I have Nine Lives

Chapter 108: Feeling the natural energies

The wisp remained silent for a short while which puzzled Felix a bit, he was so chattering before but now that he asked him this question he became quiet? Was he one of the weaker wisps then?

Then a burst of laughter appeared in Felix's head as the wisp said:

"Hahaha, of course, I'm the strongest! Why do you think all of the other wisps stopped looking at you when I perched on your head? They know better than messing with me!"

Felix was rather unconvinced as he asked:

"Then why have you paused for a while after my question?"

"Eh... well I can't lie to you, strength is a rather subjective matter for wisps, meaning that our strengths aren't really calculated the same way you fleshly beings do, but you can believe me when I say that I'm the strongest amongst the wisps of this forest."

"Of this forest? Then how would you compare yourself with the wisps of the other forests?"

"Well, all I can say that we are mostly equal in power."

"Well then what are we waiting for? Let's sign that contract!"

The wisp started to shake indicating that it wasn't that easy as he said:

"It will take some time and we need some items for the ceremony to be held first."

"What type of items?"

Felix asked while cocking his head to the side, maybe he had some of those items in his special bag.

"Well for starters we need some strong medicinal item."

"Why?"

"Well you are full of natural energy but you can't feel it at all, so the medicinal item is gonna help you to start feeling the natural energy, I need you to siphon the natural energy into me for the contract to be created, and in your current situation you don't have a single way to charge that natural energy into me."

"Does any kind of medicinal item work?"

"Yes, it doesn't matter as long as it's strong enough as I will modify it using my body."

Felix took out a few red pills from his special bag and showed them to the wisp as he asked:

"Are these good enough?"

The wisp approached the pills then let out some light shine from his body to the pills seemingly analyzing them.

Then two the pills started to slowly float into the wisp disappearing only leaving behind three.

"Two pills are enough for one contract, the second thing that we need and also the last would be an appropriate location where the natural energy is the most abundant to boost the chances of you getting a good natural energy manipulation ability."

"And where is that location?"

"Hmm... well it has been populated by one of the fleshly body tribes for a long time so I'm not sure if they would allow you to get there."

"Which tribe is it?"

"Mmm... they have long ears and furry whitetails, they are mostly grey and very rarely white, there are also some black ones and they usually jump quite well, I'm not sure how they are called though."

Felix listened and realized that the wisp was describing a rabbit, he still remembered how he ate his first horned rabbit but he didn't know that an actual rabbit tribe existed, weren't rabbits such lowly beings that they haven't evolved to the point of intelligence yet? But Felix also remembered finding some fish that he ate, however, the fishmen tribe also existed.

It seemed there were a lot of tribes that he didn't know about.

But Felix knew that the rabbit tribe should be rather weak and it was also one of the tribes that were supposed to be nearby, but Manitola hadn't mentioned anything about them.

Felix looked at the wisp and asked:

"Where exactly are they?"

"They are below the ground!"

Well, this made more sense.

"Do you know any way to get to their tribe?"

The wisp made a nodding motion as it said:

"It's very easy, we are currently below one of their cities all you have to do is dig down deep enough and you would fall where you are supposed to."

"Ok then stay back!"

Felix's claws left his paws as he used them as shovels, dirt started to mount up around him as he dug it up quickly.

A small hill was slowly being created near Felix as the wisp hovered near him and perched itself on his head again, he would be able to phase through the dirt if he wanted to but he wanted to be near Felix when he fell into the rabbits' city.

As he dug he started to go down and after he dug for a while he started to feel that there was nothing more to dig as he started to free fall.

But at an opportune moment, the-wisp started to glow softly to slow down his descent to the underground.

There he saw tall humans with rabbit features jumping around or walking slowly while munching on carrots.

They all didn't see Felix as they were either too preoccupied with their things so he had enough time to activate his stealth.

Felix slowly floated down on a rooftop with the help of the wisp as he looked around.

He looked around then sent a mental message to the wisp:

"Are we in the right place?"

The wisp sent a negative response:

"We are closer to the most abundant natural energy place but we aren't there yet, just follow my instructions."

"Go down and hide amongst the crowd."

Felix jumped down from the rooftop and blended in with the crowd as he easily made his way through the people without alerting anyone.

"Now go to the left and exit the city."

Felix left the crowd then exited the city just like the wisp told him and he found himself in a tunnel.

The tunnel was long and narrow only good enough for the rabbits to use, however, Felix wasn't that tall nor that wide if you excluded his a little bigger than average belly.

The moment he jumped into the tunnel he realized that he could sense something but he wasn't sure what it was, maybe it was those natural energies the wisp talked about?

Felix started to walk faster through the tunnel as the wisp told him:

"You are getting closer to the natural energies, just keep going like this until you reach an intersection then take the left."

The wisp itself was concentrating as Felix could feel it through the mental connection between them so he decided to kick up the gear.

He sped up as he exited the tunnel only to arrive at a gigantic altar that was rising from the underground, he felt very small looking at it as it was at least 50 meters tall and he could feel strangely connected with it.

An excited high-pitched voice came in his mind:

"This is the place, this is the place I have felt for such a long time, go inside!"

Felix jumped down from the tunnel and the wisp used his floating ability again as Felix floated down until he reached the bottom of the altar.

"Now use the stairs in front of you to reach the top of the altar to gather natural energy in your body."

Felix did as he was told as the natural energy in the surroundings was attracted to him but he felt rather strange as it was a very familiar feeling, in the corner of his eye he saw the unmoving heads move again as one more popped up, he had lost 2 lives after Shima's kidnapping and there was no opportunity to get them back but now they were coming back to him!

However this was strange, he knew that his ability needed the souls of others to be recharged... did that mean that natural energy came from souls?

Now it made sense why the wisps could sense he was full of natural energy, it was because his ability stored the souls of others to give him more lives!

"Wait for a little... if so much soul power is converged on this altar..."

The closer he got to the top of the altar the more he felt something wasn't right as an iron smell hit him directly into the nose, it was the familiar scent of blood.

He wasn't a stranger to the smell and he knew something must have happened at the top before he arrived.

He activated his stealth technique again as he slowly made his way up to the top of the altar where he found a pool.

The pool was filled with blood and from the smells that he detected, some herbs?

The pool wasn't very wide but it was deep, Felix had already soaked a paw in and he couldn't feel the bottom so he didn't want to enter it.

However, the Wisps words made him falter and almost fall in:

"This is it, jump in with me and we will be able to create the perfect contract, let me just take out the medicine that you gave me so we can start!"

It was obvious this pool was created with sacrifices of thousands if not tens of thousands of people and he was supposed to soak in it? He wasn't sure if those people were innocent or not and while he didn't care about his enemies he didn't really like to hurt civilians unless they offended him, he had his own principles, but he was also very tempted to create the contract with the-wisp, the special ability that shamans had was very important to him as it would increase his battle power by quite a lot...

Felix was in a dilemma.