Chapter 234 - Spirit Contract (1/2)
”Sure, I'll fulfill your wish,” the Undying Flame Spirit said after pondering over it after a while, letting out a chuckle in the process. She then added, ”Becoming a partial owner, that is.”
This time, instead of doubting the Undying Flame Spirit's words, Argentum instantly believed that the Undying Flame Spirit would do such a thing since she did say to him that she would grant any wish he wanted to be fulfilled. Hearing the Undying Flame Spirit's response, he could not help but radiate an aura of elation as he asked her in a slightly excited tone, ”Really?”
”Of course,” the Undying Flame Spirit replied to his question, radiating a slightly curious yet excited aura. But before she fulfilled her wishes, she told him, ”But before I go ahead and fulfill your wish, I'll tell you the reason why I made this inheritance.”
”Hm?” Argentum could not help but become confused after hearing her last words, not knowing how the reason why she made the inheritance had something to do with his wish of obtaining partial ownership of the inheritance. With such a gullible mindset, he went ahead and asked her, referencing Aurus's memories in his mind, ”Giving some partial ownership of the inheritance is just giving someone a little bit of control over the inheritance, right? Why the need to explain such a thing?”
”That's because inheritances are more complicated than that,” the Undying Flame Spirit replied to his question before adding, ”You better go ahead and listen because if you don't, I won't make you a partial owner.”
”…” Surprisingly, Argentum went silent after the Undying Flame Spirit had said those words, making the Undying Flame Spirit think that Argentum wanted to become a partial owner of the inheritance quite badly. With this in mind, she could not help but laugh inwardly as she recalled all of the memories she had regarding the Flame Spirit Inheritance. After consolidating them and organizing them in order, she then took in a deep breath before focusing her sense of vision towards him.
”Since you came to this inheritance out of your own volition, I presume you know that the Flame Spirit Inheritance is solely biased towards those that are inclined to the Fire element, right?” the Undying Flame Spirit asked Argentum, only for Argentum to remain silent. Noticing this, she could not help but ponder for a bit as to why, eventually concluding that answering might result in him not becoming a partial owner of the inheritance, making her sigh in slight disappointment.
”I'm not telling you to not speak, Argentum,” the Undying Flame Spirit said not long after. ”You can still respond to my questions and ask ones yourself. I just wanted you to stay silent for a bit.”
”I see…” Still a bit skeptical of the Undying Flame Spirit taking away his chance of becoming a partial owner if he spoke, Argentum had no choice but to answer, feeling that she might just remove his chance altogether if he didn't do what she said. Ignoring what was going on in Argentum's mind, she repeated the question one more time.
”Let me repeat my question one more time. Since you came to this inheritance out of your own volition, I presume you know that the Flame Spirit Inheritance is solely biased towards those that are inclined to the Fire element, right?” she asked Argentum, to which Argentum nodded as he replied, ”Yeah. That's more or less the reason why I entered the inheritance in the first place.”
”At least you know about the general things regarding the inheritance,” the Undying Flame Spirit said after Argentum's response, taking in a deep breath to organize her memories one more time. After doing so, she then started to narrate the memories she had organized.
”I'm pretty sure you won't be wondering as to why this inheritance was made in the first place, since inheritors like you only care about the rewards,” the Undying Flame Spirit said, making Argentum radiate an aura of slight guilt. She then added, ”But that's fine most of the time. Unless you're becoming an owner, or in this case a partial owner, of the inheritance.”
”I made this inheritance at a time where Pseudo-Animates still made up the majority of living beings on this continent,” she narrated. ”As for the specific date, you don't even need to know about it. Anyways, I was one of the strongest Fire-based Pseudo-Animates at the time, which meant that I had the responsibility to guide all of my brethren in the paths of becoming stronger.”
”Of course, I first thought about creating a place where I educate all of the Pseudo-Animates all at once, but it did not take me long to find out that I was extremely bad at educating others…probably around a hundred years or so?” she said, making Argentum subconsciously shiver as he imagined what she was doing back in those times. ”So I decided to go and educate them through the second method I had in mind, creating an inheritance.”
”I noticed that every two hundred years or so, the average combat level of my brethren would decrease by a decently large margin, which prompted me to hasten the speed at which I built the inheritance, only taking around 5 years or so thanks to the help of the other strong Pseudo-Animates at the time.” As she said this, a confident aura radiated from her body, reminiscing the fun she had while she made the inheritance with her fellow Pseudo-Animates.
”After the inheritance was fully built, you could say that the Fire-based Pseudo-Animates had undergone a golden age of power, with their average combat power now being around three to five levels below mine, which was exponentially higher than the average combat power before the creation of the inheritance,” she continued narrating. ”Surprisingly, the more I taught my brethren through the inheritance I had made, the more I felt some sort of power welling up within me. As if I've broken through to a new level of power.”
”Fortunately, it did not take me long to realize that this newfound power I've obtained came from the inheritance I had built,” she said soon after before adding, ”Of course, I found this out from the Pseudo-Animates I was good friends with, who had inheritances of their own.”
After saying that, she then went silent for a bit, pondering over something. This, in turn, made Argentum slightly nervous, not knowing why that was the case. Thankfully, it only took around ten seconds or so for the Undying Flame Spirit to finish pondering, telling Argentum in a slightly unsatisfied tone, ”And I guess I'll end the story here for now.”
”In short, by giving you partial ownership over this inheritance, not only am I giving you a bit of the control I have over the inheritance, but also the power I've obtained thanks to the inheritance. In other words, by doing this sort of thing, you're pretty much reducing my combat power by a decent amount,” she said after that, with Argentum radiating an aura of understanding as he now knew why obtaining the ownership of an inheritance gave a being a boost in their stats, just like how Aurus's stats were boosted by becoming the owner of the Tempest Cliff Inheritance, and a partial owner of the Area 52 Inheritance.
'So the power the Undying Flame Spirit obtained from her inheritance is more or less the stat boost Aurus got when he obtained ownership of those inheritances,' Argentum thought, now somewhat understanding the reasoning behind the Undying Flame Spirit explaining the creation of the Flame Spirit Inheritance.
”Now do you understand why I went out of my way to tell you about the origins of this inheritance,” the Undying Flame Spirit asked him, to which Argentum responded, ”Yeah, I fully understand now.”
”I'm glad that you got it quite quickly,” she responded to his words, letting out a faint aura of happiness before adding, ”With that out of the way, let's now consider percentages. Naturally, I'll be the owner that has a greater percentage of control over the inheritance. You can go ahead and bargain how many percent of the inheritance you want ownership of.”
”Bargain…” Argentum repeated this word to himself in a mutter, wondering if he should go ahead and ask her if he could own 49% of the inheritance. A few seconds later, he discarded this thought, knowing very well that such a proposal would definitely anger her. Even though she would still have a greater percentage of ownership over the inheritance, this kind of split was more or less equivalent to becoming co-owners of the inheritance, which Argentum had a feeling that she did not want.
After that, he thought about settling for a lower percentage, around 20 to 30 percent. Although he felt that she would go ahead and accept such a proposal, it would instead make Argentum feel like he got the short end of the stick since he did not know how much power the Flame Spirit Inheritance contained, unlike the Tempest Cliff Inheritance and the Area 52 Inheritance.