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Chapter 234: Spirit Contract

“Sure, I’ll fulfill your wish,” the Undying Flame Spirit said after pondering over it after a while, letting out a chuckle in the process. She then added, “Becoming a partial owner, that is.”

This time, instead of doubting the Undying Flame Spirit’s words, Argentum instantly believed that the Undying Flame Spirit would do such a thing since she did say to him that she would grant any wish he wanted to be fulfilled. Hearing the Undying Flame Spirit’s response, he could not help but radiate an aura of elation as he asked her in a slightly excited tone, “Really?”

“Of course,” the Undying Flame Spirit replied to his question, radiating a slightly curious yet excited aura. But before she fulfilled her wishes, she told him, “But before I go ahead and fulfill your wish, I’ll tell you the reason why I made this inheritance.”

“Hm?” Argentum could not help but become confused after hearing her last words, not knowing how the reason why she made the inheritance had something to do with his wish of obtaining partial ownership of the inheritance. With such a gullible mindset, he went ahead and asked her, referencing Aurus’s memories in his mind, “Giving some partial ownership of the inheritance is just giving someone a little bit of control over the inheritance, right? Why the need to explain such a thing?”

“That’s because inheritances are more complicated than that,” the Undying Flame Spirit replied to his question before adding, “You better go ahead and listen because if you don’t, I won’t make you a partial owner.”

“…” Surprisingly, Argentum went silent after the Undying Flame Spirit had said those words, making the Undying Flame Spirit think that Argentum wanted to become a partial owner of the inheritance quite badly. With this in mind, she could not help but laugh inwardly as she recalled all of the memories she had regarding the Flame Spirit Inheritance. After consolidating them and organizing them in order, she then took in a deep breath before focusing her sense of vision towards him.

“Since you came to this inheritance out of your own volition, I presume you know that the Flame Spirit Inheritance is solely biased towards those that are inclined to the Fire element, right?” the Undying Flame Spirit asked Argentum, only for Argentum to remain silent. Noticing this, she could not help but ponder for a bit as to why, eventually concluding that answering might result in him not becoming a partial owner of the inheritance, making her sigh in slight disappointment.

“I’m not telling you to not speak, Argentum,” the Undying Flame Spirit said not long after. “You can still respond to my questions and ask ones yourself. I just wanted you to stay silent for a bit.”

“I see…” Still a bit skeptical of the Undying Flame Spirit taking away his chance of becoming a partial owner if he spoke, Argentum had no choice but to answer, feeling that she might just remove his chance altogether if he didn’t do what she said. Ignoring what was going on in Argentum’s mind, she repeated the question one more time.

“Let me repeat my question one more time. Since you came to this inheritance out of your own volition, I presume you know that the Flame Spirit Inheritance is solely biased towards those that are inclined to the Fire element, right?” she asked Argentum, to which Argentum nodded as he replied, “Yeah. That’s more or less the reason why I entered the inheritance in the first place.”

“At least you know about the general things regarding the inheritance,” the Undying Flame Spirit said after Argentum’s response, taking in a deep breath to organize her memories one more time. After doing so, she then started to narrate the memories she had organized.

“I’m pretty sure you won’t be wondering as to why this inheritance was made in the first place, since inheritors like you only care about the rewards,” the Undying Flame Spirit said, making Argentum radiate an aura of slight guilt. She then added, “But that’s fine most of the time. Unless you’re becoming an owner, or in this case a partial owner, of the inheritance.”

“I made this inheritance at a time where Pseudo-Animates still made up the majority of living beings on this continent,” she narrated. “As for the specific date, you don’t even need to know about it. Anyways, I was one of the strongest Fire-based Pseudo-Animates at the time, which meant that I had the responsibility to guide all of my brethren in the paths of becoming stronger.”

“Of course, I first thought about creating a place where I educate all of the Pseudo-Animates all at once, but it did not take me long to find out that I was extremely bad at educating others…probably around a hundred years or so?” she said, making Argentum subconsciously shiver as he imagined what she was doing back in those times. “So I decided to go and educate them through the second method I had in mind, creating an inheritance.”

“I noticed that every two hundred years or so, the average combat level of my brethren would decrease by a decently large margin, which prompted me to hasten the speed at which I built the inheritance, only taking around 5 years or so thanks to the help of the other strong Pseudo-Animates at the time.” As she said this, a confident aura radiated from her body, reminiscing the fun she had while she made the inheritance with her fellow Pseudo-Animates.

“After the inheritance was fully built, you could say that the Fire-based Pseudo-Animates had undergone a golden age of power, with their average combat power now being around three to five levels below mine, which was exponentially higher than the average combat power before the creation of the inheritance,” she continued narrating. “Surprisingly, the more I taught my brethren through the inheritance I had made, the more I felt some sort of power welling up within me. As if I’ve broken through to a new level of power.”

“Fortunately, it did not take me long to realize that this newfound power I’ve obtained came from the inheritance I had built,” she said soon after before adding, “Of course, I found this out from the Pseudo-Animates I was good friends with, who had inheritances of their own.”

After saying that, she then went silent for a bit, pondering over something. This, in turn, made Argentum slightly nervous, not knowing why that was the case. Thankfully, it only took around ten seconds or so for the Undying Flame Spirit to finish pondering, telling Argentum in a slightly unsatisfied tone, “And I guess I’ll end the story here for now.”

“In short, by giving you partial ownership over this inheritance, not only am I giving you a bit of the control I have over the inheritance, but also the power I’ve obtained thanks to the inheritance. In other words, by doing this sort of thing, you’re pretty much reducing my combat power by a decent amount,” she said after that, with Argentum radiating an aura of understanding as he now knew why obtaining the ownership of an inheritance gave a being a boost in their stats, just like how Aurus’s stats were boosted by becoming the owner of the Tempest Cliff Inheritance, and a partial owner of the Area 52 Inheritance.

‘So the power the Undying Flame Spirit obtained from her inheritance is more or less the stat boost Aurus got when he obtained ownership of those inheritances,’ Argentum thought, now somewhat understanding the reasoning behind the Undying Flame Spirit explaining the creation of the Flame Spirit Inheritance.

“Now do you understand why I went out of my way to tell you about the origins of this inheritance,” the Undying Flame Spirit asked him, to which Argentum responded, “Yeah, I fully understand now.”

“I’m glad that you got it quite quickly,” she responded to his words, letting out a faint aura of happiness before adding, “With that out of the way, let’s now consider percentages. Naturally, I’ll be the owner that has a greater percentage of control over the inheritance. You can go ahead and bargain how many percent of the inheritance you want ownership of.”

“Bargain…” Argentum repeated this word to himself in a mutter, wondering if he should go ahead and ask her if he could own 49% of the inheritance. A few seconds later, he discarded this thought, knowing very well that such a proposal would definitely anger her. Even though she would still have a greater percentage of ownership over the inheritance, this kind of split was more or less equivalent to becoming co-owners of the inheritance, which Argentum had a feeling that she did not want.

After that, he thought about settling for a lower percentage, around 20 to 30 percent. Although he felt that she would go ahead and accept such a proposal, it would instead make Argentum feel like he got the short end of the stick since he did not know how much power the Flame Spirit Inheritance contained, unlike the Tempest Cliff Inheritance and the Area 52 Inheritance.

Eventually, a thought surfaced in his mind, which Argentum pondered over it for a while, deeming that it was the ideal response to her statement a few seconds later. Imitating the sound of a being clearing their throat to attract the Undying Flame Spirit’s attention, he went ahead and responded to her statement regarding the percentage of ownership he wanted from the Flame Spirit Inheritance.

“It’d be better if you, the great Undying Flame Spirit, would decide on how much of the inheritance I would have control over,” Argentum said in a slightly respectful tone. He then added, “I’m definitely sure that the great Undying Flame Spirit would be magnanimous in her decisions.”

“Magnanimous in my decisions, eh?” Although the Undying Flame Spirit had a hunch that Argentum responded with that kind of answer in order for him to possibly obtain a greater share of the inheritance from her, she could not help but follow through with Argentum’s words, deciding to become a bit more magnanimous than usual in terms of rewarding Pseudo-Animates like him.

“Hmm…” The Undying Flame Spirit hemmed and hawed for quite some time, making Argentum slightly expectant yet nervous at the same time. Of course, the Undying Flame Spirit had already decided on a percentage quite some time ago that would not make her lose that much power while allowing Argentum to experience a great boost in power. After hemming and hawing, she then said to Argentum, “I’ll be willing to part 35% of my control over the inheritance to you. How does that sound?”

“I accept!” Argentum unhesitatingly decided to accept the offer since 35% was slightly higher than his expectations, which were around the 20s. Noticing Argentum’s response of sincere elation, the Undying Flame Spirit could not help but radiate an aura of slight happiness as she said, “Alright then. Give me a moment to give it to you.”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

After saying those words, the Undying Flame Spirit went ahead and closed her vision as she muttered a few incantations that Argentum could not understand, condensing the energy within her body into a sphere that only she could see. A few seconds after that, a whirlpool of Fire energy particles appeared, with the Undying Flame Spirit at the center of it. At this moment, a tyrannical aura radiated from the Undying Flame Spirit, making Argentum feel like it was hard to stand up. Fortunately, the aura did not radiate for too long as the Undying Flame Spirit suppressed at the very instant it had reached its peak.

“Under the sights of heaven, I, the Undying Flame Spirit, shall now bestow Argentum here a portion of the Flame Spirit Inheritance’s control. May this agreement last for eternity!” she said after she had suppressed the aura, extending her right palm out as it fired a small ball of fire towards Argentum.

Fwoosh!

Noticing that the ball of fire was heading towards him at great speeds, the first thought that came to his mind was to dodge it. Of course, just before he could do so, the Undying Flame Spirit went ahead and shouted, “Don’t dodge it! Let it collide with your body! I’ve condensed the share I’ll give to you in that ball of fire!”

In response, Argentum nodded his head, using all of the willpower he had to resist the urge of avoiding such a fast fireball. Thankfully, Argentum did not have to resist the urge to dodge it for long as the ball of fire eventually made contact with his body, imbuing him with a great sense of power in an instant. Not only that, but after the great sense of power he felt welling up in his body had stabilized, he then felt that he could check all of the rooms that were in the Flame Spirit Inheritance.

Ding!

A few seconds after that, a notification sound resounded in his mind, prompting him to open up the notification screen in his mind, eliciting an aura of happiness from him soon after.

‘You have obtained the title [Flame Spirit Inheritance: Partial Owner].’

Although he was quite eager to check how much of a boost he had obtained from the title he had just received, it would be rude for him to not thank the Undying Flame Spirit beforehand, unhesitatingly bowing down in front of her and saying in a tone filled with gratitude, “Thank you, great Undying Flame Spirit for being magnanimous.”

“Stop saying I’m magnanimous,” she responded to his words with a chuckle. “Anyways, how does it feel obtaining a part of the inheritance’s power?”

“It feels great,” Argentum said in a cheerful tone. “I feel like I’ve become twice as strong in an instant.”

“Good to know,” the Undying Flame Spirit said in response to his words, letting out a sigh of relief before adding, “Since you’ve successfully obtained partial ownership of the inheritance, let’s now form a Spirit Contract.”

“Eh? A Spirit Contract?” Argentum could not help but ask, to which the Undying Flame Spirit answered, “A Spirit Contract is a contract that allows me to sense wherever you may be, with you being capable of doing the same to me as well. We can communicate at any place and any time, plus I could also teleport to where you are at any time, with you being capable of doing the same as well.”

Listening to what the Spirit Contract entailed, Argentum could not help but think that the Spirit Contract only gave him a ton of benefits. In his mind, he was considering the contract as a way for him to obtain a bodyguard with great power, allowing him to be safe at any time. Though he was quite eager to go ahead and accept the contract, he could not help but ask, “Why do we have to form a Spirit Contract though?”

“For safety measures,” the Undying Flame Spirit replied. “If you die, then the percentage I’ve given to you will be lost, reducing the power I obtain from the inheritance even further. The same applies vice versa. If I die, the percentage you have control over will weaken as well, thus reducing the amount of power you have. Do you want that to happen?”

Realizing that the death of a fellow partial owner of an inheritance would bring detrimental effects to him, the thought he had in mind a while ago had now overlapped with a new one, leading Argentum to respond to the Undying Flame Spirit’s words with a hint of determination, saying, “Of course not.”

“If you put it that way, then I have no choice but to accept, right?”