Chapter 9

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As soon as the two arrived home, Zairen immediately rushed to his room to examine the dull grey ring Alivia had bought for him. He felt a rush of excitement; what exactly was this ring?

“Smooth…” Hopping onto his bed and pulling the ring out of his pocket, he once again ran his fingers over its smooth surface. Overturning the ring in his palm, he saw that the ring was perfectly monotone, and had no etches or markings on it. By all accounts, it appeared as a completely ordinary item.

“...!” However, just at that moment, his eyes suddenly perked up again. Once again, he faintly sensed an aura of spirit energy.

This item couldn't be normal!

‘What could it be?’ Zairen pondered, stroking the ring with his thumb. ‘Maybe some kind of defensive or offensive formation? Or even a weapon?’

In his previous life, he had seen many different types of rings that had been spirit objects. Since rings were one of the easiest objects to carry on oneself non-intrusively, they were a very popular option among spirit objects or tools.

‘Ok… no use dawdling… let’s try this out.’ After ogling at the ring for a short period of time, Zairen picked up the ring and quickly slid it onto his pointer finger, clearly impatient. The ring slipped on easily, as if it had been made for his finger.

‘Hm…’ Zairen pondered to himself, nodding to himself thoughtfully. ‘It feels smooth and well-made. There is definitely a lot more thought put into this object than it seems from first glance.’

Staring down onto the ring for a few seconds, but seeing nothing in particular, he clicked his tongue. ‘Alright, here’s the real test.’

“Ready…” Taking a deep breath and preparing himself, he closed his eyes and channeled spirit energy into his finger.

“GO!” A moment later, he sent the spirit energy into the ring.

FUOOSH!

Immediately, Zairen opened his eyes and stared down at the ring.

“...” The ring was still the exact same color, and hadn’t moved at all.

‘Hm?’ Zairen furrowed his brows, glancing down at the ring in disappointment. He had only felt his spirit energy enter and exit the ring, as if it was an ordinary object.

Spirit objects had a property that when channeled with spirit energy, would absorb the spirit energy within the item and use it to power whatever its function was. Ordinary objects, however, had none of this power, and when spirit energy was channeled through, would dissipate the spirit energy almost immediately, rendering it useless.

‘One more try.’ Gritting his teeth, Zairen took another deep breath and once again channeled his spirit energy into the ring.

Fuoosh!

Zairen looked down.

“...” It was the same result. Once again, the spirit energy entered the ring and then quickly dissipated.

Furrowing his brows, Zairen lifted the ring up to his face to stare at it closely. ‘Could it be I was mistaken? Is this just an ordinary ring?’

It had appeared completely ordinary and unnoteworthy. It was very tempting to just dismiss it as such.

“...” However, a moment later, he quickly shook his head. ‘No! That aura of spirit energy is unmistakable. As a doctor, I trust my senses! There has to be something more to this ring.’

‘Let’s try it again.’ Stubbornly, Zairen once again gathered his spirit energy into his hand, planning to channel it into the ring.

However, this time, he made a decision. He was going to pretend as if the ring was a patient that he was treating instead of a spirit tool.

As a doctor, when he treated an injured or ill patient, he would often use an extremely delicate technique to channel a thin layer of his spirit energy into a patient’s body as a scan in order to detect abnormalities within the body. Although this sounded simple, it was actually extremely difficult. It took an immense amount of control to spread spirit energy that thin, and even if someone could do that, it was exponentially more difficult to send it into a person’s injury without hurting the person or causing them pain. Zairen, however, through many, many years of practice, was finally able to achieve this. Perhaps on his old continent he was one of only a few people who could do this!

Compared to such a subtle and controlled method of using spirit energy, standard spirit tools only required a user to crudely flow their spirit energy into the tool. As long as there was enough spirit energy and the grade of their spirit energy was high enough, a regular tool would be able to be used.

“Hmph!” With determination, Zairen skillfully spread his spirit energy out into an extremely thin layer. Its usually milky white tone turned almost completely transparent!

Then, he gathered his concentration, took one last deep breath, and sent the thin layer of spirit energy through the ring.

Fuoosh!

“...!” Suddenly, Zairen’s eyes widened.

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