Soul Evolution

"I knew she was talented but to clear out an entire wraith's nest on her own," Morgana said sounding quite impressed with the writhing player on the ground before her. "She's fascinating… You're right, Leo. Let's save her!"

Morgana eagerly knelt beside Ath3na and began to hold the other woman down with a single hand.

"I'll need to siphon off the excess soul energy," she explained as she glanced back toward Leo who'd remained on his feet. "More than the amount we agreed on."

"Do it," Leo said with no hesitation. "This is an emergency."

Morgana smiled that wicked grin that sometimes popped out when she was about to do something disturbing. Then she turned her gaze back on Ath3na and began to breathe in the woman's essence.

As Leo watched the slivers of blue fire float out of Ath3na and pour into Morgana's waiting mouth, he thought about the reaper's earlier comment, the one about Ath3na clearing the wraith's nest. He realized even he couldn't have imagined it, but nonetheless, he thought it was a brilliant display of gaming tactics.

Ath3na wasn't a Leeroy Jenkins. She liked to play smart which is exactly how Leo would describe the strategy she used against the wraiths inside their lair.

Hours ago, Leo and Morgana chased after Ath3na as she made her way to the wraith's nest which was a cave on the north side of a large outcropping of jagged rocks no bigger than a tiny hill.

Two [Life-draining Lesser Wraiths] could be seen floating just outside the lair, but a confident Ath3na who'd lost her initial fear of wraiths made short work of these two. With the help of her new ability, [LIFE-DRAINING TOUCH], Ath3na continually sapped their strengths while keeping herself healthy. And once they were dead, Ath3na absorbed their essence and gained even more power.

Ath3na didn't go into the cave at first. Instead, she camped outside and ambushed the next wraith that stepped out of it. It took her a total of two hours — with Morgana and Leo getting bored of watching — but Ath3na managed to slay eight more wraiths this way. After absorbing her tenth wraith essence, Ath3na was granted a new ability by the system.

[ABILITY: SPECTRAL CLOAK ACQUIRED]

"Oo~~oh, that's a nice one," Morgana noted. "Too bad I already possess a similar ability."

"What does it do?" Leo asked.

Morgana snapped her fingers and the window that had appeared in front of Ath3na also appeared before Leo so that he could read its mechanics.

"Allows a spiritual body to go incorporeal for two minutes…" Leo read the textbox. "Forty percent magic damage resistance… seventy-five percent physical damage resistance… the player can move through solid objects while activated."

Leo thought that Morgana was right. This was a very useful ability despite its short activation time.

"Isn't this a cheat ability?" Leo frowned.

Morgana pointed to the last half of the textbox. "Read the bottom line, silly."

"Cooldown time of fifteen minutes," Leo read. "Ah, good, good. This balances things out nicely."

With a powerful new ability in her collection, Ath3na had chosen to step into the cave directly, which Leo thought had been a little reckless of her.

Of course, if he'd seen how glazed Ath3na's eyes had looked then — the kind of eyes one could sometimes see in junkies who were always high — perhaps then Leo would have encouraged her to take a break. After all, he really didn't want to break player one when she was all they had.

Leo and Morgana followed Ath3na into the cave which was much larger on the inside than it looked on the outside. They found a nice little hiding spot and watched from a distance as Ath3na slew wraith after wraith almost as if each kill was making it easier and easier for her.

By her twenty-fifth kill, Ath3na had received a new ability. It was the passive ability [BATTLE TEMPO] which increased Ath3na's strength and agility attributes for a short time after she slew an enemy.

This passive ability only served to speed up the cleanup of the wraith's nest, and it really was a sight to see as it made reaching kill number forty happen much, much sooner.

On this fortieth kill, Ath3na learned [SOUL PULSE]. Using soul energy, Ath3na could launch a salvo of spiritual blasts from her weapon to hone in on random targets in front of her.

The first time she used it, Leo watched as seven spiritual lances shot out from her spear and pierced the two wraiths attacking her. Moreover, as she was facing Leo and Morgana's hiding place at the time, one of those lances had targeted them, but Morgana easily slapped it away with a swipe of her hand.

"Don't get cocky, human," Morgana hissed from beside Leo.

Leo chuckled at Morgana's expense. "Don't get competitive, kid."

By the time Ath3na had slain forty-five wraiths, she was pulsing with so much soul energy that Morgana believed she was on the verge of soul evolution.

"Seriously?" Leo asked in disbelief. "She's going to evolve on her first day in the game?"

"Didn't you say she was one of your elite gamers, Leo?" Morgana reminded him with a laugh.

However, player number one didn't stop at forty-five. She went on to slay all the wraiths inside the cave which turned out to be a series of interconnecting tunnels that went further and further deeper into the earth. That technically made it a small-sized dungeon in on itself.

It was only after Ath3na had defeated wraith number fifty-two that her spiritual body finally experienced the unbearable pain that seemed to be tearing her apart from the inside.

Now, Leo watched with a furrowed brow as Morgana tried to save the foolish player from her own hubris.

For her part, Morgana seemed to be enjoying the task of sucking out Ath3na's excess energy and adding it to her own. In fact, the fluttering of her eyelids and the heaving of her chest almost looked to Leo like she was experiencing a strange kind of ecstasy.

He raised an eyebrow at this development. "Well, that's interesting..."

Leo chuckled to himself as the idea of girl on girl action flitted across the surface of his mind. It was an image he quickly brushed away as now was not the time for such thoughts.

After what felt like a moment of time stretching unbearably long to Leo's mind, Morgana finally finished with treating Ath3na. The player had stopped pulsing like she was on the verge of a meltdown while a satisfied Morgana sat back looking like she'd just enjoyed an excellent meal.

"That was delicious, Leo," Morgana said excitedly. "I want more like her!"

"That's tomorrow's problem. Now, how about you update me on her condition?" he prompted.

Morgana explained that Ath3na was out of the woods now but that it was up to her to turn the remaining energy inside her into her ally. For at this exact moment, her soul was already on the verge of evolution and the success or failure of this process was dependent on the player's own will.

Leo turned his gaze on Ath3na's face. Her eyelids were still close but Leo could see movement behind them. He also noticed a large amount of sweat pouring down her face and guessed she was already in the midst of a grueling inner battle. He could only hope that she would be successful as failure meant she would become an abomination and that would mean her human life would be over.

It was an unbearably long wait, and more than once Leo felt annoyed enough to shake Ath3na's shoulders, but Morgana stopped him each time.

"Wait. Watch. Believe," she insisted.

To Leo, a man who had more than once taken fate by the balls and demanded he be allowed to walk his own path, waiting was an ordeal equivalent to facing off against a boss monster with only beginner-level equipment. It wasn't something he was very good at, which his former employees could attest to.

It was only an hour later, however, when Ath3na's body rose from the ground and floated up to within their eye-level. Then, in a blinding flash of light that caused Leo to avert his eyes, Ath3na was wrapped in a cocoon of blue aura. After this bubble popped minutes later, the person who emerged was different from who she was before.

Ath3na's skin was paler now, so pale it was almost translucent. The locks of brown hair that had framed her face were now as white as falling snow. The amber of her eyes had remained but they were glowing softly now like Morgana's was.

No, this wasn't Ath3na anymore, Leo thought. The woman floating back down to the craggy surface was more than Ath3na. She felt stronger.

As Ath3na's feet touched the ground, she raised her hands and closed them into fists. "This is awesome…"

Leo's own words mirrored hers for even though he'd created the system; he never imagined it would turn out this well.

A window popped up in front of Ath3na.

[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE EVOLVED INTO A NEW BEING.]

A second smaller window appeared over the first one.

[YOU ARE NOW LEVEL TWO]

Then a third window appeared with the message [PLEASE SEE GAME MASTER IN ADVENTOUR FOR POSSIBLE TITLE CHANGE.]

At nearly the same time, both Leo and Ath3na spoke the same words, "Cool!"