Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 125
Chapter 125
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Those who awaken to their true self and open their spiritual eyes can see a new world.
Turan, having opened the third eye located somewhere between the skull and brain, could now understand the meaning of these words.
In the spiritual world, objects did not bear the same colors as in reality.
A dark black sky, earth and various inanimate objects tinged with deep gray.
Lastly, all living creatures visible to the eye writhed with a mix of red, blue, and yellow hues.
After a moment, Turan’s gaze turned to himself.
Though impossible with physical eyes, this spiritual eye allowed him to look within himself.
A tiny mass nestled inside the brain.
This minuscule mass, seemingly too small to control such a vast physical body, was his spirit form, his true self.
‘I thought I had fully recovered, but looking at it this way, there are still quite a few cracks. I wonder how long it will take to heal completely.’
A newly awakened spirit form, like a newborn, is typically unable to exert its power properly.
Using such a spirit form as an anchor to forcibly reconstruct a collapsed physical body, it was not surprising that it was this damaged.
Rather, it was fortunate that it was this intact.
Fortunately, he had the intuition that these cracks were not permanent damage and could be healed with sufficient rest.
Looking a bit closer, he could see four symbols inside the cracked spirit form.
Lightning and clouds, darkness and eyes.
These were the powers of Arabion and Zahar residing within him.
‘Touching this… it might be better to wait until I’m more accustomed.’
Unlike the Mimic Holy Relic that could only observe, he now felt he could reach out and touch these symbols.
Perhaps the mysterious power wielded by the gods, mixing various symbols, was also based on such spiritual abilities.
However, Turan did not rush to attempt this.
As the book had repeatedly warned, dealing with the spiritual world required utmost caution.
Especially in such a vulnerable state.
“Whew…”
“What’s wrong? Why the sigh? Are you feeling unwell?”
“It’s nothing.”
As he turned off his spiritual perception and sighed due to a throbbing headache, Solif, who had approached unnoticed, spoke to him.
Judging by the miniaturized Bije clinging to him, it seemed they had just returned from a trip to the city, and for some reason, she was angrily pecking at Solif’s neck.
“What’s the matter now?”
-This fool stole all my jerky again!
“Did you eat the jerky?”
“Just a bit on the way back. It was delicious.”
Solif calmly answered and went inside the house, seemingly unbothered.
Perhaps deflated by this attitude, Bije dejectedly slipped into Turan’s body.
-I really hate him. Scold him!
“Try to see him as cute. After all, you’re the greatest magical beast king Bije, aren’t you?”
-Even a king gets hungry.
“I’ll make you more jerky. Let’s see if we have any spices left.”
Shortly after, Turan took to the skies with Bije.
Unlike before when she had to cling to his legs due to her small size, now she could grow larger, allowing Turan to ride on her back.
Judging by the feelings transmitted through their soul bond, Bije seemed quite proud of this fact.
-Found a rabbit!
-Let’s go down.
The ability to communicate through thoughts while both using invisibility magic was also a great gain.
It was generally impossible to communicate with each other while invisible.
After quickly circling the nearby tens of kilometers and catching three or four rabbits, Turan butchered them, seasoned them with spices, and then dried them by extracting moisture using fluid manipulation magic.
In an instant, some decent jerky was prepared.
“There, is this good?”
-Yes!
Fortunately, the great magical beast king Bije seemed quite pleased with this humble offering of jerky.
For some unknown reason, she preferred eating dried meat like this over tearing into fresh meat.
Of course, her favorite was still freshly caught herring.
After preparing Bije’s snacks, they visited a small nearby village.
People going about their daily lives as usual.
When he turned on his spiritual perception, he could see a very different scene from the quiet hideout where no one had lived before.
From the dejected ghost of an old man who had died recently, to the ghost of a newborn who had died from illness, to the bloodied ghost of a boy who seemed to have been killed by some wild animal.
Translucent spirits of the deceased wandered throughout the village.
As he watched this, a sudden thought occurred to Turan, and he transmitted it to Bije beside him.
-Bije, could you deactivate your invisibility for a moment? Not completely, just enough to be invisible to the eye.
-Okay!
While spiritual perception couldn’t see completely invisible creatures, it was possible to see those using ordinary invisibility magic that merely made them invisible to the eye.
Turan looked at Bije’s spirit form revealed to his spiritual eye.
Unlike other humans whose interiors he couldn’t see, he could see four holes inside her.
A form similar to the four bloodlines Turan himself possessed.
These were likely the elements that allowed Bije to borrow Turan’s bloodline abilities and what made them ‘compatible’.
‘It would be nice if we could find more compatible magical beasts.’
A magical beast that could wield the same bloodline abilities as Solif would make an excellent vanguard, and one that could borrow Meisa’s bloodline abilities would be a great help in creating magical devices.
When Turan returned to the hideout after this excursion, he found Meisa sunbathing in the garden, looking sleepy as if she had just finished creating magical devices.
“Where did you go? You’re not well yet.”
“Just a light walk. Also got some food for Bije. I’m almost fully recovered now, so don’t worry.”
-I’m now rich in jerky!
Unfortunately, only Turan could hear Bije’s voice, but her proud patting of the jerky pouch on her chest made her satisfaction easy to discern.
Meisa smiled warmly at the sight of the two, then rummaged in her pocket and pulled something out.
“Here, try these on.”
“Isn’t this too much effort?”
“Not at all, this much is fine.”
What Meisa handed over were clothes similar to the type Turan used to wear from Asiz, but with detailed designs reflecting her personal taste.
Like Asiz’s previous gifts, they had basic self-repair and self-cleaning functions, and with Solif’s help, they had added defensive capabilities as well.
“How is it?”
“It suits you well.”
Turan’s face broke into a smile as he showed off his new outfit.
A few days later, feeling that his spirit form had recovered more fully, Turan began awakening Solif and Meisa’s spiritual perception in earnest.
The process was similar to helping a young bird break out of its shell from the outside.
If too much external force was applied before the inside was sufficiently mature, it might emerge prematurely into the world.
Turan carefully made contact from the outside to guide their awakening, ensuring their spirit forms wouldn’t be damaged.
Fortunately, as written in the soul magic book, it was relatively easy to awaken the soul under the guidance of a forerunner.
Meisa, who had been progressing faster originally, succeeded in a week.
Even Solif, who was a bit slower, managed to open his spiritual eyes in just ten days, just like Turan.
“So this is what it meant by the importance of having a guide.”
“If Turan hadn’t opened his eyes first, it probably would have taken us much longer on our own.”
Solif said, rubbing his temples as if his head hurt.
Unlike Turan, the spirit forms of the other two were still extremely immature.
They had to strain to fully open their spiritual vision and couldn’t maintain this state for long.
It seemed that Turan had developed a stronger spirit form than them in the process of his spirit form being damaged and then recovering.
Much like how muscles become stronger after being damaged and recovering.
The muscle analogy was apt, as the achievement of soul magic was similar.
Just as muscles develop micro-tears and recover stronger with diligent training, their spirit forms would be damaged and recover, allowing them to maintain spiritual perception for longer periods.
At first, they struggled to maintain spiritual perception for more than ten seconds, but with consistent practice, their skills gradually improved.
Once they could activate spiritual perception for more than a minute, they could practice basic techniques like remote viewing to see distant objects and remote touch to feel objects without physical contact.
Of course, during this time, Turan had advanced a step further and practiced and mastered other techniques.
He called forth the librarian from the jewel box and learned the intricacies of handling spirit forms through direct contact.
“How does it feel, elder?”
“Strange. A bit… creepy, even.”
The librarian frowned as he experienced direct contact with another spirit form for the first time since his birth through a handshake.
Of course, Turan could intuitively sense that this was just his way of expressing embarrassment.
After all, the librarian requested a handshake several more times afterward.
After learning how to interact with spirits, he practiced handling the soul fragments sleeping in the jewel box.
While he couldn’t yet perform advanced tasks like the librarian, such as dissecting them to analyze internal information, he could see a few faint, vague remnants.
[…I… beauti…]
[Than… you…!]
The world shown in the remnants of the soul fragments was filled with sights Turan had never seen in his life.
Towering skyscrapers, earth dust so thick the sky couldn’t be seen, multicolored lights illuminating the night, and more.
These scenes, which couldn’t be found anywhere in this world, were likely traces of the ancient empire where the gods had lived.
After reaching this point, he waited for his companions to catch up while trying a few more experiments.
He attempted techniques considered heretical in the soul magic book, such as subduing and manipulating the souls of living creatures – which almost got him killed again and earned him a scolding – or comparing which bloodlines were better at handling souls by switching between bloodlines specialized for close combat and those for ranged combat in the Holy Relic.
During this process, he discovered another surprising fact.
“How is it?”
“It’s certain. When activating the Nagin bloodline, the power of the spirit form seems to become much stronger.”
Turan had absorbed the power of the Nagin bloodline from Lenod, Meisa’s brother and the vessel of the fallen god Ymir, when he killed him.
It contained the power to control living beings and weave together the souls of humans and magical beasts.
Both had seemed rather useless, making it a prime candidate for replacement when a better bloodline was acquired.
But surprisingly, when the Nagin bloodline was activated, the spirit form became stronger and easier to handle.
Presumably, the power to dominate souls became stronger.
“Come to think of it, we did talk about this before. That with the power of the Dominator bloodline, you might even be able to control spirits.”
“I didn’t expect it to work this way, though.”
“Perhaps life domination magic is related to handling souls.”
If so, it wouldn’t be a coincidence that Turan, who was most skilled at life domination, was also adept at handling souls.
It might also explain why the Nagin family was intertwined with the inefficient Dominator and Beast Handler bloodlines.
By this point, Meisa and Solif had caught up to Turan’s progress, so the three would leave the hideout every night to visit the graveyards of several distant villages.
Their next training was to make contact with ghosts.
“Uh, hello? Old man?”
[Hrrruuugh-]
“He doesn’t seem to be in a good mood.”
Solif shrugged after receiving what might have been an answer or just a groan from an old man’s ghost he had tried to talk to.
These types of ghosts that could be perceived through spiritual perception were unlike any spirit forms in existing spirit magic systems.
They weren’t living spirits since they weren’t alive, nor were they undead spirits since they hadn’t been revived with magical power, and they certainly weren’t nature spirits.
[Urgh… sor… rowww…]
Sometimes there were ghosts that could speak, but even these were incapable of meaningful conversation, merely continuously spewing out a few intense emotions from their past lives.
It was truly regrettable.
“No, maybe it’s fortunate.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself.”
Turan shook his head at Solif’s question, recalling something that had happened recently.
When he confirmed he could see ghosts with spiritual perception, he secretly visited the sheep farm and his mother’s grave.
But Bizelra’s ghost didn’t appear at either place.
‘Usually, ghosts only appear for those who have died within the last three or four years.’
While there were individual differences, that was generally the case.
According to the contents of the magic book, it varied depending on various factors such as lingering resentment from life or one’s spiritual aptitude.
From that perspective, Bizelra’s soul had likely already dissipated long ago.
Considering that these ghosts were essentially just remnants of their past lives, and thinking about how her appearance right before death wasn’t particularly pleasant to see, perhaps it was fortunate they hadn’t met… But still, Turan wanted to see his mother one more time.
Regardless of being an object of reverence to many, he was still just a young man who had barely turned twenty-one.
About a month later, the three finally progressed to their original goal.
It was to move the symbols within them and make them interact.
“How’s it going?”
“Not at all. I can’t even get a sense of it. How exactly are the sun and shield supposed to mix?”
“How would I know?”
At least Meisa could imitate the appearance of the Thunder Lord, the Arabion family head Turan had seen before.
Though she hadn’t produced results yet, at least the direction was clear.
The problem was with Turan and Solif.
They had difficulty even grasping how to make their symbols interact.
Moreover, moving the symbols themselves wasn’t easy, so they couldn’t practice much in a day.
“Hmm…”
“Maybe putting the sun inside the shield?”
“Then the person holding the shield would get burned. Wouldn’t it be better if sunlight burst forth from the shield?”
In the midst of their various discussions, Turan suddenly raised his hand as he sensed a presence.
Bije, appearing out of nowhere, skillfully alighted on it.
“You’re back already?”
-Yes!
“Did Asiz give you something delicious again today?”
Having become smaller and able to use invisibility, Bije could now enter and leave the Berk family mansion more easily than before.
She visited there once every few weeks to exchange letters, and each time she returned with a belly full of food.
-No, this time he just told me to go. And to deliver this as quickly as possible. So I came without sleeping.
Bije spoke in a somewhat dejected tone as she held out the letter tied to her ankle.
Now that he looked, her belly did seem a bit slimmer today.
What urgent matter could there be that they sent her without even feeding her properly?
“Let’s see…”
As he began to unfold the letter, Turan let out a low groan.
“It seems it’s about time for us to leave.”
“Why?”
“Asiz’s brother has been kidnapped.”
Hearing this, Solif and Meisa’s faces hardened.
Meisa’s emotional change was particularly noticeable, as she cherished Asiz as a relative.
“…Who did it?”
Meisa’s voice, though as high and thin as usual, was filled with a chilling murderous intent.
It was enough to make anyone who heard it uneasy.
Turan lightly tapped the table with his finger a few times, waiting for her to calm down before speaking.
“Even Asiz doesn’t seem to know exactly. He only heard that his brother was kidnapped on his way back after delivering goods to the Arabion main house.”
“Then…”
“Well, there are many candidates. Arabion, who might be displeased with the Berk family due to Meisa’s escape and internal whistleblowing; Carmine, who might want to cut off the supply of magical devices before the war; or even Zahar, who might have participated as mercenaries on either side…”
Of course, it didn’t matter which side the culprit was on.
The Berk family was Turan’s friend, and whoever targeted them would soon face Turan’s wrath.