in diameter.” Billy said taking out a smoke,

“So… when I become a walking corpse the smallest it will grow is 2 km.” he said.

“Exactly, you also have to account for your constant growth with your virtuous soul that is likely one of the main catalysts for this. Let me tell you, this is a rare world where I feel no negative energy here. Given time to grow it could become a large and prosperous ghost metropolis.” Thomas said.

“It would need policing to allow for that to work.” He said.

“Aye, even we need to police phantoms, just because they are sentient doesn’t mean they aren’t evil.” Billy said with a nod.

“With so few exorcists…” Mark sighed. “Oh right, alongside the stone fragments I got a boat load of book embryos. Honestly I’ve been training artifact forging because I plan to try and make the Book of Ghost Registry.” he said.

“That is a good ambition but you aren’t the only one to want one but no one will stop you.” He said.

Mark nodded and looked around, “To be honest, the domain still feels… unfinished.” he said.

When they heard that, Billy started to laugh. “No matter how much a domain grows, almost everyone who commands one says the same thing. You should think about further improving the foundation because it isn’t pushed to the extreme anymore.” Billy said.

“Right, I do need to do that. Would improvements to the formations cause it to continue growing?” he asked.

“No, after it’s been perfected, only your main stage and condition have a direct effect of it.” He said.

Mark nodded and thought for a while and just decided that he would expand the foundation for the time being until he understood what was even going on with these strange feelings.

He led the men out but took the opportunity to pick up the extra rocks and check the books.

“Sweet, it actually works.” He said.

“What does?” Billy asked.

“Those are fragments.” Thomas said.

“Yeah, I got some extra from already cleared houses during the Elizabethtown incident and they were all on clean books that had become book embryos so I tried something out and they actually have started to become them but from the looks it still needs much more time.” he said and put the stone back where it was.

“Is it safe to leave it there randomly?” Billy asked.

“No one can actively come down so they aren't. I'll eventually get something built to house them safely so they can make a constant supply that can be sold for extra money when they are finally ready. Or for other things.” he said.

The two nodded and finally they got on the elevator and went up.

“Honestly, with that phantom domain, I really wish you would directly join soul society.” Thomas said.

“Yeah… but if I did, it wouldn’t be ‘my’ domain anymore if it was up to you guys.” He said.

They both forced a smile and knew he wasn’t dumb to know how it would work out with so much potential to grow.

When it was all finished, he sighed as he looked at the sun already setting and the ghosts hard at work to fill the tea sprouts that had already matured in the field.

In a special row, ten bushes were there with flower buds close to being ready for sprouting.

“Oh… now that I think about it, tonight is the full moon. That was actually close, I’ve missed a day but I think it can be made up with my new strength.” he muttered and smiled as he looked at the flowers and wondered how they would change.

He sat outside to relax after the long period of stress and just stayed there as if his mind had shut off and soon he found it was almost midnight and looked at the flowers and got up before extending his hand and releasing his spiritual power into the plant and instantly it began to glow with moonlight that was visibly drawing towards it like light was bending.

He looked surprised and soon more flower buds began to sprout while several low quality ones began to increase in size before his eyes and finally stopped absorbing his spiritual power.

He looked and found they were all rising up in quality but it could only grow so much in one day and he filled each and they reacted to the same. Then he went and added fertilizer to the roots and spent roughly an hour just watering them to push the dirt down into the earth because he knew it must have drained the soil with that burst of growth.

When it was done he headed back inside and picked up a box containing spiritual material that he had purchased over time and went down and set everything out near the altar and prepared everything before he took out the first book he had found.

“Alright, I’ve emulated this so many times, now it is to see if i can do this for real.” He said and breathed deeply as his hands create a flame and slowly surround the book and lift it up and he calls up his phone with the blueprints for the mother book and he began to make hand formations and produce specific effects and his spiritual power gathered material and spiritual energy to form runes that sank into the book and it went slowly like this and turned into a long process to produce his first attempt at the mother book for his registry.