GACHA SOVEREIGN

"What the heck are you doing?" Alex snarled. "I never knew the tree was a girl. Besides, it was your instruction."

"You brat. You dare to talk back like this?" Rilt narrowed his eyes before shouting. "Anna, Anya! Come here. Your husband is cheating on you!"

"You…" Alex twitched his eyebrows and planned to beat him up.

However, Anna's voice resounded in the field as the person came to the garden. "What are you doing? Both of you."

"Look! He is cheating on you in front of me." Rilt pointed his finger at the tree.

"Dryad Spirit?" Anna tilted her head in confusion. "Besides, it must be you who is jealous of him. So, what has happened here? Why would a naked dryad come to our home?"

"It's a tree before this."

"Oh? Evolution? Strange."

"Before that, do you think you can take care of them?"

"Yeah." Anna nodded with a calm expression.

"Wait, wait. He grabbed her boobs earlier. Do you really forgive him just like that?"

"So, what do you want me to do, Father? Besides, if it's evolution, I can understand it. And why are you like a girl? Yours were not the one grabbed, right? And the fact that you are doing this, it must mean that you are jealous. I will tell mom after this." Anna shook her head in disappointment before pulling the tree earlier into her embrace, asking her to come in. "Let's go in first. We can talk after this."

The tree didn't know anything and quickly rose from the ground, following Anna.

"No! Why are you siding with him, Anna?"

"It's obvious. Mom is going to get angry with you, so I don't want to be on your side and get punished together."

"No." Rilt dropped on his knees with his distorted face as if he fell into despair.

"Alright, jokes aside. Can you explain it to me, Father?"

"Via punishing me is a joke, you say?"

"In the end, you are going to flirt again, no?" Alex nodded his head without hesitation.

Rilt had no word to fight back. After a minute, he finally stood back with a serious expression. "First of all, do you know anything about the Spirit Rank?"

"Nope."

"Then, I will explain about it first. There are two types of spirit, the active one like a beast or something and the passive one, such as rock, tree, and so on."

"I see."

"After that, there are Spirit Ranks. There are five ranks: Normal Spirit, Superior Spirit, Beastly Spirit, Demi-human Spirit, Humanoid Spirit. Normal Spirit is like the tree earlier. Usually, when one evolves, they will become a Superior Spirit. The tree can move by moving its root.

"After that, it will become a beastly spirit. In this stage, the tree can camouflage itself by turning into a beast or something, so people will think it's a beast instead of a tree even if the tree is actually there.

"The fourth rank is the Demi-human Spirit. Basically, it's like Anna said, Dryad Spirit. The Dryad is a personification of the tree. However, a normal Dryad would still need a tree to live, unlike the one earlier. She has attained the fifth rank, Humanoid Spirit.

"There won't be any traces of the tree anymore. This is the ultimate form under the True Spirit Form. Not all Humanoid Spirits can attain the True Spirit Body after all."

"So, in the normal way, she should become a Superior Spirit first?"

"Yes. That's why…Don't you now know how ridiculous your current power is?'

"I see." Alex fell into deep thought.

"Anyway, I think this is going to work out for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I am talking about your coronation. If we show this power, the spirits will become even crazier. We can simply say that you have succeeded the Spirit God and will be someone who is even stronger than him in the future. The proof is your current Spirit Crown."

"Oh?" Alex thought for a moment. "I see, but this power can be achieved by Alaya, no?"

"Not necessarily so. I have understood a bit of the transformation, and from my perspective, it's a permanent change."

"I see. In that case, it will be fine." Alex nodded. "So, you want me to show this in the coronation?"

"Yeah. We can simply ask one person there to show that power. Just randomly, so they think the chosen one is lucky. After that, we can think of a way to sustain the people's opinion."

"Fair enough. I will be leaving the detail to you, so how about we discuss my current power?"

"You mean the Enhancement?"

"Yes."

"Now that you mention it, I heard that you were muttering two words. What was it again…"

"Reila. Awaken."

"Hmm…" Rilt narrowed his eyes. "I am not very sure myself. I think it's better to test it a few times. As for the training itself, I feel like that the White and Black Jewel makes it easier for you."

"Is that so? I got a vision before saying those two words. It was about a woman called Reila."

"This makes more sense." Rilt nodded his head as if he thought something.

"What do you mean? Can you explain it to me?"

"This is just my hypothesis. If I am not wrong, the Life Energy from the White Jewel allowed you to make someone evolve or, you may say, awaken. Their latent talent would bloom just like earlier. And it was circulating in her body before some returned to you through the Black Jewel.

"That Black Jewel gave you a vision about her. I don't know what kind of vision it was, but it gave you something to use for this whole Enhancement thingy."

Alex nodded in agreement. "That's the only explanation, I think."

"For now. We should ask the girl again."

"Anna, can you bring her here? We need to talk."

Hearing his voice, Anna took the Dryad Spirit and stared at the two. "So, anyone can explain it to me?"

"It's his new Spirit Crown. I believe that he can evolve…No, awaken the latent potential of a Spirit, allowing her to become a Humanoid Spirit."

"Really?" Anna narrowed her eyes and stared at Alex.

Alex only shook his head in disappointment. "I am not sure myself."

Rilt then looked at the spirit wearing Anna's clothes. "Can you speak?"

"I…Can…" The tree nodded. Having never spoken, she couldn't speak fluently yet, but it was already an improvement since they could question her.

"So, do you have a name?"

"Reila…" The Dryad lowered her head.

"That's your name?" Alex furrowed his eyebrows before he looked at Rilt and nodded. "It seems that the vision is true. I don't know what it is, but it's related to you."

"I…want to thank…Your Majesty, for giving me…this chance…I don't know how I can repay you…"

"You don't need to." Alex smiled. "I want to ask you a few questions. Can you answer them?"

"I will do…my best."

Alex nodded and continued. "The first question will be your ability."

Reila thought for a moment and raised her hands. Suddenly, her hand turned into tree branches before it extended for a quite long range. It could even create a shape according to her will.

"Is that all?"

"Actually, I can do this to all my body."

"Oh?" Alex opened his mouth in amazement.

"She is indeed a Humanoid Spirit now." Rilt nodded before thinking about something. "I wonder if this is related to her talent or your ability. I mean, why it stops at the last stage. How about the abnormal one, the True Spirit Body?"

Reila looked down as if trying to do something. However, she failed and shook her head in disappointment. "I am sorry. I can't do it."

"It's fine." Alex waved his hand and looked at Rilt.

Noticing his gaze, Rilt asked again. "How about your body right now? Do you have any discomfort?"

"Other than not getting used to it, I have no qualm with the new body."

"Good then." Rilt nodded. "It seems there are many things to be considered. Do you think it's possible for you to help her again?"

Alex furrowed his eyebrows and summoned his Spirit Crown again. Unfortunately, the energy didn't want to circulate, so he had no choice other than to retract it. "It seems I can't use it for a period of time."

"We need to find what kind of technique this one is as soon as possible. We will do it every day because I want to see the progress. Meanwhile, we can start practicing the "Sharing" technique."

"I understand. I will leave it to you." Alex agreed without hesitation.

"As for your technique, we will leave it at that for now." Rilt nodded and looked at Reila. "I am sorry, but you need to stay here for a while. I need to monitor your condition to avoid any side effects."

Reila kneeled as if she had been granted the highest honor.

"You don't need to kneel." With a single wave of his hand, Rilt raised her up and said, "You are not a Normal Spirit anymore, but a Humanoid Spirit. Keep improving because I want to know whether you are the same as the others or not."

"I will do my best."

"I think that…" Alex walked toward Anna, holding both hands. He tried to circulate the energy and succeeded. However, Alex didn't dare to complete the process because he didn't know if this change had a side effect or not. "I think I can help Anna right now, but that's it. Just by trying it, the technique has drained so much energy."

"It's because Anna's potential has almost reached its limit," RIlt commented while thinking.

"Or it's because she is already close to the limit. I mean, relatively speaking, in some cases, it's easier to fill from zero percent to ninety percent. The last ten percent is the hardest because you need to do everything possible to just add one more percent."

"That's a good example."

"Maybe we can do it more, but please don't disclose this information just yet. We want to proceed as safely as possible."

"Yeah."

"In that case, let's have Reila test her power first. I want to see the difference." Alex patted her shoulder.

Reila panicked because the king not only granted this power, but he also wanted to see her change. She was scared that Alex would be disappointed when he saw his performance. However, she decided to do it.

Seeing that she had no more role, Anna returned to the house, leaving the three in the garden."

Alex and Rilt were discussing all the possibilities coming from the new Spirit Crown and decided to test everything they came up with during their training.

Suddenly, Alex came up with a brilliant idea. "What do you think about this? I will hold a competition every year with the reward allowing them to receive this training. Besides, we should call it Awakening instead of Evolution. I feel like this one is better."

"That's a good idea, but you need to make sure that you want to keep doing it every single year."

"Well, the more reason I should return to Eulja, right?"

"Fair enough. If you need to return every year, you won't have the time to flirt with women out there." Rilt chuckled.

Alex rolled his eyes and ignored his remark. "Anyway, this will be a fierce competition. As long as we are the ones overseeing it, I think no one will try to achieve it through a dirty way."

"If you want to remain neutral, your daughters and sons will need to go through that process, you know."

"I can do it more than once a year. Besides, if I need to, I can simply tell them I just love them so much that I sacrifice a bit of my power in exchange for their awakening. This is the sacrifice of a father."

"Yes, except it's a lie." Rilt shrugged. "All in all, I don't think it's a bad idea. We can hold that competition. And we can slowly adjust the rule and such."

"Yeah. And if possible, I don't want to do it this soon. Maybe, a decade after my coronation. We have a few years to discuss this, so let's proceed with the training."

"Indeed."