Chapter 18

They've been travelling north and inland.

When they first left the town, they entered a forest. The townsfolk told them they wouldn't see many fantastical things as they were still quite far from the Hirana Monastery, the place where the spirit realm and the mortal realm seemed to overlap.

But what the people of Ionia and Phesto fantastical or not seemed to be two different things. The form of the trees in the forest was similar to pine trees, but that's where the similarities ended. The branches of different trees intertwined and often seemed to connect. With his energy sense, he could see the trees pulse with life. From the roots, they took the magic of the land and through the leaves, they spread the magic throughout the land.

Using Energy Sense and the system's help he saw that the tree benefited a lot from becoming a conduit for the magic. So during their next break, Phesto held a leaf in his hand while he circulated his magic. With Spirit Attunement and Energy Strengthening, he let the magic coming from the leaves enter him and circulated it through his body. After a short while, the magic in his body started resisting him so he quickly let it out of his body. Experimenting a bit more with that he tested for how much magic and for how long it could stay in his body and how strong the strengthening effect of it was.

He quickly found out that the strengthening effect was related to the amount and duration of magic in his body, as well as his proficiency in Energy Strengthening. As for the conditions for the amount and duration of magic in his body? He found that out when he asked Nejime to try the same thing he did. She was able to take in much more magic than him and as for the duration? Well, they couldn't find one, she eventually stopped when it got late and wanted to sleep.

Letting her sleep Phesto summarised what he saw, which was Spirit Attunement was the key factor in this process. And it would probably become as, if not even more important than Energy Sense and Energy Strengthening while he was in Ionia.

Currently, they were still on the southern island of Zhyun and the presence of Ionia's spirit could still be considered 'weak'. So the closer they got to the heart of Ionia the stronger the spirit and the more important Spirit Attunement would be.

He also wondered how strong Nejime would become in a few years. Blessed by Ionia and strong magical potential. He thought of two people similar to her. Syndra and Karma, one with overflowing magic, so strong that she had to be sealed, the other in tune with Ionia to the extent that a wave of their hand annihilated a warship. And Nejime had both. She'll probably grow even faster than him even though he had a system.

Then again, once his skill levels start rising even more he'll probably grow much faster as well, so who could say for sure. No matter the case though, they had many many years until war would arrive. And he planned to use all the time he had. With Nejime's potential and growth he had newfound motivation to train even harder and he started meditating throughout the night again and skipped sleeping.

After a few days of travelling like this, they reached a large forest clearing with a temple surrounded by a small village. The temple was a culmination of the surrounding trees forming a beautiful and tall structure. Ionian temples were really something different. Around the temple, smaller trees circled around it and grew into rings of houses surrounding the temple. Interestingly enough there were 4 clear paths north, south, west and east from the temple's centre. The trees forming houses made sure not to block those paths and instead formed a sort of tunnel protecting people from the weather.

As they got close to the temple village they were approached by robed figures appearing out of nowhere. With a frown, they looked at both Phesto and Nejime for a while, before fixing their gaze on Phesto. The foremost robed figure walked up to the group and said.

"Halt foreigner, what are you?"

Seeing their gaze locked on him Phesto knew they were talking to him. But the question was, why did they ask him what he was? They obviously knew he was a foreigner, yet they were still puzzled about something. Did his soul seem weird because he transmigrated? Or was it simply that he was already somewhat in tune with Ionia's spirit? Hoping it was the latter Phesto said.

"In these lands, I would presumably be called a scholar, perhaps an aspiring scholar to be truthful." Motioning at Nejime he continued. "And she is my companion and teacher."

"A scholar? Hmm..." He looked at Nejime for a bit before he said. "Very well. We welcome you to this humble temple." After he said this he and the other robed figures vanished again. Leaving Phesto and Nejime alone at the entrance.

With the figured robes gone Nejime turned to Phesto.

"How come they only questioned you?"

"Probably because they know you're Ionian unlike me. But since I've already started attuning my spirit to Ionia they were confused as to who or what I am."

"Wow, you can't sense something like that yet, can you?"

"No, not yet. But seeing that they can, I kind of want to stay here for a bit and train under them. How about you Nene?"

"If you're staying then I'm also staying and I'll join you for training. If those old fogeys have better senses than you, then they should be pretty skilled."

Entering the village they made their way to the temple. Knocking on the temple's front door they waited for a bit. And once again one of the robed figures, the one that talked to them before, appeared out of nowhere, Phesto really wondered why they just wouldn't open the temple's door normally. Seeing the two travellers from before the robed man was about to ask them why they were here when Phesto spoke first.

"We are Phesto and Nene and we wish to train and learn from your temple!"

Hearing this the robed man was a bit surprised. The temple had been teaching others since before he was born, but was it ok to teach outsiders? He did not know. Considering the outsider's companion though it should be alright to consider him safe to teach.

"The young lady, Nene, can enter, but you young man, I do not know yet. We have not taught outsiders in my lifetime before, but considering your companion I think we should give you a chance."

With the ok of the robed man, Phesto and Nejime entered the temple and were greeted by an even more amazing sight than outside. While the outside looked like a group of tall trees merged into a tower, the inside looked much more complex. First of the sense of scale seemed much bigger from the inside, there were winding staircases, many rooms and a large hall presumably used for gatherings and everything was illuminated by flowers.

Phesto stood still and looked at everything with a dumbfounded expression. Seeing his expression Nejime chuckled and said to him. "Be careful Phesto, you might drool with your mouth like that."

Being reminded by Nejime, Phesto quickly started moving again. But he wondered. "Are you not amazed by what you see here, I mean look at this they are lighting everything with flowers even the village chief in Raikkon didn't have glowing flowers."

Thanks to her background she has seen many such sights before and with a bit of pride, she answered. "Uhm, I think you might have forgotten what I did before we started travelling. So except for the trees merging everything else isn't that new"

"Oh, yeah..." With her talking so calmly about what he found so amazing, dampened his mood a bit. Seeing him disappointed like this, Nejime tried to cheer him up.

"You know I can tell you many stories about all different kinds of magical plants later today." The prospect of learning about new plants quickly cheered Phesto up and he started smiling again.

And while they were talking the robed man just chuckled and thought to himself. 'A child at heart, not an odd companion for a child of Ionia'