Our second world- book one: Past beginnings

[A Guide to Spirits]

"Hello there! Alfheim here! I'm here to do a bit of an info-dump about the...less than simple spirit and pact system that exists in the world of 'Our Second World' since we decided it would be a bit too boring to mention in the story. Now that we've got the boring stuff out of the way, let's get started!"

~

In the world of Our Second World there are a number of different spirits that vary from tiny pixies like me to way powerful dragons like Elen. There are also a few classes of spirits ranking from strong to weak, and a spirits' class determines what kind of magic they can use. Though the class of a spirit can change the strength of magic they can use, the one thing that is identical in every spirit is the limit on our elements.

To explain the elemental classes of spirits in a way that makes sense we'll first need to take a small detour into the territory of magic.

In terms of magical affinities that a person, or spirit, can have there are six main classes, and a few sub-classes as well, but more on those in a bit.

The first four most common elements of magic are identical to the main elements: Fire, water, air, and earth. These four are the same elements that spirits control. As for the other two main classes, they are more rare of an affinity to get, but they are light and shadow. No spirit possesses the ability to manipulate these two elements, but enough of that for now. Let's move on to what spirits can do.

Within each of the four main classes of elements are a range of subclasses that relate to that particular element.

Take me for example. I'm a fairy spirit, the second class of spirit, and I have an affinity to frost magic. This means that I'm classified under the main type of water, but I'm limited to frost type magic as my subclass.

However, if we look at a higher ranking spirit, say a dragon, we can see that they have access to a larger range of magic. As we know, Elennoarylrth is a dragon with a water affinity, but she is also able to use any of the water type sub-classes, like frost magic. Pretty cool, right?

Now then, a spirit pact may seem like some really complicated thing, but it's actually pretty simple. Whenever a spirit decides they like a person or take an interest in them, they may decide to make a pact with that person. A pact uses a spirits magic to bond them to a person which grants that person a portion of that spirit's power. The amount of power that is shared through the pact varies depending on what kind of spirit is involved, and the compatibility between a spirits' elemental affinity and the persons'. In most cases, this added power manifests itself as a summonable weapon unique to the user-spirit pair.

"Well, that's about all I've got for you for now. I hope you enjoyed this little segment, and the story so far. We've still got a long way to go before it's over, so I hope to see you in the next volume."