Mark could only sigh as he spent nearly a week with the unconscious soldiers but with the book of ghostly register constantly in one of the altar vents, they were constantly supplied with spiritual power.

On the other hand, he focused on management throughout the domain.

Among the things he was most curious about was the herbs being discovered and what effects they had and different reactions in medicine making. After that were the tests from the bar keepers and showed him what grew well and what was invasive.

Don’t think there aren’t any, several dozen herbs, once the seed germinated, it would instantly and savagely try to suck up any spiritual power.

It had to be incinerated before it got big and this was done with spiritual fire instead of just a regular one. Even the ash was gathered and sealed in a spiritual containment jar to make sure nothing revived from the ashes.

Those that grew extremely well were actually shocking because as high productivity crops like spirit grain were starting to be farmed, one in every 1,000 grains would shockingly evolve in grade. The change was honestly immediate because grade 1 spirit grain looked no different from the natural crop but the grade 2 crop had actually adapted to the domain and turned blue in color and grew twice as big.

That said, something else was found, which made him sad, and that was that crops that required direct either sunlight or moonlight blended with spiritual power for their spiritual effect would ultimately fail. It seemed strange because the domain had the fake star and moon but that was exactly why, they were fake.

They produced light of specific spectrums, white one had a dull moonlight effect which is why it didn’t provide warmth while the one that mimicked the sun released heat and light but that is it. It was sad but he couldn’t do much about it, he was at least happy that the native domain plants somehow survived somehow off these kinds of light and spiritual energy from the vent.

The new foundation had improved the vent but the quality of the energy had not actually changed. It only had the quantity to fill the large domain now but it was a small vent and the quality of energy was small. Most vents were in fact small and what refined energy was the result of formations meant to concentrate ambient energy.

In this domain, the primary concentrator is the virtuous heart above the altar which presently tripled the density of the energy from normal.

This density would drop to roughly 50% density to natural forces further from the foundation zone but would not drop below 30%. The better the formation grew, the wider the range and the denser the entire domain's energy was.

That said, the strangest thing that kept growing in the last week was the sudden acceleration of that strange needle.

In fact, it wasn’t even a needle anymore. The white needle that had barely been the thickness of a hair strand and no longer than his index finger had changed greatly. It was now as long as his hand and was thick like a bone. The strangest thing was that the top side of it had become spherical over the last week. At the start of the week, when he was filling the tiny cracks, when they solidified and he put it back, it suddenly lengthened like crazy and the previously flat top side turned rounded. After that, almost daily, the object would increase by roughly 10% of its mass but only if Mark was focused for when it stopped growing to fill the cracks. He was sure that if he focused another two weeks continuously, this would form a complete sphere.

Near the end of the week, he actually hired an earthbound professional in spiritual item identification. The first time he had just gotten a normal identifier of stiff corpse but this time he went a step up despite the price being stupid high.

The response was less than satisfactory.

“From what you said, the item has grown considerably right?” He asked.

“Yes sir.”

“I see… It is unfortunate but I do not know what this is. Do not get me wrong, what I can tell you is that this is either one of two things, it is a core of energy or it is some kind of material.” He said.

“A core of energy?” Mark asked.

“Core of energy are exceptionally rare items which initially don’t produce anything but constantly grow by absorbing an amount of energy. They grow on their own but take hundreds or thousands of years. Similar to domain crystals, the few recorded cores found mid formation have had many cracks within its body which, when filled, accelerate the growth by infinitely larger speeds. Once it has fully formed however, truly formed with no imperfections, they produce enough energy to be regarded as a physical embodiment of a spirit vent that has the full foundation of a spirit lord’s domain. As you can probably tell, the previous foundations were mostly from domains with base size of 1 to 5 km in diameter, with the recent growth, this further change but the cores found have been known to sit in one of the domains as the central power source of an entire domain.” He said.

“So there is no way of telling?” Mark asked.

“No, normally things with spiritual aspects have spiritual runes naturally carved in its body. If it doesn’t it will eventually form them. This is true even for spiritual crops and plants and as you should know, even the domain is a mass of rules and laws in the form of runes. This doesn’t have it.” he said holding the piece and pushing it back, “If you want to discover what it is then you’ve got to properly develop it to perfection for it to show it’s complete aura, as it is, the item is completely restricting any sort of feeling.” he said.

“That’s too bad. What kind of material has been known to come out like the cores?” Mark asked.

“The five times one of these spherical objects appeared as material, they became the core material for the spirit lord’s primary weapons. Supposedly, the being who finds and properly raises them can meld this into any weapon and it will follow them up the stages and will feedback into the weapon as they grow. Honestly, this is among the rarest objects but your imprint on it has become firm, if we had known what it was in the form of a needle, it might have been easier to sell it for a few billion spirit dollars.” He said and finally tossed the piece back to Mark.

“Whatever it becomes, the bond with you is impossible to break at this point, most of its structure already contains your spiritual imprint, especially with your holy power and karma infused into its fibers thanks to the virtuous heart. I will, however, not report this because that is part of the general identifier contract we both signed before this.” He said.

“Thank you.” Mark said and this ended the conversation.

That said, the earthbound spirit was curious about his domain and he gave a tour of all the areas.

“It’s 40 km in diameter now?” The spirit said, shocked.

“It isn’t surprising, several friendly elders who were tavern keepers in Louisville condensed their domains into crystals to allow me to fill my domain to its limit of domain crystals. I had previously used 4 directly into the domain and they filled out the rest. We spent about 4 days dealing with the structural faults throughout the entire domain after that and resulted in this.” he explained.

The spirit was surprised and looked around before raising his hand and counted while muttering.

“Poltergeist, walking corpse, stiff corpse, earthbound spirit, nature spirit, spirit lord… seven… so if you somehow reach the state of spirit lord your domain would be 280 km wide.” He muttered, “That size would cover most of Kentucky and Indiana on its own.” He said.

“I’m honored that you think I have the capacity to reach the rank of spirit lord.” Mark said.

“The Karma you gathered has already been doing a lot to its surroundings. Don’t underestimate the appearance of a Virtuous Soul, their appearance regularly harolds great fortunes.” He said.

After a while they finally reached the elevator in the wall going up. Although the wall was visible when close, it still looked out of place as it floated at the edge of the domain.

That said, it functioned perfectly as it should and so they left and the spirit went on his way.

Mark took a small break outside under the sun before heading back to work. A day later, at long last, the soldiers finally started to wake up. With the book in the altar as their source of power to slowly replenish them, they had undergone unconscious growth after their major grinding until their sin was gone.

They groaned as they all slowly woke up but over the week, they had many slow changes. Even to their clothing in fact. First off, the nearly 70 to 90 year old men that looked withered and rotting had straightened up. Those that needed canes felt no pain in their legs and their bodies stood even above Mark who was 185 cm tall.

Shockingly, at least 60% of the old men had grown to over that size but their limbs, despite having thickened, were thin for their size clearly showing that their ‘core’ still needed a lot of work. Mark had fully changed when he reached true wisp but these were forcefully made into it and needed to catch up to it.

Secondly, and more surprisingly, the clothing their spirits displayed changed from the decorated clothing they had at death to a much easier to move in military camo pants, white shirt and vest like you see most military officers wear when on a military base.

For the librarians, they had regressed in age and their somber moods were greatly changed for a much cheerful mood and

“How are you men feeling?” Mark asked.

They were still moving about getting used to it but one of the military men did reply, “Sir, the training felt like I was roasted alive while reliving my life through the last century and watching the ghosts of my past burn. It is strange but I don’t feel that pressure and those cold memories don’t seem to haunt me.” He said.

Surprisingly, he clenched his hand and spiritual power began to gather at his hands.

“As for my body sir, it feels like I’ve been forcefully stretched almost to breaking point but this size feels just like when I was in my 50s but I still look like I’m in my 70s.” he said.

“Is it the same for everyone?” He asked the soldiers.

“We all feel the same sir.” the Colonel said. “It is like an immense pressure broke off.” He said.

Mark nodded and then looked at the librarians.

“Sir, I don’t feel any of my regrets! However I feel like I am anchored in this world, to that book now.” One of them said.

Mark rolled his eyes, “You regret addicted old farts had best get your head in the right place because I am not going to take your ‘regret’ bullshit.” He said and then called everyone in line.

“Stop messing with spiritual power and your bodies, those are things none of you know how to use so stop fucking with it. Now I will tell you all something that you had best remember. The feeling of regret, the weight of your sins, you had best be extremely thankful to me and to Soul Society for sending you all to me specifically. Out of the thousands of domains, from what I understand, only I possess both a Virtuous Soul and a Virtuous heart in a domain.” He said and explained both. “As for why this is important, it is because all the spiritual power you trained with came from my book which filters through the Virtuous heart and fills it with my karma producing Holy Power. Each and every one of you have been given a very special opportunity to not be pressured by Sin while my Karma is offsetting that affect. Remember this for as long as you are a soldier under me.” He said.

“Sir, yes sir!” the soldiers instantly said.

Mark actually liked this feeling and he could tell the many soldiers and police took this to heart. Their sins had constantly followed them through life filling them with memories of the horrors of wars they had gone through.

“Good, now that you are all aware we will not play around, I was told that I would receive close quarters combat training from you men while at the same time you all can take this time to grow more accustomed to your bodies. As such we will begin.” He said and took out an item he was given for storage purposes. It was a much higher quality storage item than the rings Jose had given him.

It was a storage box and after infusing spiritual power, he dumped a pile of wooden swords on one side and next to it a table with a large number of clothes came out.

The next moment he hopped into the air and his normal clothing came off while almost simultaneously black clothing similar to his normal garbs appeared but it wasn’t normal clothing.

“What you all see before you are your weapons and uniforms. Just like you saw now, these clothes are made of spiritual thread and can bind to your soul allowing you to store it. It is a solid mass but once it binds to your spirit, when you wear it before the rank of walking corpse it will be as spiritual as you.” He said.

The Colonel looked at the clothing like it was normal but then at the wooden swords.

“Sir… these are wooden swords?” He asked.

Mark already knew it would come but he was naturally prepared and just waved his hand and made one of them fly into his hand and channeled spiritual power through the groves of its body. They watched as the wood began to change from normal brown and very slowly it became white wood as it reacted to his spiritual power and when the entire sword was fully white, the rounded edges emitted a dangerously sharp spiritual blade.

Mark went over and put it against the Colonel's face “Is it, soldier?” He asked.

“No sir.” He said.

“Good, remember this well, spiritual items don’t have a defined form and don’t have a defined material. These are forged spiritual wood swords made from my own domain’s wood. The spiritual density is constantly growing and is just about to reach its peak and weather patterns will begin to happen and the domain will begin to change even more as natural springs and more naturally appear and flora sprouts in great abundance. You are all the first but not the last, you are police as well as exorcists now. Over the next year or so, the area around the foundation will become our base of operations and from here we will both manage the domain as well as the surrounding 30 to 40 km around Elizabethtown with barely 2,000 men. Also there is no guarantee that any of you can achieve Poltergeist until I become Walking corpse, if that is the case then it is 2,000 weaklings protecting the piece. Remember that you are to be the future trainers of future generations. Now get your suits and weapons. You librarians as well, you are expected to at least be able to protect yourselves.” He said.

Like that, each of them went and picked up one of each and walked back in line. That said, he had the Colonel and several others beat the librarians into military lines just like the soldiers.

There is nothing like watching these men who have most certainly gone through the drill sergeant stage at one point literally destroy the old weak willed men until they were in line while trembling.

When the military men got back in line they just stood there.

“Good, now before we start I will teach you how to bind spiritual items and store them inside the core of your soul where they feed off and grow from your spiritual power.” Mark said and began to teach them until they all were able to do it and they each sat down and channeled their spiritual power through both items to put their marks.

After it was done, one by one stood and as they drew them out, the clothing in their phantom forms actually faded and was replaced by the uniform that was a black version of military clothing.

They also drew out the swords and a few of them tried to coat the swords but none of them got the same reaction of making it go white.

It made Mark smile when he saw that.

He had learned over the last few years that many spiritual items and sometimes even the forgers have a tendency to hide the full properties of items by hiding it within groves or tiny holes that weaken the power of an item.

He allowed them all to get it and stand up.

“Alright, for the time being, no one will try to mimic what I did with the sword, I’ll not teach you. Also you need to learn control with spiritual power as well as get used to your body. If you idiots suddenly start swinging weapons that can kill when empowered, how are you going to even train?” He said.

His words did hit the right spot and made them stop at least until they have properly caught up.

“Alright, I want some experienced trainers for the librarians before the rest divide into pairs. One with me because I’ve never trained how to properly fight, at the moment we are going to work with these wooden swords but later I want to see how well you all do fist fighting.” he said.

“Sir, yes sir!” the soldiers said.

Like that they began to divide him and some soldiers took the job to teach the librarians while the Colonel went to properly teach Mark before the rest divided up and each made some space for each other and without infusing their spiritual powers, they began to test their bodies.