The next morning.
Noel closed his eyes for a moment as an image of Anna appeared in the darkness, wielding her sword.
Suddenly, she jumped forth while waving her blade.
Noel raised his sword to strike this blade, but once he stopped it, the lightning started spreading to his sword and eventually reached his hand, numbing it. Noel tried his hardest to stop it, but the numbness of his hands weakened them, causing the blade to fail to stop this strike.
In the end, Anna's sword cut his neck.
"Ha…" Noel gasped for air because the image was too real. This was his training with the Imaginary Battlefield.
At first, he could still put up some fight against Anna, but when Anna showed the progress of her training, he simply had no way to defeat her right now.
"How do I even fight against the lightning?" Noel murmured while looking at Ardagan. He remembered that the Sword Saint told him that Ardagan was perfect and no runes should be embedded to him.
"Spirit… Spirit Weapon, no Spirit Weaponry was it? The ability to slash the Spiritual Energy itself. That's right… What if I utilize the Spirit Weaponry in every swing?
"The Spirit Weaponry itself is going to cost me a lot of Spiritual Energy and if I actually add it into my Everchanging Emotion Sword Style, it'll become even stronger. Also, I have realized something.
"Why did Ardagan not give me any mission for the last rescue mission? Also, I have managed to increase three levels in Ardagan Swordsmanship. Why did he not give me any Spirit Abilities?"
Noel took half an hour to think about it before reaching the conclusion. "That's right. The Everchanging Emotion Sword Style itself is perfect for me. If I put Anger into the sword, the sword will become the sharpest. This is similar to the Mega Slash.
"On the other hand, if I put fear, the slash will become quicker. After all, if we're in fear, we often do something a bit faster simply because we're panicking… This power is similar to Swift Strike.
"If that's the case, haven't I received a total of ten new skills? My Everchanging Emotion Sword Style has ten emotions. Fear, Anger, Shame, Contempt, Disgust, Guilt, Distress, Interest, Surprise, and Joy. Basically, they're translated as Quick, Sharp, Penetrate, Precise, Blunt, Hesitate, Desperate, Examine, Defense, and Protect.
"Each of them is equal to a Spirit Ability if I manage to master them. That's why Ardagan didn't give me any Sword Abilities after increasing the level of my Swordsmanship.
"Then, how about the mission? Normally, Ardagan would have taken out a mission. At the very least, a mission to save Kirika and Lokhar would appear. Yet, the mission was nowhere to be seen. Even right now, I haven't received any medal in a while.
"I have thought that I could control the mission system a bit after the two missions about the liquid and the firebird, but it seems that I haven't understood Ardagan completely."
Noel sighed while scratching the back of his head, trying to figure out Ardagan. This felt like a challenge from Ardagan itself.
After a while, Noel closed his eyes again, meditating to enter his consciousness.
That was when he met Heisk. Instead of a snowflake symbol, Heisk showed her new appearance after absorbing the ice pearl.
She had a humanoid figure, but her size itself was only around the size of his palm. She had a pair of translucent wings and her body was covered in blue light.
"Master!"
"Heisk?" Noel raised his palm and Heisk landed on top of it. "Where is Ardagan?"
"He is somewhere around here. Do you want me to call him?"
"Before that, what are you doing here? Usually, Ardagan would be the one to meet me first."
"Ah! I want to tell you about something."
"And that is?" Noel furrowed his eyebrows. Usually, Ardagan would be the one giving him all kinds of explanations. It seemed that Ardagan was the one sending Heisk to deal with him.
"I want to give you this technique." Heisk raised her hands as a system notification appeared.
Skill: Ice Infusion (0/2)
Requirement: 7 SP
"This is…" Noel narrowed his eyes. "Are you giving me an ability?"
"Yes. It's been a while since I have given you any ability."
"Oh, thank you." Noel nodded.
"There is one more thing. If you want more skills, you have to find something that suits us. Also, you have to get stronger too."
"What do you mean? I can understand the first one since I have seen you giving me the ability of the ice pearl after absorbing it. But the second one…"
Heisk raised her hand and formed a rectangle on the size of Noel's head. "Imagine this is your Spiritual Energy reserve."
"Energy reserve?"
"Yes. If you use your Spiritual Energy, it'll gradually chip away the reserve." The ice rectangle on top of her head gradually faded away, showing the consumption of the Spiritual Energy.
"So, if I recover my Spiritual Energy, it will return to its original shape?"
"That's right. However, this is only the consumption of your power. Meanwhile, you can't really utilize all of your reserve because the Spirit Abilities have taken some share." Heisk suddenly took out a smaller rectangle from the bigger one. "This is Sword Fall."
She then took out a triangle shape and said, "This is Sword Aura."
She continued by taking another few shapes from the rectangle. "This is Sword Fire, Freezing Crystal, Rune Mastery."
"Wait a moment… Are you telling me…" Noel squinted his eyes, understanding what she wanted to say.
"That's right. Each Spirit Ability you've learned will be ingrained into your Spiritual Energy reserve. It means, all the reserve doesn't go simply as your Spiritual Energy, a portion of them are still used to register those Spirit Abilities. You can say it's the price of our connection since we're lending you our ability."
"I see. I can understand that. Is that why you haven't given me any mission?"
"Yes. All these Spirit Abilities you have learned until today have taken a lot of toll in your reserve. If we take more than that, you will find yourself lacking Spiritual Energy. That's why you have to get stronger by taking more Spiritual Energy."
"Ah…" Noel sucked a cold breath, never expecting this was what truly happened inside his body. The fact that this knowledge hadn't become a common knowledge meant this was a special explanation only to him. But this also brought a lot of questions in Noel's mind.
