Ed came to in Hell.

Or at least, it seemed like Hell to him.

He was in some dessicated land, ground cracked and three burning suns above, each redder than the other. There were no signs of life, with only a few withered and twisted remnants of plants in sight.

He hadn’t ‘woken up’, more gradually blinked into being.

He thought he saw dark mountains in the distance, but soon realized it was a mass of roiling shadows. It was quickly closing the distance between them, crashing towards Ed like a tsunami.

He stared, jaw slackening in surprise.

Red lightning flashed in between the clouds as a will thundered into his mind.

YOU WILL MAKE GOOD FOOD FOR MY CHILDREN. PUNISHMENT FOR STEALING WHAT IS MINE, MORTAL.

The voice hadn’t spoken in a language Ed knew, but he still understood it crystal clear.

Choking, Ed stumbled as they ripped apart everything behind his eyes and seemed to set his brain on fire.

He- what- was he going to die-

A soft chuckle echoed from behind him, and he suddenly found himself in a pure white space, soft golden light infusing the space.

He turned back slowly, so extremely lost and desperately not wishing to feel so confused.

Behind him was a large stone, surrounded only by white space. A figure sat upon it, cross-legged and somehow radiating leisure.

It seemed to be a cross between a monkey and a human, and was clad in golden armor that was decorated with beautiful splashes of runic engravings. Playfulness was evident in its face as it gazed down at Ed and smiled conspiratorially. The beings eyes seemed to bore into Ed’s very soul.

It suddenly let out a cackle and called out.

“Close call, Ed. You’ve really pissed off this Hekamuth.”

Ed choked back a ‘Huh?’. He didn’t want to sound stupid in front of the being that was likely his patron.

“I’m Wukong!!”

The being suddenly disappeared, reappearing in front of Ed with its hand reaching out for a shake. Yeah, this was the Monkey King himself.

Ed gulped and extended his own, which Wukong took and shook vigorously while smiling. He had very sharp teeth.

“Hi, I’m Ed.”

“I know! I didn’t expect to meet you so soon, but the being from Heloth would have torn your soul to shreds if I hadn’t intervened.”

“Uh… Thanks.”

“Ok, do you want the good news or bad news first?”

Ed gulped.

“Good news, please.”

“Bad news it is. Ok, so Hekamuth is dead set on you now. He can’t really do much until more of his people are over in Earth and this dimension has a higher density of manna, but he’ll be likely sending visions to his shamans to hunt you like a dog.”

“And the good news?” Ed asked, trying to tell himself that it would be ok, there was a magic monkey to watch over him now.

Wukong, he who had been borne from a mountain, lived for a millenia, challenged the heavens and won (sort of) giggled.

“Sorry, I lied about the good news. The other bad news is that the Spirit Realm is kind of in deep shit too! Earth has been slowly losing its essence and manna over the past millennia, limiting the amount of things we can do from our Realm. And a month ago, the manna of Earth finally fell to a low enough level for the gods of Heloth to rip rifts into our dimension.”

Ed was fucked.

Wukong suddenly turned very serious.

“They ‘re hungry, you know. Their world has been dying for a long time. So they’re very, very hungry. They come from a place that really was dog eat dog. Or goblin eat goblin.” Then he giggled.

Ed couldn’t quite place his thumb on it, but he suspected Wukong might be insane. Or at the very least, had the same kind of torturous humor as his father had had. He couldn’t decide what would be worse.

“But it’s a good thing that a lot of humans survived for a month while we gathered all of the strength that we could to implement the System! Almost a billion of you guys.”

“Some of you humans are truly monstrous, you know. Even with the barely existent and dwindling levels of spiritual energy, a few of you still have the potential to shake the Heavens. Actually, you’re pretty far behind the pack when it comes to Blesseds. Your Spirit is not too bad, but Body and Mind could use a lot of work.”

Wukong walked around him, eyes thoughtful, as Ed tried to keep him in his sight.

“I have a few questions about the System and how it works, Wukong. And what are the Body, Mind, Spirit stats, exactly?”

“Heck if I know! I just lent the smart ones some of my power to power it! The amount of manna and work that went into the System is astronomical, and its inner workings are a mystery to even the ones who built it. I will tell you a couple things about the stats though.”

“The Body is what it sounds like. It encompasses your physical manifestation in this world, and affects your physical characteristics. The System recognizes any special characteristics as Traits! For example, one of mine is 'Stoneborn', describing my godly endurance and strength!"

Wukong grinned proudly and flicked his nose.

"Your Mind is your mental ability to sense understand the world around you, all of which is infused with 'manna', the life-force of all things. The 'miasma' you humans have been describing is really just an extremely high concentration of manna from Heloth being dispersed into Earth. Soon, every animal, plant, and rock will have adapt to the new level of manna for better or for worse... The manna from Heloth is very... aggressive. Also, the higher your Mind, the more you'll be able to use manna in structured and unstructured forms!

The System may give you Skills, which are systemic ways to use manna, but the more you familiarize yourself with sensing and guiding the flow of manna, you'll be able to use it in more flexible and unstructured ways. There are as many ways to use manna as there are people, I guess. My favorite spell is 'Cloud walking'."

Wukong was suddenly standing on a golden cloud, and he took off in a blur, did a couple of cartwheels and landed behind Ed.

"Your spirit is... your soul, your essence. Essence is what generates manna, you see. Even when you use and run out of manna, as long as your essence is intact, your manna will fill back up. The stronger your Body, the more manna you're able to contain. The stronger your Spirit is, the more essence you can hold within your soul. At least, that's what some others say."

"My gift to you, the Dao of True Sight... is one of the most powerful Spirit based Skills I have. Actually, it's hard to characterize it as a Trait, Skill, or anything else. These spirit-based skills are called Daos, Wills, and Tother names. They have more to do with your soul, faith, and spirit than your Body or manna.

It'll allow you to walk your own path, if you so choose.

I know it's a little complicated, but don't worry. Not everyone can be as awesome as me and cultivate all three!”

Wukong laughed and rambled on, answering the few questions Ed managed to interject with.

“So, basically, raising my Body stat will allow me to have and train better Traits and hold more manna, improving my Mind will allow me to use manna, and training my Spirit will strengthen my essence and Dao. There are largely two ways to train these traits, and that's to either accomplish feats that train me naturally, and to absorb artifacts like the blood crystal."

“Exactly! And it helps to have all three in balance… I wish Bruce Lee was still alive. With my blessing, he’d have been invincible!”

Wukong let out a maniacal cackle, that stopped almost as abruptly.

“Many of the ‘Gods’ from our Spirit Realm have already perished fighting the beings of Heloth. They are strong. And the remaining gods of Earth haven’t been able to give out blessings willy nilly, like we used to be able to a couple thousand years ago. Even the strongest of us have given out, maybe a couple dozen blessings or so.”

Wukong tilted his head, scratching his head leisurely and lost in thought.

“You lucked out. Or did not. It depends. These Blood Crystals will make you stronger, but also strengthens your connection to Hekamuth every time you eat one.”

“Oh! I know what to do!” He perked up suddenly, popping up in front of Ed and waving his finger in the air. The white space was pleasant and seemed to have a calming effect on him, but he found himself almost wishing that he could go back to the hell-scape that was Earth soon.

Wukong plucked a hair from his own head with an exaggerated flourish, and with a deep breathe, blew it over to Ed.

The hair landed on Ed’s shoulder, and before he could protest, he found himself face to face with ruby red eyes and a face full of white fur.

They looked into each other’s eyes for a second, and started screaming. Well, Ed screamed, which had set the albino monkey off as well. Wukong was rolling on the floor, tears coming out of his mouth and clutching his stomach as it gasped for air between the hoots of laughter.

When everyone had calmed down a bit, Wukong, still chuckling, gave Ed the run-down.

“That’s a true clone. I guess you could say it’s my child. I don’t do this often, you know. It’s basically a really, really smart monkey.”

“It’ll purify the crystals for you. I think. Ok, I gotta go now. Those old geezers have a stick up their ass, and they’re saying they need me back on the front lines. Sheesh, I don’t know how I ended up being one of the reliable ones.”

The albino monkey was preening itself on Ed’s shoulder, tail wrapped around his neck.

“Good luck, Ed. I probably won’t see you for a while, until you’re a lot stronger. This is probably all the divine attention you can handle for now. If it wasn’t for Hekamuth putting you in imminent danger anyways, I wouldn’t even be risking talking to you right now!”

He turned his back, arms clasped around his back, suddenly solemn.

Then he turned around and winked at Ed.

“And teach those fuckers from Heloth a thing or two, Ed. The most important of which is that you don’t fuck with the Monkey King, man.”

--

Ed woke up groggily. He felt a weight on his chest, and opened his eyes to find his vision filled by a face of white fur and red eyes staring back at him. From an inch away.

He screamed, which set off the monkey again.

He thought he heard distant cackling.