After Aurus fell unconscious in Tempest Cliff, multiple sticks of various grades noticed his vulnerable body and wanted to kill him for experience. Of course, being sticks of at least the A-grade, they had souls that allowed them to think and comprehend abstract things, one being greed.
It's not a greed for material things like money since they were only sticks and money is somewhat abstract to them. Rather, it's a greed for power, an intangible object that anyone can gain as long as they train hard enough. As for them, gaining power is equivalent to them leveling up and evolving into a higher being, perhaps even becoming sentient.
So seeing Aurus' vulnerable body that has a lot of SP within it, almost all of the sticks surrounding Aurus couldn't help but charge forward and attack him.
But that was their mistake.
All of a sudden, Aurus' body that was doing nothing on the ground, burst into multiple pieces that dealt a lot of damage to the surrounding sticks. This explosion wasn't an explosion that was on the macroscopic level where Aurus was turned into multiple splinters, but rather at the microscopic level. This meant that all of the sticks here were hit with Aurus' cells that held immense energy thanks to the large amount of SP he had.
All of the sticks who were hit by this noticed their durability rapidly declining, some having half of the durability, while some ending up in a critical state. Of course, being sticks that had souls, they knew when to stop. Since they could easily be killed by the sticks beside them, they activated their movement skills that was boosted by the power of the wind within the Tempest Cliff, and ran away, leaving Aurus alone for the time being.
An hour has passed since Aurus started evolving. It was only at this moment that his body exploded. Well it would be wrong to say that his body exploded, but rather, it was going through a state of reformation.
With his body's cells being far apart from one another, each of these gradually transformed into a semi-intangible form, one that could change between being corporeal and incorporeal. This type of cell was the basic unit of life for a Spiritas, a semi-intangible cell that held Aurus' energy and soul, the Anima.
After a few more hours, all of the cells that make up Aurus' body has turned into Anima. At this moment, the moon and stars were hanging up high in the pitch black sky, although the Tempest Cliff was still dark. For some reason, the Anima that made up Aurus' body glowed a faint green, showing his affinity with the Wind.
Even as of now, no sticks dared to intrude on Aurus' evolution. The accidental show of might that Aurus did was enough to scare them away, allowing Aurus to evolve smoothly.
All of the Anima that was scattered a while ago started to converge towards Aurus' soul that was left as Aurus' body exploded. The Anima then started to permeate through Aurus' soul, forming a connection with his soul. Once the connection was successfully formed, a burst of green light appeared around Aurus' new body. At this point in time, he was not a branch of the Walnut race anymore, rather he had reformed his stick body into a better body. Although it may not be a human body, it was still better than being a stick.
He was now a Spiritas of the Walnut race.
But for some reason, after the Anima combined with Aurus' soul, the Anima rearranged itself into a branch-like shape. It was not known why this happened, but one thing was for sure.
Aurus is now a Spiritas, a Spiritas that looked like a glowing green stick.
...
XXXX Continent, Seraph Kingdom, an unknown tower.
This tower was a special tower constructed by the Seraph Kingdom, not only for reconnaissance and show of might, but it was also a place for those who had classes related to magic delve in.
That's why for people who frequently enter the tower, it was called the Arcana Tower.
Within the Arcana Tower, Dane currently had his eyes closed as a blue crystalline orb floated in front of him, with an image flashing every so often within the orb.
After telling Prince Vanadir the true name of the branch Dane found, Prince Vanadir ordered him to track the Wind Walnut Branch at all costs. Though Dane wanted to decline the offer, Prince Vanadir told him that 20% of the tower's assets will go to him once he successfully captures the branch.
So he had no choice but to do it.
"I searched all over the Desolate Forest already and the branch isn't there. I've also searched Corsa Town in case the stick flew there, but it's not there as well," Dane couldn't help but sigh as he opened his eyes, taking a glance at the map he placed on a nearby desk before looking back at the orb.
Many people would think of Dane as a handsome man. He had black hair that was neatly combed, and black irises that exuded wisdom and intelligence once anyone looked at it. Combine that with his rimmed glasses and his crimson red robe that shows his rank of authority within the Arcana Tower, it would be weird for any woman to not blush in front of him.
As he was still focusing on the orb, a finger tapped on his shoulder, making him turn his head around to look at the person. After recognizing who it was, Dane gave a light smile. "Well if isn't my student Erea. What seems to be the problem?"
Erea was Dane's only student as she was the only one who was able to meet his requirements. Of course, if you had a Rank 4 High Mage as your teacher, you'd soar high right? Erea was a girl around 15 years of age that had hair of a light green color. Her irises were colored blue like the deep ocean, while her lips were tinted light pink. Anyone looking at the girl would unnoticeably end up having a light smile in their face.
Erea clutched on her clean gray robe and then looked at her teacher Dane. Her legs slightly trembled as she asked, "T-Teacher, I have achieved the maximum level of a Rank 2 Acolyte but I don't know how to rank up to a Rank 3 Mage. Could you tell me how to rank up?"
"That fast?" Dane put the orb he was looking at on the nearby desk before looking at Erea with shock. He took Erea as her student only two years ago. Most of the time, it would take 5 years for a student at Rank 1 Novice Acolyte to reach the maximum level of Rank 2 Acolyte as they had to increase their Intelligence stat and MP, not to mention their spell repertoire.
"How high is your intelligence right now and how much MP can you hold at maximum? Tell me how much spells you know how to cast and their level as well," Dane replied as he knew that the requirements to rank up were different for every person.
Erea pondered for a bit before replying, "Uh...my Intelligence stat is at 72, the maximum amount of MP I can hold is uh...110, and uh..."
"I know about 12 spells, 11 of them are Level 0 Spells while the remaining one is a Lower Level 1 Spell."
"Oh my god..." Dane couldn't help but mutter. "This student in front of me is a true genius." All of a sudden, Dane got a flash of inspiration as he hurriedly infused his MP on the orb, showing an image of a stick in the center, surrounded by torrential winds.
"I knew it! Since it was a stick of the Wind element, it would come here eventually!" Seeing that her teacher was currently absorbed in something, Erea stood behind her teacher, waiting for him to answer.
But after a while, Erea heard a weird sound from his teacher. Not long after, his teacher stood up and shouted in surprise.
"Eh?" Dane couldn't believe what he seeing through the orb. The branch transformed into a semi-intangible being that he thought was only seen in legends.
"It's a Spiritas!"
...
The sun was up high in the sky, illuminating everything within the Tempest Cliff.
At this moment...
Aurus awakened.