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  A beautiful tree was grown from the small seed. It overflowed with both Mana and Spirit Energy, energies my Inner Realm could not produce by itself just some time ago before I created my own Divinity. Although I ow produce Mana internally without requiring my System Scarf, it was ahiirely to talk about this other energy.

  Spirit Energy!

  Hekita and probably her eribe are rather aced to this energy, even if they don’t seem to be able to wield it aside from css-specific skills. It appears this energy es from all things spiritual.

  Spirits, entities made of elemental energy and spiritual energy, are one such being that both produces it and drain it from other sources.

  The Divi Spirits the tribe sees as their true gods are probably posed of this element, though, uhe Gods with their Divine Realms, they were rare.

  It seemed that they didn’t live in the physical pne or have their own pocket pnes, such as the Divine Realms.

  No, these Divi Spirits live elsewhere pletely; I could even call it another dimension, a dimension where spiritual energy probably inates from.

  They visit physical pnes momentarily to see their desdants. It wouldn’t be crazy to say that the tribes of beast people might desd from the divi spirits in one way or another.

  But how could these people be desdants of spirits if they share none of their traits except bei-like? I guess one of their iraits is deteg spiritual energy, yeah.

  “It is amazing, mommy, such a big spirit tree!” Hekita said, grabbing my leg and pulling my dress. She was very excited.

  Holy, she was such a bundle of ess that I could hardly resist giving her another head pat.

  “Is that so? Well, I suppose it is quite big, yes.” I nodded. “Hekita, are you able to see the spiritual essence?”

  “Yes, I see it! You ’t?” She woilting her head.

  “I ; these eyes see everything.” I nodded. “But even then, I tell this is not an energy that normal people could ever see or detect. Your family probably has a great talent for Spiritual Energy or even Spiritual Magic, but you have yet to tap into it.”

  “Is that so?! I didn’t know!” She said, amazed. “Maybe mommy help me learn it? you help me? Pretty please!”

  “Hahah, well, if you insist, I was thinking of something.” I smiled. “For now, let’s tap into the strength of this tree first.”

  I touched the tree’s bark aly caressed it. Hekita did the same, imitating me. As the two of us felt waves of spiritual energy surging from the tree, its leaves grew rger and its branches longer. A beautiful tree over a hundred meters tall was formed within minutes, and o reached this height, it abruptly stopped growing.

  I could feel the spiritual energy c through my body. Uhe potency of the various refiypes of Ki, Spirit Energy was gentle—a very gentle and “light” energy, much mehan even light itself. Mana was rather dense and slightly "bitter,” if we could give it a fvor. But the spirit energy was different.

  If I could give it a fvor, it would be like eating a slightly sweet, whipped cream—so soft, so creamy, and so light. I could hardly get enough of it, but I khat if I draihe tree out of it all pletely, it would die, so I let it slowly share it with me.

  But it also shared it with Hekita, surprisingly. Although I didn’t experieny ges, she did. The rainbow-colored spirit energy flowed through her small body and theered her circutory system, spreading through every vein her body had.

  Until it reached her heart, and I felt something within it f. For a moment I pahinking she might be in pain, but she looked so happy and calm, smiling while closing her eyes, as if she were drifting into a good dream.

  FLASH!

  The energy densed within her chest and crystalized, f a small, heart-shaped, and rainbow-colored jewel that was directly ected with her heart and her blood vessels.

  “Ooh? Ooohh!” She was surprised as she looked into her tiny hands. “Mommy, look! I trol my spirit energy now! What happened?!”

  She was maniputing the energy she was given. The tree was no longer supplying any to her, but she was now geing it herself!

  I was shocked.

  “This might be... Okay, this could be incredible. Hekita, we might have just discovered a way for your eribe to awaken a power that you all should have been born with.” I told her, her eyes widening.

  “Woah, really? Makes sense! If the Divi Spirits are our aors…!” She said, amazed. “Amazing mommy! Thank you for lettiouch the big tree!”

  She ended up hugging my legs.

  “Haha, it is fine. Well, you just touched it; it’s not like I gave you anything else…” I said. “I wonder, have you awakened a system yet?”

  “Nuh.” She said. “Nothi.”

  “Good.” I nodded. “It’ll be better for you to get yourself a scarf ter with my help instead of having it soul-bound.”

  “Scarf?” She wondered without knowing what I meant.

  “Anyways, let’s go.” We walked outside my Inner Realm, after notig there were no System Notifications.

  Although I had gained some sort of bond with the tree, it didn’t register through the System Scarf I had. Most likely because it was ected to the Inner Realm and not the outside world. Well, whatever was the case, we walked outside.

  Through the spirit e I gained with that tree, I detected a few things, however. One of them was that it had a e somewhere. Although it produced its own energies, the spiritual soul the tree possessed was ected to another pne.

  I don’t know how to call it either a pne of existence, a differey, or maybe a dimension. Whatever the naming se was something pletely outside our universe, or eveerected array of universes that some might call a multiverse.

  It was something pletely airely outside of it all—a separate multiverse of its own, maybe? However, the naming sense wouldn’t work either, because, unlike our multiverse, what I felt with it was much different and deeper.

  It wasn’t posed of stars, ps, space, gaxies, and so on. No, none of such things seemed present as we know them in that dimension; it was more like an endless expanse of flowing essences, an endless sky.

  More than that, I couldn’t see; however, the e with this tree was too faint. If I ever want to enter such a pce, I’ll o keep raising that tree until its e with its “mother dimension” grows more.

  For now, I’ll call this mysterious area “Spiritual Pne” for an easy-to-digest name.

  Once we moved back to the vilge, we expio everyone what happened and why Hekita ying around with animal-shaped illusions made out of her rather vast spiritual essence reserves.

  “S-So that Spirit Tree you grew untapped our inner potential?” Merkite asked. “I-Is that truly something we do? Maybe Hekita had the talent?”

  “No, actually, there might be… There might be some truth to this, not just for my daughter. I mean, I am really happy she got such amazing powers, but it might truly be something of our tribe.” Urbosa said. “You see, there are tales of our tribe when it was much rger. Back then, all the dog and cat tribes beloo a siribe. In our home world, which people call the Sed Floor. There was a tree, a Spirit tree, that awakened people’s talents.”

  “What?! I had no idea of that!” Merkite pined.

  “That’s because you never sat down to listen to the elders’ teags, Merkite! You were always just barking around, wagging your tail at cute girls, oing out to hunt.” Urbosa reprimanded her sister.

  Both were the same age, as they were twins born on the same day, but it was quite clear who was the most mature out of the two. Urbosa seemed much older thawin sister, which made for a rather cute and funny dynamic.

  “Aw, man! But those teags were s!” Merkite crossed her arms. “They should have talked about that stuff directly instead of having to introduce everything through b old tales about people talking with animals.”

  “It’s our history and traditions, my foolish sister!” Urbosa sighed. “Anyway, I think we learn more if we ask our oldest elder. Should we go after lunch?”

  We were currently eating lunch together. My mother, my sister, and Juan were with us, alongside the twins’ grandmother, who had already officially begun a retionship with my mother. Quite the shocker, but my mother had her own life, so I didn’t judge if she got with someone older or not.

  “I suppose we should, yes.” Their grandmother nodded. “I also remember a bit about the Great Spirit Tree. In some of our traditions, I think it says something about the tree being a gift left by our Aors, the Divi Spirits, so we could tap into our inner spiritual powers. Or something… Unfortunately, I am a lot like Merkite, and I never paid much attention to that, hahaha!”

  “Geez, you should have!” My mother reprimanded Ashen. “It is something important to your tribe; you should treasure these things.”

  “Hmm, I suppose you’re n, my dear.” Ashen apologized. “Now that I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to appreciate this much better. Sorry, I’ll try to be better for you.” She held her haly.

  “E-Eh? Ah… W-Well, if you say so…” My mother became a young girl in love after her girlfriend said that, blushing like a high schooler.

  “I make little animals, Auntie Ruby!” Hekita called for my little sister, as she made a small cat. “It looks like Felix, hehe!”

  “Oooh, not bad!” Ruby nodded. “ you make, like, a bird?”

  “A bird! Hmmm…” Hekita trated on her own hands, and a bird quickly shaped itself out of her flowing essehere! Bird!”

  The little bird resembled a parrot of sorts, flying up and moving around everyone before dissipating quickly after. We were always amazed by her talent; it seemed she could do a lot with the spirit energy she had gained. I am fairly sure this level of talent is not normal at all; Hekita is probably developing some unique ability.

  For now, I would call her “Spirit Creator," using Spirit Energy to temporarily create Spirits out of her own design and imagination. They are like temporary and useful familiars, and maybe if she cultivate her spirit energy some more, she could eventually summon very powerful ohat would st for a while as well.

  “This is really incredible,” Juan ented. “I ’t remember a single Hunter capable of doing something like this. Isn’t she literally just creating spirits? Even if they disappear.”

  “Yeah!” Ruby nodded. “She could bee popur as a very young hunter, I suppose.”

  “Really auntie? " I bee popur in your world?!” Hekita started gettied again. “I wanna go! Mama, mommy! I wanna go to Earth! Now, now!”

  “Hekita, enough. We will go once Bing Xue decides; do not force her.” Urbosa said.

  “We’ll go week, so don’t worry. Have some patience.” I smiled back at her.

  “Okay…” She nodded. “Mommy is muicer than Mama…” She hugged my belly.

  Haha, I guess I am way too weak with children to be harsh with them. Urbosa has to take care of those things, unfortunately. But I’ll try to be stricter; I just o learn how Urbosa does it.

  “Hmph, well, I suppose that’s fi is very clear that you’re very weak against children; you are like a young mother, Bing Xue.” Urbosa giggled. “You’ll learn they be little devils themselves.”

  “I am slowly learning already, ahahah.” I ughed a bit.

  Once we finished lunch, we moved to the Elder’s tent, and after expnations, she went into much more detail about what happened. She looked clearly amazed and happy, eveed.

  “T-This is incredible! Bing Xue! Is this true? Do you truly possess a Spirit Tree?! Aa…!” She muttered, pointing at the girl. “My dear child, you’ve awakened what our Aors called a “Spiritual Heart”! It is a special an inside your body, a sed Heart that will allow you to cultivate the Essence of the Spirits!”

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  Pach