The small kid was called William. He sat on his simple wooden chair inside his simple and narrow place with an absent look on his face.
Just moments ago he was getting hacked by his sworn enemy. He looked at his body and checked where these tails just penetrated him, yet he found zero marks left by any of that.
This was weird, but what was much weirder was what he just experienced. He felt like a boat with a broken mast that was tossed in the middle of a thunderstorm.
He started to control his ragged emotions and messy mind after an entire hour. The world outside was pitch black, showing how deep in the night the time was.
Yet he wasn't in the mood to even think about sleep. He just got resurrected, sent back in time by a mysterious power. His desperate battle with the nine-tailed fox monster was still lingering inside his mind even after an entire hour.
"So I came back to the academy… sigh," he took a deep breath while recalling how his past life in this academy was.
William wasn't living a nice life at this point. He didn't come from a prestigious clan or a rich family, to begin with. This academy was considered one of the most prestigious in the entire southern human kingdom, but he joined it as a mere porter.
A porter had only one task, to help in carrying and providing all kinds of supplies to the registered formal disciples of the academy. Those kids came from wealthy families and strong clans, and he had to serve them in the daytime.
It might seem like a poor life, but it wasn't that bad actually. In return for working for eight hours every day, he could have a place of his own to live in, have few resources from the academy, and also have the chance to attend classes and even get into outside expeditions.
However, compared to the life that just had ended at the hands of the nine-tailed fox, he knew this wasn't the kind of life he deserved, not the life he wanted.
"I have to change everything," he clenched both fists and his fragile body faintly trembled, "I got this chance to return the favour double to that damned fox. I can't waste a single moment, not like this."
He looked outside through the only small window in this tight room. This might be called his own space to live in, but it was a useless cabinet situated on the outskirts of the academy campus.
He never imagined that his last-moment wish would come true. He barked in front of that fox but it never crossed his mind, even in his wildest dreams, that he would really be sent back in time and relive his life again.
As he recalled the last words he bellowed out before his death, he started to calm his mind down. "I need to plan things properly," he said to himself before opening the only drawer in his desk and getting something out.
It was a pure milky white crystal with a faint glistening surface. It was a known crystal in this world, known as a spirit crystal, the universal currency in this world.
He didn't keep the crystal as he placed it over the desk after clearing a spot of dust. Then he took another item from the drawer.
It was a thick short candle. Its outer surface was covered in irregular rounded green spots that came from the melting of the candle.
It was the candle of light, a regular thing found in this world and used for clearing darkness. There was nothing else but this green material, but when touched with fire, it would burn and emit enough light to push away darkness from the room.
It was made of a common ore that was found on the sides of big ore mines. It had no value other than spreading light in the middle of the night. However, William knew many uses of this material.
The two items William took were considered fairly common and without much value in this world. It wasn't a surprise that a porter like him would get such kinds of supplies from the academy.
"I recall my former strength was stagnant for a long time before the big fall, but I have to test it," he muttered before holding the spirit crystal in one hand, and the candle of light in the other hand.
He used the weak spirit power inside his body to ignite the fire over the top of the candle of light, then waited.
In the eyes of others, the candle would look useless to test anything. But he knew that the material of the candle was a perfect stimulator of any conductor material like the spirit crystal.
Testing the spirit power in this world used different means, but to William, these ways were considered rudimentary and retarded in his eyes. He planned to use a new way to test his spirit power up, a method not yet known in this world.
Spirit crystals were excavated from big mines around the world. The one he had was considered one of the lowest ranks. It contained a mediocre amount of spirit power, but it was enough to be used in his test.
The moment the fire appeared, the entire green candle got ignited and shone with its usual faint green colour. However, William's eyes were attached to the candle itself, not its light.
The fire caused the entire candle to be warmed up. This material would turn into liquid once exposed to fire just like any candle. Beads of a faint green colour started to form on top of the irregular surface of the candle.
Seeing this, William leant the candle over the crystal and let these small green beads fall over the smooth surface of it.
One bead, five beads, a hundred beads. Once the entire surface was covered, he put the candle aside and held the spirit crystal in both hands before slowly rubbing it.
The green material of the candle covered the entire surface evenly before he stopped.
*Fwoosh!*
He slowly injected his own spirit power inside the crystal. The moment his spirit power touched its surface, it started to shine in faint green light before the green material started to dissipate inside the crystal and vanish like it was never there.
However, his small face didn't show any reaction at all. The moment the last speck of the green material vanished, a new change occurred at the centre of the spirit crystal.
A flash of light appeared shyly before it started to evolve. William kept injecting his energy inside the crystal until the changes stopped and a clear scene appeared in front of his eyes.
He raised the crystal closer and examined the pattern and colour inside the crystal.
"Faint white, twelve dots only… So this was my strength back then… Sigh!" he said in a melancholic tone. "Twelve spirit points, not even close to being considered a spirit master," he didn't know if he should cry or laugh at such a result.
If anyone came back in time to his younger self and told him that his destiny would change and become a mighty spirit master in the next twenty years, he would call this man a lunatic!