Before Jean’s eyes opened he felt the pain in his shoulder and the hunger in his gut. He opened his eyes to a stunning view of the sun beaming through the trees in the opposite direction from the night before. There were birds chirping and bugs chittering. Not hearing the sounds of war or death was nice too.

“Well, that’s one nice thing.” A small smile crept onto his face. “I’ve never woken up to a view before.”

Wincing as he sat up, he looked around the empty forest with a shiny silver ball next to him. Picking it up feeling the weight of it.

Would you like to absorb Essence of Purity?

This isn’t like last time. There isn’t a monster coming at me. I actually have time to think about this. I’m guessing that priestess girl had absorbed a few of these things. She had the ability to heal herself. I could really use that. He sighed and laid back down.

I can already conjure bone spears, grow claws, and grow bones?

Turning his head, he slowly pushed a bone spear out of the ground right beside himself. He grabbed it and used it to pull himself up to his feet. Testing, he tugged on it upwards but it didn’t budge. He thought about it a bit more. Pushing he tried to shoot it out of the ground at speed, and it came out of the ground a few inches before falling to the ground.

“Great,” smiling he picked up the spear, spinning it in his hand clumsily. “The tip looks crazy sharp.” He hiked it up above his shoulder and chucked it at a nearby tree. Surprisingly it sang through the air, lodging it in the tree. A moment later it dissipated.

I’m not that strong. Weird. Flexing his arms he noticed a good amount of strength in his body, despite his hunger. He bounced on his toes, feeling lighter than he felt like he should. Wincing, he decided not to move too much unnecessarily.

Feeling his body reminded him of his new claws. Looking at his hand he noticed dried gore on his knuckles. Nauseously, he realized his claws retracted with zombie goo on them after he passed out. Wiping his hand on the ground to clean his knuckles he noticed a light pinkness where the claws came out. Curiously he extended the claws slowly. His skin split like it was being cut, but there was only a light tingly pain. He thought a bit and realized something. He pulled off a cleat and sock and flexed some new muscles. Four three-inch claws pushed out from between his toes. Even stranger, a thick curved bone claw jutted out from his heel. The sensation was so weird that it made Jean feel alien. Retracting his foot claws he put his cleat and sock back on.

There was still his second ability: Bone Growth. Jean had purposely been keeping his mind off of his missing hand, but now was the time. Sitting crosslegged, Jean stared at his forearm, feeling where the bone had been cleanly cut through. He could intuitively tell that his Essence ability was made to increase bone density or lengthen or shrink it. It was kinda disturbing, but he knew that he could regrow his left hand with enough time. At least the bone?

Determined, Jean sat and focused on his skill. He saw his skin lightly bulge before his bone broke through his stump and slowly started to shape.

Tears forming in his eyes he thought, this is so painful. I don’t even have a hand yet, just a freaky baby skeleton hand jutting out of my forearm.

Exhausted, Jean thought that he needed to eat. Looking into his inventory he saw a pair of white gloves. He pulled them out along with his gym bag. He first grabbed the protein bar and scarfed it down. Pulling out the gloves. Gloves of purity? “The quest reward!”

Gloves of purity: channel mana through the gloves to produce a low-grade heal and cleanse effect.

Jean struggled for a minute to get the tight-fitting glove on his hand without the use of his absent left hand. But with relief, he was able to get it on. He felt a drain coming from it. Cupping his skeleton hand with the glove he concentrated. A tendril of sinew peaked out where bone met the skin of his stump. Jean wasn’t controlling the motion of the muscle as he did with the bone, but the tendrils of meat knew where they were supposed to go on their own.

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The going was slow and Jean had to pause every minute to control his breathing while trying not to pass out again.

I’m pretty sure I’m using magic energy. Mana? Ki? Chakra? Oh, yeah, it’s definitely Chakra. I need to figure out how to get more Chakra… Maybe I just need to learn to meditate better, or it will grow on its own.

Getting back to work Jean realized that he needed to finish growing out his skeleton hand for the muscle to shape around it correctly.

“Gahh!!!! This is taking too long!” Throwing his head back in frustration. It had been close to 3-4 hours of nothing but working at his abomination of a hand.

Standing he took in the bright forest, noticing an ash squirrel staring at him from above.

“Hey, little guy. You wouldn’t have magical healing powers, would you?” The ash squirrel turned its head like it understood before turning to ash and blowing away. Sighing, he put the other glove over his too small, skinless, almost hand. It hurt, and his left hand wasn’t fully functional yet, but it was getting there.

Jean saw the twice-dead black-skinned zombie laying on the ground face down, a hole in its gut and a shredded neck. He walked over to touch it prompting his looting power. It didn’t dissolve into smoke, but he still received a notification.

Thirteen bronze spirit coins were looted. Ten iron spirit coins were looted. Two lesser spirit coins were looted.

Curiously Jean pulled out an iron spirit coin from his Soul Inventory. He examined it closely and saw Thomas Jefferson. An iron Nickel? Flipping it he saw the words written on it, Day one. A Perez production.

“What is this?” Jean asked his Transcendent Conscience.

It is an Iron Spirit Coin, created from your looting ability. This is a magical manifestation that is used as currency or to power magical artifices.

Jean walked toward where the battlefield was, arriving on the edge of the clearing ten minutes later. During the walk, he used the extremely slow healing glove on his shoulder wound. The clearing was a field of death.

After peaking around some trees Jean walked into the carnage hoping to find something of use. He touched a body but did not feel like he could loot it. Stepping over bodies he walked around the biggest piles of twice-dead people he found a shimmering sword that must have been dropped by a living person. All of the undead did not use weapons, and Jean wasn’t willing to strip a corpse to take a gory piece of clothing or armor. It took him a second, but he put the sword in his inventory a moment after it started to painfully tingle in his hand.

Readying himself to walk away he saw a twister of rainbow light coming down on top of an especially high pile of corpses. Not sure of what he was seeing, he hid himself the best he could without touching something dead. After a few moments, the twister stopped and left some sort of ball in its place.

An Essence?

Jean looked to find a path to the pile with the ball atop it. He couldn’t find one. With discomfort and a surge of controlled self-resignation, he started to climb over the bodies. The feeling was awful since they shifted under his weight, squishing, and slipping. At the top of the first mound, with another one to go, he took a careful step down onto the chest of what Jean could only assume was a dead dragon person. His foot sank into the chest and losing his footing fell down the mound, earning a couple of scratches on the way down. Cursing, he got up and kept moving towards the orb, trying to not think about what he was standing on, and what he was scratched by.

Reaching the top of the mound of bodies Jean grabbed the orb to take it in his hand. It looked like a snow globe that was filled with static, jerky smoke. It looked straight-up evil.

Would you like to absorb Essence Discord?

Discord huh? That fits the setting I supposed.

He threw it into his inventory.

This seems like more than a good enough haul. What I need now is some food.

Searching, he found a route out of the spread of bodies. Walking carefully. Trying not to earn any more wounds, but keeping his eyes out for bags of any sort. Why couldn’t these zombies carry a lunch box with them into a hoard? Nearly out of the mess of bodies he saw a curious-looking black cube, a dead face resting atop it, smearing its camouflage with pustule juice. Pulling it out from beneath the corpse covering, he brought it close to his eyes. It was black and opaque with red lumps.

Would you like to absorb the awakening stone of gore?

“Holy smokes, why couldn’t I find an awakening stone of aspirin?” Disappointed he stashed it into his inventory.

Once he was out of the field of dead bodies, he looked about, trying to figure out where he was going to go. The only thing he could see was the perimeter of trees, with a few mountain peaks in the distance.

“To the mountains, I go then.”

He walked to the edge of the forest, looked back at the death, and walked away hoping this would be the last time he had to experience this kind of carnage. Getting back to healing his shoulder wound, he walked on. The forest was peaceful, and the wind brushed his face, carrying the stench away and giving him a nose full of pine. The ground got a little less soggy after a time and Jean found a good tree to lean against.

Pulling out the Essences and putting them on his lap he looked at them. Purity and discord. What kind of power set is this? I’d probably prefer to go the Nimbus or Zabuza route, instead of a freaky holy impaler.

Putting his hand on his face, he absorbed both Essences.