"How many do you see?"
"About fourteen?"
In the forests behind the town that we had decided to lodge in for the night, Titania and I continued my training with the spirits.
"Hm, that shouldn't be so bad, there's around fifty at the moment."
I had started to see many more spirits that before thanks to the constant training. This ability that should only be with people either chosen by spirits or the fairies, that would always be chosen by spirits, was slowly building into me thanks my existence that spanned over two different realms.
In a sense, I was a pseudo spirit user.
Spirit users on their own had apparently gone from the Mortal realm since ancient times, and only sorcerers remained now.
I made a mental note to contact Ikuro Asahi, the wizard heir of the east that had helped me get my hands on many ancient techniques. It would be god to use the knowledge of history he had developed with me to make him fetch more books.
"Let's begin."
Though I loved any way to get stronger.
This training had put me in a bind.
That the spirits did not choose me but I could still see them made them slightly curious about me, but still…
"Remember Eugy, bear your heart. These annoying little trash like bastards will only respond to the truth and just the truth. Deceive them and you can keep hoping to get them to move."
Yes.
This was the issue.
Battles and techniques all over had to utilize deception and trickery, even beyond that, no matter how much I tried, these spirit bastards never accepted my words as the truth.
"However you deceive yourself, abandon it all."
"See. I still don't know what that means."
"And I have already explained it." Titania sighed and held her head as she sat on my shoulders. "You use the excuse of the strongest to push through matters where you are tired. You utilize your truthfulness to avoid times when you would rather lie. Drop all of these."
I leaned back on the tree, my eyes starting at the spirits that giggled and flew, their numbers slightly growing.
"That's not deception, it's discipline."
"Discipline is no better," Titania shook her head. "You don't have to be righteous to move the spirits, you have to be truthful."
"Stagnant and ugly?" To lead a life without discipline was to live the life of an animal. "I'd be no better than a monkey."
Titania giggled.
"That's right. Become a monkey in a zoo. They care for amusement, Eugy, everything else can go die in a ditch."
"Then why do they move for you?"
"Everything I do is amusing for them," Titania shrugged. "Not you, though."
That was the difference between the ones chosen and the ones that weren't, huh?
There was another problem with training spirit magic.
"Phew, alright, I am starting."
"I'll keep a count, twenty seconds in a go, alright?"
I nodded.
Even though Titania had already demonstrated it, but just taking the load that the powers of the realms themselves held made my mind break apart and my body quake. I fainted faster than I could use the spirits.
Widening my arms, I looked at the small spirit ahead.
"Hey! You there."
The green spirit suddenly looked back, turning toward me. Like a will-o-wisp, the being which was no better than a glowing blob of light was strangely expressive despite not having a face.
Like an innocent child, it bobbed up and down, asking why I called it.
That it could hear me was already a lot of improvement.
"How about we make a grand tree that looks like you?"
The spirit suddenly charged toward me and phased through my head. As if it were sticking its tongue out while looking back, it ran away.
I leaned against the tree next to me, it felt as if all of my energy had been sucked out. Interacting with spirits overloaded my brain with data.
"Ok. Try again."
My teacher was just the sweetest, though, so she never let my pain stop me from working anyway.
"Just say what comes to your mind, Eugy. Don't think of how you can use them, just use them."
I wondered how these masochists found those amusing, but went with it anyway.
"Alright."
I stood upright, my arms spread out once more.
Another green spirit caught my eye, and I talked to it again.
And it sapped through me again.
And then once more.
Now, almost completely out of energy to the point where I struggled to keep my eye lids open and my chin up high, I called out once more.
My mind had long gotten hazy, figuring the type of spirit was a pain.
"Yo you. Make a statue of me posing from a tree, that'll make he monument of all time. Heavens will worship my beauty."
The spirit blinked.
And then bobbed around as if it had heard the funniest joke in the world.
That was to be expected from these idiots.
"Pfft." It seemed even Titania found it funny though I was being truthful.
The spirit nodded.
The ground behind me shook.
And my eyes went wide once more as I fell on my side.
***
"Wake up."
A foot pressed into my cheeks.
My eyes slowly fluttered open, and a pair of thighs greeted me good morning. I ignored said thighs and turned my gaze further up, only to see a woman in pink with her pink flowing hair hanging behind her back.
"Morning," I said. The soil below me soft and moist.
"What the fuck were you doing? Don't tell me you were making that?"
I rubbed my eyes as she pointed behind her. When I looked back…
There stood a small tree, the height of me.
Flexing, just like I would.
"Um, maybe I was?"
"God," Irina Lester sighed. "We're supposed to go and end a war, you dumbfuck."
Right.
"Well, we can always do that now?"
I stood up from the ground and stretched my waist and hands. Titania, for some reason, was still sleeping atop me.
"Let's go end a war."
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