"The next item I will need is one or more spirits." Young remarked to himself. He tried to recall Spark's instructions about gathering spirits.
"Spirits exist in all things. You need only call and capture them. Like most entities, some spirits can be stronger or weaker or have wills of their own. Lesser spirits possess no individuality and thus can be seen as creatures that act on instinct more than logic. Greater spirits on the other hand can communicate or perhaps even have consciousness. They will be harder to bend to your will. For now, you should focus on using Lesser Spirits."
Young remembered Spark's words verbatim. "Simple enough..right?" He remarked as he clasped his hands together and closed his eyes.
Forming seals always began with the same mudra seal -- the seal in question didn't matter just that one felt comfort in using it. For this reason Young Jade clasped all of his fingers then thrusted both pointer and middle fingers of both hands upwards. He then gathered forth qi from his internal reserves and began to use the "Seeking Spirits" technique shown to him by Spark.
This technique allowed the user to send out their own energy in tiny particles which would then stick to nearby spirits in the environment. Young opened his eyes after sometime and peered around. Sure enough several small orbs of light had begun to float towards him, spirits. There were dozens, all of varying sizes and they offered a measure of light to the dim surroundings -- it was like a swarm of lantern flies gently floating about.
Next Young separated his hands and began to cast the seal 'Construct Sphere - Self Sustaining'. He used his free hand to trace the symbol for the seal in the air and guided by the system he managed to pull it off. The symbol he traced appeared to float in the air momentarily before disappearing in a flash of light. Then a small orb of energy began to form on his fingertips which he directed to a nearby spirit. The hollow orb floated through the air quickly and easily ensnared it's target. The ball of light bounced around the shell of the barrier, his technique and having fulfilled its purpose
"That was simple enough." Young said to himself as he walked over and picked up the small sphere.
A familiar prompt appeared, asking him to store the item and he obliged. He then returned to his place near the ravine's wall and sat down so that he could inspect the item's info.
[Imprisoned Lesser Wisp - Rank 0, Quality 15.
A spirit that has been captured by Young Jade. Most likely won't be useful, but he will still try no doubt...]
"What the heck does that mean?" Young thought to himself upon reading the item description.
"Is this bastard Spark making fun of me?" Young grunted as he closed his inventory. There were still many spirits nearby and he had to admit the one he'd just captured was pretty small. It was like a glimmering speck for the most part. He prepared another Sphere and launched it towards some other nearby spirits. Unlike before, since these spirits were larger they had the sense to move. The orb floated by them harmlessly before dissipating altogether. It seems Young would need to capture his target for the effect of the seal to become permanent.
Young would not be outdone by mindless spirits -- or at least that was his intent. But the larger spirits easily avoided his capture spheres. What's more his qi was beginning to dip significantly, he couldn't do this all day! Each seal required energy to create and control whatsmore in his haste he'd already messed up creating several seals. The symbols needed precision and both his impatience as well as the feeling of lethargy created by a lack of qi was beginning to wear on Young.
Ultimately Young exhausted his qi completely and only managed to collect 3 lesser wisps and one larger spirit. He laid down on the cool, hard floor of the ravine as fatigue washed over him. He was used to the drained sensation which accompanied emptying his qi but he was not used to being advised on how to recover qi.
"Your qi is depleted. You can recover qi quickly by performing meditation or syphoning the excess lightning energy within your body."
[Tutorial Unlocked : Managing Lightning]
"Managing Lightning [1]: The lightning energy within your body is slowly seeping out. If you can't contain it properly it will erupt and destroy you. In order to prevent this you must slowly assimilate the energy, making it your own. A benefit of this is that doing so will not only increase your qi limit, but also refill your qi at an astounding rate. To do this, all you need to do is meditate and begin absorbing the energy."
"Oh? Interesting." Young said as he sat up.
"Let's give this a try." He said as he assumed the lotus meditation pose. The moment he closed his eyes Young quickly entered into his soul sea, this was the fastest he'd ever managed to venture into his inner world thus he was amazed.
The scene inside was much different now. Spark was nowhere to be found and the world was in total darkness, instead all he saw was a massive ball of lightning energy. It must have been at least one kilometer in diameter. The energy it gave off was enough to charge the very atmosphere around it as sparks of lightly arced from the sphere in various places. Young took note of small particles of the energy which seemed to be escaping the sphere form. If he had to guess it would be safer to start with these small orbs first.
He began the process of drawing the energy towards him and soon several of the tiny lightning particles flowed into his body. He could feel their energy surging through his veins, so much so that he had to stop absorbing after the third one entered his body.
"This is entirely too powerful!" He grunted as he began to cycle the energy within his body. It was difficult to maintain and control, but ultimately after a few minutes he was successful.
[Qi+3. 25/58 Qi restored.]
"Just those three tiny pieces was enough to refill over half of my qi? That's amazing.." Young thought to himself. The numerical representation of his qi was new to him, but the sensation in his body confirmed that his Qi reserves had expanded slightly.
"Managing Lightning [2]: You've managed to fully absorb a small portion of the excess lightning energy within your body. Great job. You can now keep track of your current level of element saturation at the upper right of the HUD."
As the tutorial prompt mentioned Young could now see the word "Saturation" followed by a percentage which read 33%.
"Managing Lightning [3]: When the saturation of your body reaches 100% its game over! Your body will no longer be able to handle the amount of energy trapped within and it will explode! To prevent this you must train your body to become accustomed to the energy within naturally but this will take some time. For now, make sure to absorb excess energy as much as possible through cultivation."
"Ah. I see now.." Young remarked after reading the series of tutorial prompts.
"Saturation : 35%"
"It jumped two percent that quickly? What the heck!" Young nearly shouted in surprise.
"Well there's nothing to it. I'm just going to have to keep absorbing it in order to lower my saturation levels."