Alex soon awoke again, slowly he felt for the sheep. It was dead. But still warm, so he couldn’t have been out for long. Alex groaned, carefully fumbling for his wound. The crust of blood crumbled away and while tender and angry red, the wound was mostly closed. ‘Thanks to [shadowdrinker], I guess…So many questions about the system…Why could I conjure a dagger, but not a spear? How much damage did [Eviscerate] do? Damn…’ Alex dismissed his thoughts as useless. He would test everything later. Right now he needed to heal up, regenerate some magicka and find a way to get this giant beast back to the camp.

During his rest, he checked the blinking notifications and the teenager was elated. The animal gave him:

You have slain: Sheep (Lvl 4).

You have earned six coins.

You have gained 400 unrefined Essence.

‘What is unrefined Essence? I bet I can level with it…but how? Should I go to the shop before I rejoin the camp? But it’s still night…’ Alex’ thoughts circled for some more time, before he found a solution. He searched the surrounding facades and soon he found it. A tree, growing out of a huge crack in the building some twenty meters away. The tree wasn’t particularly unique, but some vines were hanging down and after some climbing, the teenager could harvest one. He ran back to his quarry and soon bound its feet together. Dragging it through the debris and run-down city, the teenager was soon drenched in sweat. ‘There has to be a better way…’ He thought, and flexed his shadowpowers. A moment later, a second Alex stood beside him. This one was composed from billowing shadows, not fully existent but still somewhat real.

“Help me pull this,” he ordered his [Shadowclone], but it stood still. “Come on. Move!” But the clone stood, it didn’t even follow Alex with its eyes, as the teenager circled it slowly. ‘Damn thing, move!’ he cried in his mind. Abruptly the clone took a step forward. Alex jumped back in surprise, but soon he laughed. ‘Help me pull this beast.’ He thought at the clone and the two began to pull it through the city again. It was definitely easier with the clones help, but Alex felt, that he still pulled most of his foes weight.

But the help was very welcome, as the way to the shop was full of flora and debris. Broken stonework, glass, steel and if that wasn’t enough, the teenager had to evade trees growing out of the streets. The problem wasn’t shifting his path, while dragging the animal. It was shifting his path, while he had only a few meters of a heads-up. He tried casting [Shadoweyes] whenever possible, but it felt pretty magicka intensive and Alex feared running out again. So without the ability, the moon and the stars gave only just enough light, for him to recognise some outlines. Mostly too late for him to drag the animal around the obstacle, so he and the clone had to roll it.

Completely soaked, the clone long gone, Alex finally reached the system shop. They spawned a few days after the systems apocalypse message and everyone initiated could use it. Of course one needed coins for even the slightest boon, but if you had some, the merchant would try their best to get them. Jones had asked him one time, for a levelling guide for a Defender and the shopkeeper wanted 300 Coins. Alex shuddered, thinking about slaying fifty more sheep, just to earn that much.

He walked up to the small booth and timidly knocked onto the wood. The stand was closed, but he hoped, he could wake the keeper without him getting angry. Alex was tired and wanted to get home, but he needed his question answered. He needed to know what to do with the unrefined essence. The others hadn’t told him anything and he feared, that he could loose it somehow, or be pressured to give it up to Jones.

Through the wall, Alex heard a rustling and groaning. The groaning sounded definitely unhappy and Alex quickly became afraid. Should he run? What if the shopkeeper declined to answer his questions? What if he would never trade with him? The thoughts raced through his mind, but before he could make a decision, the facade opened and a humanoid being looked outside. It quickly saw Alex and grumbled: “What do you want?” Alex opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. He was surprised by this being. The others had apparently kept a secret about the shopkeeper. He hadn’t seen them before, and just knew by another account, that the shop was here.

He took a moment and examined it. The hairs were light brown and curled on his head, somewhat hiding two small, furrowed horns. Its ears were a bit larger than a humans and had small pointy tips. The rest of the creature looked just like everyone else he knew. Two eyes, a nose, two arms.

The shopkeeper noticed Alex look and grinned. “Welcome human, I am Gatex, shopkeeper and Faun. How can I help?” Abashed, Alex averted his gaze and stuttered. “Sorry…I didn’t…I…I want to know what unrefined Essence is and how I can use it.” “Oh? You have absorbed a seed? I see…Shadow?” The Faun gaped. “Wow, thats…wow! The rarest in your city is…Oh, right, shouldn’t give the info that easily.” Gatex laughed. “I think a congratulation is appropriate…So congrats!” Alex nodded thanks and watched the faun intensely.

“Right. Unrefined essence. There are two, or three types of essence. Refined, unrefined and coins. Every time you do something, your role is made for, you gain unrefined essence and coins. Coins are system refined essence and mostly useless to you. So let’s, for a moment, forget about those. There is a maximum amount of unrefined essence you can have at once and after some time you loose the stored unrefined essence. Also everything above that maximum is lost, so be careful.

Gatex continued his explanation: “You are a vanquisher, so you have to kill beasts and other enemies. With every kill you earn essence, depending on the level of your foe and for humanoids, how much unrefined essence they have stored. To level up, you need to refine this essence. Can you already feel it moving about? It is dispersed throughout your body. If you concentrate hard enough, you can see the different strands. Now you must pull them all together to the middle of your chest area. It will be painful, so take care. The more you can gather at one time, the more essence you can refine. So for every strand you miss, you will loose out on precious essence…So concentrate and ignore the pain.

Alex closed his eyes, searching attentive for those weird essence strands.

“Wait!” Gatex cried out suddenly, “you don’t know what to do afterwards and believe me, you want to get it done as fast as possible.” The Faun grinned. Annoyed, Alex reopened his eyes. “Then get on with your explanation, I don’t have all day…” Alex looked up, grinned and corrected himself, “night.”

“Right, right. So you pull as many strands as possible into your chest and if you can’t gather them anymore, you send them to your character sheet. You have to wish it there. And it will be available in your status sheet. But you must gather as many as possible, every strand you miss is lost to you.”

“It’s as easy as that?” Alex asked. “Easy my…you will see…you will see” Gatex said mysteriously, hiding his grin behind a hand. Alex sat down near one corner of the shop, back leaned against the wooden storefront and closed his eyes. Slowly he sunk deeper and deeper into his mind and began searching for the strands of unrefined essence.

In front of his minds eye, the world exploded into colour. Luminous, radiant blues and reds mixed with gloomy and dark purples, greens and yellows. Slowly he followed a strand down into his legs and a strange awareness of his body spread. He could feel the leg, all the cuts and bruises it got throughout the years. He could see dark, viscous something near his knee, where he had a big scar, from when he was a young boy and had injured himself quite badly while playing around.

Quickly, Alex averted his attention and followed the strand further along, into his right foot. There he found the end of said strand and tried to pull it back into the center of his chest.

‘Come on, move!’ with every fiber of his being, the boy mindlessly pushed and pulled, but the essence didn’t respond. “You have to visualize yourself, pulling it back” Gatex chipped in. Alex imagined himself, grabbing the strand, first with the left hand, then with the right hand and leaning back, similar to an intense game of tug-of-war. Slowly the unrefined essence moved, and Alex with it. With minute movements, the boy pulled it back into his chest. ‘First one down’, Alex quickly went through his body, ‘eleven more to go…I can do this!’

Alex quickly found the second strand, still in his right leg, and with a bit of effort, pulled it back to his chest. Soon the boy was working on his left leg. The first strand was still pretty easy, but while he pulled the second strand back, a burning pain spread in his chest.

‘This is nothing’, the boy fought on, and redoubled his efforts. Every centimetre, the pain rose and soon the boy was biting his lips. But his work paid off. He had collected four strands. “Apart from the pain, this is easy,” the boy grunted and Gatex just nodded. He knew, what stood before the teenager…

‘Okay, two more in the groin area.’ Alex continued, having made out the next pair of unrefined essence strands. He pulled at the first…and it didn’t move. ‘What the?! Move, you idiot!’ The teenager reaffirmed his mental image and pulled back. But still, the strand didn’t move.

“You know, inside your mind, you are as strong as you want to be. You can be big, you can be small, you can have four arms and ten legs. You just have to imagine it.” Gatex said, after he saw the first big pearl of sweat, running down the boys forehead.

Alex grinned with gritted teeth and suddenly he had four arms, each gripping the strand of essence and pulling back with all his strength. He grew two more legs and three more meters and soon collected the first and then the second strand from his groin. Six strands were crowding in his chest. The pain spread, but the teenager stood strong.

“Hurry up,” Gatex shouted, “those strands won’t stay there forever. The longer you take, the more they unravel.” Alex quickly jumped back to his chest and Gatex was right. The first strand was already a bit thinner than before. ‘For real?! Shitty design!’ He quickly jumped back to his right arm, where he continued to pull back the seventh strand. Alex used every trick he had learned from Gatex and minutes later, he was successful.

But the pain had become unbearable. Alex panted and gasped for air. A leaden ball of fire lay on his chest and his concentration wavered. The second leg-strand had become dimmer too, so the teenager didn’t hesitate any longer and sent the seven strands to his character sheet.

The pain vanished instantly and Alex took a deep breath. “Finally done?” Gatex smirked, “Was it really that easy?” Alex waved him away and opened his status.

Name: Alex Braff

Essence: Shadow (M)

Class: Shadowblade

Level: 1

Coins: 6

Refined Essence: 233

Free Attributes: 0

Constitution: 5

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Agility: 6

Intelligence: 4

Willpower: 4

Health: 52

Stamina: 52

Magicka: 41

“So, how much did you get?” Gatex asked. “Hmm? Around 230 refined,” Alex murmured, absorbed by his status. His eyes jumped from one column to the next and the Faun laughed. “You know, you can shorten the status sheet, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Alex lied. “So how do I level up?”

“Depends on what you want to level. Now that you have refined essence, you can raise your level, your skills or your attributes. Wait, before you do anything and just listen,” Gatex interrupted the teenagers next question.

“If you put the essence into your attributes, you can raise them a few points or tens of points for some time, but they sink back to their starting point, so don’t waste it there as long as you aren’t in danger. You can raise your level, as you have more than two hundred and are still only level one. Up until level ten, you need the next level multiplied by 100 in refined essence to raise it. If you raise your level, you get the attributes, described by your class. You can also use essence to tier up one of your four skills. The needed essence differs from skill to skill, person to person and the rarity of their essence, so I have no idea how much you need. You can invest the refined essence, as soon as you get it, but you only gain the skill or level if you break through the essence threshold.”

“Thanks for all the help Gatex! Do I lose the refined essence, similar to the unrefined, or does it stay with me?” Gatex smiled. While annoyed by the questions, he could remember his first few levels and how many question he and his class had asked. “You don’t lose it, but it’s always wise to spend the essence for your next level. Sadly there is no formula for skills, so you never know, when they level up. But during my teenage years, we were told that you should level up as soon as possible and put the rest into your skills.”

Alex nodded and immersed himself in his status again.