Chapter 358: 358

〖 A mirror, and a candle 〗

‘Negary’ was holding a mirror in his hand as he stood in front of another mirror, between his mirror and the other one, there was a single lit candle.

The Droste effect referred to how a picture recursively appeared within itself, giving off the effects of an infinite loop.

The mirror in front of ‘Negary’ reflected the image of ‘Negary’ holding a mirror, but the mirror inside ‘Negary’s’ hand was also reflecting everything, so as one looked closer and closer, one would see countless ‘Negary’.

The flame of the candle slightly flickered, but within this infinite loop of mirrors, it appeared as if there were an infinite number of candles flickering.

Of course, it only appeared that way up until a certain point. It wasn’t possible for two mirrors to become absolutely parallel, each reflection also caused the light to gradually weaken, not to mention numerous other factors; there was actually a finite amount of reflections within this system.

Of course, this Droste effect was only created in order to put oneself into a certain state that made it easier to draw out one’s spirit.

Each living creature was capable of creating a spirit, but the majority of spirits would simply disappear right as it was created; sometimes, these spirits would even manifest as a flash of inspiration.

Because of that, ‘spirit’ wasn’t purely only souls, but also the flashes of inspiration that one sometimes felt in everyday life.

These kinds of spirits rarely ever had their own consciousness, nor a personality of their own. In essence, they were the product of random human thoughts mixed with the underlying Principles of the universe; they were highly unstable and prone to disappearing as soon as they were created, with similar existences being present in every world.

However, spirits, as they existed in the Moon Tree world, were unique, a specialty of this world. The reason for this was because of an Error born from the Seven Gods holding the Moon Tree world’s authorities in their hands while restraining them from operating.

When a random human thought became entangled with the underlying Principles of the universe, then further became entangled with the Error of this world, a unique spirit would be born.

The Evil Spirits of the Flame world and the spirits of the Moon Tree world had many similarities since they were both created due to an Error in the world, but there were also differences.

The Flame world’s Evil Spirits were created from remnant souls, but this world’s spirits were much eerier in that they originated from emotions and thoughts, so even a living person would manifest a spirit.

Evil Spirits gained an ability at their inception due to the remnant souls being engraved with a portion of the [Origin]’s Principles and Pathway as it broke free. On the other hand, this world’s spirits gained their unique abilities from becoming entangled with certain natural Principles.

For example, when the spirit Field was born, he became entangled with the Principles of ‘fear’ and ‘true name’, which resulted in a corresponding ability.

And so, each spirit ability originated from the Principles that they became entangled with.

As ‘Negary’ gazed into the mirror, his thoughts became greatly expanded through the infinite loop, each of his thoughts being reflected over and over again between the mirror surfaces, thus becoming artificially inflated.

As for what kind of Principles their thoughts would become entangled with, a normal person could only hope to be lucky. After all, the Principles of the world do not display themselves to humans, the most anyone could do was to perform one of many unique rituals to spread their thoughts into an unknown aspect and hope for the best.

The candle in between the mirrors was flickering intensely, it seemed as if that little bit of light could be extinguished at a moment’s notice, but despite how much it flickered, the candle never ended up being blown out.

‘Negary’s’ outstretched hand could sense the weak heat from the candle. There was clearly no wind, but the candle’s flickering was only becoming stronger and stronger.

〖 So it has formed a connection with another space? 〗

The wind wasn’t the only thing that could disturb the light of a candle, but the flickering candle signified that the spirit summoning ritual was reaching completion.

‘Negary’s’ thoughts would now follow the connection to enter the unknown aspect, become entangled with the Principles of the world, then manifest a spirit.

And so, ‘Negary’ began to focus his attention increasingly more, staring straight at his reflections in the mirrors. Their faces were exactly the same as his, but in the blink of an eye, as if hallucinating, one of the reflections among the countless looping images abruptly began to change.

That reflection was initially tiny. After looping for over a dozen times, any normal person would only be able to see a tiny black dot, but as ‘Negary’ utilized mana, he could clearly see that tiny change.

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The abnormality then began to affect the loop starting from the bottom, the change in the reflections also became increasingly clearer until finally, ‘Negary’ saw his original reflection displaying an almost indiscernible smirk.

When ‘Negary’ focused himself to take a look, his reflection had already returned to normal, at which point ‘Negary’ could sense his body becoming slightly heavier.

He understood that his spirit had returned to his body.

According to the book [Theory of Spirit Summoning Rituals], a newborn spirit was weak; even if they had become entangled with one or more Principles, they could still break at any point due to their instability, so they must reside in the body of the original in order to be somewhat protected.

[Theory of Spirit Summoning Rituals] stated very clearly how long it would take for a spirit to be born, as well as how to treat a newborn spirit for it to grow healthily, but nothing after that.

The book didn’t specify how spirits were the product of the world’s Error, nor how they held a natural hatred towards all living beings or the fact that they didn’t care about the rules and laws of human society. In fact, most spirits did not act maliciously simply because they didn’t have the capabilities to act maliciously.

For this reason, while they were still weak, spirits would instinctively disguise themselves. While by your side, they would act like a small pet that wanted nothing but love and affection, but as soon as you raised them to be strong enough, the spirits would immediately devour your existence at the first possible chance. After all, being able to replace their original creator was the most ecstatic sensation that a spirit could feel.

Very quickly, ‘Negary’ sensed an emotion from inside himself. The tiny consciousness seemed to be extremely reliant on ‘Negary’, it was living temporarily inside ‘Negary’s’ body while continuously transmitting the desire to eat and grow.

[Spirits are the most beautiful things in the world]

Recalling this note that he read somewhere in the [Theory of Spirit Summoning Rituals], ‘Negary’ shook his head. Since a spirit originated from one’s own thoughts, they instinctively understood how to please the original and make the original love them.

Because it knew that ‘Negary’ loved to continuously grow and become stronger, this spirit was also displaying the will to become stronger.

For that reason, the statement ‘spirits are the most beautiful things in the world’ wasn’t necessarily incorrect. Since everyone had different tastes, the only person who understood your tastes best would be yourself. Of course, the prefix ‘While in disguise’ must be added to this statement for it to be completely correct.

A spirit was only safe while it was in disguise, otherwise, it would not hesitate to push you to your death as soon as an opportunity arose.

‘Negary’s’ spirit sense swiftly located the spirit in his body. Currently, the spirit was extremely weak, it would probably need at least two years in order to grow strong enough; naturally, it could also grow exponentially in certain unique circumstances.

For example, during the mana tide brought by the Mana Banquet. It was during that night 10 years ago that Field’s spirit grew powerful enough to strike fear within the human Field and ended up as we already know.

Due to his connection with the spirit, ‘Negary’ easily discovered the unique ability that it had obtained from becoming entangled with the Principles of the world as well as using it himself.

〖 Lord of Evolution: an ability born from becoming entangled with ‘life’ and ‘the will to evolve’ 〗

‘Negary’ smirked, this was truly an inevitable result.