Although he wanted to sleep and actually rest, he couldn’t really do that because now his life would be harder. He didn’t know if he would be easily identified or not with his poorly made body so he had to be on the alert.

He did know he was fully solid but he clearly couldn’t do like Billy and completely vanish, it was clear that the ghost knew many special techniques while he was limited to the basics of this book.

However, the book contained much more information than just the three copies of how to use spiritual energy against all three ‘factions’. It also contained maps and locations showing where to meet with soul society people and obtain small benefits, get aid and such. The Orb of Negativity was in a cloth wrapping in his bag and the large city he was going to was the closest location he could go to cash this in.

It was a danger to him but it contained a lot of value for the right people and it was one help the Soul Society gave non members. The trade of the orb could help him get other unclassified information and what he primarily wanted was how to grow spiritual power and how to properly build his mortal shell.

Both of them were probably connected but the main point of this is that he wanted to know how to gain greater quantities to be able to do more than just the 3rd rate tricks he had always done.

Alongside the maps was also information of many spiritual objects that could be identified by a common ghost as well as just basic categorization of Spiritual energy ghosts and Dark force ghosts.

Spiritual energy is naturally normal, sentient and uncorrupt spirits and ghosts. For those who use dark force, aka corrupt ghosts, the naming was actually pretty simple. There are spectors which are the kind he had died to before they evolved and start showing poltergeist abilities through strong emotion. After that are Vengeful Spirit, 10 year old dark spector, 50 year old Evil Spirit, 100 year old Wraith, 500 year old Reborn dead, 1000 year old Disaster spirit and lastly 10,000 year old Sin Lord.

For those who maintain sanity and basically evolve from wandering spirit to a sentient spirit become Phantoms. After that are wisps, 10 year old Poltergeist, 50 year old walking dead, 100 year old stiff corpse, 500 year old earthbound spirit, 1000 year old nature spirit and 10,000 year old Spirit lords.

It should be said that for phantoms like him, the description of most of these don’t account for a mortal shell made by the original body.

The descriptions are as follows.

Spiritual Ghost

Phantom

A fully gathered, sentient spirit that has not been corrupted or had any parts of it’s soul broken or missing.

Wisp

A spiritually awakened ghost which can move and use spiritual energy without a medium. Their main bodies gather into a glowing flame to develop and start to form ectoplasm.

Poltergeist

An evolved wisp which has ‘hatched’ from its small form and its ectoplasm has spread and forms a semi solid form if it never regained its mortal shell.

Walking dead

The first layer of the mortal shell fully forms but they lack vital signs and are easy to notice if it was one formed of ectoplasm.

Stiff Corpse

The basic shape of the internal structure forms in the mortal shell giving the spirit immense strength but the body moves more like a corpse and is very stiff and slow moving but it can achieve instantaneous acceleration if allowed making it dangerous to fight.

Earthbound spirit

A ghost which has reformed its entire mortal shell but it cannot move on and is forever earthbound. They begin to draw power from the earth and care less for connections to living.

Nature Spirit

Ghosts who have gained connections to the world and live together with nature and maintain its balance. They help balance nature and aid in its regrowth and readjustment despite human or natural calamities.

Spirit Lord

A spirit which has learned the rules of the world and there is no way to tell the difference between them and living. Many such beings have been referred to as gods for their seemingly unending lives and divine power.

Dark Spirits

Spector

An incomplete wandering spirit that has begun to demonstrate poltergeist abilities and covered in negative energy

Vengeful Spirit

A deranged spirit that only thinks of killing anything that enters its territory. Very animalistic in behavior and their three primary soul pieces have broken down.

Dark Spector

A creature that has begun to detach itself from its home out of hunger and leave but return.

Evil spirit

Evil spirits that have abandoned their bondage and evolved. They are still mindless but their instincts have learned to draw humans to feast on their souls to continue growing

Wraith

A semi sentient spirit, they begin to show signs of intelligence once more and become increasingly dangerous because this state allows them to start to learn.

Reborn Dead

An evil spirit which has rebuilt it’s complete soul and the consciousness, intelligence and wisdom has reformed through age and dark force but they view life as food only. They are capable of forming a mortal shell.

Disaster Spirit

A generic term for creatures that bring about the worst natural disasters from drought to famine to disease.

Sin Lord

The greatest disaster to be born, they are ghosts that have survived for so long that they are a living form of sin itself. They are sentient, living and dead and represent death itself desiring only the demise of all life.

Knowing that there was a future meant that it was possible for him to grow more. He knew his first step was to get information on how to become spiritually awakened and figure out what a wisp is beyond just his soul gathered into a burning soul flame.

After he reached the end he turned to the new segments to learn to use spiritual power against ghosts and started to train while the rest of the passengers were sleeping since it was already 10 pm and they would arrive around 3 pm at the city so he had plenty of time to read and use the quartz beads to channel spiritual power and feel the difference in the new way to use it but he could still barely do anything with that.

For 5 hours he did that until they got to the terminal and he disembarked and being careful of his surroundings he went to find a city map and compared it to the one in his book and got a proper street name and called a taxi to bring him there.

Sadly the taxi could only take him to the nearest main road because he didn’t know the area so he took that option.

It took roughly half an hour to get there and the taxi driver actually looked back, “You going to be okay kid? These boonies can get really dangerous especially at this time of day.” he said.

“It’s fine sir.” he said and paid the taxi driver and got out with his bag.

He looked at the nearest street name and opened the map in the book and began to navigate into the small dark streets that felt like ghosts would jump out.

In fact they did, a lot of them, thousands of black faced ghosts were all over just floating around randomly and he really wondered why no one he had seen didn’t mention these and he was really curious but Billy had come and gone before he could ask.

After scratching his head for a while he finally reached a really old building that looked like any other.

“2586th on Johnson with Maryway.” he thought as he looked at the house. He looked at it and it clearly said that it was a shop yet this was clearly a house but he walked up and he was about to ring the doorbell when they seemed to shimmer and change to add a second doorbell and names appeared.

“Shop… mortal.” Mark read out the note on each and knew what happened. His face cramped as he realized that soul society had created an illusion or even a separate dimension.

He pushed the button under ‘shop’ and the door shimmered and the design changed to look like a shop's door and was very beautiful and opened to a beautiful woman dressed in medieval esque waiter clothing like you would find in medieval games.

“Welcome to the soul tavern!” She said and happily opened the way for him and he timidly walked in and she closed it after looking around outside.

The inside was very different, it was very well lit, there were quite a number of people drinking while others were floating around.

“Oh looky! A newbie and one with a mortal shell! Come on and have a drink!” One of them shouted and everyone started laughing.

Mark couldn’t really keep pace and the waitress walked from behind, “Are you here for a drink? Traveling?” she asked.

“Ah… well.” he said, showing her the book and others were paying attention and they stopped to look.

“Is that an official soul society exorcist manual?” one of them said before quite a few of them cleared the area away from Mark.

The waitress smiled, “Don’t mind them, you are still a phantom meaning that you aren’t an official member right?” She asked.

“Yeah, I woke up… about four days ago and just got my mortal shell. I came here because the map said it was a shop.” He said.

“If that is so then this way please.” she said with a smile and led him through a door in the back.

“Why were they all afraid of the exorcist manual?” he asked.

“These books are especially enchanted so that only special people can touch it. Those who found it are authorized personnel.” She said and took him to a room with an older man and explained why he was here and left him sitting and quickly made some tea for them before leaving.

Mark just casually drank it but when he did he felt his spiritual power surge in shock.

“A marvel, yes, this tea is made of ghost leaves, a special plant born and cultivated by special farmers. You should have recovered and felt the growth of your spiritual power with that drink.” He said.

“Yeah… the amount is almost as much as the energy I had before I made my mortal shell and it’s flowing into the skin now.” He said.

“Yes well let’s leave that be, this isn’t a rare item anyway, most of our food and ale are made of special produce which help ghosts produce spiritual power. Now then, since you have a mortal shell as a phantom it means that you possess an orb of negativity.” he said.

Mark nodded and dug into his bag and carefully took out the rags and put it down and unwrapped it.

The man looked and casually moved his hand making it rise and examining it.

“Well now, the sin is quite a bit but there is quite a lot of negative energy in here as well.” He said.

“I was killed by a newly born vengeful spirit and remained as a wandering ghost for 5 years and my body stayed in that place for that duration of time without the ghost being dealt with.” He said.

“Oh I see, this is quite a good piece. What do you want for trade?” he asked.

“I don’t know, what is the common currency of soul society and how much does this even cost?” he asked.

The man looked at him strangely, “Who was the one that went to find you?” he asked.

“Who? I think the name was Billy Madison.” he said.

“Ah… so that is why you are here and not in the others.” He said.

“What others?” he asked.

“Alright, it seems Billy didn’t want to waste much time. I’ll explain then, the map he gave you is of the people he personally trusts. Other shops would have swindled you in a heartbeat as soon as you said what you just said. Secondly, it was to explain the structure of soul society’s civilization and how the social ladder works.” He said.

“I have read the part about the ranks of development.” he said.

“That is just a very superficial view of how this world works. Now our beautiful waitress brought you to me because you are an exorcist, this much is obvious since you have the book.” He said.

“Yeah… and?” he asked.

“You still don’t get it, you are a ghost who exorcists ghosts. Your capacity to follow, match and fight dark spirits is tens of times higher than that stupid mortal organization that continiously tries to butt in where they are unwanted and unneeded.” he said with visible irritation. “In our society, a ghost with the official book of exorcism is held in the highest regard. This is the reason Billy would give you something like the Talisman of Spiritual purity. If it was another different ghost, they would likely need years of hard work searching or gathering information for the society to get that and then there is getting to their body which oftentimes is buried. Furthermore, any record of you being missing or dead has already been undone and your bank is active as you should already be aware.” He said.

“So all that was done because I was able to find this book?” He asked.

“Most certainly, there is a 1 in 5 million chance that a living mortal finds the book and most of these people do awaken as phantoms. Inspectors like Billy all aim to find more of these and secure combat potential in the ongoing, unending war for balance against dark forces. In this depressive society we live in where 8 billion people exist in the world, the negative energy created by the immense negative emotion of mortals naturally affects ghosts making more of them become evil spirits.”

“So it is to prevent something with the potential of becoming a disaster from appearing.” He said.

“Exactly.” he said.

“Okay… I get that he looked out for me but I’m just a bum without much skill and knowledge.” he said.

“A mortal body is a prison for the soul, freed from it you can truly flourish with the right effort. Now about the question you asked before about our currency. We work both with real money and spirit dollars. Spirit dollars are these.” he said raising his hand forming tiny energy nodes before they suddenly expanded into a bill note. “They are special spiritual papers that can be stored within our souls. There are no different currencies world wide, there is only this form of money. For money conversion, a spirit dollar is equal to $50 US dollar bills.” He said.

“So… how much is the orb?” Mark asked.

“$6,000 spirit dollars.” the man said.

Mark almost choked and looked at the orb.

“Exactly, this little orb costs $30,000 in US dollars. It is a huge amount of initial funding that is hard to come by for ghosts.” he explained.

“Okay… I kinda get the value now. Uh… I’m not sure if it cost anything but are there any larger catalogs of spiritual items I can find? Billy hadn’t added much.” he said.

“No, not in my store. You would need to go to one of the libraries of souls to find that. The catalog is also expensive because it reveals many materials as well as how a ghost can go about making these things. Many ghosts who learn how to make any of these spend countless years raising them to be able to sell and get money to obtain knowledge in return.” He said.

“One question, why do ghost ‘forms’ have a year attached?” he asked.

“Ah yes, it is because newborn dark spirits and spiritual spirits will almost always undergo growth naturally even without training. Between 1 or 2 years for a wisp, within 5 years for a poltergeist and ten years for a walking dead. Their souls slowly age and just by living, their spiritual power slowly grows. Having a mortal shell accelerates this immensely because as you might be aware, the book contains knowledge of how to break down matter into energy. You can effectively say that you’ve skipped to the walking dead but lack the substance of the previous two stages.” he said.

“Uh… I assume there is an ‘active’ method to train this?” he asked.

“There naturally are but they are expensive.” He said.

“Is it within my funds?” He asked worried.

The man grinned and laughed, “Don’t worry, how to become a wisp and then form the ectoplasm of a poltergeist in total cost $1,000 and $2,000 respectively. However, the proper achievement of a walking dead costs $10,000 spirit dollars, Stiff corpse $500,000, earthbound spirit 100 million and the rest aren’t up for grabs, you need to be a soul society member and be rewarded for those or grow into that by natural aging.” He said.

He sighed intensely and the man smiled, “So you want the two?” he asked.

“Yes, if I don't need mediums, I can continue acting like an exorcist and live off that as the real deal. That said, I doubt I can grow in soul society with just that.” he said.

“That much is obvious. We have a catalog of many things from spiritual weapons to seeds of spiritual herbs that can be raised if you decide to purchase the cultivating method. They come as a pair.” He said.

Mark frowned and asked for a catalog with things under $3,000 and got it and he saw many things including a vajra like he owned but the actual thing which actually projected a spiritual energy blade which could actually cut spirits.

He was very tempted but he pushed it down and looked at the things he could raise for money. He groaned about how many things were so specific and couldn’t be raised in a city, a lot of stuff required wilderness and he understood the pain of ghosts, especially when someone might come along and steal their hard work.

He read the description of each one carefully and their usage and eventually for 1.5k he got the Midnight ghost flower. It was a symbiotic flower with spirits and grew as a bush and absorbed spiritual power during development but once they flower, each flower releases a very rich spiritual power which is a tonic for the spirit that helped raise it. After two hours, the flower completely detaches and these fallen flowers are gathered and can be used to make ale which is quite popular for phantoms and wisps.

“Good choice, although like most they can’t be raised in the city but with your mortal shell, it is easier for you to raise them without being stolen.” He said.

“Yeah. So about that, I wonder if this place can help with that? Getting a mountain cabin or something and maybe an old car. Both can be fixer uppers but can be used and lived in.” he said.

“Don’t worry, we have plenty of cheap houses. Many of which were haunted and cleared out but people never wanted to move back in. They even left the furniture in case they drew the ghosts to them. It won’t cost anything honestly, the car however would.” He said and walked to a bookcase and looked around until he took out a new catalog which was filled with old but usable cars. However, ‘old’ didn’t mean it was like that shitty buggy. It was things like 2005 minivans and such.

They were all pretty cheap despite their good condition and honestly low mileage so he picked a minivan since it has more space and he didn’t know when he would need that. He had faced storage problems with the buggy for a long time so he wanted something big.

“Alright, it will take a day to get the car and do the paperwork for the place we can put you in.” He said.

“Uh… are… are there any places I can stay?” He asked.

“Yes, no problem. Allow me to just update your book and include the relevant information you purchased. I’ll include as a first time thing the method to condense your mortal shell back into spiritual power so that you can hide and rest like a proper ghost.” He said.

He took the book and just like Billy he made new pages appear but it didn’t seem to get any thicker.

“Good, the remaining money from your purchase is $500 spirit dollars.” He said finally and formed a stack of spirit bills and showed him how to store it within his body before he called the waitress and had him taken to a single room with just a bed. There was a small kettle and sink and a complimentary box of tea like the one he had during the talk.

He sighed and didn’t want to waste something like this. Instead he turned on the lights and began to read the new pages of the book.