236. The Third Concept (I)

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟝𝟝 -> 𝟚𝟝𝟡

So much essence rushed into Zane at once he felt his Core flexing, expanding with his new capacity. It was a rare thing to feel it—it spoke to how much he'd gained.

He would need every bit he could get.

It was bigger. But still mostly drained. It would've been nice if he could use Leveling essence to refill himself. But to fuel his Core he needed his own essence.

He was satisfied, if spent.

It would be a little while yet before he was back to fighting shape—and not just because of his essence situation.

His soul was still exhausted, but more—he felt a dizzying spike of pain, enough to make him hiss. He examined himself. And found a nasty surprise waiting.

Splotches of corruption ran all through him. Staining his muscles, his organs—especially down the middle. His midsection was splotched black all over, an oilspill in the Astral Plane…

Reina rushed to catch him—threw on regeneration. Cleansing him, burning it away, slowly stabilizing him. It still felt like it was burning holes inside him. But she quickly got a handle on it. It was Nascent essence. It would take a little while to melt, it looked like.

He didn't feel like he would collapse at any moment anymore. Even though dizzy spells kept smashing him over the head. Like deep hunger pangs but for essence. He took some elixirs… it would still be a while.

But they had to go on. The other Monster hordes were still at their backs, gaining ground. So they went.

***

Same situation. Zane and Reina as a pair, Evan giving Avery a piggyback ride—and they were making good progress, Reina thought, which was the first good news Zane had heard in a while.

She had them run slightly diagonal for a bit. Then back to their original path, noted the change in the angle of the compass on the mini-map, ran some ballpark figures in her head to figure out how far they had to go. Evan asked her what Skill she was using, and she said "Math." It blew his mind.

With their pace of travel, she said it would take two days until they got there.

They would have to hold out until then.

Avery guided them—trying to weave them between Monster armies that somehow kept cropping up in the distance. Their little crew ran faster than any individual army—they just had to keep going around them, which felt, according to Avery, like playing the world's most high-stakes game of Pac-Man.

"Lucky for you," she said proudly. "You stand in the presence of the 7th place finisher in Division C of the 2022 Greater Seattle Area Pac-Man Championships!"

Evan gasped, asked how many participants there were, and she hastily changed the subject.

There was an absurd amount of strong demons here according to her. Crawling hordes of them. They traveled in packs though. And this place was enormous. So it was still possible to skirt them. For now, at least. While the net was still closing…

Zane figured it wouldn't be too long before he would have to fight again.

And he could do it. But he was also a little concerned that first army would not be the worst of their troubles here.

If they somehow had to take more than that—maybe three Nascent Monster knights or two armies at once… he felt like he was fighting the world.

To do that he needed more firepower from his body. Which was something he seldom thought. It was true, though. He could not crush just one. He had to crush them all.

They skirted Monster hotspots ran around lakes of boiling corruption fields of corruption scars staining the air… and at last came to a rest.

Evan was pretty pooped. He had been running all day. Zane could run a while longer—especially now that Reina had cleared out most of his corruption. But he had made the decision to stop.

Reina wasn't doing too well, even though she kept denying it. He knew her. She had dark circles under her eyes—she looked a little sleepy. She was running low doing all this healing, while also warding off the very air in this place. She'd done a lot.

Sure enough, after they stopped, she kind of slumped into Zane, on the verge of passing out. He fed her healing elixir, let her rest on him. She started murmuring a little as she drifted off.

They settled in an empty stretch of plain. Cracked black ground stretching far as the eye could see, curving around boiling tar-lakes, broken up by forks of bubbling hissing lava.

They put enough distance now according to Avery that they could afford to take a little breather. At least for a few hours—maybe a night. Which did happen here, though there was no sun and no moon that they could see. Just the color of the sky, going from blood red to bruise purple, and staying there a while. No stars here either. Nothing to make a wish on.

It was a chance for them all to take whatever treasures they had brought to replenish themselves too. Avery had packed some sushi, Evan cookies—all equivalent to Earth-grade essence treasures. They took Level-up treasures too.

Zane took out his two new Nascent Monster Weapon Souls.

Both pitch black orbs with maroon splotches swirling angrily over their surfaces. More dense by far than any others he'd come across… each had well over two million souls.

He took them in.

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕎𝕖𝕒𝕡𝕠𝕟 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕝 𝟜 -> 𝟝

𝔸𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕦𝕤 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕤' 𝕕𝕦𝕣𝕒𝕓𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕤 𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝔼𝕡𝕚𝕔 𝕊𝕜𝕪-𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕥 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝.

He almost didn't get it, to his surprise. Weapon Soul levels were getting a lot harder to come by. His Chains' colors only seemed to grow more intense with each Level—deeper blacks. Purer. Shining that much brighter in the Astral Plane.

They all sat there, roasting essence-infused S'Mores around a small fire, darkness swaddling the world around them. Broken up by rivers of lava snaking into the distance. Elixirs ingesting away inside all of them. They readied themselves for a new day...

Zane was just about recovered, soul-wise. He could do with some comprehension, he thought. It would take just a few hours to make a breakthrough. He had his eye on the Vital Organs bit of his Bloodline. He wasn't sure what upgrades that meant. Maybe his gut, or his heart? Whatever it was, he needed more power.

In the past, he had gotten a lot of defense out of his Titan Rhino Bloodline. As well as physical power, the power of the body. That he did not lack. When he was fighting armies a realm up, though... he found he needed his essence to put in more work.

Just then—

"Look!" said Evan. He pointed at the sky. "It's a shooting star!"

Zane frowned, looking up, pretty sure they were under attack somehow. Avery did too. But there was no soul there—and the thing on the mini-map, moving fast toward them, was yellow. The color of treasure.

High above, a stream of white light… it really did seem like a shooting star.

In here?

"The System said something about aid arriving in twenty-four hours?" mumbled Reina, still sleepy.

Sure enough, that shooting star came closer and closer, trailing a sparkling stardust trail utterly out of place in this hellscape—and ended up dropping right in front of Evan.

Evan gasped, picked it up—then showed Zane.

A tome bound in gold plate. Even the pages were written in gold; the letters streamed sunlight. It was a new Skill manual from a Faction called "The Constellation Order," apparently one of the Nine Great Factions. The Light one. They gave him something called "Solar Flare Sword"—it was the next evolution of his laser-beam Skill. Its rarity was Earth (A).

The highest any of them had ever seen.

Soon another dropped down. This one came for Avery. She thought she'd been pranked at first—it looked like just a vial of water—until she read the description, and found it was 'Mt. Tai Spring Water,' also an A-grade item. It granted a special essence boost to those with Water affinities.

She started chugging hers happily.

Which left Zane looking up too, curious. He knew some Factions had an interest in him.

And sure enough… His shooting star came too. A good deal thicker than the ones that flew before—and it landed soft in front of him. The light faded out, revealing the treasure.

It was a violet flower.

A beautiful thing. The petals were made of what looked like liquid light, sizzling and gently crackling, somehow holding form. There was a little sun suspended in the center. Shimmering white-purple.

A single candle-flame of Stormfire. And just that little fire flared so powerfully it commanded its own space, a soft sphere of lightening color.

Not any Stormfire he knew—far stronger. Its aura was blinding in the Astral Plane…

𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤, ℤ𝕒𝕟𝕖 𝕎𝕒𝕝𝕜𝕖𝕣. 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕤 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥𝕖𝕤𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔸𝕫𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝔽𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝔽𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕘𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕖. 𝕀𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕚𝕠𝕦𝕤 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝 𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕙 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖.

Huh.

𝕀𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕙𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕥-𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕞 𝕨𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕕, 𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕟 𝕕𝕚𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕝𝕪 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕞𝕪 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣'𝕤 𝕧𝕒𝕦𝕝𝕥. 𝔹𝕖𝕤𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕤 𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕚𝕟 𝕖𝕗𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕣𝕦𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕒𝕝𝕤𝕠 𝕖𝕩𝕡𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕔𝕖𝕡𝕥—𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕦𝕤 𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕠𝕨 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕠 𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕒𝕚𝕟 𝕄𝕚𝕕-𝕋𝕚𝕖𝕣 𝔽𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟.

𝕋𝕒𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕠𝕣 𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕠𝕣 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕞𝕒𝕪 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕕.

—𝕊𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔹𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣, 𝕆𝕦𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝 𝔼𝕝𝕕𝕖𝕣

Zane inspected it, curious.

ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕞𝕒 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕗𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣 [𝔼𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙 (𝕊)]

𝕀𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕣𝕖𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕖𝕣'𝕤 𝕞𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕤, 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕊-𝕥𝕚𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕥𝕠 𝕒𝕝𝕝 ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕞𝕒 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖, 𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖. 𝔸𝕟𝕪 𝕤𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕗𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕖 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕝𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕘𝕒𝕚𝕟 𝕒 𝟛𝟘% 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕤𝕥.

This seemed big. He had never felt such pure Stormfire in person before… he could feel it was chock-full of Concepts. Concepts far beyond him. Just waiting for his comprehension. It was mesmerizing in the Astral Plane too—strangely it looked the same there as it did here. Just clearer.

Zane was quickly revising his plans. He was pretty sure he knew what he wanted to do now.

It had been a little while since he upgraded his Stormfire. He had a feeling it would give him exactly what he needed. Especially once he absorbed this thing fully. 'Mid-Tier' Fusion… he wasn't sure what it meant. But he was optimistic.

He rummaged through his Bag of Holding and dusted off that old Stormfire tome. Same black leather, blue lettering. Eager to crack it open.

***

Reina's treasure was the strangest. It was a treasure that came in a comet just as bright as Zane's, which got them curious—and sure enough, it turned out to be an Earth A+-rank. It was something called a 'Great Sage Seed'—in 30 days, it would bloom into an S-rank treasure called the 'Great Sage Fruit.' Which was supposed to help Law comprehension a great deal. It was shiny enough.

Only…it didn't seem to have any uses right now. Which they all found strange. Reina started scrutinizing it. He wasn't sure what thoughts were running through her mind.

He asked them to keep an eye on him as he went to take in his flower. They nodded.

He brought it to his mouth, stuffed it in, and swallowed.

***

It was scalding. Even to Zane, who was better placed than pretty much anyone to resist Stormfire. But only for a second. It didn't taste like anything physical. Like he was swallowing sensations, pure heat, pure electricity, jacked to a ridiculous intensity. The very essence of Stormfire.

He still gagged a little. Then it was going down his throat. A setting sun in the Astral Plane...

It settled in the core of his body.

It didn't explode, like he expected. Instead, it dissolved—dissolved to streams so hot even his body had trouble tolerating them. They began to spread, to flow through his channels, carving scalding-hot paths… and where they passed they were scorched clean. Remade in shining purple light…

Instantly Zane started going red, breathing heavy. He began to sweat, breathe out plumes of lightning-filled smoke, sparks of purplish Stormfire dancing down down breath, rumbling to the skies...

He felt it trickling up and down from his Core. White-hot. To his chest and arms—he let it do its work. The progress was very slow. But it would be finished come sunrise, he felt.

Until then... he took the highest-grade Comprehension treasure they had. A 'Draught of Clear-Seeing.' And cracked the Tome of Stormfire.

His body would be drenched in the stuff for the next few hours. He would make the most of it.