The spiritual plain was vast, infinite, and ethereal. Currents of elemental energy made up the entire place like rivers of light, and in the middle of that intangible ocean floated him, a high-grade elemental spirit.
His domains encompassed fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, light, darkness, and vitality.
He was a very complex and extremely rare being in the spiritual plain, where it was already uncommon to even have two elements or attributes.
Almost perfect, as intangible elemental spirits usually were, free from physical form and with an existence that could last tens of thousands of years.
Of course, he was also unbearable.
"Come on! That was cheating!" His voice full of energy echoed through one of the infinite spiritual plains.
"Creating a portal right when I launch a sphere of light and darkness doesn't count as strategy, that's cheating!"
In front of him, suspended over a stellar vortex, a higher-grade spatial spirit, a majestic entity with dozens of portals watching everything around them and an overwhelming aura of superiority at the center of all of them, watched him in silence.
"…You're still an unbearable baby." The voice of the spatial spirit echoed like an infinite echo.
"No matter how many elements you control, you keep acting as if everything were a game." The spatial spirit was exasperated by this insolent spirit who didn't care about the hierarchy of spirits and dared to annoy him without fear of the consequences.
"Because it is!" He answered with a cheeky smile, although he was only a sphere that changed color like an aurora borealis, very small compared to the higher-grade spatial spirit that could grow to the size of an entire planet.
"Many high-grade spirits don't want to play with me and spend their time doing nothing as time passes. In the end, you're just a grumpy old man like those foolish lower-grade spirits who have no trace of individuality. What's the point of existing for so long if you don't have fun?"
The spatial spirit became angry. A moment later, the spiritual sky trembled, and a dimensional crack opened beneath his luminous essence, all the high-grade elemental spirits and those below that grade felt fear, so they moved away as fast as possible before it escalated further.
The spatial entity simply raised a finger, as if throwing an annoying piece of trash into a garbage bin.
"Stop bothering me. I'll send you to a place where mana doesn't exist and you'll cease to exist." He would make sure he didn't come back to bother him again, even though the multi-elemental spirit was quite rare and had the ability to become a higher-grade spirit or even higher, he didn't care, it was better to erase him before he started spreading chaos without reason.
"Wait, wait! It was just a little game! I hadn't even used my attack combining all the elements yet!" He shouted as his essence was absorbed by the void.
And so, with the silent crash of a snap, the elemental spirit was expelled from the spiritual plane toward a place where he could not maintain his existence.
But instead of being erased and disintegrated for having nothing to sustain his existence, upon entering the universe his entire being was reduced to a drop that fell into a long slumber, but something out of place happened.
When he woke up, he was no longer a spirit.
He wasn't even aware of being one.
His memories were sealed deep within his soul.
He opened his eyes… and saw a white light bulb hanging from the ceiling of a delivery room.
He screamed.
And for the first time in his entire existence, he cried like a newborn human.
The years passed.
Earth, that small planet located in a universe without magic or other fundamental power, was monotonous for anyone who knew the magnificence of other dimensions.
But for him, who remembered nothing, it was simply a new stage of life.
He discovered video games and fell in love with them.
"Can I stay playing for one more hour?" He asked his mother when he was ten years old.
"You've already been playing for five!" She replied, resigned.
He learned about food, about parties, about friends, about responsibilities.
He became a moderately functional adult. He was lazy but clever, childish but charming in his own way, and among all the new things he experienced, there was one that marked his soul irreversibly.
Sex.
It was not a heavenly revelation nor a particularly grand moment.
Simply, when he reached that stage of life, he discovered that this feeling was the closest thing to ecstasy he had ever felt as a human.
It was warm, intense, intoxicating.
Something he could only feel for a brief moment with some video games, but no online game could quite match that feeling.
"Ah… this… this is better than a legendary power-up…" He whispered the first time, with a silly smile on his face.
Over time, he had a few partners and met the woman who would become his wife. They shared simple days, long nights, and a relatively normal life apart from the fact that he still looked at other women.
He had a son, a daughter, a stable job he hated but tolerated, and although he was never a hero nor a villain, he was happy in his own way.
He didn't need magic.
He didn't need power.
He only needed that lifestyle he had built around himself.
But, like everything on Earth, that story also came to an end.
Death came when his boss, who had returned home after work much earlier than usual, heard moans coming from his daughter's room. He immediately understood that those moans could not be from self-pleasure, so he searched for a gun in a locked drawer and went to the room to scare his daughter's boyfriend for daring to take advantage of her before marriage.
But when he entered, all he received was a scene that was beyond his imagination and filled him with rage. His own wife and daughter fucking one of his employees. Without warning, he shot every bullet into the man's back with the pistol, while penetrating both of them as they embraced and kissed each other, moaning loudly.
Aside from the immense pain he had to endure when he received several gunshots in the back before fainting, it was like falling asleep while listening to the rain.
When he opened his eyes again, the light he saw was not that of the earthly sun or a hospital room, but the pure sight of the plane of the elemental spirits.
His essence, without form or flesh, floated again as a sphere among elemental currents just like before he had become human, although he looked exactly the same and his power didn't seem to have decreased or improved. Something had changed, he was no longer the same pure and ignorant spirit as before.
Now… he remembered.
He remembered everything he had just lived as a human and his existence before becoming human.
"So… I'm back." He whispered, and his voice reverberated like a mischievous laugh.
"Fire, wind, water, earth… and video games! And pizza! And… and soft breasts!"
His entire essence vibrated.
Before, this dimension had seemed infinite and majestic to him, full of secrets he would have loved to explore if he were still human, although he probably would have died because this world was not suitable for beings other than elemental spirits and similar entities.
Now it seemed to him like an empty, flat, and boring place.
Here nothing tasted like pizza, he couldn't enjoy the flavor of food, and of course, nothing in this place could give him what had fascinated him so much on Earth.
"This… is boring." He said, floating like a directionless balloon.
"How did I stand this before?"
Other elemental spirits watched him from afar.
Some remembered him because he used to bother them hundreds of years ago, but that was only a short time for spirits.
Besides, he was always troublesome, too energetic to be taken seriously.
But now there was something different about him. He no longer sought only games, now he had human desires. And although he could no longer feel them physically because he had no body, the emptiness he felt was real, and he wanted to experience again what he had most enjoyed as a human.
And those desires do not disappear easily.
"Ah! I know!" he suddenly exclaimed. "If there are no pleasures here… I'll look for them myself!"
The echoes of his voice made a group of low-rank elementals hide behind the water currents.
"I'm going to make contracts." His tone was a dangerous mix between a child with a mischievous idea and a demon planning a greater prank. "Human summoners, elf women, beast women. Cute summoners, with long legs, soft hips, and… hehehe."
On Earth, he had learned what the tenderness of a hug felt like, the warmth of a body, the softness of skin, and how good it felt to be inside a woman. There was no way to forget something like that. And now that he had power, time, and much more freedom than when he was human, he didn't plan to waste it.
The spiritual plane, being an ethereal universe, could easily connect with many other universes where mana or any other kind of energy existed as a replacement for spiritual power. That allowed spirits to explore them partially.
And if they formed a contract where they directly obtained energy from a conscious entity or through other means, they could manifest and take on a physical form of the spirit's choice.
The "Summoning Contract" was the means by which humans or other intelligent beings with access to different systems of power, in universes where magic existed, could summon spirits and form contracts with them. Normally, high-grade spirits demanded offerings of power, knowledge, or magical energy, which allowed them to strengthen themselves faster than the natural way, which consisted simply of existing for a long time in the spiritual plane with the hope of ascending before their existence ran out.
Although not everything was perfect. If they traveled to other universes, worlds, or dimensions different from the astral plane, they could be trapped or even die. A spirit could only die in its own plane if it reached the limit of its life or was directly eradicated by a higher-grade spirit.
"I'm not interested in becoming more powerful, because with my talent it's only a matter of time." He said with a childishly perverse smile. "Just… cute girls and beautiful women."
A group of nearby spirits watched him with discomfort.
"You're pathetic." Whispered a mid-grade water spirit, who although didn't exactly understand what the strange multi-elemental high-grade spirit meant, for some reason felt contempt.
"You're a genius." Whispered one of wind, infected by his mischievous energy and enjoying the chaos that the eccentric multi-elemental spirit always caused.
And so, floating in the middle of the ethereal currents, he outlined his plan. He would travel from universe to universe, responding only to female summoners. He would give them power, protection, and strength… and in return, demand what he had learned to enjoy most as a human.
He didn't need a throne because it made no sense for a spirit like him, it would only waste time.
He didn't need revenge against the spatial spirit who had expelled him, in fact, deep down, he was grateful for what he had done.
He didn't need redemption, because although he felt a bit guilty for leaving his wife and children alone and a little bad for his boss's wife and daughter, he made sure that at least his family could have a comfortable life thanks to the insurance and the money he had saved all his life except for the expenses on necessities and a few computers and consoles. He trusted that his wife would move on for the sake of their children.
Now he only needed… fun.
Before leaving, he observed the spiritual plane that felt quite dreamlike once more. Everything here remained the same as when he left, although perhaps it was because he was in a plain quite isolated from others. Everything remained orderly, perfect, eternal, and unchanged.
"Perfection is boring." He said, with a tone that mixed disdain and mockery. "Human imperfection is much more fun."
And with a bright laugh, he approached one of the many spatial distortions that connected to other worlds. His multiple elemental attributes shone one after another like a living constellation. He was free again. And this time… he was not going to waste that freedom.
Somewhere in a magical universe, a young mage was lighting a summoning circle hoping that some spirit would hear her call, even if it was a lower-grade one.
In another, an elf princess was preparing a contract in hopes of avoiding a political marriage and embarking on an adventure to protect her kingdom with her own hands.
In another, an inexperienced, nervous, and trembling girl whispered the words that would open a magical summoning circle, while being watched by her mother and father who blocked the house door with their bodies to keep the invading monsters out of the village.
He was able to observe many people performing summoning rituals, each in a different way, but fulfilling the same purpose. He focused first on those three and planned to look for more later. He instantly discarded the men and creatures that didn't fit his tastes.
Since he couldn't be in many places at once, he focused on those few women, then planned a schedule so they could summon him and expand his harem.
"Cute, sexy, mature, immature, single, married, with families and without families… here I come!"
His childish, shameless, and desire-filled laughter echoed through the dimensional currents, announcing the return of a spirit who, more than power… sought pleasure.