CH840

No one said anything at first, no one could. What possible response could there be for such a request? The fact that Bloom and all of the other plant spirits now existed implied that any combined affinity could be made if Mora wanted to, with only the issue of the request being the reason behind it.

There was no reason to create new types of spirits, not really. Sure, Ben himself was for it if only to satisfy his curiosity at what alterations within a soul would even allow for such a thing and what levels of power would be held for types of magic that had either never grown to such a height or hadn’t in centuries, but that same curiosity wasn’t why the other spirits would want to do it. The greatest thing the creation of new types of spirits would bring was power for one purpose, killing the demons infesting that world.

Something Mora had already said that he himself didn’t want to participate in. Ben wasn’t sure if the boy was an outright pacifist but at the very least he had no interest in killing anything that was a person, something that he would indirectly be contributing to if he used his magic in such a way, a fact that left both his and Thera’s eyes turning to the child.

“Why?” Mora asked, too young and inexperienced to see the reason behind it that seemed so clear, even if the answer Abrus gave was different than what either of them expected.

“There’s a few reasons,” The earth spirit admitted, trying to look gently for the child he was asking this task. “There’s no denying that our existence living among mortals has the potential to cause trouble from time to time on this planet but we also work to help them too and more of us with different varieties of power will mean we’re more equipped to do it, with more strength to protect all of the fragile lives we’ve grown to love, but there’s more to it than just that.”

“More?”

“Mora, you haven’t made any new soul spirits, have you?”

“...I haven’t.”

“I thought so. Whether you choose to or not is your decision but without them you might not fully understand this. We and them are connected in ways other races simply aren’t and there’s a mutual love between us. It is the nature of the great ones to care for and protect the small ones but there’s more beyond that too. The way we all think and all see the world… It can be hard for the regular spirits to understand us and the role we have as we would understand each other and while the connections we form with the morals of this world are close and will leave permanent marks on our eternal lives, they are just that, eternal. When the people we’ve learned to love grow old and die as time goes on, we’ll once more be left with each other for whatever good or ill that holds but we started as ten and then dropped to eight for so long and it’s only now that we’ve seen that we can grow to even more beyond just us. Our own fates can’t be guaranteed, even if we could live forever we’ll still have the potential to die but in whatever long years there may still be for us ahead, given the chance, we’d enjoy having more by our side to face it.”

The longing for companionship seemed true as Ben invaded their thoughts, even if there was still a strong undercurrent of desire for more power to kill the demons and protect the world, but Abrus had implied as much at the beginning of his small speech; there was nothing that needed to be spelled out for Mora and Ben had to admit, it might be good for the boy too. Even if he and Thera succeeded in reaching the third tier in any of their skills, one day their mortal bodies would die. Still able to interact with that plane but no longer a part of it, even if they’d be able to talk to Mora, he’d be alone and what small bit of company they’d be able to give them was only if they really did manage to transcend their limits like that. 

No, the boy needed something more and while he was now getting to know a bit of his extended family, considering that of the ten other spirits living in the world, two of them had abandoned him so soon after he’d been born, there was no escaping the idea that it would be good for him to have more options. The chance to have peers to mingle with and grow to love him as well for whatever eons awaited them.

“And you’ll all accept them?” Mora asked. “They’ll be your family?”

“No, they’ll be our family,” Abrus told him. “For better or for worse, whatever sorts of people they might grow into, they’ll be great spirits and that’s enough.”

“...Alright, I’ll do it but I can’t just do it.”

“Hmm? Thank you but what does that mean?”

“When I made Bloom, I’d already seen plant magic and the skill through peoples’ souls,” He explained. “I needed that too...”

He began miming with his hands, trying to use them to get a point across but failing on that front too until Ben spoke up.

“You just need to see holders of any combined affinity you’d be trying to make, is that it?”

“Yeah, I won’t be able to do anything unless I see them first.”

“Ah, is that all?” Abrus asked. “If that, it’s just a matter of sitting tight for a day or two while we gather people then. If we get my wife’s help, it won’t be hard. Thank you, Mora.”

With his agreement given, it wasn’t long before the other spirits went off to begin organizing things on their end, off to find and collect the holders of any combined affinity they could get or back to their other tasks for the day, leaving the three of them alone once more, with Thera focusing back on the child in her care.

“Now, are you sure about this, Mora?” She asked him. “It doesn’t matter what you told them, you can always change your mind.”

“I won’t. I’ll do it.”

“But sweetheart… you do understand, if more great spirits are born, they will be killing demons too,” She explained, just wanting to be sure he understood that completely. “You’ve already told me you don’t want to. Will that make you uncomfortable?”

“...I don’t get to decide what others do with the lives they’re given,” The boy said, Ben thinking the child was considering his relationship with his own creators as he said it. “I’m not going to ask either of you to stop either, you wouldn’t if I tried, would you?”

“No,” Ben responded, not going to try and soften that truth. “That’s something we can’t stop.”

“But you aren’t asking me to either, even if I could help. You’re letting me make my own choice. I appreciate that.”

Well, if he’s alright with all of this then that’s all that matters.

No matter the strength the boy held, Ben stood by the idea that he was much happier that Mora wasn’t comfortable with killing than the thought that he’d get used to it and if he wasn’t going to let the fact that both Ben and Thera were going to keep doing what they believed they had to affect their relationship then that was the best they could hope for, leaving only one last question on Ben’s mind.

“Well then, with everything sorted out here, I think that means there’s only one last thing that I’m sure we’re all curious about here.”

A statement that left some curious eyes on him, only growing more so with the way his were practically glowing.

“You get different types of spirits to combine into great ones but what about the ones that already exist?” He asked. “Could you get more earth spirits together to create a new great earth spirit who could stand beside Abrus and so on and so forth for every other type of spirit too?”

It was a question that harkened back to an earlier conversation he’d had with Helori, theorizing what might happen if Vividus and Nox decided to try and birth more great soul spirits. The potential to convert large swaths of the spirits of the world into powerful new variants of themselves, creating hundreds of beings that were just short of gods themselves, how could he not be curious, especially when another idea both he and she had batted around still rang out in his head. What if that would let them combine again?

If regular spirits could be considered first-tier lifeforms and a group of them would merge together into second-tier life in the form of the great spirits, could enough matching affinities of them merge into a being that would hold magics at the far end of the third-tier? Beings who could potentially be the holders of a hundred million points of mana and the sort of strength to reshape the world?

Thera couldn’t see that particular thought bobbing around in his head but the thought that Mora might be able to create more of the original great spirits was enough to make her eyes go wide, the idea sure to draw all of them back for another long day of discussions and was only stopped by Mora shaking his head.

“I can’t,” The boy told them. “What I do to the locks on their souls, I…”

He trailed off, once more doing his best to get a certain idea across with his hands but this time failing completely, ultimately letting them fall to his side before finishing. “It would be impossible, their souls wouldn’t allow it.”

“I see. Well, no worries kiddo, I was just curious.”

And there goes the dream of an endless army of great spirits on our side then, along with the idea of some sort of super-great spirit that would be able to ascend to godhood when they die. Oh well, whatever we get from all of the combined affinities of the world is going to be a big help with so much, just gotta look forward to seeing that.