Here we go again! The real cheat

Careful not to break eye contact, Col asked his system. 'Uh System. Care to tell me what on earth is going on here?'

'DING! The host is not on Earth. Therefore nothing on Earth is going on here.'

'Oh for heaven's sake, this isn't the time for spunk and gumption. Just tell me what's happening!'

'DING! The host can't take a joke.'

Col almost popped a vein while gritting his teeth, he said, "Please"

'DING! The host has formed a soul conduit with the spirit seedling. This is a rare and seldom seen way of forming one.'

'How…. did something like this even happen!!?' Col was shocked.

'I thought that this thing was supposed to go on a rampage and kill everything in a hundred-mile radius?'

Where was the slaughter fest? Well, there was a slaughter but it seems that instead of killing him like it was supposed to the thing had… guarded him. Like for real?

Just what had happened. From what he had a natural, sane spirit should have wanted nothing more than to kill an abomination. Weren't they opposed? One loved by laws one hated?

It was peculiar in fact, this seedling shouldn't have had any complex thoughts. It was young. Babies often work on instinct and it was the same.

The question here was, why was a spirit's instinct to protect him?

'DING! The answer is simple. Paths reside in the mental spaces of beings. To give you your path, your mental space had to be created and your body modified to be able to handle both your mind and your Path. Balance is quite crucial, though less so to your kind.

'So to do this, energy was needed. Setting aside the matter around us the most abundant form of energy was mana, followed by the spirit's essence. You didn't have any mana circuits, or qi meridians, or any channel that could harness energy.

' That was quite strange indeed because usually, one would have them even in a subpar world where energy is dormant. Your aptitude for energy must have been horrendous. So the Path used the next best but most dangerous thing. Your soul'

The system then proceeded to tell Col about what had occurred in the clearing while he was drowning in his blood.

With macabre amusement, it informed him how close he was to death as he screamed himself hoarse. How the spirit almost swallowed too much of his soul for him to come back. Even now he had lost a vital part of his soul and gained some of the alien nature of the spirit seedling instead.

Whether that was an advantage or not remained to be seen. The good news was that as long as the conduit was there the spirit seedling would not attack him and would even move to protect him. 

The disadvantage was that, while still stronger than him, the conduit had taken a lot from the spirit. Because Col was so weak, it was the one supporting the conduit, weakening it further. It was nowhere near as strong as it should be in a normal taming bond.

The reason that the conduit weakened was its weak intellect. Had it had any complex thoughts, it would have taken the conduit over, or risked damage to break it. A connection of souls was more complex than it would seem. It meant a sharing of fates, destiny, and karma. 

Who would want to be so intrinsically chained to another being in that way, much less an abomination?

As it stood Col had a chance. He might be able to take over the conduit and become the master in this scenario.

While this was despicable to do to a newborn, hey he was contemplating the way to kill it before it killed him the day before. Besides, he was an abomination. Who expected him to be a paragon of morals?

Col took a deep breath. The system had told him what to do. The difficult part was getting the spirit to not resist.

Col gathered all the courage he thought he owned. It wasn't enough. So he just had to fake it till he succeeded. The young man stood up on shaky legs and, by sheer concentration stopped his shivering.

Worst case scenario he'd become a slave. He walked slowly to the spirit. The entity looked at him curiously. It walked, well sort of sauntered like the apes towards him.

It then noticed that they were walking differently. It straightened itself and looked at Col. He was within 20 meters of range now. It teetered first, then it took a wobbly step. The next one was not as infirm and the third was noticeably confident. By the fifth step, one could never call this thing a newborn.

The hairs on the back of Col's neck stood. That was a frightening rate of learning. This was a creature made to adapt. The system had told Col that spirits were formless and took the form that they most identified with. Col had laughed and imagined a spiritual slime, he was surprised when he asked the system about it and it admitted that such things as spiritual monster calamities existed.

This particular spiritual seedling had taken human form after Col. It had part of his soul after all.

They met in the middle and looked into each other's eyes. The spirit only reached up to his waist so he had to crouch down. Both of them had green eyes now, though the shade was lighter and less intense in the abomination's eyes.

It had changed well, the change. Col raised his hands. This was the first time he was doing anything like this and it had to be with a murderous spirit at that.

He held both the entity's shoulders gently but firmly. He looked into its eyes and brought his forehead together into contact with the spirit's bloody forehead. 

The goal was to use their connection and imprint his dominance into the spirit's mental space. He had to 'release his aura there' or whatever. The system couldn't assist him with specialized knowledge. It could only give common knowledge.

Col was afraid but he was also excited. If this worked, he would have a spirit! That would be a tremendous trump card, allowing him to roam free in this world.

A bright light flashed in Col's mind. The conduit had opened up the mental spaces!