Chapter 455: Humans Have Spirits, and Wind for Parents

The thunderstorm came quickly and left just as fast.

The wind disaster had yet to subside, but the storm had already passed and the sky was clear.

Ji Wen looked around carefully before confirming the thunderstorm was finally over. He silently estimated how long the wind disaster had lasted.

He waited for about three minutes before moving closer.

A long, white bone, the length of his forearm, lay on the ground. A look of delight crossed his face.

'I can't believe it's a bone-type wind material. This is a rare find.' He then moved closer, reaching down to pick it up.

However, just as he bent down, he heard the faint sound of wind.

The wind disaster warned him—danger was approaching.

'Don't tell me the storm isn't...' The thought surfaced in his mind.

But before he could finish the thought, Ji Wen's vision suddenly went black.

He had been struck violently on the back of the head, and he lost consciousness.

In the next instant, both he and the bone-type wind material vanished without a trace.

When the teammate who had lured away the wind disaster rushed back, he found nothing. A confused look appeared on his face.

"He went back already? He shouldn't have. We agreed he'd wait so we could leave together." He muttered to himself, then scanned the area again, but there was nothing to be found.

He had no choice but to head back and report in.

In his mind, a grown man couldn't just vanish for no reason. The wind material must have been special, so Ji Wen didn't have time to wait for him and rushed back to the Wind King Palace ahead of schedule.

'As for betraying the team for this wind material? That's absurd,' he thought. 'Wind materials are only useful for making wind-ships; Windwalkers themselves can't use them.'

'Besides, even if Ji Wen did pocket it, he can't leave Flying Fish Town. Where would he even go to fence it?'

It was far more likely he'd been attacked by someone than him turning traitor.

Meanwhile, Qi Suian had taken the unconscious Ji Wen back to the fifth sub-level of his home's basement.

Most houses only had a single-level basement. Qi Suian's was different; he had five.

He used them to store various pieces of equipment and conduct all kinds of experiments.

"So-called wind material is, in reality, the energy core left behind after a Hurricane Beast dies," Qi Suian said, examining the bone-type wind material in his hand.

'It offers superior resistance to hurricanes, has the ability to convert wind energy, and can also be used as a disposable power source.'

'So it's basically wind-elemental petroleum?' The possibility flashed through Qi Suian's mind.

A corpse, an energy source, and a wide range of applications—it was easy for Qi Suian's thoughts to stray in this direction.

'But the dissipation rate is too fast. Without a proper method of preservation, this wind material will be completely depleted in three days at most.'

'The Wind King Palace must have a specialized preservation technique.'

As he mused, Qi Suian placed the wind material into containment.

While he didn't know the Wind King Palace's preservation technique, he could devise a targeted preservation method based on the wind material's specific properties. The results wouldn't necessarily be any worse than their technique.

Completely halting the dissipation, however, was likely unrealistic, as it would mean defying the fluid nature of wind itself.

Therefore, the most he could do was delay the dissipation. And as for how long he could delay it, Qi Suian estimated it probably wouldn't vanish for about three hundred years.

It might even outlast Qi Suian himself; he wasn't even three hundred years old.

After dealing with the wind material, Qi Suian turned his attention to the Windwalker, Ji Wen.

He could study the wind material at his leisure; if worst came to worst, he could just go into a hurricane and catch a Hurricane Beast. Windwalkers, on the other hand, were far more important.

Qi Suian began the dissection. As he cut into Ji Wen's skin, he could feel an aura, similar to wind, begin to leak from the man's body.

"It feels like I've punctured a balloon that's constantly leaking air," Qi Suian noted, making a rather strange analogy.

Although Windwalkers leaked this wind, they wouldn't die just because it all escaped.

'The interior of the body has already completely fused with wind to a certain extent. The cells are also showing signs of weathering.'

'Though called human, they are essentially an alternative form of Hurricane Beast.'

'So that's why a Windwalker becomes a so-called Wind Spirit after death. It should be the same type of phenomenon as a Hurricane Beast becoming wind material after death.'

'However, the nature seems different. A Wind Spirit appears to be a special life form, akin to a neutrino, formed from the high-level integration of the wind inside a Windwalker's body with the person themselves.'

'I'll know what it is after I kill him.'

Having researched to this point, Qi Suian had already realized that Windwalkers were very likely the juvenile form of Wind Spirits.

Of course, whether it was better to be a human or a Wind Spirit, Qi Suian couldn't say.

After all, he had only just begun his research.

As he continued the in-depth dissection, Qi Suian obtained more data on Windwalkers.

'The communication talent is indeed located in the soul. This talent is also the catalyst for the formation of a Wind Spirit.'

'This talent is the unformed consciousness of a Wind Spirit. Therefore, it's not actually the person communicating with the wind, but them communicating with the wind through their own Wind Spirit.'

'At this stage, because its own consciousness is not yet fully developed, the Wind Spirit is merely a conduit.'

'Every person's Wind Spirit is different, so their efficiency in communicating with the wind also varies.'

'And this, is the difference in aptitude.'

"Actually, it's not a matter of talent, but of appearance..." Even Qi Suian had to struggle to keep a straight face as he recorded this.

If a Wind Spirit's appearance wasn't good enough, it wouldn't gain the wind's favor and thus couldn't communicate with it.

However, this "appearance" didn't literally mean physical looks, but rather the Wind Spirit's degree of affinity for the wind.

In reality, if a person's Wind Spirit wasn't chosen by the wind, preventing them from becoming a Windwalker, they could try communicating with other things instead.

They might become a Fire Walker or a Water Walker, but the difficulty of communication would still be immense, and they might not receive any response.

In truth, the spirit formed by the communication talent has no elemental bias. The only reason Qi Suian referred to it as a Wind Spirit was to follow the local customs.

'And the awakened objects, abilities, or creatures are, in essence, data that the Wind Spirit acquires while communicating with the wind, which then takes form and finally makes contact with the outside world.'

'Everything that follows can be collectively called 'development,' and it continues until the Windwalker's death.'

'So, this is the wind of awakening and the wind of growth.'

After stitching up Ji Wen's head, Qi Suian began to further stimulate his soul. Soon, a bow condensed from wind materialized in front of Ji Wen.

He did not reach out to grab it.

He had acquired the necessary common knowledge since arriving in the Sky Island World.

A Windwalker's wind was not something an outsider could touch.

In a Windwalker's hands, it would be a weapon wielded as an extension of their own arm, a powerful ability, or even an obedient creature. But for anyone else, that wasn't necessarily the case.

If Qi Suian dared to touch it, even if he could suppress it with his immense power, it would sooner shatter into nothingness than be controlled by another.

"Indeed, this is the Windwalker's Wind Spirit, just molded into different forms and given different properties by various data," Qi Suian said, and with a single motion, snapped Ji Wen's neck.

In the next instant, Ji Wen's body began to weather and disintegrate, much like the manta ray Hurricane Beast his team had killed.

In an instant, his entire body collapsed into dissipating wisps of wind.

At the same time, the wind bow sensed Ji Wen's death, its structure becoming extremely unstable.

Normally, the wind bow would have dissipated upon Ji Wen's death. However, this instability triggered it to begin absorbing the very wind that Ji Wen's body had become.

As it absorbed more and more, the wind bow began to swell, and a great torrent of wind, filled with life force, swirled around it.

The entire process lasted nearly thirty seconds, completely transforming the wind bow into a humanoid life form constructed from wind.

This was a true Wind Spirit, and the essence of the communication talent.

'Through the World Core, I have supplemented my knowledge base considerably. Combined with my own power, my efficiency and accuracy in researching various Extraordinary systems has increased a great deal.'

Looking at the Wind Spirit, which had not yet opened its eyes, Qi Suian gained a more direct understanding of his own deficiencies.

He did not touch the Wind Spirit. Although it had taken form, it had not yet been fully born.

Touching it now would easily create an energetic bond.

The Wind Spirit wasn't that fragile, but this energetic bond was akin to a mark of enmity. Qi Suian saw no reason to create trouble for himself.

It would cost him to completely remove such a bond as well.

'They hold grudges, and their behavior seems to tend toward solidarity. All Wind Spirits can sense this kind of energetic bond.'

'Killing a Wind Spirit also comes with a high probability of acquiring this energetic bond.'

After about five minutes, the Wind Spirit slowly opened its eyes.

They were called eyes, but they were more like the eyes of a storm. Its physical form, meanwhile, was that of a human Archer.

It wore leather armor, held a longbow, and had a quiver on its back.

However, its entire being was constructed from wind, making it look blurry and indistinct, yet strikingly real at the same time.

The Archer Wind Spirit stared at Qi Suian with its storm-like eyes for three seconds, then decisively nocked an arrow, drew its bow, and fired a wind arrow at him.

The entire process was fluid, without a hint of hesitation.

'Its level of consciousness is not high, but it retains remnants from its past life.'

'But in terms of combat quality, it far surpasses its past life. It seems to have undergone some form of inheritance and instinctual infusion.'

After easily shattering the wind arrow, Qi Suian used a polymorphic energy effect to suppress the wind composing the Archer Wind Spirit.

"This feels like a biological weapon fresh off an assembly line," Qi Suian mused, watching the struggling Archer Wind Spirit. He quickly bound it.

Then, he began further research.

'If I'm not mistaken, the Wind King Palace is likely a barracks or a biological weapons factory.'

'Unfortunately, because of the wind, I can't determine this world's scale or the state of its civilization. Otherwise, I might be able to deduce the Wind Spirits' destination.'

'However, it's very likely that the truth lies at the source of the wind that the Wind King Palace is pursuing.'

'But one thing is certain: being a Windwalker is not a good profession.'

"They have to fulfill their duties while alive, and after death, they're made into biological weapons. Truly tragic." Qi Suian couldn't help but click his tongue in cynical wonder.

This utilization rate was indeed high. It was a shame it didn't align with his own path, otherwise there would have been a great deal to learn from it.