With the Illusory Spirit hanging at her back, Yumiko's demeanor also took the form of the spirit. Her somehow bashful and timid nature was completely replaced by an aggressive stance.
But when I heard her voice, it's still her.
"W-what do you think, Daisuke-kun?"
Her voice contained a hint of worry, that force she exhibited almost blew me away after all.
"Amazing! Just how strong are you right now?"
Showing her how amazed I was. Her face lit up before answering.
"Ah. I think I can defeat you now."
Eh? I know she's strong even without that ability, am I wrong?
"You can defeat me even without that, right?"
I wonder what path does her Otherworld have? If she also utilized it, like Yuko and Raiden, she should have higher stats than me.
"Uh no. This Spirit can gauge a target's strength. You're a lot stronger than you look. It's like you're hiding a trump card."
Ah. She must be talking about the Dispelling Arrow. But for that Spirit to even sense that...
It might really negate the effect of her Spirit Channeling if an arrow made of Psyche Energy hit her. Just like how it can dispel the Halo of that Corrupted Saint Realm using Brute Energy Arrow.
"I did have a trump card of some sort. What's the name of that Spirit? Is he someone known to us?"
If I could only Dispel her Spirit Channeling, she could then fight me using that Otherworld's cultivation path.
"He introduced himself as the Paragon of Truth. As to where they came from, none of the Spirits will divulge it."
Paragon of Truth? So are they really existence from somewhere? A higher world like the Invading Forces? Right now there's no way to know about it but since she could borrow their power wherever she is then that's fine. That's reassuring at least.
We'll be attacking a fortress in her Otherworld to close the breach. For what will be my role there, that's still uncertain.
"I guess that's fine. It really put me in awe. I've seen Yuko and Raiden's ability but yours is the most awe-inspiring."
This is my honest evaluation. The unpredictability of her ability could save us from a situation where we are put into grave danger. Well, there's also the downside because of that. But she thought it's random when in fact, the Spirits competed among themselves and it's always the strongest or the craftiest who emerged victorious.
"Eh… But it's random. It's not always like this."
See? She's dead set on the idea that it's random.
"It's not random. I saw it. It's the strongest or maybe the one you need the most who will establish a connection with you."
They must have different forms of competition to determine who will let her borrow their power. Such great Spirits. So it's really a cheat as well. I wonder what kind of cheat will the others have?
After showcasing her ability, she then introduced the world she was summoned into.
She called it the World of Spirits. But she insisted that it's different from the Spirits she could call through her ability.
That World has something they called the Spirit Ocean as the source of inherent energy, called Spirit Energy, as well as the center of the World's Will. The location of the Spirit Ocean is unknown or it's hidden somewhere no one can reach.
The inhabitants of that world could be called as a Spirit Race but they all look like regular humans except for the one trait that separates them from us Earthlings. It's the existence of their Spiritual Twin.
It's something that originated from the said Spirit Ocean, every denizen of that world will be born with an accompanying Spiritual Twin. Well, that Spiritual Twin will stay at Asleep State until the denizen awakens it by himself. It's called the Pre-Natal Stage which is the equivalent of Pre-Mortal Realm in the World of Barbarians.
They needed to nourish the Spiritual Twin using Spirit Energy that was being exuded by the Spirit Ocean to awaken it fully.
After Awakening the Spiritual Twin, it will allow the denizen of that world to establish a connection to the Spirit Ocean and that's what they called the Natal Spirit Stage or just simply Natal Spirit. They're starting to call themselves a Spirit once they awakened their Spiritual Twin.
From one Strand of connection, during the Natal Spirit Stage, one can at most get up to five Strands. Each Strand of connection to the Spirit Ocean strengthens not the denizen but the Spiritual Twin. It could be said that at Natal Spirit Stage, the fights involve their Spiritual Twin. It couldn't die but it would exhaust the denizens' lifespan if it was destroyed by the enemy.
Once a Natal Spirit manages to get five Strands, it will be the turn of their own body, using the 5 Strands from their Spiritual Twin, they have to merge with it to get 5 Strands on their own body. And those strands will then combine turning into a Stream.
A Stream is something like a more advanced connection to the Spirit Ocean, it will allow the denizen access to a more profound use of Spirit Energy. And they call it the Fused Spirit Stage, at this stage, one cannot separate from their Spiritual Twin anymore.
Though it's a bit confusing, I managed to connect it to the World of Barbarians' Augmented Realm and World of Systems' Adept-class.
Looks like in each world, even if their path is different, it might converge at one point. As to which point it will converge, I still don't know.
Yumiko continued her explanation about the World of Spirits and the subsequent known stages.
After Fused Spirit, there were three more known stages such as Transformed Spirit, Noble Spirit and Ruler Spirit. Which possibly corresponded to the Saint Realm, King Realm and Emperor Realm.
Like in the World of Barbarians, there's no Ruler Spirit existing currently but there are a lot of Noble Spirits which formed the civilization of that world.
With them as the center, they united into one huge Federation called the Spiritas.
Yumiko then told me that the Invading Forces were having a hard time breaking the Federation and making conflict. Before they arrived, the common enemy of all Spirit Race was the Spirit Beasts which were also nourished by the inherent energy. And like the Spiritas, they were united but only under one intelligent Spirit Beast called the Spirit King.
And that Spirit King was the one mentioned by Raiden who was constantly chasing after her. As for what reason, even Yumiko didn't know. But she assured me that those Spirit Beasts couldn't be corrupted by the Invading Forces because of the existence of the Spirit King.
So the situation there right now was a three-way war between the Spiritas, the Spirit Beasts and the Invading Forces.
The first two couldn't ally themselves with each other since from the start they're the ones vying for hegemony in that world and both of them have the same goal of searching for the Spirit Ocean. They believed that only by finding it will they find a way to become a Ruler Spirit or more than that.
With all these info dumps, I'm surprisingly taking it all calmly. Well, it's just my Adaptability helping me understand it.
Yumiko was parched after her explanation that she immediately excused herself to drink outside.
Err. I brought water with me but she already left before I could offer it to her.
Leaving it at that, I continued my training. The World of Spirits might be interesting but I needed my Adaptability to level up. I could feel that once I level it up, managing these different kinds of energy will become easier.
But yeah, thinking about it, it's really hard to level it up. I started training in the morning and the sun will probably set soon but I only managed to see a 5% progress. Should I stop and spend the remaining time relaxing and gathering information instead?
I couldn't help but wish for a war to spam Psyche Boost and Physique Boost again.
Err no. Let's not wish for that.
I'll decide later whether I will continue training or not. In two days I will set foot on that 3rd World. As to what's waiting for us there, there's only one thing we need to do. Close the Breach.