Chapter 296: After the Battle (1/2)

Xue Wei was slightly stunned as he glanced at Luoluo. She was not human? In fact, this should not come as a shock to him—he himself was not human either, and she had already lived for a very long time while having the body and mind of a child. This was not like humans at all.

But spirits were the rarest amongst all species, so rare that not even every continent had them. “Tell me about spirits,” Xue Wei asked Bai Tianyi. The only thing he knew about spirits were from the sword spirit himself, but just before, he had said that while he was an artificial spirit, Luoluo was the genuine article.

Bai Tianyi nodded his head and gestured for them to leave the room. They would have to talk a lot, and neither of them wanted to interrupt Luoluo’s rest. Although she was a spirit, she had just executed an Earth Saint. It could not have been an easy task, even if she made it seem effortless.

As they left the room, they both slowly went towards the lounge area where they sat down and faced one another. Bai Tianyi did not speak at once, and he hesitated slightly before he sighed and shook his head.

It was obvious that he was also rather affected by the realization that Luoluo was a spirit.

“Spirits are different from other species. Other species came from a union between humans and beasts long ago, which has given them the special traits that they are known for.

“Spirits are not born by other spirits; in fact, they are incapable of reproducing at all. Spirits are created by nature itself.

“They can be anything; they can be people or man-made objects, or even a tree, a mountain, a river or something else.

“It can happen when something has been located in a place where the heaven-and-earth essence or soul power is incredibly dense and stayed that way for a long time.

“When the spirit’s original shape has been shrouded in this energy for so long that the energy has penetrated to the very core of the original shape, it awakens its own consciousness.

“While it does become conscious, it is not capable of moving, but as long as the energy is present in the same location, then it will be able to cultivate. After cultivating to a specific level, it will be able to create a spiritual body like I did, and then leave the original host, and become a being that is formed purely from energy.

“She is one of these spirits that has cultivated to a high rank. She has become a wonderful spirit, however, something clearly has gone wrong in her life.

“Unlike humans, beasts, and all the other races, spirits do not have dantians. Their entire body is the container for their energy, and this is also the reason for her to appear and act like a child.

“She has used too much of her energy; she has been drained so much that not only her body but also her consciousness has been impaired.”

“Is there a way to solve this problem?” Xue Wei cut in, his brows furrowed and his heart clenched at the thought of Luoluo never maturing. Although he would forever be her older brother and look after her, he was worried.

Even more so when he saw that Luoluo had shrunk even further after the fight against the Baili grand elder. In fact, it looked like she had lost almost a whole year of age, both physically and mentally.

“Of course there is a way for her to mature again,” Bai Tianyi consoled him. “It is just that she needs to cultivate again. Although we artificial spirits are different from the genuine ones, both of us have to cultivate.

“There are some differences in being an artificial spirit than a genuine spirit. Genuine spirit’s bodies will grow naturally as they get stronger, or shrink as they get weaker.

“Their mind and body go hand in hand. The smaller they are, the younger their mental state, and the larger their bodies, the older their mental state.

“We artificial spirits are both fortunate and unfortunate to not be the same. Our bodies can not grow on their own. No matter how strong we become, we are stuck with the body we created unless we create another spiritual body and change our host. Our only other way is to temporarily change our body structure with a constant use of Spiritual Energy.

“On the other hand, our mental state will never regress or advance from the time we became a spirit. I will never become like a child.”

Xue Wei pondered on Bai Tianyi’s explanation, and he felt much calmer now than before. Hearing that Luoluo would be fine and mature normally if she just cultivated made him feel much more relaxed.

At the same time, he also swore to himself that he would never let Luoluo use her power unless absolutely necessary. When he fought, he was only emptying his dantian, and he would be capable of restoring it after a short rest.

If Luoluo were to fight, she would end up losing some of her age and mental stability.

Now that he understood what a spirit was, Xue Wei was not too shocked. Instead, he felt it explained a lot of things, and at the same time, he also felt even more sympathetic towards his newfound little sister.

She had no parents or kin close to her; she had never had anyone close to her. From the moment she had gained consciousness, she had been alone, cultivating on her own until she could create her own body to enter the world.

Although Xue Wei did not know what had happened to her when she was wandering the continent, he understood that Luoluo had somehow encountered danger which had caused her to be a young child for many years.