Kinda being updated atm – probably going to keep filling it out whenever there are no sponsored chapters in the queue…

Hello, I figured that as the story progresses there might be a lot of stuff to keep in mind so I thought of making a Glossary/FAQ to help keep track of stuff. If you have any questions you want answered, post them here ^.^

Important Characters (so far and in order of appearance)

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Raven Nightingale: Our main character! With purple hair so dark it almost looks black, and originally forest green eyes, Raven Nightingale has the makings of a stunning beauty. When moving naturally, she has a feline grace to her that gives Raven an air of mystery.

Lady Besra Nightingale: The mother of Raven and Hoatzin. When the story starts, she is in her early thirties and is a mid Spirit Adept, trained in the art of Divine Healing Skills. She loves her children and husband dearly. With violet hair and hazel brown eyes, Lady Besra has a warm and noble air about her.

Lord Maleo Nightingale: The father of Raven and Hoatzin. Lord Maleo is of noble birth and is the Prefecture Lord of Nightingale Prefecture, one of the three prefectures within Sky Empire. When the story stars he is in his mid thirties and about to become a mid Spirit Champion. He is a large, sturdy man – with forest green eyes and mahogany brown hair – that despite being weighed down by the responsibilities of his title, always finds time to spend with his family.

Hoatzin Nightingale: The older brother of Raven, by almost six years and has his mother’s eyes but his father’s hair. Hoatzin is the heir to the Nightingale Prefecture and, as such, has been drilled to be polite and diligent from an early age. He is very fond of his sister and becomes quite playful in her company.

Aunt Anhinga Talon: The older sister of Maleo. She is married to Gyps Talon, the head of a noble merchants clan – the Talon Clan. Her cultivation level is unknown but the is undoubtedly a spiritualist.

Sky Empress Nene: The wife of the Sky Empire’s emperor. She and Besra are childhood friends who trained as healing spiritualists together. Her current cultivation level is unknown. Empress Nene is lithe and petite with long white hair which flows like water in the wind.

Sky Emperor Mallard: The ruler of Sky Empire. He is roughly the same age as Maleo and is also a spiritualist. His cultivation level is unknown. Empror Mallard is muscular and tall with short trimmed pitch black hair.

Twins Lark and Martin Griffin: Heirs to the current Prefecture Lord of Black Griffin Prefecture. They are younger than Hoatzin by one month. Although young, the twins show every sign of taking after their father’s appearance, both with hair as red and wild as a raging fire and bodies built for war. The only difference in their physique is due to the fact that Martin prefers the heavy sword causing him to focus on brute strength more than his twin brother Lark.

Dunlin Talon: The son and heir of Anhinga and Gyps Talon. He is older than Hoatzin by one month.

Javelin Hake: A foreign exchange student from Sea Empire that impresses everyone by his fast development. He is older than Raven by four years. Javelin’s appearance is fairly unique this far north; with his golden hair, long enough to cover his ears but not long enough to reach his shoulders and the thin braid extending down his back, and slightly sun tanned skin, Javelin sticks out in the paler Sky Empire were most people also tend to have darker hair colors. His eyes are however the most unique aspect as they are like two supernovas; an amazing fusion of light and dark blues, violets and even some steaks gold, swirling together.

Fenris: A mysterious man Raven met in the wilderness between Nightingale Prefecture and Rock Wren Prefecture. Despite overall human looks, a tail and a set of snow white lupine ears reveal Fenris’ spirit beast origin. Little is known about Fenris except that he is immensely powerful and he that offered his assistance to Raven on account of her saving his grandchild from bandits.

The Four Mercenary Uncles: Hog, Emu, Dove and Saltmarsh are four sworn brothers of varying age who have banded together as a mercenary group. The first came into contact with Raven on her journey to Sky City and play a big part in getting her there swiftly and with her cover story intact. They quickly grew fond of Raven and insist that she call them her Uncles.

Jack Tanuki: A foreign exchange student from Earth Empire who puts great importance in social ranks and power. His father is an influential council member for Earth Empire and Jack quickly finds a friend, or at least ally, in Dunlin Talon.

Headmaster Eider Swan

Vice Headmaster Smew Gadwall

Elder Myrtus Willow

Bill of the Nightingale Clan

Common Terms Among Spiritualists (alphabetically)

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Cultivation level: Spiritualists are divided into levels depending on their level of prowess, their cultivation level. The three common levels are (in order from weakest to strongest): Spirit Novice, Spirit Adept and Spirit Champion. These levels are in turn divided up in low, mid and high. As for the average cultivation speed, have a look at the following chart. Apart for the spirit connections that are divided up by when the soul prism would shift in color, the numbers show the amount of years required – from start of cultivation – to peek within the relevant level.

“Basic” is the overall average, “Sky Ac.” is for all the students enrolled at Sky Academy, and “Advanced” is for the students in the Advanced Classes and “Raven” is, well Raven, but counting from after the incident.

Divine Skills: These are the various skills that spiritualist employ to effectively use their spirit essence. The two main groups of Divine Skills are Divine Martial Skills and Divine Healing Skills, but there exist other, smaller, groups such as Divine Crafting Skills. All Divine Skills have to be learnt by imprinting it in the soul. How effective a skill is, is not solely dependent on how well it is grasped but also by its initial level. There are in total nine levels.

Skill Imprint: A imprint is needed in order to learn a new skill. Even if a spiritualist is able to copy the physical move and grasp the general movement of spirit essence used to preform a Divine Skill, without the soul imprint, they won’t be able to preform it properly. Attempting to do preform a Divine Skill without the correct imprint might, in some rare cases, even backfire on the practitioner.

Soul ore: A mined mineral that is used to make equipment used by spiritualists.

Soul prism: The crystallized soul that is a requirement for a person to be able to become a spiritualist. The soul grows stronger at a steady pace, sometimes influenced by major events in a persons life. As it does, the color of the prism changes; starting at white, then red, orange, yellow…..

Spirit beasts: Animals that have evolved to the point were they can absorb spirit essence in a manner similar to spiritualists. However, their cultivation comes naturally and they grew stronger steadily as long as they are alive. Different breads have different potential and are therefore divided into low, mid or high level. A low level beast is comparable to a Spirit Novice, a mid level is in the realm of Adepts and high level spirit beasts contend with Spirit Champions.

Spirit connections: Singular strands that connect the crystallized soul of a spiritualist to the surrounding word. These connections allow the spiritualist to not only become one with their surroundings, increasing their natural senses, they also control the rate at which a spiritualist can absorb spirit essence. The stronger a spiritualists soul is, the more connections it is capable of having.

Spirit core: A spiraling vortex of pure spirit essence located slightly below the navel of every spiritualist. This is the foundation of their cultivation and the power source when activating Divine Skills.

Spirit essence: The spirit force spiritualists can absorb from the world around them and use to improve their cultivation.

Spirit Halls: Places of extreme concentrations of spirit essence. Some are constructed, others appear naturally. Once a year, during the Day of Light, immense amounts of spirit essence flood into these halls and might help spiritualists break through bottlenecks in their cultivation.

Spirit Star: The symbol of spiritualists, often used when designing essence strengthening formations such as in the Spirit Halls. It’s a nine-pointed star, formed by three overlapping triangles, where each side has it’s own color and mineral.

Spirit Stone: A stone wore, normally as a pendant, by spiritualists. The stone’s color reveals the level of cultivation its user has. Although spiritualists don’t need to carry them, most still do since it has other benefits.

Observed Divine Skills (by level)

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Sonic Swords: A rare set of evolving Divine Skills. It starts as the level one skill, and once a level is mastered, the imprint mutates and revels a new, higher level, skill. Observed levels so far are:

1. Deafening Sweep (level 1): A powerful sword swing that also produces intense sound waves.
2. Shrill Rift (level 2): The swing gains in speed and the frequency of the sound is increased, and so is the pressure it exudes.
3. Rendering Whistle (level 3): An extremely strong whistle accompanies this strike that has the second most destructive force of the Sonic Sword moves.
4. Silent Pierce (level 4): The speed of the blade has reached new heights and the sound it produces is now so high-pitched that most humans can’t hear it at all anymore. It is a slightly weaker strike than the Rendering Whistle, but what is lacks in strength, it makes up for in speed
5. Whispered Blast (level 5):
6. Dance of Bells (level 6)

Blessed Hand (level 2): One of the easier Divine Healing Skills that allows the practitioner to transfer nurturing spirit essence through their hands to a wounded area. It requires contact and can only heal injuries to flesh and bones, not cure deceases or poisons.

Flaming River (level 3): A long-distance fire attack taking the form of a long river of fire, ten meters long, that flows in a straight line towards the chosen target.

Frozen Onslaught (level 3):

Shadow Walk (level 3): A close combat movement technique that is fairly easy to learn but hard to completely master. It gives the practitioner momentary bursts of extreme speed, causing shadow images to appear as they move.

Thunder Lock (level 3):

Wind Storm Claw (level 3): A wind embedded technique used for broadsword.

Frozen Blade (level 4): A Skill that gives the spiritualist’s swords and blades a strong ice attribute, capable of freezing weaker targets instantly on contact.

Ember Palm (level 5): A hard-learned Divine Skill that turns the practitioner’s hands into smoldering embers with immense fighting power. When mastering the technique there are two stages that must be completed before the skill is complete. Ember Palm and Ember Palm Exploding Fist. The first stage turns the skin into embers, the second deepens the transformation allowing the practitioner to create an exploding force with every palm strike.

Inferno Sword (level 5): A Skill that gives the spiritualist’s swords and blades a very strong fire attribute, capable of incinerating weaker targets instantly on contact. The strength of the fire element will increase with the spiritualists cultivation.

Void Tracker (level 5): A supplementary movement Skill with three stages of mastery. The first stage nullifies any noise made by the movement of anyone within the spiritualist effective range – usually around one meter for every ten spirit connections they posses. The second stage would nullify the wind resistance for anyone within the same range, instantly giving a speed boost that would increase exponentially as the original seed rose – at low speeds it would at most make it harder to detect the movement, but at higher speeds this effect would be enormous. Finally, in the third stage the Void Tracker would hide the activation of any agility related Divine Skill (including itself), also this stage was applicable to others within range if mastered completely.

Spacial Dash (level 6):

True Mirage Cyclone (level 6): A high speed, rotating martial skill that can be preformed as a kick or with a sword and that has en element of both wind power and illusion present. Once fully mastered, the skill causes strong currents of air to stab at the target and also hides the visual approach of the attack.

Twilight Lullaby (level 6): A unique Divine Skill designed for control. The practitioner uses the tune of the Lullaby to mentally subdue anyone who hears it – unless the target has a significantly higher cultivation. Its consumption rate is rather high but it is an ultimate technique for defense and sneak attacks.

Those of you who know your Shakespeare should recognize the lyrics of this song 😉

Ode of Woe (level N/A):

Retribution (level N/A):