Achak held his knives in a reverse grip using them to block and parry the attacks as he backpedaled. While they were still in the tunnel the Frongream attacked relentlessly using the walls to propel itself from side to side while taking jabs at him with its trident.

Though he was not strong enough to cause the Frongream any damage he was fast enough to keep the trident away from any vitals. His arms were bloody and heavy as he entered the cavern quickly using the stalagmites as cover to allow himself time to rest and recover.

He began throwing up Orbs every time he ducked behind a stalagmite hoping to at least stall the monster. But this was a cunning enemy, it hung back behind a stalagmite and the next time Achak jumped out it struck with its powerful tongue.

The Frongream’s tongue lashed out as quick as a viper and struck Achak in the gut. He was blown back off his feet and came down hard on the stone. He willed himself to remain composed and went into a backward roll the moment he hit the ground spinning onto his knees. As soon as he got to his knees he vomited blood, his stomach was tied in knots of nausea and his head was spinning, likely from a concussion. The back of his head was bleeding and he could hardly put his speed to good use evading the monster. However, it hadn’t followed up the attack.

The Frongream stood there looking at him with, what Achak could only assume, was a grin. It spun its trident and made a croaking noice while it waved Achak over as if to taunt him. A scene ran through Achaks mind. It was right after the fall and he had joined a group of survivors, one of the galvanized men in the group was a sadist and took great pleasure in beating anyone who wasn’t galvanized. He would regularly beath Achak into a pulp and then taunt him. Achak had vowed that he would become strong one day, strong enough that no one would be able to do that to him again.

The Frongream didn’t know it yet but it had signed its own death warrant with that move. Achak’s ire grew out of his control and he saw red as he ran forward, activated Shock, and purely on instinct augmented it with more essence. The punch landed and the monster was blown back into a stalagmite. Achak followed and began punching with all his might while pumping as much essence as possible into each strike.

He punched the monster straight through the stalagmite breathing heavily as he watched it bounce a few times then lay still, clearly dead. As he began calming himself he looked around to notice that red lightning was arcing throughout his body and off of him singeing the walls and floor. The more he calmed down the fewer arcs he emitted and the more fatigued he felt. As the arcs died down completely he passed out from exhaustion.

He awoke some time later unsure of how long he had been out. He figured it must have been at least a few hours since all of his wounds were mostly healed and he felt fully rested. Opening his stats confirmed that he had been out for some time since his health and resources were back to full.

“What a fucking idiot,” he admonished himself. He knew that he should have tested all of his skills thoroughly before moving into the tunnel or finding stronger monsters but he had been riding high on the previous wins. He’d let his ego get the best of him and nearly died for it. It was time to rectify that, ‘I’m not moving from this cavern till I’m sure I’ve uncovered all of the secrets my skills hold.’

He started by preparing to reread the descriptions of all his skills. But before he got to that he noticed he’d reached level five and had a new skill to choose.

[You have leveled up.]

[Choose a skill:

Bolt - Discharge bolts of lighting scorching and electrocuting your enemies.

Wrath - Puts one in a state of pure destruction, augmenting all stats by five and burning all available essence. Upon using all available essence you will be unconscious for a time.]

“No chains this time hm?” Commented Achak.

The Wrath skill sounded like a good option but it was too much of a double-edged sword for him. What if he used it in the middle of a swarm of monsters and failed to kill them all? He would surely die the second the skill was deactivated. Even if he managed to get them all he might still die if any monster, or enemy for that matter, happened upon him while unconscious.

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The Bolt skill however didn’t seem to have any drawbacks, and judging by what he had seen earlier each skill held much more potential than the description let on. He chose Bolt and prepared to begin a testing session of all of his skills.

He began with the Orb skill, it was a powerful and adaptable skill and he really liked that it could attack one enemy, or many at a time, he just needed it to hit harder. He concentrated on the amount of essence he wanted to add to the orb as he conjured it hoping that more essence meant stronger output.

Achak made five orbs, each with a larger amount of essence. He placed each in front of a wall and commanded them to fire. As he had hoped each orb came to life and struck the wall with lightning. The scorch marks of each orb eluded to his theory being correct, more essence meant a stronger output.

He then moved on to testing if the orbs could be controlled with commands. After a time he found that he could indeed control them with commands, but they had to be simple in nature. For instance, he could order them to follow, stay in a certain position, or fire on command. However, more complex instructions, like staying put for a certain amount of time and then moving or firing, resulted in only the first portion of those instructions being followed.

Moving on to his Shock skill he began testing the limits of how much essence he could use with each strike before it became too much of a strain. He’d found a soft cap at fifty percent of his essence which dealt a great amount of damage but also left him feeling spent. He’d also found that he could leave the skill primed for quite some time applying an arcing aura to his body while only using minimal essence until he actively struck something.

Finally, he moved on to his newest skill. Much like the others he found that he could adjust how much essence he could apply to it and that the amount of damage was proportional to the essence applied.

Achak could tell that he was regenerating essence faster than when he first walked into the miscellany but he wasn’t sure by how much. His current speed of regeneration was one essence per minute, which was decent.

Thinking back on everything he’d read about skills and resource usage, he knew for sure now that he was a special case. So far as he knew, all skills were locked into a specific amount of resource usage, no one had ever mentioned being able to adjust the amount of resource used. But then again, the higher tiers of soul ranks were obviously not very forthcoming with information about themselves, for all he knew this was the norm for them.

Achak sat in the cavern taking a meditation pose. He’d been meditating for some years now, the deep breathing helped to center him, and clearing his mind of the constant clutter helped him see things from a wider angle. He sat in a hidden corner far from the tunnel entrance, he wasn’t worried about any monsters respawning, but he knew that some monsters also roamed the entirety of their miscellany.

Setting up orbs as an alarm system, he closed his eyes and mind to the world. He quieted the constant chatter in his brain that ruminated over every decision he’d ever made and every situation he’d ever found himself in. In the silence he found peace and with it, he found the lighting within him. It circulated the entirety of his body following the pattern of his veins. The more he concentrated on following its path the more he could tell that it had its own structure of delivery, not exactly using the veins but a path that intertwined with them.

The deeper he went into his meditation, the more he could feel and even hear the light hum of power produced by his essence. He searched his chest for the nucleus of power he knew should lie there. All galvanized shared one thing, and that was that the nucleus of their power always resided in the center of their chest. Many people referred to it as a mana heart, but he’d always liked the sound of nucleus better, especially now that he knew he didn’t even use mana.

He found the nucleus and touched it with his will. Upon doing so he was transported, or at least his mind was. Achak opened his eyes to find himself back in the temple he had found during his galvanization. “What the fuck? How did I get here?” He asked startled as a system message appeared.

[You have entered your soul realm.]

“My soul realm? - I’ve never heard of such a thing. Do other galvanized have this? And why do I feel like I’m physically here? Isn’t this more of a metaphysical place? - Hello? System? Anything? - Of course not. I’m starting to wish this system was sentient or at least more forthcoming with information.” A second later he was pulled from the soul realm and opened his eyes back in the cavern.

Another Frongream must have made its way into the cavern as he heard croaks somewhere close by. He’d primed several orbs with as much essence as possible before his meditation and was ready to see how much damage they would cause the new Frongream.

He spread the four orbs he’d set up as an alarm out in a half-fan formation and made some noice to lure the monster. The Frongream came dashing from around a stalagmite and was blasted in the chest by several powerful bolts from the nearest orb. Its skin was not only scorched but also split open by the vicious hits. The damage done by his empowered orbs was incredible.

The Frongream regained its feet and surveyed its surroundings finding Achak and the other orbs. To Achaks surprise it threw its trident at him like a spear. He blasted it out of the air with a Bolt and then ordered his orbs to surround the monster. Before it could move another step it was bombarded by lightning from all directions. When it was over, the monster lay dead on the floor, its body mangled and scorched from the many lightning bolts.

Satisfied with the skills training and that he could now adjust the amount of damage he output to some degree, Achak began his journey into the tunnel and the rest of the miscellany once more.