Chapter 4: Spirit Energy

On this bright morning, Etzell had just woken up from a deep sleep. He felt very tired from the events he had experienced yesterday.

Etzell had just had some experiences related to spirits. And according to him, it was a confusing thing. Everything was new to Etzell.

On top of that, there was the sound of birds chirping beautifully right on this summer day, and it made Etzell's morning even more relaxing.

"Hoamm!"

Etzell slowly opened his eyes while yawning for a long time. Then he looked at the clock on the wall of his room and found that it was already 7am now.

"Seven o'clock in the morning. I guess I'll be a little late for school," Etzell muttered.

"Maybe I'll take a shower first," he muttered again.

Having finished mumbling to himself, Etzell immediately got up from his bed and went to the bathroom, then he took off his clothes in a semi-conscious state.

At the moment, Etzell was not fully awake and he felt like he kept imagining what happened yesterday.

Spirits, shadows, techniques, barriers, chains that locked him in, and finally his own scream. Etzell had just known and experienced it all yesterday, and until now he still did not fully understand about it.

It made him wonder if he would die soon. But according to Etzell, while Tiwaz Re was still around, the possibility of him dying was decreasing.

While taking off his clothes and putting them in the washing machine, Etzell took the towel he had brought with his to enter the bathroom. Once inside, Etzell jumped into the bathtub and began to calm down.

"Ah, it's so warm! It's a good thing I set the temperature well."

The calm flow of water in the bathtub suddenly changed when Etzell entered it, and it made the sound of wavering water waves.

The bathroom is a great place to think about things, which is what Etzell usually does. He could get many new ideas thanks to relaxing in the bathroom.

Even right now, Etzell was thinking about Melissa who was a woman. Although he sometimes found it difficult to understand a woman, he was happy that he could understand Melissa easily.

However, Etzell was unsure if he could understand Tiwaz Re or not. He doubted because sometimes Tiwaz Re could be silly and strict at the same time. So, Etzell needed more time to understand him.

Those two things seemed rare to Etzell, because he usually understood a man more easily than a woman.

"I guess it's about time, I could be really late later."

Satisfied with thinking about the many new things he had encountered yesterday, Etzell decided to finish his bath and exit the bathroom.

Then Etzell walks to his room and gets ready for school. While eating a sandwich and drinking a glass of milk that was in the fridge, he also did so while getting dressed to save time.

As Etzell looked at the clock on the wall, he was relieved that it was still 7:15, which meant he wouldn't be late. Done with all his preparations, he left for school.

Today is Wednesday, which means yesterday was Tuesday.

Etzell went to a public high school that was only a few minutes' walk away. After school, he would continue his part-time job at a small restaurant to make ends meet.

"For some reason, I have a bad feeling today," Etzell muttered.

From the moment he stepped out of his door and was greeted by the sound of birds chirping in the trees, Etzell felt a sense of foreboding and it made him feel uneasy.

At first things were still normal, Etzell was still walking casually to school. Even so, he still felt uneasy until he looked in all directions to make sure. And as a result, there was nothing.

In the end Etzell decided to keep walking while increasing his vigilance.

And sure enough, without Etzell realizing it, Melissa suddenly kidnapped him by using Chain Slash. That made Etzell's body lifted into the air for a few moments before landing back on the ground and facing Melissa.

"AAA!!! WHY?!"

Startled, Etzell shouted.

"Hust! Don't yell too loud, you'll cause another earthquake like yesterday!"

Melissa warned Etzell not to yell too loudly because it would be very troublesome if the shaking really happened in the surrounding area.

The two of them were in a narrow alley, a place that Etzell had passed by before. As soon as she saw Etzell passing by, Melissa immediately took out Chain Slash to force him into this narrow passage.

The atmosphere was quite quiet here, the sound of birds chirping could no longer be heard in Etzell's ears, there was only the sound of a few annoying rats with a few piles of used cardboard.

"Ah, sorry! But why did you suddenly kidnap me like this? I wanted to go to school right away!"

"For today, you won't be able to go to school."

"Huh?! Why?"

"I don't know either, but Tiwaz Re said so. So I followed his orders to prevent you from going to school."

"What the hell? I'm going to be late and punished, you know?!"

Etzell was the type of model student who would not break school rules like arriving late, so he would feel uneasy when he had not arrived at school like now.

"Unfortunately I don't care about that, I'm just carrying out the orders from Tiwaz Re."

"Huh, whatever, now what?"

Sighing, Etzell tried to calm down and think positively because it was possible that Tiwaz Re was worried about him, and he was using Melissa as an intermediary. But still, he felt confused why Tiwaz Re wanted to prevent him from going to school.

"We just need to wait for Tiwaz Re, so be patient!"

"Uh, us?"

"Yes, is something wrong?"

"Oh, sorry. I thought your job was done by preventing me from going to school."

"Are you stupid? You'll definitely run away if I leave you!"

"No, I won't because I trust Tiwaz Re."

"It seems like you've been instigated by him."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, forget it!"

While waiting for Tiwaz Re to arrive, Etzell and Melissa continued to talk about something random and pointless.

Until after several minutes of waiting, Tiwaz Re finally arrived at the place where Etzell and Melissa were.

"HAH?!"

Tiwaz Re's sudden presence made Etzell feel surprised. Of course he was surprised, because Tiwaz Re used the teleportation technique and was directly behind Melissa.

"Yo, you two! Sorry if I'm late, then let's go in a few moments!"

"Uh, go? Where to?"

Hearing Tiwaz Re's words, Etzell felt confused and he asked spontaneously.

"Sorry, Etzell, I thought Melissa explained it yesterday," Tiwaz Re said.

"Explained what? She just ran away and told me to go home yesterday," Etzell replied.

"Just so you know, I'm not interested in you, Etzell! That's why I don't want to deal with you any further," Melissa shot back at Etzell.

"Yeah, never mind. Instead, you can ask me anything and I'll answer it. There's still about 10 minutes, so feel free to ask!"

In order to avoid further arguments, Tiwaz Re calmed Etzell and Melissa down and offered Etzell to ask his questions instead.

"But before that, I didn't expect that you would destroy the barrier I created. How did you do it?" asked Tiwaz Re.

"Eh? Did Melissa not explain it to you?" Etzell asked back.

"No, she told me the cause. However, she didn't know exactly how you did it. So let me ask you, how did you do it?" Tiwaz Re asked back.

"I explained it, but you didn't listen!" Melissa exclaimed.

"Honestly, I just carried out the orders given by Melissa and shouted as I was told," Etzell replied.

"You really don't know anything else other than screaming?" asked Tiwaz Re again.

"No, I really don't know!" replied Etzell firmly.

"Is that so? Sorry if it sounded like I was interrogating you. Then, you can ask me anything," Tiwaz Re offered while apologizing.

"Yes, no problem. So can I go to school now? I'm going to be late!"

The first thing Etzell asked was about him wanting to go to school, since it had been a while and he was sure that he would be late if he stayed here.

"I told you you couldn't go to school today," said Tiwaz Re.

"Why?" asked Etzell.

"It's a long story, so can you just not go to school for today? I'll explain everything today, so just ask!" replied Tiwaz Re.

"If you insist on going to school, then Tiwaz Re will destroy your school," Melissa interrupted.

"That's the main point. Thank you, Melissa!" said Tiwaz Re.

"Why? I don't understand," Etzell asked again.

"I knew you were so stupid, it was just a threat to you. Do you understand?" Melissa answered Etzell's question while feeling annoyed.

"Yes, all right. In short, I need you for a few things. Of course that includes spirits," Tiwaz Re said.

Still not understanding the situation, Etzell finally decided to give up and leave this day to Tiwaz Re. He would not go to school and intended to follow Tiwaz Re's orders, especially when he heard his threatening words, Etzell was sure that it was something important.

Not only that, his bad feeling was even more pronounced now that Etzell was dealing with Tiwaz Re. Which meant, it was indeed something that had to be resolved today as well.

"I see. Then let me ask you one thing, what is spirit, spirit energy, technique, and I also heard the word level, why are they after me? What does that mean?"

Being curious about it all, Etzell immediately asked it all at once.

"Umm... Etzell, it's not one thing. You're asking questions like you're introspecting me right now," complained Tiwaz Re.

"Can't you explain it?" asked Etzell.

"No, I can explain everything. And now, are you ready to hear it?" replied Tiwaz Re as he asked back.

"Yes, I'm ready!" replied Etzell.

Tiwaz Re began to explain, and Etzell listened seriously. As for Melissa, she took the initiative to guard the area around the narrow alley because she didn't get orders from Tiwaz Re.

"Spirit is divided into two types, namely pure spirit and mixed spirit," Tiwaz Re said at the beginning of the explanation.

Spirits that come from their own existence are called pure spirits. While spirits that are incorporated with living things on earth such as humans, animals, and plants, are called mixed spirits.

"The spirits we faced yesterday were shadow-type spirits, they were pure spirits. They are easy to defeat, but they have special techniques that are rather troublesome," Tiwaz Re explained.

The reason Tiwaz Re wanted to slaughter shadow-type spirits was because they had a technique that could camouflage into any creature on earth and incite other creatures by summoning them. Even for human events, a shadow-type spirit would know its name just by looking at the human's shadow.

A shadow-type spirit could transform into anything it wanted if it had killed it with its own technique, which was why Tiwaz Re thought that dealing with shadow-type spirits was rather troublesome.

The weakness of shadow-type spirits was in their camouflage ability. If they were to attack and kill the creature they wanted, the camouflage would stop on its own, and the shadow-type spirit would return to its original form.

Finished with explaining all that to Etzell, Tiwaz Re proceeded to another explanation about spirit energy.

Spirit energy came from the early evolution of humans, which made them able to master at least one innate technique when they were born.

Everyone's spirit energy capacity is different, some small and some large. However, spirit energy capacity can be increased with some specialized training.

Spirit energy can also be used to enhance or strengthen abilities where spirit energy and personal energy from the body are combined to provide stronger development and ability to use techniques.

Spirit energy is an important part of the leveling system because spirit energy is one of the main sources of strength and energy that can be used to overcome obstacles and challenges.

"It's about time. Then, let's go!"

Having finished explaining about shadow-type spirits and spirit energy, Tiwaz Re invited Melissa and Etzell to leave as the time was running out.

"Eh, you haven't explained everything!" exclaimed Etzell.

"We're going to a place where there are a lot of shadow-type spirits roaming around. There's no more time, so we'll leave now!" replied Tiwaz Re.

"Melissa, come closer!"

"Okay!"

Hearing the order from Tiwaz Re to come closer, Melissa did so. As for Etzell, he was already quite close to Tiwaz Re.

"Teleportation: Level 4!"

Tiwaz Re used the teleportation technique to change places, and then the three of them seemed to be lifted into the air and were no longer in that narrow alley.