Standing on the shoulders of giants.

The purple water trickled down his throat and into his stomach.

Ace looked through his semi–transparent skin, watching the purple water drip into his phantom stomach.

After a few seconds, the water in his stomach lost it's purple tint and turned into a light-blue translucent liquid–the exact same colour as his soul body.

"Is the spirit version of a digestive system?"

Ace asked himself in interest. Looking at the phantom organs he had.

"And is the purple water, like the spirit version of food?"

While Ace was busy asking rhetorical questions to himself he got hit with a strange feeling.

Like his soul–body became more substantial, Ace looked down to at his body, to see his translucent body grow a little denser and his mind felt awfully active.

Flexing his translucent fingers Ace felt itchy to try out how much his spirit had increased.

From the basic experience Ace had in using spirit it had two vague forms namely;

Force and Mold.

In basic terms, Force was like an invisible game controller, that applies forces to cause an effect; e.g., applying an upwards force to an object causes the object to fly upwards.

And applying a pulling force to an object, causes it to fly towards you.

The other form, Mold was exactly as the name described; A mold.

The spirit takes on an the shape of an invisible mold that can be morphed into whatever shape the user can picture.

Ace was currently using Mold as he turned his spirit into an invisible bowl scooping up the water from the purple ocean.

Spirit also differed from vitality and mana; spirit force was like energy it never went up or down when it was used. But although the spirit was infinite the soul's strength was not.

It took certain amount of mental toll when using spirit.

So every use of spirit weakened the soul, the only way to recover that soul strength was to rest.

Ace whirled his hand above the water's surface manifesting and invisible bowl.

'The manifestation of my spirit is faster in here'

Ace noted, as he saw the effort it took to materialise his spirit in his core was little to none for him.

Ace went on to use the materialised bowl to scoop up the water.

'Hmmm ~ but my spirit control stays the same' Ace stated

Seeing the familiar sight of water spilling out of the bowl in multiple places, like a pierced water balloon.

'so what did the water enhance?' Ace said to himself as he scrutinized the suspended bowl of water.

After a while if perfecting the invisible bowl, Ace noticed the abnormal length, which he suspended the water, normally he would be sweating buckets and his burdened with heavy fatigue.

But right now, Ace's mind felt as clear as spring water, with his bursting vitality and no sign of weariness.

'so the use of that liquid was to increase soul endurance?'

Ace said to himself the question he already knew the answer to as he stared into the purple ocean below.

Ace looked at his purple tinted reflection in the ocean, ruminating upon it's nature.

"It's quite strange when you think about it . . . this purple liquid only exists in my core."

"Everytime I try to bring it out of here It automatically turns into vitality."

Ace said to himself as he while he made the bowl of suspended water float towards his mouth.

As the refreshing purple energy glided down his throat he realized a peculiar connection between the two uses of the purple fluid he had discovered so far.

"The purple liquid turns into vitality when it leaves my core."

"–and vitality nourishes my body and makes it stronger."

"This purple fluid when drank by me in soul form.*

"–also nourishes my soul and makes it stronger."

"So . . . Isn't the purple fluid a kind of heavenly meal, spirit cuisine, if you think about it, it nourishes the body and soul, just like how a meal nourishes the body when consumed."

A wide smile was brought to Ace's face at the thought of the purple liquid being some kind of luxurious spirit cuisine exclusive to bestowed.

"I bet if something like this got into the mundane world of my past life, It could probably make a myth of it's own—Just like everything in Astreal now that I think about it."

"I could already imagine the names the legend would be."

«The the elixer of immortality.».

«The stolen wine of the gods.»

«e.t.c.»

Ace smiled lightly at the thought.

"Wait!"

Ace eyes widened in realisation.

"That reminds me of some myths in Astreal."

"There was a story about a god that sent down blessings to his starving believers, Those blessings filled the heart and body of the believers and saved them from starvation, so the believers of that god named the blessing that had fallen from the sky; mana–It meant food from the heavens in their native language."

Ace remembered vaguely remembered the legend. It was the propaganda of the holy light church to attract believers.

But Ace didn't hear the test of the legend as he was always afraid of the holy light church because if they ever found out he was a transmigrator, they would probably grind his soul to dust, under the guise of exorcising a demonic soul.

"So in some translations mana means food from the heavens, so is that purple liquid perhaps mana?"

Ace said tentatively.

"It can't be, right?"

Ace asked himself furrowing his brows.

"Not everyone has special grade talent like me, the old man said that most people only have one of the three affinities mana, vitality and spirit. That dwelled within their cores."

"Warriors–A bestowed that has an affinity to vitality–produce vitality despite not having any affinity to mana."

"So either I'm a special case or that purple liquid is not mana."

"But if that isn't mana, what is?"

Ace mumbled to himself, more confused than he was when he started.

"Aargh! – I should just stop thinking about this and just wait till the school semester starts, they'll teach me everything I need to know."

"Thank god! I didn't awaken as a bestowed earlier, else that problem would be grating on my mind for a long time.

"Thank god I chose I chose Culmen Academy, with their centuries of exploring the extraordinary way, I doubt there was a problem that their vast base of knowledge didn't have insight on"

"This is the advantage of having a force to support you, It's like standing on the shoulders of giants to see further."

"Though standing on the shoulders of a giant puts you at risk of being swatted by other giants, it also lets you see a much wider world."

"The alternative of running away from the giants because of the fear of getting swatted, makes your height smaller and the your world narrow, just like the proverbial frog in a well, limited by it's own knowledge thinking the well was the whole world, if only it was brave enough to jump out of It's own cage of knowledge. Even though the wider world was dangerous and filled with terrifying giants, in my opinion living in ignorance was much worse than dying with the truth in mind."

"It's better to ignore your fear and sit on the shoulder of giants instead of struggling to gain an inch of height, climbing the mountain of the supernatural,.

"When you could have just easily gotten that height by sitting on a giant's shoulder."

"That's why it's imperative to stay in Culmen City;A metaphoric giant in the world of Astreal."

"It has a large base of knowledge to learn from and improve, If I was exploring the road of bestowal alone, this question would stomp me for a long time."

Going back to the matter at hand.

Ace looked at the purple ocean and said;

"Since you're not mana then I have to give you a name, I can't just keep calling you 'purple liquid' all the time"

"Hmmm ~ Yeah I know, since you make both the body and soul grow stronger, You should be called, the water of growth"