Benjamin could see clearer. In their past lives, those spirits were probably humans, animals... After death, their spiritual energy arrived in this specific environment, and, at last, they formed into those unique yet stable spirit creatures.
Most of the time, they would move around based on their instincts. Perhaps they retained some personalities during their lifetime, but that was all.
As Benjamin controlled the small ice ball to move upwards before defrosting it again, the bird hallucinated once more. The spirits immediately regained their energy and fluttered towards the bird again without hesitation.
During the process, they had slowly separated themselves away from the primary radius of high spiritual activities.
With that, the water vapor held the bird to rise continuously. The soundproof ice ball appeared and disappeared, the bird went back and forth from hallucination. Those pitiful spirits had been kept away from the bottom of the abyss through Benjamin's guidance.
Clearly, their capability to adapt to a strange environment was not very strong. In the process of chasing, some spirits left their pack, turned around and flew back to their home. At last, only one particularly dedicated spirit was left and was led all the way near to the exit of the abyss.
"They seem to be afraid of the light." The System was observing the spirits' movement trend and said curiously, "Or rather... light elements? But they're merely spirits, why would they respond with fear towards elements? Perhaps you should try light magic, you might actually be able to trap it."
Benjamin shook his head.
"Wouldn't that kill it directly?"
At that moment, the light around was still very dim, the richness of dark elements far exceeded the normal level. Nevertheless, the last spirit that chased after the bird could not bear it any longer, its body quivered in the vague light and its speed started slowing down.
Benjamin could not help but suspect that, if it were to be brought out of the abyss, even at night, wouldn't it just dissipate?
There was no other way, he could only stop the water vapor that was holding the bird, allowing the last spirit to pounce on the bird to create a "capsule" that would wrap up the bird completely.
It would be better to let it consume the bird. Perhaps, after it finished eating, it would have a stronger resistance towards light than before.
Under the wrapping of the spirit, the body of the bird started aging continuously. Upon seeing that, Benjamin manipulated the water vapor again, allowing it to hold the bird to continue flying upwards, as it held the spirit together as well. Since the spirit was in the process of engulfing its food, it seemed to be less sensitive toward the increasingly bright light source.
Finally, they flew out of the abyss.
It was almost evening, the sunlight was not really intense, yet it was still very bright. After about ten seconds later, the bird had completely turned into bones, the spirit had also left its body. Followed by that, its translucent body started quivering violently under the twilight of the sunset, in addition to that... it was turning transparent.
"Quick! Feed it with food, the light particles are starting to disintegrate its body structure!" The System shouted suddenly.
Benjamin nodded then separated another bird from the big ice ball and dumped it towards the spirit.
Instantly, the spirit stopped quivering, just like an extremely hungry beast, it pounced towards the bird fiercely.
However, this time, its eating process became different. The thin dark elements around seemed to be unable to provide it with an environment to preserve its body, thus, it could not form a "capsule" around the bird, but after pouncing, it directly drilled into the body of the bird.
Benjamin was stunned for a while.
Was that... possession?
As the translucent spirit disappeared before them, they did not know if it totally dissipated at that moment, or if it actually entered the body of that bird. The bird's eyes remained shut, its wings were closed and it was not moving at all as if it was still drowning in the hallucination created by the spirit.
On its body, there were responses similar to when the bird was being "eaten," including feather dropping, shriveling, losing its vitality and so on... except that the responses seemed to be slower by a lot.
"That spirit is still alive, right?" Upon seeing that, Benjamin took a deep breath and asked in his heart.
"Yes, it is still alive." The System answered excitedly, "It... How do I put this... The spirit is living in the bird as a parasite. An extraordinary elemental reaction happened. The dark elements around are slowly flowing into the bird's body as the light elements are slowly pushed outside instead."
Benjamin raised his brows subconsciously.
Interesting...
He still could not figure out the nature of the spirits, however, from the looks of it, other than spiritual energy, both light and dark elements were closely related to them too. They could initiate some elemental reactions that other creatures could hardly complete, even if it merely came from their instinct to survive, it meant that the bodies of those vacuous undead creatures bore unlimited potential.
As for now, it looked like he found a way to carry that toy around?
"Check the condition of that bird." While he thought about that, Benjamin said in his heart.
"Am I your maid? Asking me to do everything..." The System muttered but began reporting in just a while, "The bird is not dead, in reality, its life activities can still be preserved for now. Its weak spiritual energy must have been completely captivated by the spirit, stopping it from moving. However, I think there are no possibilities of the spirit being able to control its body, under the circumstances now, it's really too weak."
"But... the bird is slowly absorbing dark elements." Benjamin asked in return, "If its body is still not sucked dry, one day, will it completely transform into an environment like the bottom of the abyss? Until then, will this spirit become more powerful as well?"
"Hmm... That could be possible," The System thought about it and said, "The only thing is, although the spirit slowed down on eating, the vitality of this bird is still too weak, I'm afraid it won't even last till tomorrow morning."
Benjamin smiled.
"Then, how about this?"
He performed the Elemental Order - Heal again, followed by the clustering of water droplets around the bird, its dead and heavy body suddenly became full of life again.
The System was speechless for a while, after being silent for some time, he said slowly:
"You know, whatever you're doing right now is quite dangerous, you know that you're potentially cultivating a monster?"
"Mages are all monster," Benjamin shrugged and answered, "Thousands and millions of years ago, when humans first summoned flames from their hands, they probably thought that it would destroy that world in the future too, but we still managed to live until today. Any unknown discovery has a possibility to lose control, or even cause a massive disaster, but can we just stay where we are right now just because of that?"
The System stunned for a while then said: "...You really have a lot of sophistry, don't you?
"Thanks for the compliment," Benjamin laughed then said, "What can I do? Ethics and truth contradict each other anyway. If we want to get out of trouble, how can we not bear any risk?"