“Riza,” Lefie called, drawing out her name as she walked alongside her friend. “Could I use my skills to dig through the blockage rather than Jakks?”

She had been wary about how useful the skill would be in killing demons when they had experimented the other day but after seeing it in action, she felt optimism like never before.

Sure, she was friends with Riza and respected her higher level but that never really evolved into anything else; Lefie saw them as rather equal.

But after yesterday? The respect transcended into muted awe. She had conjure and [Manipulate Water] for the better part of a year by now, and not once had she ever thought about using them like Riza had.

Even when she was undergoing training after joining the Dominion, her ‘trainer’ never once suggested anything even close to what Riza did; she was purely taught that using a crossbow was the most she could do in a fight.

But to kill multiple demons while using less than 200 points of essence? If she hadn’t done it herself she’d have laughed at whoever suggested it, but it was true. And Riza, somehow, in her deep wisdom, taught Lefie about how much more useful she could be.

It was those feelings that caused the teenager to so easily agree to Riza requesting her to not spend two skill points and to keep them in reserve. She had enough reasons to trust her friend by now and knowing her, there was a damn good reason.

It was also this level of respect for Riza’s knowledge, and acknowledgement of how much more capable the woman was than her, that Lefie found herself asking for Riza’s advice.

Riza didn’t respond right away, taking time to think through the question.

“No, probably not. If you’re digging sideways, you’d need a lot more water to create the same amount of pressure and that would take too much essence,” She began, with Lefie understanding why that was a problem.

“The tunnel probably wouldn’t be stable either.” Was her second reason.

Right. That makes sense why that would be an issue.

Luckily, the tunnels they were wandering through were all mined or excavated unnaturally, ensuring their stability through compacted, sturdy walls and wooden beams and rafters holding the ceiling aloft.

They were also decently sized, lacking the claustrophobic feeling Lefie was scared about when she first learnt she’d be staying underground for some time.

But that didn’t mean the sight of earthen walls for hours didn’t drain on her.

They had been walking for some time now, following whatever twists and turns there were. The wooden supports, past a certain point, were more decayed and older than she would’ve liked, almost threatening to break apart if someone so much as spat on them.

The ground was rougher and more uneven, and lighting hard to come by; they were mostly seeing from the one lantern that they had brought with them.

With how far into the tunnels they had travelled, it was obvious not many went this deep. There must be a reason for that. Lefie couldn’t help but feeling a growing anxiety within her. With each step she took, she was further away from the outpost.

Thankfully, the rest of her party were relatively composed throughout. No one complained nor despaired. That helped to ease her mind somewhat.

Then they came across a tunnel. Intersection after intersection, walking through miles of desolate isolation, they finally came across the first signs of life.

Corpses. Human corpses, though not murdered by a demon. Chunks of rocks and boulders had smashed and collapsed onto the poor people, squishing them until death.

The tunnel had collapsed a bit further in, with an ominous arm reaching out from beneath the pile of rocks, the rest of the body unable to be found.

Red splattered the walls, and the smell drifted many strides out of the area, drawing them closer as they wondered what it was.

Decaying bodies. They had likely been caught in the initial vibration, left dying alone. They suffocated as their collapsed lungs failed to draw breaths or succumbed to blood loss as there was no one there to patch up their wounds.

It was a gruesome sight and not one Lefie wanted to look at for very long.

“Another blockage,” Artiv said stoically. Is he unfazed by all of this? “Jakks, how deep does it go?”

Reluctantly, the kindly earth neophyte gingerly walked between bodies as he made his way towards the wall of rock, reaching out a hand and using whatever skill he had to sense how much earth there was between them and the other side of the tunnel.

“Deep. Similar to before,” He replied, shaking his head in dismay.

“We keep lookin’ then,” Artiv replied, but even his optimism in his voice was clearly faked.

The tunnel was quiet except for the sound of heavy breathing, the rustling of clothes, and the clinking of metal.

Everyone was sitting on the ground, resting against the walls and taking deep breaths as they recovered their energy.

Riza was used to a lot of exercise but walking nearly all day was a lot, even for her. Her stamina was very low and she spent a lot of the fighting just now behind Skerry and Artiv, picking off demons that nearly hit them with [Leech].

Thankfully, it was a smaller group this time. Much more manageable.

“Are there usually this many attacks?” Riza asked to no one in particular. Back before the quake, it wasn’t this frequent. Is it because we’re further in, the quake itself, or a combination of the two?

“No, there shouldn’t be this many. It’s… Unusual,” Skerry answered, tired from all the physical exertion, even with his superior physical form.

“Not that unusual,” Artiv chimed in. “After the last attack, there was more fighting, briefly. It toned down when you joined us.”

It fluctuates, then. Is it like an ecosystem pressure? More prey results in more predations which lowers prey, therefore lowering predation, which causes the population of prey to increase, and it repeats itself.

Or, is it orchestrated? An unnatural fluctuation? They did say these demons were smarter--they only ever attack in groups, for one. Riza shuddered. I hope pack tactics will be the most of our worries.

Another wall of fog. Or is it the same one? We’re made so many turns I don’t know. They weren’t lying when they said this place is like a maze.

When the group entered the large chamber housing the illustrious fog wall, Artiv suddenly smashed his hand against the wall, causing a mild tremor to resound throughout the room as rocks tinkled off his armour, falling from the ceiling and the wall.

“We’ve walked in a circle,” He nearly grunted, clearly annoyed. “We’ve made no fucking progress. It’s all been a waste.” He smashed the wall again, albeit lighter this time.

Riza made sure to keep her distance, one eye on Artiv and another on the tunnel itself. She had no idea just how strong he physically was and she was in no hurry to find out.

No one dared to say anything. The only sound that could be heard was that of whistling. A constant, whining noise in the back of Riza’s head, ever present; even when she tried to pay it no attention.

These tight walls amplified the noise, creating a maddening echo. She doubted anyone would be able to remain sane in these conditions if they spent more than a week down here.

A whole day. I’ve spent a whole day under the ground, trapped. How many more days will I spend here?

Riza was lying on her back, staring up at the boring ceiling above her. A faint firelight from the lantern projected dancing shadows above her, their flickering shapes both breaking up the monotony of the earth as well as providing cause for delaying her sleep.

Lefie had long since succumbed to her bodily needs, sleeping quietly as her exhausted and aching body had longed for.

Jakks, likewise, seemed to be asleep. Even skerry was sleeping, although not as long as the rest of them; Artiv and Skerry had agreed to take shifts keeping watch while the rest were sleeping, only getting half of the required amount of sleep.

Riza wanted to argue—she knew all too well how deadly sleep deprivation could be—but, apparently, their superior physical stats helped to negate the deficits of sleep deprivation.

Better them than the rest, as they said.

Still, she couldn’t quite get to sleep. Her mind was contorted with worry.

Just walking around won’t work. At least, it’s unlikely; we’ve already encountered another blockage. I doubt any other tunnels will be different.

What can we do, then? Dig through? Jakks would need days to do so, which means he’d require a source of food and drink, as well as the rest of us.

Lefie could handle the water just fine, like she did on the journey here, but food is another issue. The demons apparently can’t be eaten—if you’re starving, you’ll still be starving after eating them—so that’s the biggest obstacle there.

No plant life, no animals, and no rations we brought with us. That option seems like a non-starter.

Plan two; have Lefie dig through the tunnel and Jakks reinforce it to keep it stable. There’s multiple ways of doing this.

Let’s say she cuts the tunnel out for us completely. In which case, since we can crawl, it’d need to be one metre by one metre. Since she’d be cutting into stone sideways, she wouldn’t be able to use gravity for the acceleration, so that’d just be four metres per second squared.

To produce the amount of pressure needed to cut through stone, you’d need… a fuck ton of water. Yep; that’s a no-go for Lefie.

What about a different method? Cutting out just an outline while the soldiers handle clearing out the bulk of dirt and stone? We don’t have any shovels or pickaxes with us, and Jakks would have to make it sturdy somehow.

In theory, since she can [Conjure Water] in a radius around herself and doesn’t have to spawn from her physical body, she could dig into the stone and then spawn the water in there.

It’d saturate the dirt and make it weaker, though that may not be a good thing.

Alternatively, she’d be able to cut sections of the wall out, massively speeding up digging.

Would Lefie be able to cut through stone sideways? Maybe not, but if it’s at an angle? Four is a minimum while ten is a maximum, and the effective acceleration will be somewhere in between. Too many calculations to do In my head. Riza groaned.

Easier to actually try it. Should I make that suggestion? She turned, wrapped up in her cloak, as she contemplated her plans for tomorrow.

Fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen?

“You want to go back to the blockage?” Skerry asked, his face neutral.

“I’ve got an idea; a way to speed up tunnelling,” Riza answered.

He waited for her to expand upon that sentence.

“Lefie can cut through stone with her skills. I think she may be able to dig through the stone and so all Jakks has to do is make sure the new tunnel is stable.”

Skerry didn’t respond right away, giving it some thought.

“Are you sure this will work?”

“I’m not, but there’s no way of knowing unless we try it.”

“Okay. We’ll head back.”

She let out of a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.

“Okay. What do I do?” Lefie asked, staring at an uneven, irregular [Amalgam] of stone and rock and earth.

It turned out the fog wall was the same one they had encountered before; a bad sign for making progress in escaping but good for actually making it back to where they started.

No demons had attacked during that time, as well. Was it because they weren’t as deep in the tunnels?

The teenager was nervous, her body shaking as the weight of everyone’s expectations was resting on her.

Riza wasn’t even the one doing it and she could feel how Lefie was on the verge of breakdown already. She tried to keep her tone confident but gentle. She wasn’t sure she succeeded.

“Like you do when you attack, [Conjure Water] but array it in a horizontal pillar. Reaching back down the tunnel.

“Afterwards, instead of letting gravity pull the water downwards, you have to push the water sideways.

“Cut a square into the wall. We’ll see if you can do this to begin with.” Riza explained.

“That’s-That’s going to be difficult. Making some water stand still and the other move. I’ll try.”

Riza took a step back while the rest were already keeping their distance. Water was a deceptively deadly instrument.

Lefie got to work. Her hand cupped nothing until a ball of water appeared from nowhere in only a second. She kept it in her hand for a few seconds, working slowly as she tried to handle her nerves and ignore the gnawing hunger all of them were feeling by now.

The ball floated up into the air, stretching out and flattening itself down into a thin, narrow cylinder lying parallel to the floor.

Before moving the water closer to the wall, she gave a few experimental pushes, pulling an even thinner bar of water out of the water container and then pushing that back in.

Once she felt confident with moving different sections of water at different speeds, Lefie walked towards the blockage, the water following like an obedient puppy.

She took a deep breath, probably hoping it would work, as she directed the water directly in front of her.

The air was tense, each person hoping that it’d work.

And it did. The water pushed itself out of a small hole, amplifying the pressure as it dug effectively into the dirt. Quickly, she manoeuvred the water around, cutting four straight lines into her canvas, all perpendicular to each other.

Riza couldn’t hide her joy, a smile on her face as the first prospect of their escape realised. She hurriedly walked up to Lefie, seeing a faint, tentative smile on her lips.

“This is perfect. It might actually work.

“Next, look into the hole you’ve dug. You see the back of it?” Lefie made a sound of affirmation. “Can you conjure some water there?” Riza asked.

“I think I can but I won’t be able to stretch it out.”

“That doesn’t matter. Since we aren’t relying on gravity, it doesn’t need to be stacked on top of each other to work. You can amass the water in any shape as long as you squeeze it through a small hole. You understand?” A nod.

Quickly enough, the waterways in the wall were quickly irrigated.

“Good. Like before, cut through dirt so you connect these two sides together.” Riza pointed at two cuts, trusting Lefie to not hurt her.

“I think I can do that.”

It took a little longer to do this, and required Lefie to restock on water, but she eventually managed to cleave through a square section of wall.

Riza imagined a ‘pop’ sound as Lefie pushed out a perfectly cuboidal piece of wall with the water. It was small—only about ten centimetres by ten centimetres—but as a proof of concept, it couldn’t have been better.

“You’re amazing, Lefie. This is amazing,” Riza said as she took the cube of earth from the teenager’s hands. It was ten by ten by ten. To cut through a one metre cubed piece of earth, it’d take 1000 cubes to do so.

“Can you do this quicker? Bigger? How much essence did it take?” Should’ve asked the last one first; that’s the most important.

“I don’t know but it only took ten essence.”

“How much is your total?”

“I’ve only got about 500 left.” Right. She regenerates essence super slowly.

Is there a skill that allows me to transfer essence from myself to someone else?

Nothing? Shit. Well, I suppose we’d just have to make do.

Time for her to get [Knowable Essence]?

“How close do you think you are to your next level up?” Riza asked, causing Lefie to get her to lean down as she whispered to her.

“I’ve already levelled up but I’m saving the skill point.” Forgot about that.

“Anyway. You have 500 essence? That only took 10, so you can do it 50 times today.” That’s slow. Slower than Jakks clearing this tunnel normally, I’d imagine.

“New test. Let’s go bigger. Make each cut twice as large this time.” Riza suggested. Square-cube law will help us out here.

“Okay,” Lefie answered, her voice wavering and lacking strength. We’re all hungry here.

Just like before, the teenager dig a square shape into the wall, summoning water deep in and slicing through the earth. She pushed this cube out and gave it to Riza again to inspect.

Just like before, she cut it with water but it’s not soggy at all. Strange.

Size wise, looks to be about twenty by twenty by ten. Can’t be any deeper, it seems. She held the dirt up to her eyes.

“How much essence did this take?”

“Fourteen.”

Cost increased by 40% while the required number reduced to a quarter. 250 needed. This is good.

“Okay. Next, make a square about a metre high,” Riza said, drawing her hand up to two third of her body to give a visual reference for Lefie.

The girl didn’t respond but got straight into the work, used to taking orders from Riza now.

The work went quick and, soon enough, the big square was pushed and collapsed onto the floor into front of them, crumbling into pieces.

Left in the wall was a very strange and unnatural indentation; one metre by one metre by ten centimetres.

Riza was practically vibrating, exuding happiness over how well this was working.

“Everyone, get over here,” She called behind her. The three bystanders tiredly walked up to them.

“So, the plan works. In practice,” Riza began. “Jakks, how deep does this go again?”

“More than ten strides,” He replied promptly.

“And how big is a stride?” The man held out his arms, showing the length. About a metre.

Ten metres. Ten centimetres deep per section. Ten by ten is one hundred.

“How much essence did that take?” Riza asked Lefie.

“About 40.”

40 by 100 is 4000 essence. Still too much but I doubt it’d be much better. Maybe Jakks can help out towards the end. Or Skerry and Artiv. I don’t know.

“Here’s the plan,” Riza began, calling attention to herself with a surprisingly authoritative voice. “Lefie will cut chunks out of the wall about this big. Jakks, you’re job is reinforce the sides to make sure it doesn’t collapse. Keep it stable. You can do that?”

“I should be able to.”

“Good. Skerry, Artiv, and I will be on the lookout,” Riza continued, looking at the soldiers.

“We’ll be at different distances so we can get a signal out quickly. One of you will be at 300 strides, the other at 200 strides, and I’ll stay around 100 strides.

“If you see any sign of demons, retreat so we can regroup. Even without any sign, do that about every hour. If I don’t see either of you for two hours, I’ll return towards Jakks and Lefie and we will prioritise building some defences.

“Both of you understand?” Skerry promptly agreed and Artiv after a few seconds, though he didn’t hide his unhappiness with it.

Whatever. They don’t need to like this course of action; it’s the best we’ve got.

“Lefie. Get started.”

I am bored. Riza couldn’t help herself; she was staring into the darkness before her, eyes adjusted to the faintest of light in there.

They only had one lantern with them but Skerry had some torches with him in his pack that he had brought from the outpost. They lit them with the fire from the lantern and were still going.

He had coated them with some black, sticky liquid. Riza suspected it was the same that Renald had used on his fences; some kind of highly flammable and long lasting fuel.

Such a material fascinated her for it’s possible properties but now was not the time to experiment with that.

She was a lookout. Keeping her eyes in front of her and periodically checking in with both Skerry and Artiv to make sure nothing had happened or was going to happen.

And it was all peaceful so far. As much as Riza wish she didn’t feel that way, it was unfortunate.

It was boring.

[Well of Essence] [Level up]

At least that’s something.

She struggled to focus her mind on anything, not wanting to get too engrossed lest she miss some dangerous signs. An internal war waged in her head.

The liquid reminds me of pitch, a bit. It’s pitch black, highly flammable, and very viscous—although, not as viscous as pitch. I doubt it takes decades to drip one drop.

Inevitably, her mind turned towards skills.

I can’t be the first person to suggest using water skills in such a way, can I? From what Lefie has said, apparently, the Dominion teaches how to attack using water skills primarily through drowning.

That, or crowd control. Washing people off their feet, distracting them with splashes. When she would encounter something that couldn’t drown, such as demons, she was advised to use her crossbow.

The technique—which really needs a name—is far too effective for a crossbow to be a better alternative. So, either the Dominion genuinely don’t know about using water skills in that way or they’re deliberately hiding it?

Maybe because it’s so powerful, they don’t want low-levelled people from being that dangerous? A form of suppression, perhaps?

It’s all so complicated. A bunch of politics that I have no idea about. It was simple back in the forest.

She sighed, remembering what felt like many months ago by now. So much had happened in so short a time.

Riza brought her hand up before her eyes, staring at it, imagining water emanating from her fingertips.

Water is complex. There’s a lot you can do with it. Presumably, what Lefie creates is pure dihydrogen monoxide.

However, she is also able to manipulate river water, and that’s definitely not pure. That means she controls things which are chemically not pure hydrogen dioxide.

Just how far does that extend? If we dissolve salt into water, can she control all of the saltwater? Saltwater contains sodium and chlorine ions. If she can control saltwater, can she control sodium chloride as well? Regular table salt?

Then, that can extend to other salts. Other metals. Where does the system draw the line?

There’s a lot of experimentation there. I don’t even know if Lefie actually produces pure water. We can drink it so it’s certainly not saltwater but it may contain minerals or electrolytes or a bunch of other stuff.

Riza dropped her hand, momentarily staring down the tunnel to where Lefie and Jakks were working hard.

And what about him? He can control earth, dirt, stone. That definitely includes metal. How does the system define what falls under his jurisdiction to manipulate?

If he can control metal, raw in form and buried in the ground, then that applies to sodium. Does that apply to sodium chloride? Would that then apply to saltwater?

That’ll be wild; using earth skills to [Manipulate Water]. She gave out a small chuckle at the thought.

Loudly, her stomachs grumbled, aching for food as the ever-present discomfort of hunger made itself known once more.

She groaned, her thoughts unable to remain lucid for a few minutes before the pain receded.

We really need to get out of here. Find a way to get food, somehow.

Food. Pictures of burgers, pizzas, sandwiches, all drifted through her mind.

No, stop that. Not helping. Only productive thoughts.

But I’m so hungry. Is there any way to solve that? We can last a week without food but I doubt I could; we’re doing too much physical exercise.

She stared at her hand again.

Is there a skill that generates food? The interface didn’t appear with any such skill. That’s fine. Maybe it’s not that obvious.

Water is complicated. Earth is complicated. Life seems relatively simple.

Life

0th Tier

Heal (1/10)

Restore 10 points of health to a living entity

Cost: 1 es/sec

[Leech](10/10) -Learned

Drain 110 points of health from a living entity

40m range

Cost: 10 es/sec

Cleanse (10/10) -Learned

Cleanse an entity from any toxin, disease, or contamination

Casting Time: 10 sec

Cost: 10 es

1st Tier

[Sapping Curse] (1/10)

Prevent a living entity from recovering health for 2 hours

Casting Time: 1 sec

Cost: 5 es

[Animate Critter] (1/10)

Raise a corpse smaller than yourself into a level 0 zombie

Casting Time: 5 sec

Cost: 5 es/sec

[Life Sense] (1/10)

Scan for either a general or specific form of life

2m radius

Casting Time: 1 m/sec

Cost: 1 es

[Last Words] (1/10)

Extract thoughts from an entity that died within 2 hours

Casting Time: 1 min

Cost: 5 es

Wait a minute. Health.

What is health? It’s a number in my interface, sure, but it has physical repercussions.

When I’m stabbed, with torn flesh and punctured muscles, why can I repair them back to pristine condition with [Leech]? The skill clearly isn’t just changing a number on a spreadsheet.

It’s affecting me somehow.

Let’s think this through. It repairs muscles. That means that [Leech] generates elastic tissue to repair my muscles. With flesh, it generates skin.

I’ve never felt light-headed from blood loss before. At least, I don’t think so. Does that mean [Leech] creates blood for me? Red blood cells, platelets, plasma, and whatever else is included with blood?

Is the blood deoxygenated or oxygenated? If I held my breath, could I get away with not breathing if I [Leech] something and focus and making oxygenated blood?

Those are only the most obvious constituents of health—your physical body—but there are other factors as well.

Hunger. Thirst. Sleep. All are necessary to stay alive. All contribute to health.

Thirst is simple; it’s just water. Humans need water to sweat, urinate, and for cells to work. Without water, I’d die. Water deprivation hurts my health.

Could I use [Leech] to restore my thirst? To generate water for my body? Would it generate water or simply saturate the necessary cells and organs with the fluid?

What about hunger? When we eat food, we break it down into its constituent parts and absorb it. Protein, fats, carbohydrates. Nutrients are what food provides me.

Can I generate nutrients? Can I create chicken in my stomach. Not a nice thought.

Riza’s thought process was rudely interrupted as two figures in the distance suddenly emerged from the darkness. They’re back.

They were jogging quickly and quickly made their way to Riza.

“Spiders. There’ll probably be an attack soon,” Artiv said, having been stationed at the 300 stride distance. “We’d best head back and group up,” He said, not quite an order.

No defences were built but Lefie had her crossbow in her hand so at least they had more firepower. They definitely didn’t want her spending essence on demons rather than tunnelling if they could help it.

Riza was fine with going all out. They weren’t travelling anywhere, and there’d be two sentries stationed ahead of her, so after the fighting, she’d be able to comfortably regenerate all of her essence.

They all waited, prepared for whatever came to meet them.

Lately, after multiple attacks, their teamwork had been improving. Riza had stepped back from trying to kill all the demons by herself and let the two soldiers do what they were meant to do: engage the beasts in close quarters.

Riza simply held back and only killed the things when the soldiers were at risk at getting hurt. It allowed her to keep on eye on everything and, more importantly, allowed for both Lefie and Jakks to get kills of their own to level up, though Jakks hardly involved himself.

An earth neophyte wasn’t meant for combat; their skills were poorly suited for it. He didn’t even have a weapon on him.

That was another benefit of parties—one that Riza was not privy to: killing a monster benefited everyone in the party in regards to levelling up. She wasn’t sure of the maths of it but since Jakks, Lefie, Skerry, and Artiv were all in a party, Jakks would eventually level up regardless of the fact he didn’t personally kill, or even injure, anything.

That mechanic did have interesting implications for power levelling. Lefie could kill a greater demon by herself, although it’d take all of her essence to do so. If she had a level 1 person in the same party as her, could she do all the work but bring her party member up to a higher level? Such as level 5 in one go?

Just more questions added to the pile.

The demons quickly arrived, rushing into the tunnel and meeting the prepared group of fighters as well as numerous spider corpses around their feet.

The fighting went smoothly. Everyone was well experienced with fighting demons at this point and long-ranged attacks continued their supremacy in battle. A powerful regiment of archers is all you need to turn the tide of a battle.

When the archer can now use literal magic, they’re only more powerful.

The fighting itself energised Riza—a speck of novelty in a sea of repetition—butit also presented an opportunity for her.

It was time to test her hypothesis.

She laid her sights on a demon near the back, unlikely to be killed by the soldiers any time soon and should be full of health.

She connected with it, laying out the bridge for [Leech] as easily as breathing. She began to feel the trickle of energy, the mental click signalling she was now in command of the poor demon’s life.

Instead of what she usually did, she tried something new. Something different.

Rather than imagining [Leech] repairing her bones, sewing together her flesh, and pumping blood through her body, she pictured her stomachs. Her intestines.

She visualised the digestive system, of food being broken down into its parts and absorbed through the organs. Transferred through the intestines, flowing through blood, and being absorbed and used to fuel the functions of her cells.

It was unusual, and required her to think back on her biology lessons from years ago, but the demon died quickly, and she stumbled back suddenly as a wave of energy washed over her.

There was no immediate change she could ascertain; her muscles simply felt more limber, more sprightly. She was more energised. She felt like she needed to do something.

Run, maybe. She liked running.

She had to test it again.

Focusing on another demon, she ran through similar, albeit slightly different, images. Always about how the body worked. How it functioned.

The demon died and the same restorative power coursed through her once more. It was different from the usual healing [Leech] provided, but it felt like an oasis in a desert for Riza.

Again and again she killed, becoming more and more full as her body count grew.

By the end of the fighting, she felt full. Like she couldn’t absorb any more energy.

Like a [Leech].

It… works? It was too early to tell but she knew something was different. Something had happened.

Riza looked towards Lefie. She was their ticket out of there, her and Jakks. Could [Heal] do the same thing? That restores health. Could [Heal] work as a substitute for food?

Lefie looked fine—barely tired, even. It had only been a day trapped underground; at this rate, they’d make it out alive and before starvation.

Was Riza prepared to spend a skill point on [Heal]? A whole skill point? Such a precious thing when it might not even be necessary? It didn’t help make her stronger since she already had [Leech].

She shook her head. Heal may not even work that way. [Leech] I suppose makes sense; I feed off my enemies. I’m not creating food out of nothing—it’s being converted from an enemy to me.

Heal would work differently. It would be making food, nutrients, out of nothing. That may not even be possible. I suspect it isn’t.

It’s too risky. Wait to get out. Wait to level up some more.

Bit by bit, Riza was becoming less and less worried about her predicament. Maybe they’d really be able to escape?