Chapter 62. Essence

"Good job," I caught Chloe before she could fall. "Looks like you can't hear me though."

She really had done a gob job. It was not easy to fight something that outclassed in every possible stat, the plant was stronger and its vines were faster than her.

And as I had thought earlier, Chloe had a lot of untapped potential and talent hidden inside her. And this fight squeezed that out of her.

She did have to use a 'berserk' skill to close the gap in stats, but it was fine as she won.

I took her to the shade and gently placed her under a tree, her body temperature was high, her skin as if burning, and there were red spots all over her skin. I would wait until she woke up and then decide if we were staying or not.

Seeing her like this made me think of when I used to fall unconscious after every fight. A smile made its way to my face, and I walked over to check the dead monster.

The flowers that previously covered its head had wilted and revealed what was beneath them. Not that there was much in the first, its head was the same as the rest of its body, made of intertwined roots.

But a greyish crystal was present inside its head, I didn't touch it and used Identify to check what it was.

[Half-Formed Essence Crystal]

[????]

This 'Record' was getting really annoying, not knowing most of the things. At first, I used to think that the skill level is low and that is the reason why it's not showing the description.

But as the skill leveled up I understood that was not the case here, because when the skill level is low it does not show a prompt at all.

This time though, there were question marks meaning that the 'Records' itself was clueless about the item. It knew the name but not the function.

The old man too did not seem serious when I asked him about these floating screens before me, now when I think about it, he just said that it has many names.

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Record, System, Heavens, etc but would people call an omnipotent being with so many different names or just speak about it so casually. No, there had to be a group of people that would worship such a thing.

Like a cult, and I don't think they would allow anyone to take their 'God' lightly.

This was all my speculation, there was a high chance of it being wrong but something in me said that I was right. Pushing all the other thoughts aside, I checked the lake if there was anything left in there.

The bottom of the lake now appeared to be covered by moss and all signs of those moonflowers had disappeared. Not having anything else to do until Chloe woke up, I sat down beside her and meditated.

"Ouch!" Chloe groaned as she tried to sit up straight. Her whole body appeared to be in pain, probably due to overtaxing it.

"Are you okay? Don't do this unless you are in a safe area, and being knocked out in a forest for three hours is not safe."

"It is if you're around."

"I was not going to help, remember?"

"You are a bad liar," she said with a smirk on her face. Looks like my act of not caring and being indifferent did not pass through her. I didn't comment on that statement and changed the topic.

"Did you complete both the quests?"

I heard a 'tch' sound, which I am sure was made by Chloe due to me changing the topic.

"Yeah both of them," she said as a token appeared in her hand. The same token that I had received as a reward after killing the hobgoblin. Why was a getting this sense of Deja vu?

"Two hours?! What the-"

I facepalmed after finally remembering that the token had to be used within two hours of getting it.

"What do we use, I don't have anything that can be used as materials for this new weapon. What do I do?"

"The monster's head," I said. "It has a crystal, you can use that, it seems useful. And use some of your blood too."

"What? Why blood?"

"So there is something that belongs to you in that weapon, making a connection of some sort. I'll go and try to find some more materials from the river."

"Ok."

I dived in to see if I could find anything that might be useful, but there was nothing left that could be useful. The only thing that I thought could be used was the mana stone, so I dug a few and brought them to Chloe.

And my soul left my body.

"What are you doing?!" I screamed and rushed to her in panic. She had a full bottle of blood and was currently halfway through the second one.

"You said.... use some blood, so I-"

"I meant a little, few drops would have been enough. It was just so that you would be prepared." I removed a clean cloth from my ring and wrapped it around her wrist.

"It'll be fine, I have invested a lot in vitality." She said with a smile even though her skin was a little pale. She had just woken up after being unconscious and right after that lost nearly 2 bottles worth of blood.

"Just, just lie down for a minute and keep quiet. We still have an hour and a half left to use the token, wait till you recover, and then we will get you a weapon."

"We don't need to do that, I'm-"

"Listen to me, will you?"

"Ok." She pouted and placed her head on my lap.