I Evolve By Collecting Infinite Spirits

Everyone in the crowd gazed at the armor with surprised looks of awe and also hints of jealousy. Those who had narrowly lost the performance of the night were more upset than others.

A prize from a Hunter exam wasn't just an average thing. Since they were from the exam, they were usually higher grade than what could be normally found.

The items on the stage went from anywhere around 30 to 60 gold coins. This was incredibly expensive, since even 30 gold coins was an above-average monthly salary for most people in the city, and about average for a Hunter.

After Sin arrived at the stage, Bao Huxin explained the prizes further. With these details, Sin carefully thought about what he wanted to take.

Firstly, he thought about the grades of the items. There were about a dozen items, each of them going anywhere from D to B Grade.

Item grades were something Sin had only a little information about. After Bao's further explanation, he understood vaguely what all the grades represented in terms of power.

All of the grades seemed to follow the same theme as the Hunter ranks, going from F being the worst up to S being the best. An item grade, whether it was a piece of armor, a weapon, a consumable, or a trinket, was based on its relative power to a Hunter of the same caliber.

However, their scaling was of course different. An F Grade item would be comparable almost exactly to half the power of an F Rank Hunter. In the same way, a D, C, B, A, and S Grade item would be half as strong as its Hunter Rank counterpart.

In the prize pool, there were three B Grade items, so these were the three Sin decided to take a look at. It was surprising to think that each one of these items held the power of someone half as strong as a B Rank Hunter, but that was apparently the truth.

There was a giant leap of power from the C Grade and lower items compared to the ones in B Grade, so there wasn't any point in looking too closely at those.

Out of the B Grade items, one of them was a sword. It looked like a cutlass, but slightly shorter than average. Its handle was almost golden, and its steel was clean and shiny.

It looked expensive, and its perks were decent as well. It held the ability to hone its edge with incredible speed and efficiency any moment it neared another physical object.

This was of course due to the Spirit Energy that it was imbued with by blacksmiths.

When looking at the weapons, Bao went on about how some were better than others—especially amongst the top three. He spoke a lot about those.

This sword in particular, the Slice Cutlass, was one of the ones he spoke highly about.

Next was a ring that gave one an increased Spirit Energy pool, Caldera's Ring.

Spirits were souls at the end of the day. They were beings that had passed, or beings that had come into existence after great events or immense cultural belief.

Some were based on the Gods, others were created from ritual, others summoned from different dimensions, others were souls of the dead. Spirits came in almost an infinite amount of ways in this world, and the way one could summon their power was by Spirit Energy.

After the tender age of five, 90% of born humans would attain something called a Spirit Nebula within their soul—behind the glabella and within the pineal gland of the body, or otherwise known as the 'Third Eye.'

A Spirit would attach to their soul via the Spirit Nebula—almost like a resting place where the Spirit transformed into energy.

When used, the energy would convert back into the Spirit and be able to be used as done today in the exam.

People attained their Spirits in various ways. It was still a mysterious process, but many believed Spirits came from ancestry, genes, nearby fallen souls, ruins, religion, and more.

Once inside of the Spirit Nebula, one's Spirit—now converted into pure Spirit Energy—would rest and remain there. Your goal as a Spirit user, in order to strengthen the Spirit, is to give your Spirit Nebula even more Spirit Energy in order to strengthen your Spirit inside.

Fostering a home of Energy in which the Spirit could bathe and absorb, eventually reaching its maximum potential.

Although Spirit Energy was addressed as 'Spirit,' there were no actual Spirits inside. Spirit Energy was only a personality-less energy.

The origin of Spirit Energy was unknown, but it had existed since the dawn of time—it seemed. Absorbing it from various natural sources, one could strengthen his Spirit.

Once you gathered a certain amount of Spirit Energy within your Spirit Nebula, you set a new bar for yourself every time—one which would get naturally reset after a certain amount of rest.

It was like increasing your endurance—eventually getting better and better as you pushed your body further and set new PRs every time.

Caldera's Ring allowed one to have a 15% boost in their Spirit Energy pool. This meant that you could use your Spirit for longer, or at a greater strength as a baseline.

It was a passive buff, but interesting to say the least. Bao Huxin also had great things to say about this B Grade item. Out of the B Grades, these two were his favorite, it seemed.

The final B Grade item was a single gauntlet that went on one's wrist. It was 5 inches in length, made of thin iron steel and embroidered with wavy, scaly patterns.

At its center was a blue tiger-eye bead, which was almost translucent and had a beautiful marble of blue and black cloudy lines within.

Its name was the Draco Gauntlet, a small piece of armor that had a few perks. It increased the physical strength of the user by 8%, had a slight 5% defense bonus which boosted durability in the user, and also had a unique effect.

The unique effect gave reptile Spirits of any species, weak or strong, a 50% boost in power.