Transmigrated as a Ghost

Walking through the archive, Marcus and Mrazivý followed the little bird familiar Chitchit, as it led them towards the information they wanted.

They followed the little bird deep into the archives past different sections, until the bird flew into one that was very small and only had a few items in it.

In fact, most of the items were recording crystals, followed by a couple of scrolls with paintings on them, and just a single book.

"Cheep Cheep." 

Getting Marcus' and Mrazivý's attention, the little bird Chitchit, stood right in front of the singular book and was motioning towards it.

However, before Marcus grabbed the book, Mrazivý who had been curious unfurled one of the paintings and a confused frown came over her face.

Looking at the painting she now knew where they were and she wondered why the little bird had guided them here, since this was not an area that should contain any really valuable information.

"Chitchit, why did you bring us to this section. Surely there is better information elsewhere." Mrazivý said believing that the bird had simply brought them to the closest item that mentioned spirit gems.

Yet Chitchit just shook its head and looked towards the worn looking red book that was placed neatly in a glass container.

"Um Mrazivý care to fill me in on what is going on." Marcus said bewildered as to what was wrong with the area they were in.

Turning her attention back towards him, Mrazivý nodded her head and said, "This section does not really have information perse, it is just a collection of memories. It is where the first king and those that he journeyed with left behind things, like this painting."

Mrazivý then showed Marcus the painting in her hands and he saw that it depicted seven people standing over a cliff at sunset.

Except two of those people Marcus recognized, one being Gwyneira and the other being Alexandra the head royal investigator.

The other five people he had never seen but he assumed that the man in the middle with black hair and olive skin was Boreas the first king and fellow transmigration.

"I see so these are all just mementos of the past. I mean that is interesting in its own right, but I suppose you are correct that it is not going to yield any real information." Marcus said looking around at the objects on the shelves.

Still when he asked Chitchit if there was information anywhere else it just stayed by the red book not budging.

"I guess that this book really is the only thing here that even mentions spirit gems, so I might as well have a look." Marcus said a bit dejected not to find any concrete information.

Opening the glass case Marcus removed the book within and carefully opened it to the first page that had on it 'Diary of Juniper Brin.'

Flipping to the next page, Marcus scanned through it mainly looking for the information on spirit gems, though the first page was just her writing about how some man named Rufus gave her this book for her birthday.

But another odd thing that Marcus found was that some of the words were unfamiliar to him and he could not find meaning in them.

"Hey Mraz, could you come over here, I think that some of the words might be smudged or something."

Getting up and coming over to him, Mrazivý looked at the book and said, "No everything is fine, and completely legible. Oh, wait, I see it is written in the langue of the kingdom to the south of Borealia."

Turning his head and looking at the words once more, Marcus read over them, and other than a couple of them he knew exactly what they said.

However, if it was a different langue, he should have not known them, since he had used his only langue token to learn Borealian.

'Wait that is right, this area used to be a territory of Tralenstein, so their languages are probably pretty similar.'

Realizing what was going on, Marcus understood that this langue from Tralenstein must have been similar enough to the langue he learned with his token that he could still mostly understand it.

"Mraz would you mind reading this with me and helping me with any words I do not know?"

Smiling Mraz sat down next to Marcus and scooted close to him and said, "Happily."

After that the two of them poured over the diary that was written by Juniper, who was the nature magic specialist that had joined Boreas when he rescued her father's territory from a horde of monsters.

"Looks like she ended up with a bit of a crush on the first king." Marcus said, as they read through the diary and plenty of mention of Boreas were made, and quite a few of them were about how handsome he was.

"Yeah, but we know it did not work out since, he ended up with Gwyneira." Mrazivý said.

And as they continued to read, they found the point when Gwyneira joined Boreas and his party, since she was lovingly mentioned as 'that dragon bitch' by Juniper.

Reading her diary, apparently at first Juniper did not trust Gwyneira thinking she had used some sort of charm to seduce Boreas, but as time went on and she got older, her little crush waned, and she talked fondly about all of her companions including Gwyneira.

Nevertheless, eventually they did find what they were looking for, and as they made it to a section that was about their time in the Great Gome Woods Dungeon, and they found an item that when apprised came back as spirit gem uncommon.

'Today we found a beautiful spring in this hell hole, and at the bottom of it was this gem that Boreas appraised and said it was a spirit gem with a grade of uncommon. Except that was all he got, which is weird since his skill normally gives more detailed information than that. However, that gem was not all, along with it was a baby nature spirit. And to my surprise she took a great liking to me, though she seems to hate Gwyneira.'

Reading on, Marcus and Mrazivý looked for more information on the spirit gem, but all they got was speculation, that maybe it was the crystallization of power from the spirit world, or it could possibly be the heart of a powerful spirit or such things.

"Looks like we are not going to find what you wanted to know." Mrazivý said as it seemed that any solid information was not going to be obtained.

"It is fine, I knew it was a long shot anyway. Next time we see Quillon I can ask Aerial if she knows anything, and if that fails, one day I can make my way to the spirit world and find out. Though there is something else I want to know, if Juniper is dead now, what happened to this spirit."

Getting back into the diary, the two of them read more and more about Juniper and her life, and the spirit she contracted with that she named Salvia.

'Today I showed Salvia, the spirit gem we found her with, and she ate it or something. I tried to get her to give it back, but she just ignored me.'

'It has been a few hours since Salvia took the spirit gem, and now she is glowing brightly, I have no idea what is going on.'

'For three days Salvia would not move and just floated in the air glowing, but today she finally stopped and something amazing happened. She took on a human form, which according to Gwyneira is pretty rare and means she will become really powerful.'

Reading passage after passage Marcus and Mrazivý learned more about Juniper and Salvia.

Unfortunately, most of what they learned was mundane and unimportant just Juniper writing about her daily life, with next to nothing really interesting happening once Boreas abdicated the throne and left the kingdom.

Of course, she did write a few times about when he would come back to visit every couple of years, but for the most part her diary was just about interesting things she ate or about people that irked her.

However, as they made it to the end of the diary thing began to get more interesting again.

'I can feel it is almost the end for me. So, this is likely to be my last entry. I just wanted to put down that I had a good life and am ready for it to be over. Of course, Boreas, Gwyneira and Alexandra said they would get a rejuvenation item for me, but I feel like I have had a good life and am ready to see what is next. I am not like, Boreas who evolved into a being that can live for a very long time, or a dragon like Gwyneira. And Alexandra received the blessing of immortality, so she also does not understand. I have lived for over four hundred years which is far longer than most and I am happy with my life. Still, I do regret that I will be leaving Salvia, since she sees me as a mother.'

After reading that, Marcus thought that it would be the last entry but as he turned the page, there was one more, which told him about what happened to the spirit and Juniper.

'Salvia read my diary and begged me not to die, but I told her that I was ready, and that I had no intention to extend my life any longer. And while it took me a little while, I did manage to console her and get her to see things from my perspective. Except what she asked me next was far from my expectations. She said she wanted to protect my legacy and would become the eternal caretaker of the atrium that I designed. I told her that she should focus on her own life, but she is as stubborn as me. So, we have made a plan to merge her with one of the trees in the flower garden, where she will be able to protect and empower every other plant within the atrium. Though to do this she will need what remains of my power and I will need to bury myself under the tree and willingly give all I have left to her.'

Finishing that last entry, a small stream of tears flowed down Mrazivý's face, and Marcus himself felt a sense of sadness.

Still, they had both learned a lot from reading this book, and while they had not obtained what they were originally looking for, a past question of theirs had been answered.

"So now we know what that amethyst blossom tree really is."