40 Earth Spirit

Jin-kyung was still taken aback by how Aria solved the problem.

She managed to contract the dungeon's spirit and make it her own ally.

"How rude! This King's name is Rallaka! Ral. La. Ka!!"

Rallaka's current form was worse than Dianthe's, who was able to morph to her liking. Although he did possess the skills to outperform Dianthe, he needed a large amount of energy- life force to maintain the spells.

In total, there were about 350 goblins inside the dungeon. Even this distressing amount was only able to suffice for the dungeon's upkeep cost, not including Rallaka's own power source.

That was why Rallaka didn't attack them as a spirit. He lacked the power. All of the life force was wasted on providing the dungeon's needs.

Everything was perfectly calculated.

The one behind the dungeons, who according to Rallaka is called 'The Creator' must be a crafty one. They must've known that Rallaka had to be restrained if they wanted to place him on a lower dungeon.

Spirit Kings at their prime were miles away from a Red Ogre, the boss of a lower C-ranked dungeon she finished not long ago.

For Rallaka to be placed at the same level: C-ranked, he had to be restricted, making him unable to utilize his full power.

'I wonder if my arrival is within The Creator's expectations.'

Now that she had formed a dominant contract against Rallaka, there was a chance that she might be able to revive Rallaka's former power.

Did The Creator account for this scenario?

Or perhaps, even the <Players > were all a feud controlled by The Creator from behind the scenes?

Even her supposed 'rebirth'?

Then, finding the Creator must be one of her future objectives.

She wanted to ask so many things, and the answers must loom around the being- or at least, be somewhat connected to it.

"Rallaka, how much life force do you think you have to absorb if you want to go back to your prime state?"

"Hmmm... 10 dragons would be enough to let me recover. I can make do with the rest. Wait, are you planning to help me? Wow! Kind!" Rallaka twirled around like a tornado, expressing his happiness.

Using dragons as a measurement was unique. Dragons varied in everything. The element, skill set, genus, power ranking.

Similar to spirits and other creatures, they were divided into segments that differentiated between the various dragons.

The most general division would be Venerable - Legend - Great - Large - Medium - Small, from the highest to the lowest.

The six categories were known by everyone. Each levels also had a specific characteristic that helped others separate them.

"...Which dragons?" Aria gulped.

Ten dragons would be a chore to take care by herself. Let alone defeat them, how would she find them in the first place?

Of course, she wasn't going to help Rallaka right now.  She was just asking.

He was bound to her in a submissive contract. It was very profitable for her if the spirit grew stronger as well.

Exploitation of the spirit was possible.

Especially since Rallaka was a high-class spirit, she wanted to try and grow him up into a strong ally.

In the future, she would touch upon the matter.

For now, it was just research and planning.

"Medium ones would suffice. Small ones... would have to be double the amount." Rallaka clarified. By now, he has already realized that the woman seemed to possess knowledge similar to his.

The old, forgotten knowledge.

"What about the life force for you to start gathering energy from the wild?"

"..So you know about that too? I don't like that method. The energy is impure!! Unbefitting for a Great Spirit King like me!"

Rallaka got to know Aria more and more with every sentence she said. The woman was knowledgeable. Too much, perhaps.

As a Great Spirit, he noticed that as the times changed, magic became obscure.

There was one phenomenon that made a huge change in magic: up until the point of total annihilation.

However, his memory was fuzzy.

"Just answer the question." Aria pressed on her tone, indicating her seriousness.

Rallaka lowered his head as a small, protruding part of him drooped.

"To be honest, I am sensitive to the energy around me. As long as I... Right, as long as I reach a point where I'm able to at least maintain a semi physical body like your water spirit, I'll be able to absorb the energy,"

"In other words, it'll be easy." Aria heaved a sigh of relief.

Getting to Dianthe's current state wouldn't be that hard from where Rallaka was right now.

Dianthe was somewhat advanced for a lower class spirit. But this difference can be overcome with ease.

There were many types of spirits. Being a high ranking one meant that the maintenance cost was large.

Of course, there were ones who chose to absorb energy from the surroundings, but most Kings were like Rallaka- filled with pride.

They believed that the cost of purity existed. That in order for one to perform at their best, an untouched purity was needed.

However, Aria, who had experimented on this topic for quite a while knew that this was a misleading information.

Indeed, purity would be able to make you connect with your internal mana better. Because you would only be filled with one type of mana, you would have a higher affinity and progress in controlling said element.

Sadly, there was no way of keeping one's mana purity intact for your entire life.

For example, when someone gets hit by an electric-charged magic attack, the person's mana will automatically absorb bits of that mana. Thus, the purity will be ruined no matter what, as long as they fought.

Simply going on your day will bleach your purity as well, because you will be influenced by external factors.

This was the one of the major reasons why spirits disliked interacting with a lot of people, or crowded places where the mana is an untidy mixture.

The other reason for why a King chooses not to absorb external mana is because they have low tolerance for it.

Strong spirits or even child spirits with strong potential typically chose to refrain from interacting with outside mana to avoid contamination as much as possible.

This caused them to have a lower tolerance and develop a natural dislike towards mana other than their own.

Thankfully, Rallaka seemed to not have this type of disposition.