The idea was simple; one stone filled up with 24 essence and another stone which was empty. Since the stones could be of any size, she kept both small stones in one hand. The proximity wasn't an issue for using the reservoir stone skill and so, as she walked back to the stream which was where the remnants of her last fire was, she kept transferring essence from the full stone to the empty one.

It only took her a few minutes of doing this, transferring the essence back and forth, until she received a notification:

Reservoir Stone level up!

Reservoir Stone (2/10)

Store essence in an object. The object loses 80% of its essence every hour.

Transfer rate: 2 es/sec

Cost: Variable

Level up. Skills level up? I guess that explains what the (1/10) is.

The question was whether experience needed to level up was linear, and whether the upgrades themselves were linear. For now, she had too little data to assess which was the case.

She only had an essence pool of 4, and that could sustain leech for 4 seconds, dealing 40 damage. Before she even leveled up, her health was at 80, so she had reason to believe that anything that was strong, dangerous, and was a threat to her would likely have more than 40 health. Therefore, if she didn't want to resort to close quarters combat with her strangely wicked knife, she needed more essence.

This is where the essence stone came in. Already, it had 24 points of essence inside, worth 24 seconds of leech and dealing 240 damage--that would even kill her. If she transferred the essence between one stone and another, that would mean after an hour had passed, the timer had reset, the essence being transferred into a new object, and no essence would be lost.

In theory, for as long as she kept sinking essence into the stone every half an hour, she would have effectively infinited essence regeneration, only taking four seconds to regenerate to full whenever she wanted.

An additional benefit to doing this was it seemed that it was good practise for levelling up the skill in the first place.

She walked her way back to the pyramid of sticks that she had set up the night before. The sun was high in the sky but the canopy sheltered her decently from its heat, the ground dry and the assembled sticks slightly charred. It didn't matter to her, though; she sat herself down gracelessly as she dropped the squirrel to the ground and retrieved the knife from within deadened fire.

She set to skinning the poor creature, stones in her right hand and the knife in her left. She awkwardly held the fur, refusing to let go of the essence stones as she clumsily dragged the knife through the flesh of the animal, her inexperience shining through.

After so long just sitting around, she was thankful for the tough work that was cooking meat in the wild, even if the reward wasn't as satisfying. Her power had increased to 9 but she felt no observable change, instead believing that she had to exercise more to actually get an effect.

The squirrel was mostly burnt, unevenly cooked, and tasted horrible, but she didn't care. The residual joy of having magic, as well as demonstrable progress into getting stronger, kept her content with her situation in life, for the most part. Unless she came across another sapient creature, she wasn't as bothered with her state of undress that she would've thought she'd be; clothing was just too low on the priorities currently.

Having reservoir stone at level 2 now, she felt happy to begin on levelling leech. The additional power didn't matter too much, as it would take literal minutes to drain herself dry of available essence, but finding out if leech levelled at the same rate piqued her interest.

She wasn't a physicist but she was beginning to understand why people chose to become one.

She swallowed down her food and wandered on over to a part of the forrest with a lot of plants. Plants had miniscule health so she needed quantity over quality. Thinking about it, would trees have more health than a random bush? Something to check later. For now, what was here was more than enough.

She carefully wandered on over to the centre of a particularly dense part of the forest, with bushes all over the place, nettles and thorns hiding like assassins within. She got close, within a metre, but was hesitant to get too much further; it would be just her luck to prick herself on some stinging nettles. Maybe clothing should be higher priority after all...

Never-the-less, she concentrated her mind, focusing it into the familiar form it had gotten used to over the day. Visualising essence in the same way particles and atoms were always showed to her in classes had become second nature and she could instantly drop in this state of mind, connecting herself to the nearest bush.

She felt her essence sap out of her by the second until she was empty, four seconds later. She topped herself back up, and repeated the action, connecting with another plant.

Each process only took eight seconds in total, and she repeated it dozens of times before she finally got the notification, not even two minutes of doing this.

Leech level up!

She went to check what had changed.

Leech (2/10)

Drain 15 points of health every second from a living entity

2m range

Cost: 2 es/sec

That was... Disappointing. She dealt more damage per second, sure, but she only dealt 30 total with all her essence, compared to 40 before level up.

And then, a thought took her; What would happen if leech costs 5 essence to use? Would I no longer be able to use leech? Would I be forced into increasing my essence rather than spirit? These were questions for later but she firmly decided to stop levelling up leech, just in case.

Instead, she shifted her focus back to the essence stones, trying to level up reservoir stone instead. What I really need to be able to do is use two skills at once.

Trying to find a solution, she resolved herself to tralling through the menus of skills, a bunch of different branches both magic and non-magic as she categorised them. Truly, there was an innumerable number of different branches that existed. She wasn't sure how people would be able to know where to start; she only chose life as a coincidence, after all.

However, after skimming over the names, trying to see if there was anything that might've been useful or at least would be interesting, she found something in a branch called 'primordial magic'.

0th Tier

Well of Essence (1/10)

You have 20% additional Essence

Well of Spirit (1/10)

You have 20% additional Spirit

Essence Congruency (1/10)

Use 2 active skills at the same time

Requirements: rank 1 in 2 active skills

This was very interesting, and she was quite annoyed she hadn't found this branch earlier. For someone called 'primordial magic', she expected it'd be one of the first branches you'd see.

All three of the 0th tier skills seemed particularly valuable but they represented a three level investment, and she had only leveled twice up to this point.

Still, essence congruency is invaluable to me. Getting it boosts my essence regeneration from 1 every 7 minutes to 4 every second, if I use reservoir stone. That's an incredible increase!

I guess this means that I have to level up.

A goal firm in her mind, she trudged back to the fire to retrieve her knife. She needed to go hunting.

By the time she found her first squirrel and quickly rendered it into a dead sack of meat, her reservoir stone had levelled up again. Since wildlife wasn't overly abundant, in this forest, she often went minutes--potentially, up to an entire hour--without finding anything to kill that would give her experience. This gave her plenty of time to think.

She counted out the essence required to get both leech and reservoir stone to level 2--it was around 100 for each. In a forest, with little entertainment, and where there could be a life-or-death fight at any moment, getting as strong as possible was pertinent, so she decided to focus on trying to level up reservoir stone. Based off the animals she had encountered so far, they seemed like powerful beings, having raw physical stats that were higher than hers. Unless she focused on her physical stats, she wouldn't be able to match them in a close-quarters fight. The fact that there would be essentially 5 points wasted in spirit dissuaded her from that notion.

That meant that leech, long ranged damage, was the way to go. To be able to use leech to chip away at, for example, a boar's health boar needed much more essence than she currently had, and she couldn't just wait half an hour between every casting of leech.

The next thing to do, therefore, was to level up reservoir stone again, try to calculate the essence curve needed to level the skill up, and then try to level up as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And so, for the next few minutes, she transferred essence from one stone to another, back and forth, before another notification appeared:

Reservoir Stone level up!

Reservoir Stone (3/10)

Store essence in an object. The object loses 70% of its essence every hour.

Transfer rate: 3 es/sec

Cost: Variable

It was only literal minutes since she was practising with the skill--hours if you included since purchase--and it was already level 3! She had leech for days and it was still level 1.

How is a tier 1 skill this broken? It effectively gives you an infinite pool of essence to draw from, and levels up incredibly quickly. Did whoever make the system not account for people transferring essence between objects that stored it? Sure; if people were grinding the skill just by pouring essence they naturally regenerated into objects, it'd take a lot longer to do.

More questions popped up into her head about what the system was and who made it; it didn't seem very balanced at all.

What was important, however, was how much essence it took to level the skill up to level 3. The stone was filled with 28 essence, and the number of times that she spent transferring it all meant around 400 essence was transferred in total. That left a few possible options but she needed the skill at level 4 to confirm only one.

And so, for the next five minutes, she transferred all the essence back and forth before the skill leveled up to level 4. Each transfer took nine seconds to complete and so, she tallied each one by drawing a line in the dirt with a stick. Multiplying that by the essence in the stone, she got around 900 essence total having been transferred.

100, 400, 900. That looks like square numbers but just multiplied by 100. That would mean that the next level up costs 1600 essence. If this formula predicts how much essence is needed for future level ups, that confirms the equation used.

So, for the next six-ish minutes, she repeated the exact same thing.

Reservoir Stone level up!

Reservoir Stone (5/10)

Store essence in an object. The object loses 50% of its essence every hour.

Transfer rate: 5 es/sec

Cost: Variable

Yep. 1600 essence.

She could only transfer essence as fast as the transfer rate said she could. Therefore, the next level up needing 2500 essence, that would take five hundred seconds, or eight minutes and twenty seconds.

Therefore, to level the skill to level 10, it would only take fifty minutes of just transferring essence back and forth.

The next fifty minutes proceeded as one would expect; she held a knife in one hand and two essence stones in another. The squirrel-like creatures were relatively weak, and she felt they'd make for good training on how to use the knife in combat. And so, she hunted for squirrels, trying to sneak up on them as she constantly transferred essence.

And then, it finally happened, an overwhelming amount of joy filled her as it did. Observing a phenomenom, collecting data, spotting trends, and then predicting the future; this was what science was all about!

Reservoir Stone level up!

Reservoir Stone (10/10)

Store essence in an object.

Transfer rate: 10 es/sec

Cost: Variable

Reservoir Stone has reached levelled 10.

You can choose to spend a skill point to upgrade the skill or turn the skill into a passive.

Reservoir+

Instantly fill or drain an object full of essence.

Cost: variable

Reservoir (passive)

Constantly absorb essence from your environment

Transfer rate: 10% of environmental Essence

1m range

This was an interesting decision, though not one she could act on right now, considering she had no free skill points.

The sleep was another uncomfortable one; none of the leaves were particularly large so her bedding was a mess of dried leaves and dirt, but it would have to do. Even though it wasn't particularly cold nor hot, her lack of anything covering her left her shivering herself to sleep, struggling to get even a wink of shut-eye.

She woke up about 5 hours later, a a subduded headache resounding behind her eyes and her body aching all over. Her mind was tired even after having just woken, the usual revitalisation one would experience devoid of her body. None-the-less, this would have to do.

Things she needed to work on were piling higher and higher in her mind: clothes, beding, shelter, everything else.

Stretching out her body, she hopped around somewhat, trying to warm her body up, before doing some light exercises. When she was all done, she retrieved both her knife and her essence stones before realising that she no longer needed both, tossing the empty one away. The remaining stone had around 50 essence in it by now, none of them having drained away through the night thankfully for the timeful levelling up of reservoir stone.

For now, her focus was on levelling up; she needed animals to hunt.

The forest was relatively lacking in substantial wildlife, and she had spent most of her time in the same place for the past few days. Therefore, she decided that exploring a little downstream would hopefully increase the likelihood of encountering animals—after all, animals need water.

She trekked her way down the stream. The stream itself was relatively thin and lithe; barely half a foot deep and a little more than a metre across. She wouldn’t be able to bathe but it provided ample access for her to hydrate herself.

After a solid hour of nothing but the sodden footfalls of feet meeting mud as well as the pleasant, tranquil burbling of the stream, she had encountered another squirrel.

Leech was now double the range and inflicted damage quicker; she decided to experiment with a different tactic.

Instead of creeping up slowly on the poor creature, she ran forward, a sudden burst of speed from nowhere.

Though she was focusing on non-physical skills so far, her stats were physically slanted.

She reached the squirrel before it could even react, activating leech and killing it within two seconds. It tried to get away, little feet scrabbling on the smooth, wet rocks and muddy ground, but it’s damaged state and startled demeanour proved too much.

Not knowing how far she was going to go or when she was going to find something else, she elected to bring along the corpse in case it was the last thing she’d find the day; she’d need to eat at some point.

Although there wasn’t much to do at all, she wasn’t experiencing complete and total boredom. She kept her mind occupied on filling the essence stone with essence whenever she could, and the calming environment of the forest was soothing; just listening and not thinking was a pleasurable change of pace for her. As reluctant as she was to admit it, she was starting to get used to her life.

However, this had to come to an end eventually. Off in the distance, there was something most unusual; a monolith or stone, an edifice that looked completely unnatural in this woodland.

As she carefully made her way closer to the structure, sticking out of the ground at a tilt and with mossy, dark bricks, the colour contrasting the warm hues of the forest around it, a low, foreboding feeling began to creep over her.

So far, she hadn’t seen any indication of civilization, so, randomly coming across what seemed to be a building in the middle of nowhere and in such a state of disrepair spelled nothing but trouble.

She could begin to make out not only the shape but the details by this point; it was cylindrical and tall—nearly matching the height of the neighbouring trees. The bricks it was made out of where large and clearly cut by some sort of machine; it looked far too smooth and far too great a job for a human to handle.

The top part of the cylinder ballooned outwards slightly, the top uncovered to the air as holes in the wall gave view to a pitch-black interior.

If she had to say, it looked like a stone tower of some kind, except one overtaken by crawling vines and foliage peeking through whatever gaps had appeared from natural erosion.

I had clearly been here for a very long time.

Caution filled her being, warning her of the unknown; she may be able to take on a boar but who knows what else there could be.

However, her curiosity was piqued. She had practically infinite essence, a way to heal herself, and both long range and short range methods to attack. She was as prepared as she could be.

And so, she creeped closer, her feet carefully placed on the dry bits of land to avoiding her feet squelching in the mud but also avoiding piles of dry leaves and twigs; she wanted to be as silent as possible.

Even as the metres between herself and her target reduced by the second, there was no discernible sound emanating from the structure. Additionally, there was no doorway either. She was close enough now to ascertain that, to her surprised, it seemed to be. Tried somewhat.

It must’ve been here for hundreds of years, at least. Who knows just how tall it actually is.

Thankfully, there was an open, in barred window that gave her access to the inside.

I wish I had the skill to let me sense life, she thought, beating down the anxiety welling in her throat. No reward without risk.

She clumsily clambered over the lip of the window, half collapsing to the unexpected low ground on the other side. Even after days of using leech, her wound still seemed to bite her whenever she over exerted herself—stretched herself too far.

The floor was wooden, half rotten and half eaten through. Plants and weeds spring up between the floorboards, softening her footsteps on the otherwise cold, hard processed surface.

The tower was slim and mostly a staircase— it was wide enough for two of her to walk up and down shoulder-to-shoulder but that was about it. Going up would lead her to the roof, able to hook back down to the ground. Going down, however…

She swallowed, standing on the threshold to the abyss. No natural light could get down the spiralling stairwell, and she had no light sources on hand; she’d have to rely on her natural night vision as best as she could.

One-by-one, she lowered her foot down to the next step, hesitant and always carefully to ensure she was as gentle as possible. Even if sound wasn’t an issue, it eased her mind to make no noise at all; she could be assured there was nothing down there.

She began her descent, hand stuck out and trailing along the wall as the darkness eclipsed her, robbing her of sight and her sense of balance; she almost tripped over a stair and tumble down but managed to barely catch herself in time.

The tower was deceptively deep—or rather, deceptively tall— and she felt like she had been walking for minutes before she finally saw something.

Light.

Only, it wasn’t light. It wasn’t something she recognised at all, in fact. The closest similarity was a fog, or a cloud. An opaque, gas-like substance filled the bottom of the stairwell, occluding her vision from seeing past it. The previously silent stairwell instead was filled with the quiet, low hum of wind.

It was weird; the unnatural soundscape setting her on edge.

The cloud, the fog, was bright white and without a hint of shadow. It was like it had no depth, no form, but was instead the absence of substance. It was pure white, no shadow covering it, but the wall it was touching looked the same as it had always been; cloaked in shadow. This fog was emitting not light at all.

Slowly, she bent down, keeping her eyes firmly locked on the fog like it was some kind of predator, and moved her hand before picking up some loose rubble.

She stood up, and quickly tossed the rock into the fog.

She waited.

There was no sound. She had expected to at least hear the rock tumbling on the stairs as they continued downwards but, instead, it was gone. It was like the rock didn’t even exist; the fog didn’t even move to conform around the rock as it penetrated it.

There was an irresistible curiosity plaguing her mind. So far, everything she had encountered had some level of familiarity to her; animals, forest, game systems. Reservoir stone was a battery and leech was like a blood transfusion. But this? This was something else entirely.

She took one step down. And then another. The sound of wind whipping by increased, becoming louder and louder as her proximity closed.

And then she was right on top of it.

Tentatively, she activated leech, proving out for anything on the other side. Nothing, though she didn’t expect it to work in the first place.

Her mind was in turmoil—thoughts clashed together, arguing over suicidal ideation or the comforting embrace of familiarity.

One side won out.

She plunged her left arm into the cloud.

Searing pain immediately coursed through her. She felt her skill ripple and deform in cloud, alternating between frost-bitten temperatures and heat as hot as hell itself.

Everything happened in less than a second, though the torturous agony felt so much longer.

She pulled her arm back, fear clear on her face as her eyes were watering, vision blurry, and scrambled up the stairs, no longer caring about not making a sound.

All she wanted was to leave this place; to get as far away from the pain as possible.