435 "Forest Palace" (1/2)

Hana gave Seiji the information on several Spirit Worlds and their locations, including the Spirit Worlds' consistency, the Spiritual Creatures contained within, as well as the general environments of those Spirt Worlds, the precious resources already discovered within, and the factions that he might meet in those Spirit Worlds.

All this information was doubtlessly valuable. Seiji passionately expressed his thanks, but his younger sister felt only disgust.

'Ahh, my tsundere younger sister is so cute~!'

Seiji was quite grateful as he mulled over which Spirit World location he should try going to based on the information Hana provided to him. Finally, he decided upon...

Nagawa Amusement Park!

That was the place where he met with Iroha Hasegawa and Naoki Hasegawa.

The main reason was that the Spirit World located here had a relatively high amount of ”silver fruits.”

Silver fruits were a type of fruit that had absorbed a high concentration of Mana. If Spiritual Ability users ate silver fruits, they'd be able to improve their Spiritual Power as well as Mana!

Later that night, Seiji finished making his preparations and left by himself.

After Shika learned what he intended to do, she wanted to follow him, but Seiji convinced her to stay behind at home.

”I'm only going to check out the situation. I definitely won't take any risks,” he told her.

Well, since this was his first time visiting a Spirit World, this was indeed true. He mostly wanted to check out what a Spirit World was like.

It would be nice if he could find some silver fruits. If not, that was perfectly fine as well. After all, this was still a precious resource not found everywhere, and there were competitors as well.

Seiji took a taxi to Nagawa Amusement Park. When the driver almost reached the park, he suddenly stopped the taxi and was unwilling to drive any further.

The driver had been affected by a spell… a barrier placed around this area.

This was a spell placed by various allied factions to prevent ordinary people from entering this area.

Seiji paid the driver his taxi fare and walked the rest of the way by himself.

When he got close to the park's entrance, he saw a group of people… they were all Spiritual Ability users.

Some of them were wearing normal clothing, while some of them wore rather special clothing. Some were wearing special equipment, and some were wearing heavy weapons…

This was the second time that Seiji had ever seen so many Spiritual Ability users gathered in one place. Compared to the Winter Snow Festival party, this felt more like a cosplay convention to him.

Well, that's what any normal person would probably think if they saw this scene.

'Should I go over there and approach them?'

After some consideration, he decided to wait outside, slightly farther away.

This light was a mystical light that could only been seen using [Astral Vision]. At first, the light was white, then it transformed into green, then red; the colors kept changing and changing. Not only that, the light kept expanding and rising, finally becoming an incredibly large sphere of light!

It was as if an aurora borealis had landed on earth. It was incredibly beautiful.

After the sphere of light stopped expanding, the Spiritual Ability users all jumped within it and vanished into the light.

Seiji walked over as well and jumped into the sphere of light.

His vision was filled with light for an instant before clearing up.

'So this is what a place that's transformed into a Spirit World looks like…' Seiji was quite astonished as he glanced around him.

He was now in a gigantic ancient temple whose ground was cracked and walls were collapsing. The roof also had roughly half of it missing.

Grass and weeds were growing everywhere, and small gray butterflies were dancing in the air. Vines thicker than human legs were growing out of the huge cracks in the ground and spread throughout the grounds and the walls, reaching above the roof.

Light illuminated this place from above and created a light yellow pillar of light where specks of dust were visibly floating.

”Forest Palace.”

This was the name of the Spirit World that Nagawa Amusement Park would become every night.

The basic environment here was a mixture between a forest and an ancient palace, hence the name of the Spirit World that the mystical society came up with.

Setting aside the plants here, it was still unknown which country and which era this palace was from. The only thing certain was that it definitely wasn't from Sakura Island.

Seiji felt that the current scenery in front of him resembled something he would see in an anime about adventuring in another world, one with mystical and fantastical elements.

At this moment, a huge shadow completely blocked out the light above him.