Chapter 4

I thought about what the message was asking me to do. It was fairly vague. I had no idea what type of energy it was asking for? Normally I would think of electricity as energy. However, this world didn’t have a lot of technology.

What it did have was cultivators and mages. Both used various forms of what may be considered energy. The question was what type of energy did the dimensional originator need. Would any type of energy work? Or did it need a specific type? Then I remembered that Angelos had said the tutorial should be able to answer basic questions for me.

“What type of energy is required?” I asked out loud. I figured if the tutorial could read my mind it would have already answered the questions I was thinking about.

Life or death energy is required to create and grow a universe.

Hopefully that was less ominous than it sounded. For a second I wondered if this had something to do with Angelos. She was a life and death goddess after all. If I met her again I’d have to ask her.

“What are the sources of life and death energy?” I asked hoping the tutorial wouldn’t tell me I had to do some type of ritual sacrifice or something.

All living things release small amounts of life energy continually. More powerful forms of life release larger amounts of life energy. A large amount of death energy is released whenever anything alive dies. More powerful forms of life release larger amounts of death energy when they die.

That wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined. Based on the answer the source of energy didn’t even have to be energy. It could be an animal or even a plant. “How do I absorb that energy?” I asked.

Energy will be automatically absorbed if you are nearby when the energy is released.

Even better. That meant I could passively gain life energy by simply sitting near something that was alive. Death energy would be more complicated but there were probably situations I could absorb that also. For instance if someone was dying of old age I could sit near their bedside. Or I could find a butcher that was slaughtering a bunch of livestock.

“How close do I have to be in order to absorb energy.” I asked hoping the answer was more than a few feet away. The further the better. It would also increase the number of sources I could absorb from at the same time.

Currently you are required to be touching the source of energy. The distance energy can be absorbed from will increase as more energy is absorbed.

That threw a wrench in my half formed plans. Especially since higher life forms released more energy. I suspected that meant that plants and animals wouldn’t give much energy. People would be suspicious if I tried to absorb energy while right next to them. It would be far easier if I just had to be in the same room.

I tried to think of a way to phrase a question about energy required and distance I could absorb energy. Finally I settled on having to ask some other questions first. “How much energy does the death of a person release?” I asked figuring that would be a good place to start.

Unknown. Amount varies based on the race, cultivation, talents, and abilities of the person. More powerful forms of life release more energy.

With a sigh I realized I’d have to be more detailed with the next few questions. “How about a regular person that is not a cultivator and has no unique talents or abilities?” I asked and then waited for a moment. Apparently the spirit that Angelos had created took a bit of time to answer more complex questions.

A healthy but otherwise average mortal releases around 102 units of death energy upon their death.

At least that was a clearer answer. Right around a hundred energy. Now I needed to figure out the equivalent for life energy. “What would it take to get an equivalent amount of life energy from the same mortal?” I asked.

It would take constant absorption of the life energy released by the same mortal for one hundred days in order to gain the equivalent amount of life energy.

I did some quick math and came up with a person releasing a little over a single unit of energy each day in that case. Now I just needed to figure out what that energy could do for me and how much I needed. “After absorbing a hundred units of energy how many inches away from someone can I be and still absorb life energy?” I asked.

Ten inches.

I grimaced. That wasn’t very far. Plus I’d have to absorb energy for a few years first, or get lucky and have someone near me die. “What about a thousand units of energy?”

Around 32 inches.

That wasn’t the answer I had expected. Ten times the energy but the distance only increased by a little more than three times. “Ten thousand units of energy?”

100 inches.

Grimacing I realized what was going on. The distance was the square root of the amount of energy absorbed. Although that made me suspicious about how conveniently units of energy matched with inches. There were different measurement systems after all. “Who decided how much a unit of energy would be?”

The goddess Angelos set this number during my creation. She said it correlates well with the units of measurement that you are familiar with.

That made more sense than the possibilities I had been thinking of. For a second I thought that someone from Earth had created this system long ago. I couldn’t think of any other questions to ask at the moment. Which meant I should probably go find something to absorb energy from.

I started to get up but then realized I was incredibly weak. Even as a human on Earth I had never felt so weak. Even sitting up was a struggle. I imagined that as soon as I tried to get out of bed I’d fall flat on my face. Obviously my muscles had atrophies significantly while I was passed out.

“Is anyone there?” I called out.

A few seconds later the door opened and a couple men looked into the room. They were dressed in leather. One carried a spear and the other had a shield on his back and a sword in a scabbard on their waist. Obviously they were guards. Which made sense considering my value to the border clan.

Both of the guards looked at me in shock. Then the one with the sword turned to the other guard. “Go report this situation immediately.” He said.

The guard with the spear nodded and rushed off. The other guard watched him go. Then he walked into the room and closed the door. I frowned as I tried to figure out what exactly he was doing.

“Unfortunately despite waking up this just isn’t your day.” The guard said and then drew his sword.

“You’re going to kill me? Why?” I asked trying to figure out why a guard of the border clan would want to kill me.

“I’m an agent for clan Hill. My orders were to kill you over a week ago. But then I saw you just lying there. It’s not worth my life to kill someone that is already going to die.” The guard explained as he approached the side of the bed.

Frantically I tried to think of what to do. Maybe I could keep him talking until help came. “There is just one thing I don’t understand.” I said as the guard raised his sword.

Unfortunately the guard didn’t care enough to ask what I didn’t understand. As his sword came down I summoned every bit of strength in my body. And then I rolled towards him. Instead of slashing into my body the guards hands thudded into my torso. It hurt but I was alive.

The guard started to take a step back but I quickly wrapped my arms around him. As a cultivator his reaction speeds were far higher than the average mortal. Surprise made up for that and I was successful. I nearly laughed when words appeared in front of me.

Passive absorption from this source equals three energy per day.

Quest completed. You have successfully found a source of life energy.

New quest. Absorb one hundred energy.

I stared at the piddly number in shock. Three energy per day. Just getting a hundred energy was going to take me weeks.

“Get off me.” The guard said and brought the pummel of the sword down on my head.

That blow was devastating. My vision started to blur and I knew that I had been badly hurt. I should have rolled the opposite way. At least then the guard would have had to walk around the bed before killing me. Maybe I could have even crawled underneath.

Just then I heard a crash. The guard started to turn towards the noise. At that point I wasn’t even thinking straight. All I could think about was holding on to the man. Then I heard a gurgle and some type of liquid fell on me. After a second I realized it was blood. Then another message appeared in front of me.

You have successfully found a source of death energy. 308 energy absorbed.

I guess I had been wrong about it taking weeks to get a hundred energy. All it had taken was nearly dying. With that thought I finally passed out.