《Ult-Terra》


 Did I lose my mind?

    Chapter 1


    Did I lose my mind?


    Klint was going through the same motions as he always did. Wake up, eat breakfast - breakfast was subjective however as it was 5:00pm when he ate breakfast - go to work, and come home. Klint worked 13 hours a day leaving very little time to spend with his son or to do anything he enjoyed. "There has to be more to life than just working, I don''t even have enough time to try and stay in shape anymore."


    Klint was closing in on 40 years old, 38 to be exact. Klint was always a dreamer, thoughts filled with inventions or fighting in great battles to decide the fate of the world. "I''ve wasted my life dreaming about things I can''t actually achieve and now I''m stuck in a job I don''t like with no chance of making THE DISCOVERY I know each human is capable of making."


    The world is a big place, but every day science was filling in the gaps of our understanding of what was possible. But by that same note there was new inventions and discoveries being made every day. this was making life easier in a lot of ways but also less dependent on ourselves and more dependent on technology. Klint spent almost all his free time alone, what free time he did have was while everyone else was asleep, so it made it that much harder to get anything useful done.


    This was a blessing as much as it was a curse, Klint started meditating a few months ago and now he was certain that there is more to being human than what meets the eye. His whole life Klint felt there was something missing with each of us. Now with his meditation he could focus on the "hole" in the core of himself. Exploring that feeling he could feel that if it could be fed....Something, it would radiate through every inch of his body.


    "The best way to describe this would be like a puzzle piece that is missing. I think people with depression feel this hole more than other people, they can feel that missing piece more intensely than most people. I used to fall into that camp, I however learned to bury the paralyzing side effects of depression. Now that I''m meditating on that feeling I can really feel how its connected to every part of what I do, and not just physically but emotionally as well."


    "The only thing is though; I don''t know what to feed it. Enough of my musing, it''s time to get back to my hike." Klint was hiking through the Nevada desert. In the mountains of Northern Nevada. It was the same hike he did once a week on his second day off of work. He was currently resting on the top of a medium sized hill. Being out of shape he was quite out of breath by the time he reached top.


    As Klint started down the other side of the hill he felt something pulling on that hole in his core. Listening to that feeling Klint sat down and started to meditate on it, to try and see exactly what it was he was feeling and why. "Danger" it said to him. At first a whisper, but the more he focused on it the loader it became. it wasn''t a sound he was hearing but a gut feeling. Then it was a direction, back to the top of the hill.


    Once Klint got back to the top of the hill he saw it, how did he not see it before he didn''t know. "My guess is since I''ve been meditating it has awoken something in me and I couldn''t see it until it resonated with my core pit." What Klint saw was a tear in the fabric of reality. it was spherical in shape but unlike a solid sphere it was more like a negative sphere. pulling into itself rather than projecting anything.


    Once Klint set eyes on the negative sphere he felt a pressure on his core pit, it spread through every cell of his body but deeper than that it resonated with his very soul. "I''ve got to figure out a better name than "core pit". But whatever this is it''s calling to me, promising glory and danger."


    Klint wanted to resist the call but before he knew it he was spiraling through the inverted sphere, the tear in reality. It took every bit of will power Klint had but he still lost consciousness. It wasn''t like being knocked out, more like a blackout from too many G-force. As Klint vision came back the first thing he noticed was the crimson sky, it was beautiful and terrifying.


    "I''m in a different reality, did it finally happen? Did I lose my mind? I''ve been scared of this for the last 10 years having most of my thoughts be based in fantasy rather than reality."


    As Klint was contemplating what was happening he was interrupted by a giant scorpion coming out of the ground, he was frozen in place. The scorpion had to be eight feet long and its back came up to his knee''s with its tail''s arc peaking at close to shoulder height.


    Luckily the scorpion hadn''t seen him yet, as Klint took a step away from the scorpion the sound of his foot hitting the ground drew its attention. "It figures the one time I decide to take my Katana instead of one of my guns." Klint had brought his sword, a backpack with some beef jerky and two bottles of water. looking for the sphere he entered this realm through he realized it was gone, and he was stuck here. "Crap Crap Crap, what do I do!?"


    The scorpion started running for him, but either it wasn''t very fast or it wasn''t showing its true speed. Klint was able to outpace the scorpion but scared of running into more creatures, he decided to test its limits of maneuverability. If Klint could defeat it here that would give him time to collect himself and assess his situation. At six feet from the scorpion, the scorpion could keep up the rotation to keep Klint Infront of it. At three feet Klint was outpacing the rotation of the scorpion. But that was dangerously close.


    Starting to get out of breath Klint ran about thirty feet away from the scorpion, he didn''t want to go too far from where the scorpion had come up from the ground, but he figured thirty feet was safe. As he got about 25 feet away the scorpion stopped and so did Klint. "Okay, Okay it looks like this thing knows it can''t chase me and is giving up."


    After Klint caught his breath, he decided to test out the intelligence of the scorpion. "Bigger body bigger brain, right?" Klint bent over and grabbed a fist sized rock off the ground then threw it to the other side of the scorpion. When the rock hit the ground Klint started running for the scorpion, anticipating the scorpion would turn to the rock, Klint drew his Katana. Just as he hoped, the scorpion turned He was about 10 feet from the tail when the scorpion started turning back around but it was too late. He slashed with all his strength and cut half of the scorpions tail off.


    "Yes! Yes Yes Yes! Now that the biggest threat the scorpion has, has been eliminated I should be able to take this thing down!" Retreating back out of the scorpions pincers distance Klint started to think about figuring out other weakness the scorpion might have. Reaching to the ground again He scooped a handful of loose dirt.


    Klint came in close and threw the dirt in the scorpions eye blinding it momentarily then dodging to the side he made two fast slashes for the scorpions front two legs, the first cut took off the leg but the second just bounced off. "I guess I got lucky on the first leg hitting it in the joint, the exo skeleton is pretty hard I''ll need to be more accurate in the future.


    With the scorpions tail gone and one leg missing the scorpion wasn''t much threat anymore, He could easily get to the side of it and put distance between them, Klint chose to put some distance between him and the scorpion to catch his breath again and consider how best to kill this monster. After a minute or two He walked closer to the scorpion.


    Klint gripped his Katana with both hands and started running for the side of the scorpion again, this time he cut off the second leg then the third until finally the scorpion didn''t have any legs left on the right side of its body. "One side down two to go." Repeating the same thing on the left side. The scorpion could not move at all now.


    Klint came around to the front of the scorpion and severed the two pincers, then with a hard downward thrust stabbed through the shell and into the main body, when the scorpion didn''t die, he retched his Katana free and stabbed again and again. Out of nowhere he was hit with a wave of pain and Exstacy as something started funneling into his body.


    It came straight into his chest, into that core that was once so empty, from there it started spreading through his entire body every cell, every inch of him. The pain was extraordinary as his spirit was awakened and stretched. Building and building the pain filled him completely until it receded. it felt like it took hours for the pain to go away but Klint had no idea how long it actually took.


    His sight became a little sharper, his body became a little lighter, he could smell and hear a little better and he was no longer out of breath. But more than any of that he could "see" he could see with his spirit now not far and not well. But compared to not being able to before, it was like seeing for the first time.


    Every shrub had a little bit of life, and they shown to him like they were made of glowing light. but at the same time was twisted and dead. He could see the ground as well with his spirit sight but it was more muted. He found if he closed his eyes it was easier to focus on particular plants, but opening his eyes didn''t completely remove that either. Looking back to where the scorpion was, he saw it was gone, and in its place was a red vial a blue vile and a purple vial.


    "What in the heck are these? If this is anything like a video game then these must be recovery items, red is for health. Blue is for mana, but what is purple for? I''ve never seen a purple recovery item when I would play rpg''s. maybe its an anti toxin of some kind, I mean I did just fight a scorpion so that would make sense."


    Klint picked up the vials and put them in his backpack, then he realized that if there was a mana potion then maybe he had mana now. Excited Klint dropped to the ground and started meditating, he explored everything that his spirit had become. Now that he could feel it and could use it to see he realized that it was his spirit that was empty not a pit. Well, it was like a pit but now it was more than that. It no longer hurt him to be so empty, like the depression once had. It knew what it wanted and so did Klint, It wanted to grow.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Even with all of these changes Klint didn''t feel like he had changed all that much. Only now he felt as though he had the potential for real growth. Only his spirit had actually changed. But he could now feel his spirit connected with every part of his being. breaking away from his meditation Klint stood up and started to look around. "This can''t be real. I''ve dreamed about this my entire life, no one is going to believe me. Wait, how am I supposed to get home? Where am I, and what is this place?"


    As Klint panic started to arise he started running looking for something familiar. "Thats just it though, this whole area is familiar. I need to get home." After two and a half minutes of running He hit an invisible barrier which knocked him to the ground. "What in the World was that?" Out of breath and confused Klint just laid there for a minute before getting to his feet.


    As he stood up Klint saw he was bleeding from his arm. He had cut it on the ground when he fell. It was bleeding but not very bad. more like a deep scrape than a clean cut. Klint felt for the invisible barrier and was horrified when his hand stopped cold in place. "Okay that''s a little creepy." looking around he could see the top of the hill he''d run down from. "I guess I should go back to the top and get my sword, I can have a look around from there too."


    "This is the third time I''ve climbed this hill today; I wonder if I''ll have to fight another giant scorpion?" The idea of having to fight another one of those without his sword was horrifying. "I don''t think I can do it without my Katana." As Klint reached the top of the hill he was relieved when he saw his sword and no giant scorpion. Picking up his katana Klint looked around. Other than the crimson sky everything looked close to the same, close but not exactly. Everything had more of a dead feel and look to it.


    "Is this some kind of shadow realm? Shadow realm, that has a good ring to it." Not knowing he was trying to think of what to call the place Klint decided that that would be its name. looking around the shadow realm he couldn''t see the barrier that he ran into. "I need to find my way out of here." Once again Klint started walking down the hill but this time he went down the other side, moving more slowly and carefully (he didn''t want to run face first into the barrier again) he walked with his hand out in front of him.


    Five minutes of walking later his hand struck the barrier again. this time Klint had a plan, He made a mark on the ground, a Big X dug into the ground with his foot. Klint then started walking to his left with his hand in constant contact with the barrier. He was looking for a gap in the barrier, a direction to progress to. What seemed like an hour later, Klint saw the X he left on the ground. "I appear to be trapped in this place. The top of the hill seems to be the center of the barrier."


    Annoyed, Klint started to climb the hill for the fourth time. Arriving back at the top of the hill he pulled one of his water bottles out of his backpack. He took a small drink then poured some on his scraped arm, looking in amazement his arm already had scabs on it. That should have been a day or two of healing and its only been an hour. Taking out a piece of jerky, Klint ate a few bites and took another drink of water. "What do I do now? I''m completely trapped inside this barrier."


    Remembering his new spirit sight, he tried feeling for the barrier it was hard at first as he had no idea how to use it or how to focus on what he wanted to see. Then he finally felt it, and not just part of it but the whole thing, it extended in a perfect sphere around him even through the ground." I guess I cant tunnel under it, not that I have a shovel with me anyway." Klint could now feel everything inside that sphere and could see everything since he was on top of the hill. There was nothing for him there no clues as how to get out and no pathway forward.


    However he could see something, the vials in his backpack shone like the sun to his spiritual sight, Grabbing the three vials Klint pulled them out of his Backpack. "Maybe I need to drink these to move forward?" Staring at the vials He was hesitant. "What if these kill me? they could be poisonous for me to drink. I don''t really see any other option here." He grabbed the Blue vial and uncorked it, with another moment of hesitation Klint drank the vial. "Bottoms up."


    With a cool and not unpleasant taste, he drank every drop of the vial. Then he immediately regretted that decision. Now being able to feel his spirit it was twisting and growing adding a new area in his soul, it was the most excruciating pain he has ever felt even more so than when he felt the essence of the scorpion flooding into him. This was more concentrated focusing only on his spirit and there was no pleasure to go along with it this time. The pain kept growing and growing until Klint finally passed out.


    When Klint finally woke up he could feel what was like a small puddle inside him, he could feel how large it could become hand the slow trickle that was filling it up. "I guess I was right and wrong, it wasn''t a mana recovery potion, it gave me a small mana pool and started my mana production." Then he said outloads to himself. "No pain no gain. What will the red one do if my recovery has already sped up?" Grabbing the red vial Klint uncorked it and drank.


    Going through another round of pain, this one physical and spiritual, He was able to keep himself from passing out this time. He wanted to feel what exactly it was changing in him but unfortunately the pain was the only thing he could focus on. When the pain passed and Klint could catch his breath, he felt another small puddle in him next to his mana pool. This one also with a small trickle filling it up. The only difference is this time the pool was three quarters full already.


    Looking at the scab on his arm he could watch as it was healing before his eyes, in a few more minutes he would be fully healed. "Thats nice but I don''t really want to test out what I can heal from. What is the purple vial going to do? Before he drank it he could feel the barrier growing thinner. "Okay it seems as though I was right, and I can''t move forward until I drink the last vial." Not wanting to go through the pain again, Klint hesitated. After a few minutes he took the purple vile and drank.


    This vile didn''t hurt at the beginning, but he could feel his soul, his spirit and his body as three separate entities. he then felt them start to overlap, trying to stitch themselves into one that was three becoming whole. the pain was so sudden and so violent that he passed out again. After waking up Klint just laid down not moving, everything he just went through was what he always wanted but he didn''t expect it to be so painful. He was living in a fantasy right now and wanted to see how long it would last until he woke up.


    Sending out a spiritual probe to the barrier Klint felt it was gone. He now could feel more creatures, three to be exact. All on a different side of the hill. one scorpion and two he didn''t recognize but from the feel of the he thought one was a giant lizard and one was a giant snake. Beyond the three creatures he could feel Klint could also feel something far off in the distance, not a creature but something else. Putting his backpack back on and grabbing his katana Neil started for the Scorpion. "Might as well fight the one I know first."


    When Klint was about forty feet away he stopped. not seeing the scorpion, he remembered the first one burst from the ground. Klint grabbed a rock and threw it to where he felt the scorpion was at, when the rock landed the scorpion burst from the ground. Spinning in all directions the scorpion was looking for the offender that intruded on its domain. The it burst forward running at Klint. "What''s going on? I''m well outside its range based on our last encounter."


    The scorpion was fast! much faster than last time. Its pincers started to glow and Klint started to think he was in trouble. Unsheathing his katana Neil ran for the scorpion. "This better work!" At the last second Klint side stepped just as the pincers snapped for his now relocated legs, Klint swung his katana down hard and lopped off one pincer, but that left him open to a tail strike from the scorpion. Luckily, he could see it and was able to spin out of the way just in time to dodge the strike.


    The scorpion spun to get Klint in front of him again, and he back stepped to dodge another pincer attack. After back stepping two more times Klint was able to create a bit of space where he could reset his grip on his katana. Going back in, Klint side stepped the scorpion again and this time went for one of its leg''s. his sword striking true he was able to take a leg off. "Yes, that should hinder your mobility." To Klint dismay the scorpion seemed to get more ferocious and hit Klint in the leg hard with the back side of its remaining pincer.


    Feeling like his leg was about to break and Klint ran back from the scorpion barley dodging another tail strike. "No matter what i cannot get stung by the tail, who knows what kind of poison it will inflict on me if it gets the chance." Now out of striking range of the scorpion Klint went back in and side stepped another pincer strike. Then he circled and swung his sword, this time taking two legs with one swing. That left only one leg on the scorpions left side and he was no match for Klint anymore.


    Unable to run or maneuver Klint got behind the scorpion and took its tail off. Then he went to the front and with one mighty downward swing split the scorpion in half from its maw to its belly. With a rush of essence Klint new that he had won. The scorpion Started dissolving right in front of him, and the essence it became was funneling into him until his spirit was full. The remaining essence started forming something on the ground, it looked like shin guards and bracers.


    "Okay, is that a looting ability?" As Klint grabbed the guards and bracers he felt an innate sense of understanding in what the items did, the guards and bracers gave a minor increase to his overall durability and a sharp increase to the areas the directly covered. Looking around a bit more he found a silver coin with the picture of a scorpion on one side. "Am I getting paid to fight monsters?"


    Klint picked up the silver coin, as he grabbed it, he felt a weird sensation and pushed on it, a little bit of mana trickled out of his hand and wrapped around the coin. Then it disappeared. "What was that?" Probing himself with his spiritual sense Klint felt a strange pocket in his spirit. Probing in that pocket he felt the coin and pulled bringing it back to his hand. "Holy crap, storage ability too? This is going to make carrying things around so much easier."


    Sitting down to meditate Klint felt for the essence that flooded into him, sensing the channels that it could flow into.


    BODY (red vial)


    * Life Force    *Regeneration


    *Strength     *Durability


    *Stamina      *Flexibility


    *Speed        *Balance


    Sub Category Senses


    *Sight         *Hearing


    *Smell         *Touch


    SPIRIT (blue vial)


    *Mana Pool    *Mana Density


    *Mana Regeneration


    Sub Category Mind


    *Spirit Storage  *Memory


    *Perception    *Reaction


    Soul (purple vial)


    *Spirit Sight    *Spirit Sense


    *Spirit Strength  *Will Power


    All these pathways but Klint could tell Soul was far from complete. "None of them are complete ha-ha, they all need to be upgraded but Soul has more channels that can be added. I can feel it." Klint grabbed the essence with his spirit and started guiding it down evenly into every channel for Body Spirit and Soul until every bit of essence was used.


    With all the essence now in every channel it started to settle, and the pain took over, like the first time though there was a Plesant sensation joining the pain. The pain however was intense, and it took him by surprise almost rendering him unconscious again. As the pain receded Klint could feel his strength increasing. It seemed like it had taken him an hour to allocate and another hour of pain but in reality, the whole process only took fifteen minutes. "Time in the meditative state slowed down to a four to one it seems."

 Into the mouth of Hell

    Chapter 2


    Into the mouth of Hell


    After taking another bite of jerky and sip of water Klint put them away again. "I guess it''s time to start making my way back home and see what this warped reality has done to it. I should probably conserve my food and water since I don''t know how to get back to reality, who knows when I will get more and it''s not like I''m getting them from creature drops." Klint had started his hike around 7am and judging from the suns position in the crimson sky it was near 3pm. "Only three or four more hours of light left and if I have to fight more creatures on the way I might not make it before sunset."


    As Klint set out he decided to go after the other two creatures not knowing if creatures would get stronger the farther away from his shadow realm ingress point and not wanting to take unnecessary chances. "HA, fighting the monsters isn''t the Unnecessary chance! I''m still not convinced that I''m not drooling in a hospital right now." The first creature that Klint came up to was a giant lizard who immediately charged Klint. He was shocked at how fast the lizard was but had no time to be paralyzed by it, Klint drew his katana and took a ready stance. The lizard came up to Klint''s thigh in height and as in approached it leapt into the air and Klint thrust out with his katana stabbing it through the jaw and up into its brain.


    The lizard immediately went limp as the katana pierced through the lizard''s skull, but the weight and speed the lizard had didn''t stop just because Klint had killed it. The momentum of the lizard combined with its weight came crashing down on Klint causing him to stumble back and crash to the ground under the lizard. That caused Klint to take a bad hit to his arm almost breaking it as it landed first and on a rock. Klint had a few other scrapes as well but those didn''t bother him. What he found most odd was when he felt in his spirit for his health pool it hadn''t changed at all.


    Focusing on healing his scrapes and his rapidly bruising arm, he felt all the pain being washed away as his health pool then started to drain. "Interesting, my health pool doesn''t represent a full status but instead a status of how much I can heal, and it seems it doesn''t automatically heal me so it won''t drain in a fight to heal minor wound''s I can live with therefore leaving me empty when I need to heal the major wound''s that would kill or cripple me."


    As the essence filled his spirit, he didn''t immediately channel it. Instead, worried about how long that would take and how long it would take to get back to his small town, he set off. Klint grabbed up the ten silver coins the lizard produced upon its death and with a pull he placed them into his storage space. It seems that not everything could go into his storage space as he tried to put his backpack in, but it wouldn''t accept it. Klint then tried to put his katana in his storage space but again nothing happened. Klint thought may by only the coins could enter but then he felt the connection to the shin guards and bracers and they went right in and came out even being equipped going in both directions.


    "The lizard must have left more coins because it didn''t produce any items. There is so much for me to learn about how everything works." For the first time in years Klint felt excited about life and about his future. moving away from the lizard and to the third creature Klint felt he came up to what was a giant snake, this one didn''t sit very high off the ground only coming to Klint''s shin, but it had to be fifteen feet long. Klint immediately had a plan for killing this beast of a snake, he was going to crush its head with a big rock. looking around Klint found the murder weapon he thought would do the trick. grabbing it he started creeping closer to the snake, luckily the snake hadn''t seen him yet and he was able to lob the rock at it.


    It was a good throw but landed just behind the snake''s head. it didn''t kill it but wounded it severely, with the snake twitching all over Klint grabbed another rock and finished the job. He would have used his sword on the snake but didn''t want to chance hitting the ground and dulling his blades edge. With another rush of essence Klint felt his spirit fill to the brim then the rest of the essence returned to the leftover pool of essence and formed twenty silver coins. Klint picked up his loot and put them in his storage space and sat down to channel the essence in his spirit.


    "It only takes two monsters to fill my spirit, if I want to not waste any essence then I need to channel every monster or waste a little essence and allocate every two monsters. It takes me fifteen minutes to channel so what is the best solution? Do I channel every monster and not waste any essence, or do I waste a bit of essence and save some time? Maybe I can absorb more essence as I kill more creatures allowing my spirit to hold more, and maybe I can channel the essence faster as I get used to doing it."


    Klint was hope full for both to be true, he wanted to be able to channel the essence while on the move even if there was pain involved with it now that Klint new about it he could be prepared for it and fight through. That is what he did as he started the process of channeling once again. "I don''t know what kind of creatures or monsters or beasts I may face so I better keep bringing all my stats up evenly." Letting the meditative state fully take him now, he started to channel all the essence evenly.


    Once the pain calmed down enough for him to move, he stood up and started for Virginia City. Despite its name Virginia City was a small town settled in the mountains southeast of Reno Nevada. as he walked, he encountered ten more creatures, six scorpions, three lizards and one snake. He beat them all fairly quick and spent more time channeling the essence than he did in the fights themselves. But at the end his hopes of being able to hold more essence was coming to pass as when he killed the tenth creature, he felt that he could hold just a little more essence. The number of coins seemed to very by monster and by how much essence he could absorb. The more he could hold the less the amount of silver he got.


    With each time he channeled he became a little faster, a little stronger, his endurance increased, and his senses also had small improvements. All of this made his fights go faster as he could swing his sword more accurately and move in and out of position quicker, he reacted to attacks faster than he''s ever been able to react before. In a silly pose with his sword held one handed above his head he yelled "I have the power!"


    "I feel like a nerd, I''m not even using the correct sword type." Continuing on he came across a creature right out of fantasy, a Goblin. The goblin had a rusted short sword that looked like it had blood on it, it came up to his chest in height and was clothed in what looked like an old potato sack. "Good thing I freshly channeled, this goblin looks tough." It may be small but its muscles were not. The goblin hadn''t seen him yet and he drew his katana as he took cover.


    This was the first monster he could actually feel the strength of, and it excited him, "I am stronger and faster than I use to be, I can do this." gathering his nerves he came out from his cover and readied himself. The goblin spotted him and started forward but not wildly. It was slow and methodical in its approach, both prepared for combat. Klint had the advantage in size and reach and he didn''t want to let that go to waste it came into striking distance and he slashed out only for the goblin to block with his sword. he made a couple quick steps back to get out of striking range, but the goblin rushed in.


    With a slash of its own, the goblin slashed Klint on the thigh, it wasn''t very deep as he had made another step to the side turning what would have been a amputating blow into a one-inch-deep gash. Klint however was able to follow up and thrust his katana through the goblin''s chest. the rush of essence that followed was unlike anything he had felt so far, it was rich and heavy and filled his spirit completely. The left-over essence of the goblin was substantial and Klint could only wish he had enough space in his spirit to hold more. Then it formed twenty-five silver coins. He then reconsidered his previous thoughts. "If I keep getting silver like this, I''m going to be rich, If I can survive that is."


    To his disappointment even the goblins sword disappeared. "It would have been nice to have a backup weapon." He was curious about the item drop he got from the first and second scorpion as he hadn''t gotten anything but money since. Then he remembered the cut on his leg. His adrenaline had been through the roof and now that it was wearing off the pain started kicking in. Focusing on his wound and tapping into his health pool he felt the wound start to close up. It took nearly half of his health pool to fully heal his leg.


    Klint pulled the silver into his spirit space and then began to meditate. once again channeling the essence he earned. This essence though covered more ground filling each channel more than three of the other creatures had. The pain that accompanied it was as bad as it had ever been. The pain he felt was indescribable as his spirit and soul filled up and stretched adapting to the changes Klint was putting it through. He could now distinctly feel how much room was in his spirit to hold unchanneled essence, it felt like he could fight a goblin and a scorpion without overflowing but not much more.


    Had he been doing it wrong this whole time? maybe by letting the essence overflow it would stretch his spirit more allowing him to hold more. He didn''t like that though as it would take longer to get stronger, and as the last fight showed him, he needed to get stronger if he was going to survive this shadow realm. So, for now he will channel if he was close to full or after if the creature would only barely make him overflow. With another internal debate solved he started again for his home.


    As he got ever closer, he felt a new type of monster with his spirit sense, he crept closer so he could get a view of it before it spotted him. Klint came over a small rise and tucked himself behind a high elevation pine tree. as he peered around the tree, he saw a giant horned lizard otherwise known as a Horny toad. This thing was big, really big. It stood on all four legs at head height. It must have weighed at least a ton. "I don''t think I''m ready for this fight, but maybe there is a way."


    The Horny toad was wondering around looking for prey, humanoid prey was its favorite. It had eaten a few goblins already, but they won''t go near it anymore then it heard something, it was near the trees. There it was again; the Horny toad ran over to inspect. It could taste the scent of something that smelled good, another sound a bit deeper in, the scent was strong and centered on a tree. Klint was hiding up in the tree with a pocket full of small rocks. As the Horny toad moved into position Klint jumped out of the tree sword first and rammed his blade through the head of the Horny toad.


    The rush of essence was far more than the goblin and Klint tried to channel the essence as it entered his spirit, he was partially successful but was cut off when the pain hit, even with channeling some of essence it still filled his spirit. Along with the essence came the silver coins and something else, Horned shoulder pauldrons. He picked up the shoulder pauldrons and put them and the silver in his spirit space. He then pulled the pauldrons out of his spirit space and with a thought they materialized equipped on his shoulders.


    Needing to again channel his essence he wasn''t looking forward to the pain, just the small taste of it he had a moment ago was enough to make him hesitate. Even with that though he was starting to get use to the pain. This essence was so heavy and rich it took him more than an hour to channel it, the pain was so intense that he had to stop several times. but when it was done, he felt twice as powerful as he was before. His senses twice as sharp. He jumped into the air easily jumping more than six feet in the air.


    "Wow I feel great, the pain may be unbearable but once it''s over the power I feel is amazing!" noticing the sun was getting low and he still had a way to go he decided to head to a small cave he knew of. "I''ll take shelter in the cave for the night and head back at first light." After ten more minutes of walking, he arrived at the cave, but it was far different than before. Calling it a cave was technically not true, as before it was an old mine entrance. Now it looked like a proper cave, but it had an ominous feel to it. Gripping his katana he drew it from its scabbard. "Into the mouth of Hell I go."


    A few dozen yards into the cave he saw a goblin with its back turned to him, it seemed to be dragging something. Klint snuck up behind the goblin and stabbed him in the heart through his back. "At least if their biology was similar to humans, it would be the heart." with the rush of essence he knew that he had killed it, luckily it had died before it sounded an alarm, unluckily its body hit the ground hard and crashed into crude clay pots that shattered making a lot of noise. "I have a bad feeling about this" he quoted as he readied himself for more goblins.


    Looking around in the goblin den for anything he could hide behind he noticed what the goblin was dragging, "Are those Human bones?" The bones were in a tight weaved net, opening the net a little a skull came rolling out. "Now I really have a bad feeling about this, apparently I''m not the only human to have been brought here? or is there other native humans who live in the shadow realm?" Just as he was feeling sick three goblins came rushing up from the tunnels below. Two of them had clubs and one had a wooden shield and crude spear with a sharpened stone as its tip. Not wanting to be the goblins next victim and angry at these monsters for killing another human he was filled with an anger he didn''t know he was capable of.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    It led his next few actions as he rushed the three goblins, taken off guard by the sudden ferocity of him the goblins momentarily froze in place. But that was all the time Klint needed, he swung out at the first goblin cutting it in half diagonally from right shoulder to left hip. The spear wielding goblin thrust out at him, but he grabbed the spear just below the stone tip and pulled the goblin forward, at the same time he plunged his sword into the goblins throat and twisted the blade. The third goblin hit him in the ribs cracking half of them along the right side of his body but when the goblin went to swing again it was struck by the spear wielding goblins body Klint had grabbed and used as his own club. taking the spear Klint shoved it down into the final goblins head.


    With a rush of essence from all three goblins Klint noticed he could hold a lot more in his spirit now, he felt as though he could hold twenty times this amount. Despite him still being able to hold more essence each goblins dropped fifteen silver coins each. "I''ll be back to give you a proper burial." With a quick word to the fallen human Klint headed deeper into the goblin den.


    Klint''s ribs were hurting but it wasn''t unmanageable, he decided to not to heal up just yet, he might need the healing for a more severe wound. setting down farther into the cave he was grateful it was lit with torches along the walls. A few minutes of walking and he felt his leg brush up against something, out of nowhere two wooden spikes attached to a longer flexible piece of wood spang to life as the wood spikes sank deep into his leg. but there was more, the trap had bells on it alerting the trap makers of any who sprung the trap.


    Pulling the wood spike''s out of his leg he quickly focused on the wound and the health pool feeling it drain. the hole in his leg closed up but was still sore, and he cut off the healing just as two goblins wielding spiked clubs came running at him. He dodged one goblins attack and blocked the other then used the momentum of the block to strike back at the first goblin who blocked his attack. He used that momentum to get a glancing blow on the second goblins face leaving a deep gash across its cheek. Then he jumped backward a dozen feet and nearly fell over forgetting how far and how high he could jump.


    The goblins wasted no time and came right at him again, he had an idea though and decided to go for it taking two steps and jumping he did a half cartwheel in the air so he was above the first goblin and upside down he then did a front flip slash catching the goblin in the stomach and splitting it in half from the stomach to its head. The look of fear in the second goblin was clear as Klint landed on his feet, bending over he grabbed the spiked club before it disappeared and threw it at the goblin, they were close together, so the club didn''t have far to travel and the spike''s dug deep into the goblins head.


    "That was stupid! Every RPG I''ve ever played that had goblins in it the goblins made traps, why wasn''t I on the lookout for them? I need to be more careful." Checking his spirit, he felt for his health pool to see how much was left, it was only a quarter drained. After the last fight his ribs were quickly getting to the point to where every movement hurt so after a few minutes of talking himself into it, he decided to use the health pool and heal his ribs. He didn''t heal them fully but got them to the point of only being bruised and not cracked that way he could save some of his health pool, which was sitting around a third now.


    Collecting his loot, he sat down to rest for a few minutes, this day had been long. Klint was starting to get mentally exhausted. Several cycles of fighting then channeling then pain and more hiking all while being stuck in this Bizzaro shadow realm. He was getting frantic and needed to calm his mind down. He was worried about his son, worried if he''d be able to make it back home to see him again. "Does he exist in this realm? Is he some twisted shadow thing or is this place completely separate from the reality I know?"


    He knew his parents were looking out for his son, but he couldn''t help but feel they would be worried about him sending search parties out in hopes to find him. "I never told them where I was hiking today, and I left my phone at home so they can''t even track my last location. Even if they knew where I was hiking, they might end up in this place while they''re looking for me. No, I need to get stronger than figure out how to leave this place."


    With his mind settled he decided to meditate to see if he could speed up his body''s natural recovery, to his amazement he could, but he also felt how long it would take and didn''t feel like he had hours to waste on a sore leg and bruised ribs. After his increase from the Horny toad he felt like these goblins were not as much of a threat as they were before. He could probably take on six or seven at a time with minimal risk but any more than that would be pushing it.


    Now that he was ready, he started down the tunnel again and was met with a split in the cave, one path to the left and one to the right. "Doesn''t matter what way I go; I''m going to clear out every section of this goblin den. Feeling with his spirit he felt more danger from the right path, he decided to go left and save the big bad for last. "Boss fight''s always have to be last right?"


    The left path sloped downward and was shaped like a corkscrew leading him down. He eventually reached the bottom where he slaughtered four more unsuspecting goblins. He killed two of them before they realized anyone was there and the other two before they could bring their weapons to bear. He was then met with another choice of left and right, again he chose left. The passage became a little narrower and then opened up into what looked like barracks. There were ten goblins in there just milling about not doing anything.


    Not doing anything that is, until one of them was cut in half. Klint stepped in cut one down right away and then retreated down the passageway where they would have to face him one at a time, he like those odds, he liked them a lot. One by one the goblins fell to his blade and when it was over he felt, well he wasn''t sure how he felt. "These battles are life and death, I''ve never felt so alive in my life, but I''ve never been one for killing for sport. I don''t enjoy taking life, do I?" Going back into the barrack''s he started looking for anything he could use or sell when he got back to reality. He didn''t find anything.


    He returned to the previous fork in the tunnel and this time followed it to the right. After several more minutes of walking, he came across another fork in the tunnel. "Seriously? How many forks are in here?" Again, he took the left fork and came into an opening, eight goblins were in here and they were armed and ready for a fight. The fight was tough, but Klint was able to dodge all the attacks the goblins threw at him, but it was hard to get a counterattack in with the sheer numbers the goblins had over him.


    Eventually though he was able to start taking them down, it started with a wound to one, severing another one''s arm. This caused the momentum to shift in Klint''s favor and after fifteen minutes of dodging and attacking he took them all down. "My spirit is getting close to full I maybe can take another group or two that size and then I''ll need to channel the essence. collecting all the gold coins he returned to the previous fork and went right.


    This tunnel went on and on for what felt like miles, when he finally got to the end there was nothing there but some empty cages and an underground spring that had a small current to it. Disappointed and relived that there weren''t any goblins to fight he knelt down next to the pond and tasted the water. It tasted fresh and it sped up the recovery of his health pool. Dumping out the rest of the water from both water bottles he refilled them in the spring. Then he drank his fill.


    Not only did the spring speed up the recovery of his health pool he could feel it trying to boost his mana regeneration and heal small injuries on his body. It also eliminated his fatigue. "Is this the fountain of youth?" Feeling his mana being invigorated Klint sat down and started focusing on his mana pool. Why hadn''t he got a skill or something that allowed him to use mana? Spiritually gripping his mana, he started moving it through his body. He was barely able to budge it, but Klint kept trying regardless. After an hour of budging his mana, he was able to freely move it to any part of his body, though it did take considerable effort and concentration to do so and if he lost focus for even a second the mana would snap back to his mana pool.


    What he found interesting was when he moved it to his eyes, he could see far more detail in his surroundings and how much mana something had, also it was a bit easier to put mana there and keeping it in his eyes took far less concentration than anywhere else in his body. Keeping it active in his eyes however cost mana and was draining it at an incredible rate. While he was sure there was more, he could do with his mana, he was now thoroughly exhausted and was sweeting from his whole body. Getting up he headed back over to the spring to refill his mana pool and relieve his fatigue.


    "I''ll need to practice with my mana if I ever want to be able to channel it without wearing myself out like that. I know there is more to mana than just using it for mana sight." After a few minutes of laying by the spring he felt his fatigue lift from his body and he got to his feet once more, ready to head down the right path from the first fork in the tunnel. It took him nearly an hour to get back to the first fork and he immediately set down the right path, while he didn''t encounter any traps when he followed the left fork the right fork was riddled with them. He was always on the lookout for them through and didn''t set any of them off, but it did slow his progress down quite a lot.


    He came to a few areas that were bigger than the barracks were, there was no goblins in them, only more empty cages save for a few. three of the cages held scorpions in them, all dismembered but not dead, all three had their pincers and stingers removed from them. Klint walked over to the cages and ran his blade through each of the scorpions, putting them out of their misery. "Even if they are twisted mutant creatures from this shadow realm, they don''t deserve to suffer." The essence washed over him filling his spirit ever fuller to the point to which he needed to channel.


    After another twenty minutes of walking, he finally came Apon a cavern that held more goblins, carefully creeping closer so he could see better he started counting. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven." He froze, sitting farther back on a throne made of bones was a different variant of goblin, if he had to guess he would say it was a hob goblin. taller, more muscular and brandishing a steel weapon, the first goblin he''d seen using one except for the scout he killed before entering the goblin den. "What should I do?" I don''t know the strengths of the hob goblin.


    Klint sent a trickle of mana to his eyes to try and gauge the strength of the hob goblin he could see that in terms of mana this hob has double what the normal goblins have. "Well hopefully it''s like me and has mana but can''t use it." Upon further inspection all the other goblins also had steel weapons two with war hammers, three with swords and two with bows. Keeping the mana there was taxing and he released the mana for now.


    "If it was just the goblins, I''m sure I could take them, even with the addition of the bow user''s, it would be nice if one of the monsters would have dropped a ranged weapon for me. No point in wishing for what I don''t have, that will get me nowhere at best." Once again Klint took his perception to his mana core wondering why he had mana but no way to use it. Pushing on his mana he tried to make it flow again forming the idea of a gauntlet made of mana on his hands, for just an instant the mana started to whisp out. But, just as fast as it came it receded. "I know I''m onto something with that, there has to be more but now isn''t the time, I have goblins to slay."


    Drawing his katana he stepped out from behind the cavern entrance, stepped out, into battle. Four things happened at once, the hob goblin roared at his goblin minions, the archers drew their bows, the melee goblins immediately prepared for a fight and Klint tripped a trap taking a scorpion''s stinger to the left thigh. He swung his sword down hard on the wooden spring that held the stinger breaking it off. He then grabbed the stinger out of his thigh and swayed to the side dodging one arrow, but another arrow sprouted from his left shoulder.


    Here he was trying to fight a small squad of goblins with a squad leader (the hob goblin) and he had already been injured twice bad and poisoned at least once. "I''m going to need to finish this fast, maybe the spring could cure the poison. retreating back up the tunnel to get out of line of fire he pulled out the arrow from his shoulder and sent half of his regeneration pool to his wounds stopping the bleeding but not fully healing them, just enough to give his mobility back. He could hear the goblins running after him, that was good maybe he could take them without worrying about the archers. he retreated a bit farther up the cave tunnel and then turned to fight the goblins.


    The first goblin to reach him got there just after he turned around and the goblin swung his sword at him, Klint blocked the sword with his bracer and felt his arm go numb under the force of the blow another goblin struck him in the side with the flat of a war hammer. Yelling in pain Klint swung his sword back on the first goblin taking its head off, then jumping back away from a follow up swing by the war hammer goblin. He grabbed the right side of his ribs, and the other two melee goblins joined the fray. Feinting a thrust at the war hammer goblin he side stepped and then thrust his sword into the throat of the other sword goblin, the goblin tried to beck step but there wasn''t enough room in the cavern and tripped over the second war hammer goblin, which saved it''s life with the backwards fall because Klint''s thrust would have gone clear through its throat.


    Instead, it left a deep gash on the face from its chin all the way to its right eye, blinding it in that eye. The first war hammer goblin swung again at Klint''s exposed right ribs aiming for the same spot but this time with the spike of its hammer, but Klint didn''t thrust at the first goblin without knowing that was a possibility and he turned his thrust to a slash taking the war hammer goblins arm off. Then he stabbed through the two goblins heads as the first goblin had made both of them fall down leaving both of them vulnerable. That only left one melee goblin left and he had just disarmed it, literally.


    All this happened in about thirty seconds and no other goblins came to join. The disarmed goblin turned to run back to its other goblins and their leader but Klint grabbed it by the back of its dirty ragged tunic slightly lifting it off the ground. Now that Klint had a shield he felt a lot more confident in taking on the archers, he paused for a moment and sent half of his remaining regeneration pool to his ribs dulling the pain. Luckily, he was regaining feeling in his left arm the arm he used to block the first attack with his bracer.

 Well, thats convenient

    Chapter 3


    Well, Thats Convenient


    Nathan was excited, He hadn''t seen his sister Emily in two years, and she was coming home for a week to visit. Nathan and Emily use to be inseparable being twins, Nathan of course was the older twin being born ten minutes ahead of Emily. Such things were important to twins, very important. Emily had already been home for two days however and she was just hold up in her old room. Nathan and Emily were both staying with their parents, Nathan went to a community college in Reno Nevada and was earning his master''s degree in engineering. He was already in his last year and had good grades and high hopes. Nathan wanted to be a civil engineer.


    Emily had better grades when they were in high school and was accepted into several state universities, but ultimately ended up going to the University of Oregon. Though something happened with her, and she ended up dropping out and moving in with Justin. Justin had everyone fooled, but not Nathan. Nathan knew Justin was a snake, he could see the signs of a narcissist from a mile away and Justin was definitely a narcissist. Emily used to be so full of life, but slowly he had seen the changes in her. She became less social, her grades had started to slip, their phone calls went from two to three times a week down to once a month and eventually Justin stopped letting Emily come home for visits. Now they only talk maybe once every three months and it''s always while Justin is away, if he comes home while they are on the phone she quickly hangs up.


    Of course, Emily would defend him saying things like she was too busy (even though she just stays home) she didn''t have enough money, their parents would offer to pay for her to come visit but there was always another excuse. Nathan tried to talk to his parents about it and they couldn''t see it, they thought he was just swell eating up every line Justin gave them and thinking Emily just needed time to find out who she was, But Nathan new who she was. He had always known, they were twins.


    "Hey Em, quit moping around in your room, I want to hang out with my sister"


    "I Am NOT MOPING NATHAN! Leave me alone."


    "What happened to you Em? Why are you being so distant from me? I''m your brother I know you better than anyone, you''ve changed since you met Justin Em."


    "I said leave me alone Nathan, I just can''t right now, Okay?


    "Okay Em, I''m just worried about my baby sister, I miss you, you know."


    "Nathan I am ten minutes younger than you."


    "I know Em, I''m just.... I''m....Here for you, for anything, I hope you know that Em."


    "I know Nate, I know, please just leave me alone for now, please."


    "Okay Em, I''ll see you later."


    Emily knew Nathan only wanted to help, but how could he? He wouldn''t understand. How can anyone understand not feeling worthy of the person you were head over heels for, feeling like everything you do for that person wasn''t enough. Giving in on every fight because you wanted more than anything to make that person happy and yet everything you do was brushed aside like it was nothing.


    Emily thought if she came home for a week, it would make Justin realize how much she meant to him. But Justin only made her feel like she didn''t love him for going, telling Emily that she only thought about herself and never did anything for him. Flipping every argument around on her making her the bad guy. Emily had texted him a few times and he took hours to reply to her. Texting one-word answers.


    Emily was trying to stay strong, but she could only think of him at every moment, and the ache that filled her being was so intense she couldn''t escape it. But she didn''t want to escape it, she just wanted him to feel the way about her that she felt about him. That would make everything better, all their problems would disappear if only he would love her as much as she loved him.


    six days had gone by, and Emily only left her room at night to eat and to sneak into the bathroom, she was starting to feel ripe, she needed to shower but how could she go out and show her face to her family. It was so easy to lie on the phone pretending everything was okay, but it was much harder to do so in person. Nathan only came to the door one more time after he had overheard her arguing with Justin on the phone, she hadn''t known Nathan was home, she thought he went out with their parents and in a moment of weakness she called Justin to see if he would say that he missed her.


    Emily should have known better, if he missed her, he would have called her. That was on day four. Of course, he did end up saying he missed her and loved her but only after she had asked him if he did. Shaking her head and flinching away from her own weakness she decided to try and sneak into the bathroom for a shower, she gathered grabbed a clean outfit and a towel, all her bathroom supplies and quietly opened her door, no one was in the hall, perfect.


    Quietly she snuck down the hall and into the bathroom, she stripped down and turned on the shower. Emily was small of stature five-foot one inch tall and one hundred pounds, she uses to be one hundred and fifteen pounds with an athletic body, but Justin didn''t like women with any muscle, even though she still looked very feminine. So, she gave up her kendo and karate for him and limited her meals so she would become slight of frame.


    She flinched away at that thought too, all the compromises she gave to Justin, and he did nothing in return for her. slowly she stepped into the shower after the temperature was just right, for a long while she just stood in the hot water letting it run over her medium length brown hair, down her face and back just letting the nothingness hold her for a while. the nothing was painful but not as painful as the ache that was constantly with her. So, for right now, as long as she could, she would hold onto the nothingness.


    Emily finally came out of the shower after running out all the hot water and having to finish rinsing the soap off in cold water. she dried and got dressed. As soon as she came out of the bathroom her parents called out to her. "Hey Em, we are cooking steak and asparagus with baked potatoes and a Caesar salad for dinner, it should be ready in twenty minutes."


    "Great that''s what I was trying to avoid, but I am hungry. And at least I''m clean now. Okay mom I''ll be out soon." That was Emily''s favorite food after all. No one could make a steak like her dad, and her mom''s asparagus was always made just right. Dinner went okay for Emily, thankfully no one asked anything to personal and she could get away with minimal conversation. But Nathan asked her to join him on a mountain bike ride in the morning and not wanting to make excuses she had agreed.


    They set out early the next morning, Driving from the capital of Nevada up to Virginia City. They left an hour before sunrise, before it became too hot and they arrived about thirty minutes later, they use live in Virginia City until around middle school when their parents moved them to Carson City the Capitol of Nevada. They used to love riding their mountain bikes in the hills around their old home and Nathan thought it would be a good way to get his sister to open up to him again.


    They arrived in the small town that use to be their home and turned down a dirt road slowly driving another couple miles. The drive over was quiet, Emily still being tired. Depression often sapped her energy and made her not want to do a lot and Nathan not wanting to set her off. She tried to tell Nathan she changed her mind that morning, but he wouldn''t take no for an answer saying it was the last day they would get to do anything together and he barely had seen her at all. Reluctantly she got out of bed and got dressed for the ride. Finding some of her old clothes still in her closet, she grabbed her gun and headed put it in her old backpack along with a freshly filled bottle of water that she always brought when riding in the mountains.


    They unloaded the mountain bikes and started riding down the tail, Emily could tell that Nathan was taking them to their old favorite spot. A small mineshaft tower on top of a mountain that overlooked all of Reno Nevada. The ride was nice in the cool morning air and so far, Emily wasn''t regretting going with Nathan, but she knew the questions were coming and she didn''t know how to face her brother.


    It was a long ride up hill to get to their old spot, made longer because Emily didn''t keep in shape and had to stop multiple times to rest. "I''m going to get back in shape I don''t care if Justin likes it or not" Emily thought to herself. Finally, they got to the hill that held the old mine tower that overlooked Reno, they parked their bikes at the bottom and started climbing the tower leg structure. The tower has stairs, but they terminate on the bottom end about a fifth of the way up, around forty feet from the bottom.


    They got to the crossover section where they could make their way to the stairs and then started the steep stair climb to the top. Once there they both sat on the edge dangling their feet over the rail and holding onto the handrail. They just sat down for a long time, no one speaking. Finally, Nathan spoke. "Hey Em, I know things aren''t going well, and well, I want to help but I don''t expect you to tell me what''s going on. But just know I''m here for you Alway''s and nothing will ever change that."


    Emily just nodded along, not saying anything. Finally, she just leaned her head on her brother''s shoulder and said "Thank you Nathan, and you''re right I don''t want to speak about what''s going on. At least not right now, but can we just stay up here for a while longer sitting in silence? This is really peaceful, and I don''t want anything to change yet. I want to burn this view into my mind."


    "We can stay up here all-day little sister." The sun had been up for about two hours and the air was warm on them as they just sat there taking in the view. "Do you Want to keep riding? the trail gets a bit more fun on the way back if we go to that peak over there."


    "Sure, sounds good big brother." Emily said sarcastically.


    They climbed back down the tower and continued their ride. A half hour later they arrived at the top of the peak Nathan had pointed out. "Why did I agree to this again?"


    "Because it''s going to be awesome!"


    "Doesn''t feel awesome."


    "You''re just saying that because you''re tired."


    "True."


    "Look, if we carry enough speed down this hill we can make it across that plateau. It''s a different path than how we came here but it''s better for the return trip."


    "Hey Nathan, let me look around for a bit before we go, okay?"


    "Sounds good Em, I usually rest a few minutes at this point anyway."


    Emily put the kickstand of her bike down and got off to start looking around. From the top of the peak, she could see her surroundings and saw the path leading down the opposite side of the peak.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation."Hey Nathan." She called to him. "Have you gone down that path before?"


    "Down that side? Yeah, why do you ask?"


    "I want to Keep going that way."


    "You sure? It gets pretty rough that way, especially for the return trip because we have to come back up this hill or that hill over there. And to be honest there both pretty tough comeing back this way."


    "Yeah, I''m sure Nathan. Something about that area looks like it will be soothing to ride through."


    "Well, the thing is Em, I don''t want to go that way."


    "Oh, and why is that BIG Brother." She said -big brother- sarcastically again.


    "Oh, it''s nothing really."


    "Nothing? Then why don''t you want to go? Tell me."


    "Do you really want to know?"


    "Nathan are you afraid of that trail?"


    "What? No!"


    "Kinda sounds like you are"


    "I''m not afraid of it."


    "Then why?"


    "The thing is, I really don''t want to hear you whine at the trip back up these hills."


    "Oh, you Butthead!"


    "I''m serious."


    "Fine, I''ll keep all of my Grumbling for my internal monolog."


    "You say that now but as soon as we start back up the hill you start cursing me."


    "No, I won''t, why would I curse you I''m the one who wants to go that way."


    "You''ll say something like *I never would have decided to come this way if you never made me come this morning* or some other weird female logic."


    "Weird female logic? You''re a dork, but yeah I probably would do say that."


    "See! That''s why I don''t want to go."


    "Okay, no female logic either, I promise."


    "Good."


    "Good!"


    They started going down the hill, the path twisted left and right back and forth. This was made worse by dodging big rocks on the path, but they both had full suspension bike''s and could take the bumps when they couldn''t avoid them. Now they were really picking up speed, they had to stop dodging all the rock''s due to the speed and how loose the ground was getting.


    Finally, they started getting near the bottom and could stabilize the bikes under them. Emily let herself go as the path weaved back and forth through the high desert pine trees, just taking it all in. It was soothing to her and she let herself get lost in the feeling. Emily was in the lead with Nathan not too far behind her as they zipped and weaved flowing with the trail.


    They came to a clearing in the trees and stopped their bike''s. "Let''s park the bike''s and do a little exploring around here." Emily said.


    "From time-to-time Em, you surprise me. I couldn''t get you to hang out all week long and finally at the end before you go back, you''re full of life just like you use to be."


    "I''m sorry Nate, I''ll try to be better."


    "Nate? You haven''t called me that in a long time."


    "I haven''t been myself in a long time. Over there. Let''s go that way." Emily quickly changed the subject.


    Emily led the way adjusting the straps on her backpack, she led them up a small hill where she felt the hollow sinking feeling in her chest set in again. In an instant the soothing feeling of the forest was gone, and the endless pit reappeared, she felt empty once again. "Let''s go home Nathan." Nathan knew that whatever was haunting Emily had returned, but he didn''t argue.


    As they started walking away Emily froze and turned around. "Nate do you see that?"


    "See what?" Nathan started to say, but before he could fully say it, he saw it. It was something that didn''t belong on this planet. It looked like a hole in the air but not circular, it was spherical in shape drawing in everything from all sides. Like a black hole but not black, if he looked close enough, he could see shapes. What looked like a planet but instead of extruding it was intruding. Finally taking his eyes off of it he saw Emily walking up to it, "No Em Don''t!" He yelled and ran to stop her but before he got to her, she was gone, and Nathan felt his world changing.


    Flashes of light, spinning, then darkness and Nathan passed out. When he woke up his eyes bulged, the sky was red. Nathan was panicking and then he saw it, a small green creature wearing what looked like animal skins and was holding a club in its hand, its eyes were pure red. Nathan started to run, not knowing what he was seeing and he hit an invisible barrier. Then the goblin was upon him.


    The goblin swung its club hitting Nathan in the chest, it knocked the wind out of him, but he pushed the green creature away then started running in the opposite direction, looking around he couldn''t see Emily anywhere. He started yelling out to her "Emily Emily! Where are you?" Then Bam! He hit another barrier this time it laid him out and he almost lost consciousness again. Nathan started getting up when he was struck by the green creature again.


    This time he felt bone break as the club impacted his shoulder. He screamed out in pain but got to his feet. The creature was relentless and started swinging his club again, Nathan dodged back gripping his shoulder, He stepped in and punched the creature in the face, and it fell back.


    Nathan started to run again, scared and in pain he was desperate to get away to find his sister. running in yet a third direction he struck the barrier again. Once more the creature was on him this time it broke Nathans leg with the club. Nathan couldn''t run anymore, and he tried to crawl away. He looked back at the creature just in time to see the club come down and crush his head. And Nathan knew no more.


    Emily heard Nathan yelling to her, but she couldn''t stop, she had to see what this thing was. It was more than that though, she didn''t feel like she entirely controlled her actions. Like she was being pulled into it, then spinning, darkness and light. the force was too intense, and she passed out.


    When Emily woke up, she was in awe, the crimson red sky was breath taking and she basked in it. Looking around she saw the back of what looked like a small green creature. "A Goblin?" Emily thought. Digging in her backpack she pulled out her gun and thumbed the safety. The goblin was holding what looked like a crude spear and suddenly Emily was grateful for all the gun lessons she took and for having it with her.


    The goblin turned around and Emily saw its eyes, pure red like it was filled with hate, it started running at her and she put two rounds in its chest killing it instantly. Out of nowhere pain racked her body there was nothing left on her that wasn''t in pain every finger and toe, even fingernails and toenails were in pain. Her head was splitting her eyesight blurry. Even more than that it felt like her very soul was being torn apart.


    She could feel it being shredded and put back together stretching and pulling, tearing and healing. The pain was so great that she thought she would pass out. Mixed in with the pain was something else, a sense of pleasure but as suddenly as it came on it passed. Everything was new to Emily, the things she could now see and hear, the things she could feel even though she wasn''t touching them. It was all new and wonderful.


    The strength she could feel flowing threw her was exhilarating and she lost herself in this new feeling. "What was that creature I just killed? Did this happen because I killed it? was it really a goblin?" Looking for the goblin she didn''t see it but she felt something where it was. walking up to it she saw three vials, one red, one blue and one purple.


    If killing the goblin made me stronger what will these do? With no further questioning she drank the purple vial. She could feel herself vibrating and three different parts trying to merge together. the pain set in growing and growing, building in intensity. It was so great that she couldn''t hang onto consciousness, and she passed out.


    When she woke up there was no pain, and nothing obvious she could tell was different. "I don''t want to do that two more times." uncorking the red and blue vial''s she drank them both at the same time. The backlash of that was intense her body and soul were in tremendous pain, feeling new... organs? are they new body parts? She couldn''t tell. not of the physical she knew but of the spiritual. Just as she thought she could make sense of it, she passed out again.


    Emily woke up sometime later and looked around. "Nathan, Nathan! Where are you." she called out. Again and again, she called out to him but no answer, "Why didn''t I think about him sooner? Hopefully he didn''t come into this reality, but knowing Nathan he was right on my heels chasing after me, but why didn''t we arrive here together?"


    Out of know where Emily felt three things in her new sense coming right for her, her thoughts became focused and she readied her pistol, twelve rounds in my magazine two shots fired already ten shots left plus one more magazine in my backpack. The first creature came into view, another goblin, waiting for the goblin to get in range she took aim. Finally, she squeezed the trigger two shots rang out in rapid succession dropping the goblin.


    The next goblin was just coming into view, and she ran closer as she could feel the third was coming from the opposite direction and she didn''t want to be taken from behind while engaging with the second. she stopped, took aim and just as she was about to fire was hit with a wave of essence from her first kill. She missed both shots as the essence flowed into her. quickly she fired two more and this time the goblin went down. "It must not have died right away" she said out loud to herself. running up to the downed goblin she shot it in its head causing the essence to flow immediately into her. "Looks like I was right, I get EXP or something like it when they die."


    Just then an arrow sailed just past her head and she scrambled to clear the goblins line of fire. Looking around he saw a tree and took cover behind it. "Where the hell are you?" she couldn''t see the goblin at all, if this was a goblin that is, but remembering her new sense she tried to feel for the goblin, but it wasn''t where she thought it would be, instead the goblin had a clear line on her and she felt the arrow already flying straight at her.


    Quickly she moved to the side and the arrow lodged itself in the tree right where she was leaning against, she returned fire on the goblin firing three times but all three missed. It was enough to make the goblin take cover though and Emily used that time to grab her second magazine out of her pack. She only had two shots left in this one and she wanted to be prepared just in case she had to shoot from farther away.


    Ten yards was her maximum range for any kind of accurate grouping, farther than that and it became more luck than skill. Another arrow flew past her, and she cursed herself for losing track of where the goblin had gone. feeling once more for the goblin she located it and had a clear shot but a bit outside of her range, she squeezed twice pop pop the gun sang out, but she missed, thumbing the mag eject she slide her other magazine in and released the slide.


    reloaded and feeling confident she jumped out from her cover and ran for the goblin, never keeping a straight line, she dodged left and right as arrow after arrow flew at her, finally she felt close enough to take aim and she squeezed off two more shots killing the goblin instantly. then she noticed something, "Pain? From where? She looked to her left arm and saw an arrow had sprouted from it. screaming she ripped it out and her arm started to gush blood. something in her told her to focus on the red vial and what it gave her. "A health pool? No that''s not right, its completely full so if it was a health pool this injury would have lowered it."


    As soon as she thought about her injury, she felt the pool empty and flow to it healing it fully, it took nearly all of the pool, but the wound was gone. Suddenly she felt something she hadn''t felt before, an invisible barrier that she didn''t know was trapping her suddenly released and was gone. "Well, that''s a bit weird but saving that for later I want to see if those goblins left anything for me like the first one did." As she approached her fallen foe, she saw it break apart into dark smoke and leaving behind five quarter sized silver coins.


    "Money? You''re leaving me money? I feel like I got ripped off after what the first goblin left, although if that''s real silver then at least I can buy more bullets, there not cheap you know. Speaking of where am I? Why is the sky red? And where the Hell is my brother!" Emily went to where she killed the other two goblins and collected the coins from them, the rang out to her new sense and she could "see" them clearly with it. When she grabbed the last coin she paused and inspected, "I know they are weird monster coins, but it feels like I can" Poof all of the sudden the coins disappeared, and she instantly could feel where they had gone and how to retrieve them. "Well, that''s convenient."


    She quickly tried to store her backpack but only felt the coins go into that space. Well at least I won''t have to hear them jingle while I''m looking for my brother. With her gun ready Emily started walking back to where her and Nathan left their bikes, hoping that he would be there waiting for her.

 That was reckless

    Chapter 4


    That Was Reckless


    Klint charged in at the goblin to the left, it was the closest of the two. He was using a downed but not killed goblin as a meat shield to block the archer''s arrows. It quickly sprouted two arrows then two more as its body started to turn into black essence smoke. Klint was already on the first archer and cut him down quickly. As he turned to face the other archer he was struck by an arrow in the shoulder.


    That arrow didn''t slow him down however and he dodged two more arrows as he closed in on the other archer. with two archers now down that only left the hob goblin and he looked mad. The hob goblin rose up off his throne and growled with a long howl, Klint started to approach with his sword in a ready position when his vision started to fade.


    "What''s going on?" Then he remembered what had stabbed his leg earlier, the scorpions stinger. "I guess that''s what it''s poison does is cause blindness." It couldn''t have come at a worse time, the hob goblin was already approaching him getting ready to strike. Klint stumbled backwards rubbing his eyes, and the hob started grunting what sounded like it''s version of a laugh.


    Slice, the hob cut his left arm, Klint jumped back but fell as he landed. Slice the hob cut his left leg. both wounds weren''t very deep just meant to make Klint afraid. The hob was clearly enjoying this thinking his victory was assured. Then something Klint''s spirit sense lit the room up and he could "see" everything. Why had he forgot about that? The hob got closer as Klint got to his feet, now faking his blindness to keep the hob feeling overconfident.


    The hob raised his sword for another strike and quickly Klint''s stumbling turned to one fast motion, a solid swing severing the hobs weapon hand from its arm. The hob growled in pain rage returning to it. It kicked Klint halfway across the cavern and rushed immediately after him. Klint coughed up blood and tried to ignore the pain, but the hob was on him. Punching him in the face Klint hit the ground again.


    Was this it? Was this where he would die? "No! Not here! Not Ever! You won''t kill me!" He grabbed the hobs next punch and pulled down on the arm at the same time he kicked the hobs leg buckling its knee. The two of them exchanged punches while rolling on the ground the hob was clearly stronger, but Klint still had both of his hands. Utilizing this Klint was able to work his way on top of the hob and started beating its face into a pulp. The hob was tough though and wouldn''t go down so easily, it hit Klint with its stumpy arm pausing the paunches long enough to get its other arm free.


    the hob the drove it''s fingernails into Klint''s chest all the way to the first knuckles of its fingers then he squeezed the leaving five deep tear marks in Klint''s chest. He was lucky the hob couldn''t put any more leverage behind that or his fingers might have gone all the way to his heart or further. Klint now screamed in pain as the hob started working its way free. This time the hob stabbed his leg the blow was much deeper than the last one due to more movement available to the hob. Klint abandoned anything resembling defense and focused once more on killing the hob before the hob could kill him, hopefully he could out last it. Klint punched down for the hob as hard as he could and dazed the creature.


    Then he did something he knew would turn his stomach, with the hob momentarily dazed he punched his thumb''s into it''s eye''s, the hob threw Klint off of it and started rolling around clutching and its face. Klint located his sword with his spirit sense and hobbled over to it. The hob was still on the ground as Klint hobbled back over and cut its head off.


    As he swung his sword down the hob grabbed his other leg just below the knee and dug it''s claw like nails deep into it. Klint growling in pain finished his swing and the hob knew no more. After the hob''s death Klint felt a rush of essence like no other before it, it swelled and filled his spirit completely. but more than that the hob''s remaining essence swirled and spun condensing to form a new sword, it was a cross between a long sword and a great sword and Klint picked it up. it just felt.... right, like this was the sword he had been waiting for without even knowing it.


    before he could take more time to admire it, he coughed up blood, he needed to heal hi wounds. but he didn''t have any more regeneration left in his pool. he thought of channeling his essence but was unsure if that would refill anything. Then he remembered the spring and hoped that the spring would cure him of the poison from the scorpion stinger trap, returning his sight back to him. In Klint''s mind that was his only chance.


    Klint quickly pulled on the new long sword and it stored itself in his spirit vault, "So if it''s made of or filled with essence, I can store it." Klint started his way back up the cave path being careful to avoid any more traps he may have missed on his way down. He was losing a lot of blood from his chest and his newest leg wound and he had a long way to go to get to the spring. Klint could only hope that he had killed all of the goblins and wouldn''t encounter any that had been away during his slaughter of their entire den.


    His body felt distant and his limbs weak. "I''m halfway to the split, I can make it! Just a little farther." As he got to the split, he felt his body growing colder. "I''m losing too much blood. Come on! I didn''t beat all those damn goblins to die here!" Klint frantically felt for his regeneration pool, it had a small puddle in it and Klint searched his wounds to look for what was bleeding the most. it was his new leg wound and Klint channeled what regeneration he had left to stop the bleeding.


    To his dismay it only slowed the bleeding it didn''t stop it completely, but it did slow it significantly. By the time Klint reached the spring he was dragging himself along by his arms leaving a bloody trail the whole way. He plunged his head deep into the spring. as he drank the poison started to fade and he gasped out with a deep breath. Then he started to laugh maniacally. "I had my water bottles full of this spring water! I almost died for nothing, and just barely made it here."


    Klint felt the spring water start revitalizing his regeneration his body''s natural healing sped up slightly and his regeneration pool was now filling at a noticeable rate. He channeled his regeneration every time it got to a quarter full, but it was mentally draining. after the third round of healing Klint passed out.


    ***


    Emily made it to her bike or at least where her bike would have been, but it wasn''t there in this weird shadow realm, and Neither was Nathan. Emily knew deep down that he had followed her into this place, and she feared the worst. "I''ll stay here for one hour and then I''ll head to where Nathans pickup is, if it''s still there that is." Emily was scared, more scared than she had ever been in her life, but she knew that to let the fear sink in would be the death of her and she needed to stay alert.


    One hour had passed and Nathan never came, while she waited, she started to inspect the essence that rushed into her, he felt she could do something with it but wasn''t sure what. after most of the hour was gone, she finally figured it out. she could take the essence and move it to parts of her body, aspects really. When he did, she felt intense pain, not pain of the body though that hurt too, but pain of the spirit which was much more painful.


    She decided to take more than the first hour and channel all of the essence into her spirit. By her reconning it took another two and a half hours to channel all the essence. During that time, she felt she could add more into some areas than others but decided to do her best to keep it as even as possible. she was always a fan of being well rounded when he would go to the gym never building one part of her body over another.


    She felt strong now much stronger than she did before she gave up keeping herself in shape for Justin. Justin, how could she be so stupid? She had totally thrown herself away to make him happy. Just thinking about it again made her twitch in shame and she did her best to push the memories away. "I don''t have time for that now, I need to find Nathan and figure out how to get out of here."


    Getting up Emily started making her way back to the truck. "Maybe I should check out the tower first, it is on the way." Not knowing what waited around the corner Emily decided to move as silently as possible, but she didn''t want to give up any more time she had to find Nathan, she had to make sure he was okay. Moving as fast as she could she started to play with speed vs silence trying to find the right balance.


    It was odd being able to move at a jogs speed but being able to step softly enough that her foot falls were near silent. Before the shadow realm she wouldn''t have been able to do this, not only that but it felt like her new jogg was as fast as her old sprint was. Whatever this place was it was clear to her that she could become stronger. she only wished she had more than ten more shots in her gun left.


    Halfway to the tower she came across a group of goblins. five goblins in total and two of them were dragging a body. "Nathan!" They were dragging Nathan, and she felt Horror overcome her, but also relief in finding him then hope that he might still be alive. Emily slowed her speed and started to get closer to the goblins. she readied her gun. Following the goblins she needed to be careful, she needed a plan to take them out.


    She followed behind and the goblins started heading down a canyon path, seeing that the path narrowed she thought this would be a good chance to engage with them. The path grouped them together and it would be hard for the goblins to flank her. Emily took aim and fired two shots into one of the goblins back. She felt the essence hit her and new that one was dead, the two dragging Nathan sped up trying to get away and the remaining two turned around and came after her.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Emilly took aim, Pop Pop two more shots and another goblin died. "Six shots left, two for each goblin." The two dragging Nathan were almost out of sight now going around a bend in the canyon. She took aim and Pop Pop two more shots and another goblin dead. she took off sprinting after the last two goblins. when she rounded the bend, the goblins were nowhere to be found, and she could see Nathan up just a little farther laying on the ground not moving. Out of nowhere a goblin attacked her swinging a club at her and hitting her in the arm. she fell down but rolled out of it quickly.


    She got to her feet and fired again but missed. The goblin was too close now and she moved to create some space where she could aim and fire. As she turned, she found the next goblin blocking her path and swinging another club. she got in close making the power of the swing mean nothing and she grabbed the goblin throwing it into the other one. They collided and Emily fired three more times killing both goblins. the rush of essence hit her, and she felt a lot of it wash over her, her spirit unable to take any more in.


    Her gun was now empty, and she didn''t have any more bullets left. Emily turned and went to move to Nathan, but another goblin came into view, what was she going to do, she had no more bullets, and her arm was aching from the blow she had taken. It was only one goblin she could take it. she was faster and stronger than she had ever been, and these goblins were small, well only slightly smaller than her, but their muscles were bigger.


    Emily started running at the goblin, when they came in close to each other Emily threw her gun at the goblin hitting it in the face, she ran at it and grabbed the goblins club. She ripped it from its hands and started beating the goblin over and over letting out all of her anger and fear on the creature she beat it in the head over and over until she felt the essence try to enter her spirit and fail.


    She got off the goblin and rushed over to Nathan. When she got to him, she froze, she could see him clearly now, his eyes were open, and his head was caved in. The same way she has caved the goblins head in. she slowly approached him and just as she started to get near ten more goblins came running around the bend. she turned to face them but all of the sudden the club she was holding turned into black smoke and vanished from her hands.


    Emily new she couldn''t take them without any kind of weapon, so she turned away and ran. she was faster than the goblins were but not by much, some of the goblins were archers too and were firing at her. She didn''t keep to a straight line and finally she got out of their range. She still had six goblins chasing her when she looked back, and she could see two of them were taking Nathans body and dragging it away.


    Emily kept running, tears filling her eye''s. "I''m sorry Nathan, I''m sorry I couldn''t save you. If only I didn''t insist on riding farther down the mountain path. We would have never been taken to this awful place." Emily ran and ran, eventually she got away from her pursuers and was able to slow down. She was breathing hard now and crying. her grief was too much to bear. and she fell to her hands and knees sobbing like she had never sobbed before.


    "What am I going to do? This is a strange and twisted land, and I have no weapon to defend myself. Nathan is gone, I have no idea how to leave and get home."


    After some time had passed Emily finally stopped her crying. "Crying won''t bring Nathan back, crying won''t get me home. For right now I don''t have any time or the luxury of crying. I need to keep moving forward anyway I can." Emily new that there was only one way to move forward and that was to channel the essence she absorbed and get stronger, maybe she could find another weapon and use it to kill more goblins. Just as she sat down to start channeling the essence Emily heard something.


    Emily got to her feet Sneaking through the trees he saw it. a giant scorpion. Emily froze, how was she supposed to survive with things like that running around here. She slowly backed away careful not to draw its attention. Once she was far enough away, she started to jog. Emily knew she needed to channel but she needed a safe place to do it at. The tower she thought, and so she started to head that way.


    It only took Emily an hour to get back to the tower, but she had to sneak around giant snakes, scorpions and horny toads. all of them had grown to monstrous proportions. Emily wasn''t sure how to get more essence with those monsters lurking about, but she thought if she could get stronger maybe they wouldn''t be that big of a threat. The horny toad though was firmly out of her reach for now, it was fast and stronger than the others.


    When she first saw the Horny toad it had crept up on a scorpion and killed it with a single bite. Chomping through its hard exoskeleton. She made her way up to the top of the tower and what she saw up there didn''t make sense to her. She could still see Reno, but it was far far away, much farther than it was when her and Nathan were there earlier. Like five hundred miles had sprung up between Reno and where she was.


    Keeping her panic at bay Emily started to channel her essence. This time she added a little more to her speed and strength. it would be important to be faster than anything she came across just in case she had to run. after she got done channeling she felt for her regeneration pool. It had only filled up halfway from when she had to use it to heal the arm that was struck by the arrow earlier, the same arm that was now hurt again.


    Channeling her regeneration she completely healed her arm and had a little left over after words. Emily was Exhausted from everything that had happened. She felt somewhat safe on top of the tower and decided to take a nap. "Just for a little while."


    ***


    Klint woke up and his body had healed only a little more, but checking his RP (regeneration pool) it was completely full. He took a drink from the spring and then put his mind to start healing himself. It took hours and several times fully recharging and draining his RP to fully heal himself. One bonus however was when Klint woke up his sight had returned. That was a relief but, in his Blindness, he saw a new path. Klint''s shirt was already torn so he decided to tear another strip off and blindfold himself.


    "I have this new sense, and I need to make it as much a part of my body as my own hands. This blindfold will stay on until then. Between one of his rounds of healing Klint felt for the essence in his spirit and found that a quarter of it was gone, it wasn''t anywhere, it didn''t auto channel it just wasn''t there. Feeling his spirit a bit more he could feel a small amount of it was just leaking out.


    "That won''t due, I wonder if I can create an added layer like my mana pool but just to better contain the essence in my spirit." Focusing on how another pool inside his spirit would feel Klint started to move the essence into it. Like a vacuum the pool sucked up half of the essence in his spirit and his spirit started to stretch and tear. Klint thought he had messed up, like this would tear his soul apart. the pain was so immense he couldn''t keep conscious.


    Klint struggled to keep awake but darkness took him and Klint''s last thought was how stupid he was.


    Klint woke up, his RP was almost full again. "Thirty minutes for my RP to fill up with the aid of the spring and I can still feel it in effect, so I was only out for maybe twenty-five minutes." Checking his spirit Klint could feel he added two new channels, one was for essence pool and the other was for essence regeneration. He could feel the essence connected to all his other physical channels and he tried to push his pull into them.


    "Did i find a way to increase my strength without killing monsters?" Klint pushed his essence into his other physical channels, and he felt his body swell with strength and speed. it was like he just doubled his strength instantly. his EP (essence pool) was draining quickly so he cut it off. and his strength faded. "So it''s a boost, that could be useful. Two more RP after this for a full heal I think." Klint drained his RP his legs were almost healed but his chest was still very torn up.


    As his RP was regenerating, he wondered if he could boost it with his EP and so he imagined a connection to his RP and MP (mana pool) because why not empower that too and he felt the connection form. That too was painful but only slightly. Then like a switch he turned on his EP to boost his RP. It surged forth filling in less than a minute and only costing a quarter of his EP when it filled up the essence stopped flowing but didn''t turn off. as Klint started to heal his body his RP didn''t drain being filled up faster than he could use it to heal.


    A combination of the EP and the spring water keeping his regeneration of his RP faster than he could use it. Klint Healed in less than a minute, and his EP wasn''t drained yet. He turned than mental switch turning off his EP from his RP. "This seems supremely useful I wonder why I didn''t have this to start. It seems like whatever stage I''m in my spirit and soul are malleable and want to follow my input. As far as I know, no other human has done this so I need to figure out as much as I can at each level."


    With that in mind he dropped down and started to do pushups. He pushed his body to do as many as he could, and he got to three hundred and forty-one, but he struggled to make it three fifty because three forty-one was just too weird of a number three fifty sounded much better. After the pushups he did sit ups then squats. He had always wanted to get in shape and now he had the energy to do so.


    Klint drew on all the pop culture lore and fantasy novels he knew, in those the MC always ended up with a teacher of some kind to push them farther and harder, to bring out every scrap of potential that a person had. Klint didn''t have that, as far as he knew he was the only person ever to gain this strength so he had to push himself, to bring out every possible scrape of power he could.


    Klint headed to the cave entrance and when he got there, he saw the sun was getting ready to set. Seeing as how the sun wasn''t too far from setting when he first entered the cave Klint figured he had spent at a minimum One full day inside. Not wanting to venture the wilderness at night he decided to go back into the cave to do some more practice.


    "Ah crap! I was just telling myself about not leaving anything on the table, but I need to go back to the hob''s layer and see if there is anything I can use there." Klint headed all the way back down, disabling two traps on the way that he had somehow missed and managed to avoid the first time. When he arrived, he saw through his spirit sense (He was still blindfolded) several piles of silver coins. Each where he had killed a goblin. Where the hob laid was a small pile of larger silver coins.


    He scooped them all up and the hob gave ten bigger silver coins in total. Looking around there wasn''t anything else in the layer. Klint decided to let his peed, he wanted to know how long it took him to run from the layer to the spring. it was close to a thirty-minute walk when he was sneaking around and almost an hour when he was on deaths door. but how fat could he sprint there if he went full tilt.


    Twelve minutes later Klint was at the spring. "Ah crap again! I''m doubly stupid, I still need to channel the rest of my essence." He still had a third of un channeled essence in his spirit after he formed his EP and ER plus what was still seeping out slowly. He sat down to meditate and started to channel his essence.

 Test a few things

    Chapter 5 Test a Few Things


    Klint to this point had put an even split into all of his attributes but until his two newest were caught up he was only going to put his essence into them. After his essence was channeled, he stood up and pulled on his new sword summoning it to his hand. "That is going to be Very useful." Klint started to do some practice work with his new sword. He never had any formal training just little practice with sticks as a kid but now he practiced strikes, thrusts and stances.


    He did that for the next couple hours knowing he would need to keep this up every day from now on until the sword felt like it was part of his body. "Twelve minutes from the layer to here, how fast if I boost?" He banished his word and then flipped his mental switch for his essence with a burst of speed he was off.


    Klint was moving fast, the walls almost a blur in his spirit sense and he made it to the hob'' layer in six minutes. "So, it''s a straight double." a moment later his pool ran out and he was overcome with fatigue, every muscle ached, and he fell to the ground. He reached for his water bottle in his backpack and took a drink, the fatigue lessened but didn''t go away entirely, if he had to guess he would say sixty percent remained. he felt his ER start to speed up as the spring water began to work on it.


    Klint made his way back to the spring not in any hurry as he was deep in thought about what the heck his mana can be used for. "I think I need to try and keep circulating it, if I can ever use it for anything I''m sure being able to control it won''t hurt anything. I should try and move my essence around in the same way, who knows what I can use that for beyond boosting.


    Klint got back to the spring and made a mental decision. "This is going to be my layer until I can figure out how to get home, if I can get home. I can do all my exploration from here going out farther and farther but returning here at night. This spring is a valuable tool I can utilize for practice and recovery."


    Sitting down in meditation Klint started to visualize his mana pool and with a mental grip he started moving it to everywhere he could, moving his mana like this was like trying to drag a net through mud. He moved his mana into his eyes, and his spirit sight amplified tenfold. He would keep his mana active in his eyes for as long as he could. Next, he tried to take more mana and move it to his hand. It took several hours of this, but he finally got the faintest wisp to start out of his finger.


    It looked like one of the tendrils of a plasma ball coming off of his fingers. Just moving hi mana didn''t drain it except when he had it in his eyes and that was a small amount of draining almost covered by his natural regeneration. The tendril coming off of Klint''s finger was almost doubling that amount. It wasn''t going into anything just draining into the air.


    After he felt like he hit wall he stopped moving his mana, he kept it in his eyes, but Klint wanted to focus on moving his essence if he could. With a hard mental tug, he moved his essence far easier than he thought possible. Where the mana was like pulling a net through mud this was like moving your hand through air. It was effortless. He sent some to his eyes and it seemed to mix with his mana. His spirit sense increased once more and expanded much farther. He was sure that if he took the blindfold off His normal vision would be similarly improved.


    The drain that having essence in his eyes was a little more than his mana, but Klint thought that when he was able to get his ER as high as his mana regeneration then it would be similar in drainage. Next, he moved a small amount to his finger and saw it draining away. He then imagined it wrapping around his finger and being contained, a small black shell like the finger of a glove. The drain stopped as soon as his mental construct was filled. "Well, that''s interesting."


    With a thought he imagined another picture in his mind, one that covered his left hand up to the elbow then he sent the essence that way and watched it materialize into reality. It took most of his EP to form the gauntlet, he then punched the ground with it as hard as he could. The ground beneath his hand exploded sending ricks and dirt everywhere, it formed a crater two feet around and one foot deep. "Holy crap I was not expecting that!" Klint was trying to test the protection the gauntlet would provide him and what he discovered was way more intense.


    The essence fell apart after the punch, but his hand was perfectly fine, once again he hit the ground again, but this time with no essence wrapped around his hand. Klint screamed out in pain as he broke his hand on the ground. "Holy Cosmo''s, I didn''t think it would go like that." Klint flipped his essence to his RP on and immediately started to heal his hand. He took out his water bottle and drank it down increasing his regeneration then he filled his bottle back up. "One more test before I take a nap." Klint grabbed his katan, keeping it in it'' scabbard he wrapped the whole thing in essence and then pulled it into his spirit space.


    He then pulled out both water bottles and set them aside, he ate a bit of jerky but didn''t know why he hadn''t really felt hungry at all since he arrived in this shadow realm. He put the jerky back and then wrapped the backpack in essence and banished it to his spirit storage. then he wrapped the water bottles one at a time and stored them individually in his storage power. Klint wanted them stored separately so he had quick access to them.


    Now that he had everything stored and didn''t have to carry it around all the time Klint decided to get some sleep, he wasn''t ready to go out during the night not knowing what may be out there lurking in the dark. After he woke up, he did some exercises including mana movement and sword play. Klint then formed the gauntlet over his hand then with another thought he pushed mana into the gauntlet.


    Klint could feel it become more solid, and he once again hit the ground, the damage was the same as before but this time the gauntlet didn''t fall apart. "With enough time I can form full armor, it should get faster the bigger my essence pool gets too. The last question for now is how long will it last without maintenance." Klint sent mana and essence to his eye''s increasing his spirit sight.


    Even though Klint was blindfolded he could tell it was still night time. but he could also tell the sun was about to come up. Klint thought of one more thing he wanted to try before leaving for the day to go and explore. Klint drank a full water bottle to increase the speed of his mana and essence regeneration and then making sure his water bottles were full he headed off.


    Klint decided to walk the distance to let his resources restore and by the time he got there he formed a second gauntlet on his right hand and then sent mana into it. He walked to the back of the room where he had first seen the hob, he turned around, and then sat on the hobs throne of bones.


    ***


    Emily has been travelling back to Virginia City for a week now, the distance seemed impossibly far from where she started. She knew that she would have gotten there fifteen times over by this point if she wasn''t in this damn shadow realm. Although she did have to travel slower due to all the monsters around. Emily only felt comfortable taking out the lizards she came across and that''s only because she could make crude spears out of tree branches.


    Emily had no hope that he could kill the horny toads she came across and the scorpions. "Forget that! No way I''m trying to pierce the exoskeletons on those damn things, not when they almost break on the lizards scaly hide." She did think maybe she could take the snakes, but Emily hated snakes, so she didn''t even want to try.


    So, she was moving at a slower rate than what she knew she could, she felt grateful she hasn''t come across any more goblins. "When I get stronger, I''m going to kill every goblin I come across for what they did to Nathan. Emily thought it was weird that he hasn''t gotten hungry at all since she got to this place but that she still needed to sleep, thankfully she could find a spot that had good sight lines in all directions and sleep for only thirty or forty minutes at a time.


    With her new senses she woke up instantly when a creature came to close, maybe a defense mechanism of this new environment. The night time was the worst, all kinds of horrible creatures came out at night, and she couldn''t fight any of them. Spiders, cockroaches, earwigs, and possums. All of them super sized. Emily could avoid most of them and thought maybe she could take out the possums, but they had long blade like claws, and one slip up would see her dead. So, she ran from them. The spiders were the hardest to detect and almost get the drop on her nightly.


    It was strange and Emily was trying to puzzle it out, she never saw any day creatures at night or night creatures at day. It was as if they disappeared and new creatures spawned, there was the golden hour just before sunrise and sunset where there were no monsters and that was when Emily made the most ground. She could run flat out for an hour without worry of encountering a monster. there were exceptions to this though as she was in a fight with a lizard at the beginning of sunset and that fight lasted all the way to into the dark.


    Emily had been channeling the essence she got but it was slow going when she would only fight lizards. If only she had a weapon, she could take on more creatures and get strong enough to move freely. She had thought about trying to make a bow, she knew she could make arrows with a sharp flake of rock. But she had no confidence in making a string for a bow or shaping the bow correctly. Plus, it just felt wrong somehow. She really wanted a katana, as she had taken classes in kendo and was one of the better students in her class.


    Emily was moving along swifty when she felt something from her new sense from right in front of her, she knew what this was. Scorpions like to pop out of the ground and ambush their prey, but Emily''s reflexes and extra sense allowed her to avoid this. She jumped and the scorpion came out clawing right where she would have been. she landed and the scorpion turned to chase, luckily, she could get away from them if she got about thirty feet away the scorpion wouldn''t try and chase.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    As Emily got to that range she stopped, the scorpion wasn''t chasing her now and she was tired of running. Emily needed to get stronger. "I can''t keep running." Emily had three crude spears with her. If she could pin it somehow and then ram one through the exoskeleton she could kill it. but how to pin it down. Maybe she could lob a big rock on it and bludgeon it? Emily just wished the bodies wouldn''t turn into essence so she could harvest claws from these creatures. "No point in wishing for what can''t happen."


    Liking the rock idea Emily started picking up rocks trying to find the biggest rock she could reasonably throw. Emily had gotten much stronger by this point, easily four times stronger than her old self''s best. She saw a rock that came up to roughly her knee, experimentally she grabbed the rock and with all her might she heaved it up grunting with the effort. "This should work"


    She started running at the scorpion building extra momentum for her throw, as she got within fifteen feet the scorpion turned to her and started rushing forward. Ten feet, eight feet, five feet! Emily threw the boulder like a shotput at point blank range, and it smashed the scorpion on the face and head, she threw it in a slightly downward angle so it would crush more than push and she felt the essence rush into her. she immediately channeled the essence, for a while now she had been putting more into speed so she could move faster and run away from fights she didn''t want.


    Now Emily felt it was time to split it evenly in the rest to bring them all back to even. she had long since been able to channel on the fly being unable to find a safe place to channel and rest, she would channel and then IF she came across a place, she could rest. All her time there would be for rest. Emily was so tired, rest being scarce, she could only hope there was a facsimile of a town left in Virginia City, somewhere she could fortify and make strategic strikes against monsters to gain more strength.


    As the scorpion disappeared it left behind the usual quarter sized silver coins but something else too, this was the first time it was forming something other than coins. hoping beyond hope for a weapon she waited as the item slowly started taking shape. Bracers formed shortly after. "Bracers! Damn Bracers! I don''t need bracers I need a damn weapon." Emily was obviously frustrated but took the bracers anyway. she felt immediately she could store them the same way she could the coins.


    She did so and then she thought about them being equipped and instantly she was wearing them. "At least I know these monsters can drop something other than coins. It''s only a matter of time until I get a weapon." She grabbed the coins and absently thought. "I left a lot of loot when I slayed all those goblins, I never had a chance to see what they dropped. Maybe I already had a weapon drop but missed it. Too late to go back now."


    Emily started off again, night was coming soon, and she needed to rest before it was dark. Those monsters were too damn creepy to face without a weapon and she needed to be at her best to avoid them all. she went back and grabbed her crude spears from where she put them down and headed off again.


    ***


    As Klint sat down he felt a shift in the cave, the throne underneath him changed from bone to a black obsidian and electric blue, then spreading out from the throne the whole cave started to change, the floors became smoother and the spring cavern disappeared completely only to reappear in the new throne room, but Klint felt he could change that if he wanted. The whole cave changed to what could only be described as a very small underground lair. It had an entry area and six larger rooms three on each side then a long corridor leading to the throne room.


    But more than the physical changes Klint knew that this lair was his, it belonged to him, and he was connected to it. He knew that when he left, he could take it into his spirit space then he could redeploy it again in another cave. he knew he couldn''t just redeploy it anywhere though and he felt the spring water would only be available if the new cave also had a spring with magic properties. If he wanted to keep the miracles of the spring water, he needed to figure out how to store a lot more of it.


    If he could claim territories, he could only hope to find some kind of monster that claimed a castle for their own. He would find it and claim it for himself. "I would love to have a castle! It would probably let me deploy it anywhere too not just in caves." With visions of castles firmly in his mind Klint started for the exit of his new lair.


    Klint had only thought about his son a few times he knew that his son would be okay with grandma and grandpa taking care of him but he still worried. What alarmed Klint even more is how much he enjoyed being in this shadow realm. It was like he was made to be here. He has never felt so alive as he had these last few days. Klint finally felt like he was in the world he belonged in, he was afraid he wouldn''t be able to live in his old world after experiencing this new world. But he knew he needed to. His son needed him and so did his parents.


    Getting those thoughts out of his head he decided he needed to focused on first things first, he need''s strength and then he needs to figure out how to get home. If one thing was clear to Klint it was he needed to get stronger, he could feel where he needed to go but he felt deep down he wasn''t nearly strong enough.


    Klint was able to extend his essence armor all the way to his shoulders now and when it met with his shoulder pauldron it fused then copied and amplified them, making the small horns on them turn into slightly larger spikes, it didn''t actually change the pauldrons but more like it projected them. Slowly Klint would form a full set of armor as his resources filled up. he wouldn''t drink anymore spring water to make it happen faster though, it already would last another hour and a half which should give him most of his armor. No, he wanted to save the spring water for injury recovery.


    "I''m going to stick with my plan of coming back here, the spring is too valuable to give up. If I find a new spring that does the same thing then I will come take this with me, but for now it''s time to continue getting stronger." Klint took off headed for his home, he only traveled for minutes before he came across his first monster, it was another Horny toad. last time clint had to sneak attack one to kill it but this time he wanted to face it in a true fight.


    Klint summoned his new sword and charged in. The Horny toad saw him and jumped to the side causing Klint to overshoot. The Horny toad spun and hit Klint with its tail sending Klint flying. Klint flipped in the air righting himself and stabbed his sword in the ground, his feet then made contact, and he slide for 15 feet before he came to a stop the Horny toad was already on him and Klint dodged the bite that came for his head doing a shoulder dive and he rolled out then turned and swung his sword.


    His sword bit deep into the Horny toad face causing blood to run freely but it wasn¡¯t a serious wound and Klint could see it visibly healing. Klint smiled as he took a ready stance, the Horny toad looked at him and roared, or whatever noise a Horny toad would make. Then it jumped high into the air directly over Klint threatening to crush him with its massive weight. Klint banished his sword and crouched down then jumped straight up and punched the oversized Horny toad in the stomach. Klint could feel bones crunch as he made contact and this time it was the Horny toad¡¯s turn to go flying.


    Klint hit the Horny toad like he was lobbing a ball up in the air, the giant oversized lizard with horns came crashing down with an Earth shaking thud, it tried to get up but collapsed again immediately. The impact of the Horny toad was so severe it caused Klint to stammer back and focused on his balance. Even with all his new abilities it took almost everything he had to stay upright. The Horny toad turned to face Klint and shot its tongue out fifteen feet.


    Klint shoulder dived away and summoned his sword back to his hands. ¡°You want to play rough? I can play rough too.¡± The Horny toad was still struggling to get to its feet obviously hurt badly from Klint''s punch and Klint capitalized on that to get to its side. He jumped on top of the Horny toad and plunged his sword through the creature''s head killing it.


    Klint channeled the essence he got from that all into essence regeneration and essence pool. He could feel them both swell to new levels, that one monster kill had brought both essence pool and essence regeneration level with all his other attributes. ¡°Looks like I need to hunt more Horny toads.¡± Klint grabbed his silver and then noticed some of the essence hadn¡¯t been consumed.


    It swirled and condensed to form boots. They were boots that came halfway up his shins a little taller than his hiking boots. But these boots had scaled plates on them, and they matched his shoulder pauldrons by having small horns running down the front. He took off his hiking boots and wrapped them with essence then stored both sets of boots. Then he summoned the new boots onto his feet.


    Klint could already feel the difference, these must have been the most well fit and comfortable boots he had ever worn. Klint felt a little lighter on his feet and he had supreme traction even in the loose dirt and gravel. Sending a bit of mana and essence to the gauntlet he punched the Horny toad with, he found it only took a little to top it off.


    His stores had completely refilled at this point minus what he just used so he decided to add to his armor by covering his boots with the essence then sealing it with his mana. Once again, the essence fused with the boots then amplified and projected armor on top of it, to Klint''s satisfaction the horns didn¡¯t grow any bigger this time, but instead it added two more rows to either side of the horns giving him three rows total with four horns per row. The horns came straight out a quarter of an inch and then curved upwards making a menacing looking boot.


    Especially now that it was wrapped in black essence, he was shaping up to look like a proper villain. Klint fixed his destination in his mind and started running. It took Klint several minutes to get the hang of running like this, his thighs and torso couldn¡¯t keep up with his feet since they were not wrapped in essence yet. He¡¯d have to fix that soon.


    Klint came across a lizard fighting with a scorpion and he summoned his sword again. He didn¡¯t even slow down as he approached, he took out the lizard before it knew he was there, and the scorpion didn¡¯t fare any better but at least it tried to strike him as it was cleaved in half. Klint felt the essence hit but didn¡¯t bother channeling it he could kill a lot more than that before his spirit was full.


    ¡°This power and speed is amazing! But why is this happening now? What caused it? Or has it always been here and I finally found the entrance?¡± Klint had lots of questions and no answers. He was glad he finally found a use for his mana but felt that this wasn¡¯t its intended purpose, he felt like he should be able to cast spells or something.


    Klint was covering a lot of ground, and he knew instinctually he was going in the right direction but with as fast as he was moving, he should have been to Virginia City long ago. Klint ran all day and killed 8 more lizards, 6 scorpions 12 snakes and two more Horny toads. None had given him any more drops other than silver coins. But his spirit was getting pretty full now and he decided to channel it.


    He first made sure everything was even then he brought it all up at once. Then he felt something. Klint stopped running and looked for a spot he could meditate. He felt like he could reach a new level, like his spirit said OKAY I¡¯m at the minimum level needed to undergo a change. ¡°I need to hunt some more monsters and test a few things.¡± By the feel of the day in his spirit sense he could tell the sun was setting but unlike before he wanted to now face whatever creatures lurked in the shadows. He would show them who the real monster was.

 I鈥檓 the terror that stalks the night

    Chapter 6 I¡¯m the terror that stalks the night


    Klint had finished most of his armor by the time the sun set it took five pools of essence to complete his chest and one pool for each of his thighs all that was left was his head. As he was running waiting for his essence pool to fill back up he realized he hadn¡¯t seen one monster since the sun went down. He¡¯d been running for about an hour uninterrupted now and that was strange. Before he couldn¡¯t run this long without seeing at least two monsters. He had made it into an area where there was a lot more high desert pine trees. These trees were huge though. Easily 15 stories high. Out of nowhere a giant possum darted out from a tree lunging at Klint. Its speed was fast, faster than anything he had come across so far. But still no match for Klint with his essence armor on.


    He dodged left and summoned his sword. The silver blade glinting in the moonlight. The possum struck out with its claws, but Klint block it. Another attack came from the possums other clawed paw and this time Klint was forced to dodge. The possum was huge its shoulders standing well over head height on Klint.


    Klint turned and ran headed for a tree the possum was right behind him. He jumped and planted one foot on the tree his boots digging in allowing for three more steps up before he jumped off turning midair to slash down at the possum that had started climbing the tree behind him.


    Klint split the possum from head to tail opening it up like a baked potato. He unfortunately was then covered in foul blood and gore. Thankfully it all started to evaporate off of him as it turned to smoky black essence. This essence hit him stronger than anything he had come across so far. This felt like honey where everything else felt like water. And the sheer quantity was overwhelming. Not nearly enough to fill his spirit but 5 or 6 of them would do it.


    Before he could finish relishing the fight and subsequent essence Klint was set upon by five massive spiders two came down from the trees at his ten o¡¯clock and two o¡¯clock two more at his four o¡¯clock and six o¡¯clock and the fifth at his eight o¡¯clock. They made no move to advance on him. Klint wasn¡¯t scared of the spiders, He was totally freaked out by them. Spiders were a huge phobia of his before the shadow realm and he hasn¡¯t gotten over it with the appearance of five spiders the size of a VW bug.


    They all stared each other off no one moving an inch. They all knew this was going to be a tough fight. Klint grabbed his essence and formed his mask over his head and face. That amplified his already amplified perception through his spirit sense. But more than just father range or ¡°seeing¡± more clearly which it did do both of those things, no it also gave Klint a feel for what level each of the spiders was. As it sat all five were a quarter way through the second phase. Where if Klint wanted to he could push into the second phase right now.


    Klint feinted to the left and then jumped twenty-five feet to his right clear over number 4 o¡¯clock. Just as his feet left the ground web struck right where he was. Good thing Klint''s spirit sense detected in three dimensions and not just two. Klint had seen the first five were just a diversion so number 6 (not to be confused with number 6. o¡¯clock) could get in above him and tangle him with its webs. Klint saw it coming through and wasn¡¯t a fan of that plan.


    Four o¡¯clock was closest and came after him, Klint hopped forward with new speed now that his full armor was complete. Klint took off all the legs on the right side of number four o¡¯clock, then rushed at two o¡¯clock but was cut off by number six and the new web it shot at him Klint blocked it with his sword, but number 6 pulled hard and disarmed Klint. Just before the sword left his fingers, he banished it. The other four spiders rushed in and Klint jumped to avoid them then he kept off a tree at number 6. Not that he had literally a moment he could see the size of number 6 and it was more like mommy spider. The thing was massive. ¡°Well, that¡¯s just going to be every nightmare I ever have again.¡±


    If the other spiders were VW bugs, then this one was a house on the good side of town. Despite mommy spiders'' size she was slow. Klint summoned his sword again and hacked off one of mommy spiders legs. It shrieked an ear piercing awful shriek that sent the baby spiders into a frenzy. They suddenly got faster and note Klint was barely able to dodge.


    One jumped at him with legs splayed open. They were going to trounce him, so Klint moved in on that one and cut it in half, mommy spider shot more webs at Klint, and he dodged again looking at the three remaining little spiders they were tapping him in webbing off all of his exits. All of their moves had herded him to stay in the area they wanted him even the first spider that he cut half the legs off of had regrown its legs and had been working without being noticed to seal him in. The mommy spider would shoot her web when it thought Klint was going to run.


    Beneath Klint''s mask he smiled. He came to a stop and so did the spiders, Klint spoke to them not knowing if they could understand. ¡°You messed up. Note you¡¯re trapped in here with a monster. I¡¯m the terror that stalks the night, wait is that how that goes?¡± The spiders stopped stopping and started their attacks again. ¡°Hey that was rude I wasn¡¯t done.¡± Klint said sourly as he hadn¡¯t spoken to anyone but himself in the last 3 or four days and found it kinda nice to talk even if it was to a creature trying to kill him.


    Klint didn¡¯t care for the spiders *traptics* and he flipped the mental switch on his essence pool to empower his attributes. His speed and strength doubled along with his reflexes and ability to process information. Suddenly the spiders were moving in slow motion. Klint was a blur to them legs and body parts flying spiders dying before they knew what hit them then the mom spider was falling all of its legs cut off and a small hole being opened up in its head getting larger by the second until it too died.


    Klint turned off his essence boost and his whole body started aching in pain boosting like that took a heavy toll on his body and Klint could hardly move. He summoned one water bottle to his hand and started to drink. The recovery was slow, much slower than he had been used too. Apparently, the water losses potency either by distance or time. Since Klint was hoping his storage ability can suspend time he was hoping for distance. ¡°Yup distance for the win, or loss I suppose.¡±


    Then like a Mac truck hit him and then backed up and parked on him the essence rushed in filling his spirit. He had felt the smaller spider''s essence as he killed them and while they were thick like the possum each one was slightly less than the possum. The big spider''s essence was massive and took him from one third full to full instantly.


    Getting up with some pain Klint grabbed all the silver the spiders dropped. The big spider dropped twenty bigger silver piece¡¯s and that wasn¡¯t all. Two swirling clouds of essence were condensing and starting to take shape. One former a pair of pants and another formed a long sleeve shirt. ¡°That¡¯s nice, my shirt is little more than a few tattered strips of cloth by this point and my pants are ripped and dirty. Hopefully these will be more durable.¡±


    The material seemed to be made out of the spider''s web but more the durable silk like web and not the sticky, I''m going to liquify your guts and drink them web.


    Thinking of durability Klint looked and saw he still had all of his essence armor. Then replaying the fight, no¡­fights he had just had first with the possum then the six eight legged freaks. He hadn¡¯t taken one hit. That was a far cry from when he fought the goblins and the hob goblin. Killing cycled the short and pants into his storage then he took off his shirt and pants throwing them away and equipped the new clothes.


    This changed his Essence armor again; it went from looking more mid evil knight to now an anti hero super suit. He still has the spikes and horns on the pauldrons and boots, but everything was a bit sleeker now.


    As Klint looked around he saw the webs the spiders had shot were still there, they hadn¡¯t disappeared with the spiders. That was a first for Klint. Viewing this as an opportunity to channel without being disturbed Klint stated to meditate. He started by imagining his soul scape making a physical manifestation of the interior of his soul.


    Then he imagined all of his attributes in a physical form, in this case he imagined each of them as soccer ball sized orbs. He then filled them with all the essence that he had channeled up to this point and each orb was at sixty percent full. ¡°I knew it, I knew a lot more could be added.¡± Klint then formed a pool for the un channeled essence that was in his spirit.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Dividing it up evenly he sent it all into each orb. He could see and feel as each orb filled. His strength and speed became greater his mana pool and essence pool became deeper and were refilling faster. The essence he took in brought him from sixty percent to eighty five percent. One more double feature fight like that and he would be completely full. But Klint thought he could over stuff his cores and was unwilling to leave any scrap of power on the table.


    What Klint didn¡¯t expect was how hard it was to keep his body from phasing up. But as hard as it was Klint was going to make his foundation as strong and wide as possible. If his cores could take more, no way was he going to breakthrough to the next phase without filling it fully. Over the next three days Klint traveled by day and hunted by night only resting during dawn and dusk. Monsters that came out during the night seemed to be higher level and granted him better essence. He never encountered another mom spider or spider pack like he did the first night, at most were two of the smaller varieties. When he finally reached Virginia City it was already night.


    He began roaming the streets heading in the general direction of his home. Everything looked decayed by time metal was rusted and the pavement was largely broken apart with bushes growing out of the cracks. The buildings and houses were run down some with fire damage some caved in all had organic growth over it. No monsters came out yet and Klint started to get a bad feeling. Now with more haste he ran to his house. Klint saw it was still intact but like all the other houses it had a lot of growth over it. He ran through searching every room. Nothing was in it except furniture and all the cushions and fabrics were badly decayed.


    Klint found no reason for the bad omen he felt and decided to push his perception to the max. Over the last three days Klint had learned to control how far his perception went with his ¡°sight¡± boosted twice one by mana one by essence then boosted again by his armor. He found if he kept it to two hundred feet he could see everything perfectly, but if he pushed it out farther than that it was too much to take everything in. He could focus on certain things but it would start to give him a headache. That was why he needed to control the distance. His max was currently a half a mile in every direction and Klint was trying to find the source of his worries.


    During the last 3 nights Klint had filled his core to 100% full and was about to let his body transition to phase 2 but he had some left over essence and wanted to *test* if he was actually at 100% to his pain he found out that no he wasn¡¯t and he was able to stretch all of his orbs to practically double in size this included his essence pool and mana pool along with their regeneration. Another surprise he found was that it took very little essence and mana to maintain his armor and it seemed to be climate controlled. He never got too hot or too cold in it.


    Finally, his senses picked up some movement about 2000 ft away with all the speed he could muster without boosting Klint took off. As he ran, he pulled back his senses to 200ft but kept part of it on the location he felt movement, doing it like this reduced the chances of an information overload. As he got to 1000ft away he could start to make out the strength of the monsters and most of them were middle to upper phase 2. That wouldn¡¯t be an issue for Klint but there was one problem, the sheer number of the monsters was maddening. Everything in that area was moving and as he got closer the more of them appeared. Hundreds maybe even close to a thousand monsters were in that area.


    Klint started to think about not engaging with a group of that size but then he felt something new, something he hasn¡¯t felt before. It was another person. And they were trying to get away, but the monsters were too numerous and kept coming. Klint was finally in range and saw what he was facing for the first time. It was a plague of zombies. Oh, but these weren¡¯t your average walkers no these were fast. ¡°Well, they are fast adjacent, hard to be fast when you have missing limbs or decomposing muscles.¡±


    ****


    Emily Finally made it to VC it took her nearly twenty days and she only was able to get a little stronger. The monsters during the day started to come in packs which made it harder for her to get any kills with her makeshift weapons. So, unless she found a favorable location to fight or there was only one monster, she chose to avoid the fight and keep moving. This also had the side effect of slowing her down even more.


    When she got to VC, she went door to door and in almost every house, but it was like no one ever actually lived there. The only things in the houses and buildings were furniture and they weren¡¯t even suitable to sit on or sleep in. She did end up clearing out a house and fortifying it during the days though. She got caught out at night her first night there and had to run back into the desert to get away.


    That caused problems in itself because she wasn¡¯t strong enough to face the monsters of the night, but she could get away from them easier and had more time to rest between. The zombies however were a right plague. She had no hope of facing them. She thought it was strange no monster came in the town during the day but now she figured it was due to the monsters that owned VC


    Even still Emily saw this as a good opportunity to get stronger. She could stay in VC during the night in a fortified house and then go out during the day choosing her battles. Everything was going fine until she lost track of time and had gone too far away. She made it back to VC just after the monsters came out at night, she still had a little way to go to get to her house but figured she would try and sneak there. That¡¯s when she realized that wasn¡¯t going to happen. The zombies had cut off her escape route and seemed to be herding her like cattle to the center of town. Unfortunately, she had no way to get past and had to follow their openings.


    Just as she was cornered and had nowhere left to run Emily saw a creature fiercer than anything she had seen yet, it was a blur to her eyes slicing up zombies with a shinning silver sword, the sword itself looks almost as big as the thing that wielded it. Whatever this creature was it was keeping the zombies from attacking her. She wondered if it was just going to save her for last. Then she finally got a good look at it. Tall and well muscled, its shins and shoulders had golden spikes on them. And the streaks of gold across the back and chest. This thing looked like a demon.


    Not that Emily had ever seen a real demon. ¡°But if they exist, I will bet money that this is what they look like.¡± Then the demon appeared right in front of her and spoke in a deep gravelly voice. ¡°Why are you not fighting, you¡¯re just standing there, did you lose your weapon? Or are you a bare knuckle brawler? Emily was shaken, she was terrified this creature would come after her next and those eyes, nothing human could have eyes like that. But she couldn¡¯t help but be mesmerized by them. ¡°Well?¡±


    Emily shook her head and croaked out. ¡°My gun ran out of ammo almost a month ago, I¡¯ve been trying to survive ever since.¡±


    The creature then said to her ¡°have you ever used a sword?¡± But before she could answer he was gone and more zombies started dying. She was so caught up in her fear and awe of the creature she lost track of how close the zombies were getting. But the creature seemed to be able to kill them with ease and created a large enough space it felt it could come back and talk again.


    It spoke to her. ¡°Sword, can you use one?¡± It barked


    ¡°Yes¡±


    ¡°Good, do you have shelter nearby?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡±


    ¡°If I open up a way out what direction should that be and can you move fast enough, we won¡¯t lead them to it?¡±


    ¡°That way, and yes I¡¯ve been putting what essence I get into my speed.¡±


    The creature raised its free hand and summoned a sword out of thin air, a katan. And it was beautiful with a milk chocolate scabbard and milk chocolate hand wrap. ¡°Can you use this?¡± The creature asked. Emily grabbed the katana and smiled so big the grinch would be jealous. Emily replied ¡°Like it was made for me. But with a weapon I don¡¯t need to run anymore.¡±


    ***


    Klint had fought nearly a hundred zombies to get to where the person was, and they just kept coming. The zombies had them cornered and were about to get to them when Klint decided. ¡°If now isn¡¯t the right situation to use this then what is?¡± Klint flipped his essence switch, and the world slowed down. He was a blur to the zombies easily dispatching them body parts flying from every swing of his blade. When he finally opened up enough space he ran to them. He realized a little too late that they couldn¡¯t keep up with his full speed and to them it must look like he just appeared right in front of her.


    That was another thing. It was a woman. He didn¡¯t know what he expected but he definitely didn¡¯t expect it to be a woman. And if she wasn¡¯t covered in filth and grime Klint would say she was an attractive woman, small and petite with medium to long dark brown hair. Here she was the only person he¡¯d seen in almost a week, and he had probably just scared the crap out of her.


    He looked at her more closely, ¡°I did scare the crap out of her, she¡¯s terrified.¡± With all his effort he slowed down his speech and asked. ¡°Why are you not fighting, you¡¯re just standing there, did you lose your weapon? Or are you a bare knuckle brawler? Great that¡¯s what he said to her. Of all the stupid ways. she was visibly shaking now. Then after she was just standing there not speaking, he said ¡°well¡± as if that was going to make it better.


    Then she shook her head and spoke. She said she used a gun. ¡°Well, she is a woman¡¯s defending herself with a gun is logical. I wished for my fun when I first got to the shadow realm. But I now know that wouldn¡¯t have made surviving almost impossible and she¡¯s been weapon less for almost a month. ¡°Have you ever used a sword?¡± But then he saw that the zombies were getting close again and sprang back into action he needed to hurry and get them out of there. He didn¡¯t have very long before his boosts left him totally spent and writhing in pain. But where would he take her?


    Then he thought maybe she has somewhere near here. ¡°If I can open us up a path and she has a place nearby.¡± He finished pushing the zombies back again and went back over to the woman. Klint only had five minutes at most left with his boosts and he had no idea how far they needed to go to get away from these zombies. This conversation needs to hot fast so bare minimum on words for now.


    ¡°Sword, can you use one?¡±


    She said yes, clear and concise no mucking about. That¡¯s exactly what he needed.


    ¡°Good, do you have shelter nearby?¡±


    Again, her answer was yes. She seemed to understand he was in a hurry so that was good.


    ¡°If I open up a way out what direction should that be and can you move fast enough, we won¡¯t lead them to it?¡±


    She pointed to a direction and of course it would be through the thickest part of the plague.


    Klint raised his off hand and summoned his katana, he knew she needed to use it but he was reluctant to let it go. Especially after she took the sword and said it was made for her. And her smile when he handed it to her, it was like a fat kid was given the key to Willy Wonka''s chocolate factory and said you can stay up late and eat all the candy you want. She did understand he was only letting her use it because of the situation, right? That katana was his and had allowed him to grow strong.


    Then she said she wanted to stop running and fight, didn¡¯t she realize that wasn¡¯t an option. It would have been if he didn¡¯t have to boost to save her life but now, he was on a timer, and it was running out.

 Wrap it up tight

    Now three more blocks two this is going to be close. Klint made it to the house and just like she said it was the only house with boarded up windows. Klint rushed inside and deactivated his boosts. He decided to leave his armor on just incase the zombies found the location and he had to fight. While it would be very painful and hard he could probably manage.That was his last thought as he fell to the floor the backlash of boosting taking it¡¯s effects. Then he let himself go to sleep.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    I was happy to do so. Why don¡¯t you tell me how long you¡¯ve been here and how you came to be here. Then I¡¯ll tell you my story. And in doing so it should give you an idea on how I am doing what I do and how you can hopefully do it too.¡±


    But his eyes were golden and he was now looking at his sword.