CH25: Spirits and their Conditions

***

[Notice: Host is ready for advancement. Proceed?]

[Yes/No]

(Notice: Advancement would render Host unconscious for 2 hours.)

I didn't think much about it and clicked Yes.

I blacked out immediately.

I woke up about two hours later. I felt like I got a much needed goodnight's sleep.

Honestly, for the past three years, it's like I was constantly on the run from something. I never took the chance to take in the sights.

I didn't make any friends in the academy, which was ironic, considering the whole reason I agreed to go to the academy was to make friends with useful contacts.

While I do have some contacts that could become useful in the future, my relationships with them were superficial and lacking.

A normal me would've done better.

I should have had them eating at the palms of my hands already.

Alas... I was too busy.

I tried to do too much in these latter three years.

Get a complete knowledge of this world's major lifestyle profession, especially Herbology; raising my Assassin's tier to Tier II to unlock my remaining blessings; doing as many missions as I could to become an inner member of the House of Death; training Zora and her team to be worthy hunters.

Then, I still had to make sure I wasn't falling behind on my training.

Sigh... I had so many things to do that I stripped off everything I considered irrelevant. Social interaction was the biggest casualty of this.

Come to think of it, my research into Pangea and mana stalled in this three years too. Something I would have thought was impossible three years ago when I first arrived at the DoomMane Guild.

I mean, there were literally hundreds of subjects for me to observe.

I began to contemplate, was I in too much of a rush?

I mean... I'm only 18 plus years old.

Shouldn't it be the time for me to enjoy life and have some fun?

Was my second life just going to be a repeat of my first life? A constant never ending days of missions after missions.

I thought I got tired of that life which was why I retired from Taskforce 47 in the first place.

Humans truly are creatures of habit, and I fell back into my habits hard at the slightest sight of danger.

I got off from the bed and paced around.

My strength hovered between an Expert and a Knight, which was good for an eighteen year old. Plus my wit and other advantages, I should be safe against anything under the Noble-rank.

Nobles were called 'nobles' for a reason.

People at this level of strength were a dime and dozen. You'd rarely meet a Noble walking down the road. Most of them wouldn't bother with anyone under their rank because, if I were to use an analogy, everyone below them was a peasant.

Even a knight was merely a strong peasant about to enter the true ranks of warriors as far as the world of Arun was concerned.

That was why only Knight-ranks could join the true Hunter Union, anyone lower than that can only join city or national branches based on their strengths.

That reminds me

Although the Hunter Union clears beasts in order to expand the Human Domain, the Union doesn't actually kill all beasts. They only cull their strength.

In the war between Humans and Beasts, the main Hunter Union only kill beasts which were Terror-class (knight equivalent) and above. This was also the reason why the Union only accepted people who were Knight-rank and above.

Once again, the Union doesn't care about the number of your mana rings, they only care that you can kill a Terror-class beast on your own.

So, in that case, my last target Elaine could've join the Union since she could kill Knight rankers.

Come to think of it, I wonder if the Organisation would still have left her contract to the outer members if she joined the Union.

Anyway, it seemed that I could slow down a bit.

Growing in strength was good and all but wouldn't I just be exhausted when I reach the top?

As they say, it's lonely at the top.

"Let me learn to enjoy my limited time as a youth." I said as I tried to psych myself up.

However, it just felt funny.

I was mentally a sexagenarian and this mentality dominated my actions. If it weren't for the constant torture of adolescent hormones I had to fight off constantly, I would even forget my age in this life if I didn't see my reflection from time to time.

I wonder if I can really relax.

I eventually decided to take the days as they come and see what I can make of them.

With that decision came a new lease on life.

I hit while the iron was hot and opened my status to see what has changed. I was excited about getting my blessings unlocked.

However, things didn't turn out the way I wanted.

'Open Status'

{Status.}

[Leo Xander.]

Race: Prime Human

Title: World Challenger

Alias: Cub of Lionheart, Agent Zero, Student Leo, Herbology Genius.

Age: 18

Life Path (Primary): Assassin.

Tier: Tier II (Hired Killer)

Promotion Exp: 210/15000

---

[Attributes-]

(Physical)

Physique: 35

Dexterity: 30

Mind: 30

[Notice: Average Limit for Homo sapiens is 10 in all parameters.]

Attribute Points: 53

(Blessing)

Love Partners: 0

Charm: 40/50

Mischief Points: 165,000 MP

---

[Blessings]

(Active)

-Mask of Loki (Unequipped.)

-Joker's Trump Card (Unassigned).

-Vault of Knowledge (Unavailable).

(Passive)

-Bind of Love

-The Queen's Favour.

-Poison Master (Unavailable)

(Incarnation)

-Destroyer (Unavailable)

-World Serpent (Unavailable)

-Trusty Steed (Unavailable)

Things didn't turn out as I expected at all.

This was both good and bad in many ways.

I wasn't expecting the required Exp for promotion to the next tier to increase by so much. It took me three years of constant effort to gather enough Exp to promote to Tier II.

Because of how long it took, I had considered that it was impossible for the required Exp to increase exponentially. At most, it should've doubled to twice the amount.

However, it did increase exponentially... by a staggering six times!

I wondered how long it would take me to gather that much Exp.

5 years? A decade? Or more?

Whatever the case, it didn't seem like it was going to be a short time.

My main causes of disappointments were the blessings and the Tier.

A part of me hoped that by reaching Tier II, I would gain something. Maybe an overall boost to my strength... An ability... A trait... An evolution... an improvement in my blessings... something!

But there was nothing more than a name change.

Seriously, who comes up with this names.

First it was Newbie Assassin, now it's Hired Killer?

Newbie Assassin actually sounded better.

My biggest source of disappointment were the blessings.

I had thought that by reaching the second Tier, I would unlock all my Blessings, however, it seemed that I still had some conditions to fulfil. And none of them looked like they were going to be easy.

I took a moment to get over my disappointments. Then I looked at the positives.

First thing that jumps out was Attribute points. I got a whooping 45 extra A.P.

That was a massive amount considering I only got 16 extra attribute points in the last three years.

Granted, I didn't know how to Queen's favour worked like I do now, but it doesn't change the fact that A.P was hard to increase.

I chucked up the massive gain to the difficulty in reaching the next promotion.

Check and balance... or was it carrot and stick?

Anyway, even though I got a massive amount of A.P, it didn't mean I could just press plus and increase my points that simply.

Damned Loki made sure to put some restriction in place to make sure that didn't happen.

To be fair to him, the restriction made sure I only had steady power-ups. They made sure I had the time to get used to the newfound power before I added more.

But still... did he had to make the restrictions so stringent and annoying?

Sigh...

Anyway, the other massive gain was the Mischief Points. I gather MP is earned at every Promotion. So, the 165 thousand MP I have now is probably all the points I'm going to have till my next promotion.

The amount looks big so I figured it should last me for a good while if I'm frugal.

Then again, I wouldn't know because there's still a restriction on the [Vault of Knowledge] I'm supposed to spend them in.

With that in mind, I clicked and opened a new window which showed me the requirements to remove the restrictions on the blessings.

[Notice: Host has unlocked the remainder of the blessing from his Patron Spirits, however, the Host has yet to pass some special conditions imposed by the respective Patrons.]

[Notice: Please complete the following conditions to unlock the Blessings from each Spirit.]

[Blessing of Lord Fenrir.]

-Destroyer.

Remark: Lord Fenrir requires you to prove your resolve to reach the top of the world irrespective of who stands in your way.

Unlock Condition: Kill 10 Humans who stand between you and your goal.

[Blessing of Lord Jormungandr.]

-Poison Master

-World Serpent

Remark: Lord Jormungandr is the progenitor of poisons. He requires all those he blesses to have a basic understanding of poisons.

Unlock Condition: Complete 1 mission using poison.

[Blessing of Sleipnir.]

-Trusty Steed.

Remark: The great Sleipnir is the greatest steed to have ever existed. Not only because it is the best, strongest, fastest, bravest mount, but also because it always understands the heart of his rider.

Unlock Condition: Relying on your heart, choose and tame a mount to become Sleipnir's vessel.

[Blessing of Lord Loki.]

-Vault of Knowledge.

Remark: The Vault of Knowledge is the other half of the greatest gift given to the Host by Lord Loki. The Lord of Mischief requires that Host earns the recognition of his household before this final most precious Blessing is given to you.

Condition: Acquire the recognition of the Household of Loki. (2/6)

Lord Loki (Acknowledged)

Lady Sigyn (Unacknowledged)

Queen Hel (Acknowledged)

Lord Fenrir (Unacknowledged)

Lord Jormungandr (Unacknowledged)

Sleipnir (Unacknowledged)

I looked at the conditions to unlock the Blessings. I must say, it felt in line with the nature of the Spirits.

Lord Fenrir asked me to remove all those in my way. As expected of the Destroyer of worlds. Of course it would ask me to kill everything that barred my path to the top.

But I wondered... just what did the Spirit experience to warp his personality as such.

The fact that its incarnation is supposed to be a companion to me, tells me Fenrir is someone who cares.

I recalled his Spiritual alignment. It was Chaotic Evil.

Just what was done to it to make it turn an obvious caring being into the Destroyer of worlds.

Lord Jormungandr's request also made sense in its own way.

As the progenitor of poison, it made sense he'd want his blessed to have some knowledge of poisons.

Fortunately, I do.

Although Herbology in Arun considered Poison as a different discipline, it wasn't the case in Medicinal Chemistry of my previous world.

Medicinal Chemistry considered Poisons and Medicines to be two sides of a coin. What is a medicine for one person could very well be a poison for another.

Case in point are allergies.

Drugs that are miracle medicine to some people may very well be death sentences to another if the person has an allergic reaction to said drug. This was why doctors in my previous life kept a record of allergies before administering any medication to a patient.

This doesn't seem to be a consideration in Arun.

I wonder, do they even have allergies? Or maybe they just don't know about it?

Hmm... this could be a good method to explore.

Anyway, I do wish I had known about this requirement beforehand. There were some targets I would've killed with poison if I knew. Instead, I ended up using them to understand the Queens favour ability.

Sleipnir's request was... a bit sketchy if you ask me.

It rubs me a certain way knowing I'd have to choose a steed only for it to be possessed by Sleipnir.

Would the steed still be the one I chose, I wonder?

Last but not the least, is the Vault of Knowledge.

Loki set it up to be the ultimate Blessing I had. It made sense it's restriction is a little stringent.

Recieving the acknowledgement of my patron Spirits seems like a fair ask.

It's just that I'm surprised I hadn't received the acknowledgement of Lady Sigyn even though her Blessing is available to me.

Is it because I hadn't used it yet?

Doesn't that mean I have to get into a romantic relationship before I can receive her acknowledgement?

Come on... give a guy a break.

I'm already struggling keeping my teen hormone at bay, now a Spirit is piling on the pressure.

I don't even know what kind of partner I want to have.

Should I get a partner my age?

Wait, which age?

Sixty? Cough... hell no. I'm too young to date a jaguar.

Perhaps I'd consider if it was still a puma.

Then should it be girls at eighteen? Sure, they're adults but I still can't help but feel it's wrong.

Sigh... Life is complicated.

"Guess it's going to take some time before I unlock the Vault then. Oh well, I've survived without it for this long, a few more years won't kill me."

I shouldn't have said this out loud because I soon regretted it in the next few seconds.

[Notice: Lady Sigyn is unhappy with your wishy-washy behaviour. She requests Host to man up and not repeat the same mistakes of his previous life.]

[Message: Love is spontaneous; stop overthinking it.]

I was left stunned and speechless.

Eventually, I could only sigh.

Looks like I'm going to have to go with my previous decision and take life slow.

(To be continued...)

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