A scream escaped his mouth as he got up hastily. Opening his eyes in a daze, he realized he was in his room.
"What the hell."
Dazed, he stood up, but misjudged the distance he had moved between the wall and the bed, and fell from it painfully.
Confused and in pain, he got up somewhat dizzy as he sat back on the bed, trying to shake off the dizziness and the lack of depth perception.
After all, he had lost an eye...
"Shit," he growled furiously, feeling increasingly useless and frustrated, yet still feeling strange.
Why did I scream? he suddenly thought. He remembered dreaming something, but he couldn't recall exactly what the dream was about.
Must have been a nightmare, he thought to himself, but the more he tried to remember what it was about, the more illusory and blurry those memories became, causing him to finally give up completely on trying to remember.
Getting up, tired and somewhat bored, he finally freshened up a bit, tidying the room and cleaning it a little, in addition to, of course, checking his wound.
His left eye had been destroyed in the confrontation with Zhao Tang; according to the doctor, he was lucky it hadn't damaged his brain, but the loss was total.
Looking in the mirror, he was staring at a young man with a severe gaze and an unkempt appearance, with one eye tightly sewn shut by stitches.
His eyelids had been sewn shut to close the wound. The stitches should come out soon, but even so, looking at that injury only provoked further feelings of anger and frustration in Ducanor.
And looking at his reflection in the mirror, his day began.
...
Classes were boring, and Ducanor simply went about his day, since he had passed the Guard trial, but it was merely a qualifying test.
The exam to become a Guard would not start for another six months from now.
The Guard candidates numbered in the hundreds, and many were trying for the second or third time, which was their last chance.
He had six months to train and grow stronger, a considerable amount of time he did not intend to waste.
"Shit, I can't concentrate," he cursed as he dropped the book in frustration at how boring it was. "I'd rather be fighting in the Palace of the Solar Demon a thousand times over than study here for another second."
"Hey, don't say that, you idiot," Voltia yelled with teary eyes and concern, fluttering around him.
They were now alone in a study room.
"I'm telling the truth, besides, I've already been notified of something..." Ducanor muttered in a somewhat worried tone.
"What is it?" she asked, suddenly feeling much more worried at Ducanor's words.
The floating girl had been a constant in his life. Now, after his recovery over the last few days, she was practically hovering around him constantly, as if she were some kind of wandering ghost.
Her effusive and noisy attitude was already annoying in itself, but now he also had to endure her sudden mood swing into a state of perpetual melancholy.
"I received a notification from the board. Apparently, the fact that I was injured during the practical didn't invalidate my pass as an official candidate, but it did muddy it considerably."
To avoid problems, they had given him two options: repeat the exam by taking it over, but this time with a different professor, or take it again with Professor Alana.
From what he had heard, taking it with Master Alana was the hardest test, since the Palace of the Solar Demon was a forbidden zone whose safe area was quite small, whereas other masters used much simpler tests, like hunting beasts or sparring matches...
Few dared to go with her...
"Then go with another master, it will probably be much easier than with Alana and they'll be lenient because of your..." Her words died as she felt Ducanor's sharp glare; he growled.
"I don't intend to give up. Besides, back at the test, I was the dead weight, I couldn't help with anything, and a little girl ended up dead," Ducanor growled coldly. There was no anger or recrimination in his gaze, only an infinite will to improve. Along with regret.
And so he continued studying, not only about True Spirits and combat tactics to prepare for returning to the Palace of the Solar Demon, but also useful things like alchemy, especially reading up on various pills, and furthermore, skills that are essential for a spiritualist.
And as he buried himself in self-study...
....
The fresh air hit him as he frowned. Training for a spiritualist was very different than for a Daoist or a fey warrior.
Although Ducanor had experience using his dharmic rune, he had largely set it aside, prioritizing his spiritualist training instead; and to grow stronger as a spiritualist, he had to prioritize other things, like the Destiny Seal with his contracted spirit.
In the sect's training courtyard, there were several people, and Voltia wasn't the only True Spirit. Several of them hovered around, many with humanoid appearances and others with varied forms, ranging from metal giants to spectral figures.
True Spirits were a mysterious race; it could practically be said that they were similar in prowess to many chakra cultivators and were quite compatible with that energy system.
But curiously, they also increased their prowess in two rather strange ways. The first of all was longevity, and the easiest: True Spirits did not age. Although this didn't mean they were immortal, they had virtually infinite longevity, which granted them a certain prestige. Many True Spirits prefer to self-seal or isolate themselves to naturally increase their prowess.
And the second was worship. The faith or the pacts generated between True Spirits and mortals increased the rate of evolution of a True Spirit's prowess.
The Destiny Seal was a manifestation of this bond, a geass, a contract, and like all contracts, it has limits, gains, and losses.
The first Destiny Seal grants spiritual masters, or spiritualists, mastery over a natural law. In Voltia's case, she granted the ability to manipulate illusions and partially ice; only True Spirits of Radiant rank could bestow a Destiny Seal.
The cost of the first Destiny Seal was almost nil for both parties, making it the easiest to bestow and the most common, as well as the weakest.
The second, not so much.
For that reason, he had been training constantly.
Spiritualists divided the stages of mastery within their discipline into different levels.
The first of these was the Spiritual Gate, which in turn was divided into two steps: World Opening and Spiritual Space.