The second that Alex grasped the shard, he was immediately targeted by the two other Djinn. Apparently, they realized the danger that he could pose if he were able to harm the shard. Alex was relieved that his theory of the shard being somehow crucial to their survival had at least some credence. That relief was short lived when his leg and arm were punctured by sand lances. He tried to maintain a hold on the shard, but the lances began to twist and writhe causing even more pain and damage. He let go so he could focus on removing the lances from his body.

He concentrated some energy into the core of his midsection and after a quick radiating burst of light and energy, the lances were dispelled. He could still feel sand in his wounds, and despite being severed from the lances, it appeared the Djinn could still control it somehow. He could feel the remnants burrowing further into his body. In a moment of desperation, Alex buried his Eonsteel into the wounds.

With screams almost inaudible to himself from the sheer amount of pain he was in, he scooped out the sand from his body. He popped three health bombs into his mouth. He needed to keep the Djinn preoccupied or any attack like this would be an opening for this kind of secondary assault.

He launched a couple death rays from his palms at both of the Djinn, among at their faces. He didn’t know if they saw the same way he did, but the fact that they were humanoid beings made him believe that they were at least somewhat similar.

Before the blast landed, Alex was already on the move, accelerating himself with potential energy. He could see the creatures phasing out to avoid the blast once again, but he didn’t care. He knew what really controlled them now. He started to channel energy into his palms, but not to fire off a death ray. When the Djinn started to form back, it saw Alex and shock registered on its face. At least that was what Alex assumed it was. It was hard to tell on the terrifying faces the Djinn had.

Alex’s hands were superheated with the building energy and when he pressed his hand into the Djinn’s sandy body, glass formed around the edges of his hand. The sand offered much more resistance than Alex was anticipating, slowing his momentum considerably. Before he could reach the shard, two gritty hands wrapped around his forearm. He looked up to see a snarling maw screeching into his face.

A writhing tentacle like tendril shot out of the Djinn’s mouth straight for his face. Alex dodge to the side, narrowly avoiding the tendril. Another shot out, then another. He dodged them all, but they soon began to wrap around his neck. Alex continued forward as the Djinn began to strangle the life out of him. His hand finally reached the shard, but the Djinn became even more ferocious.

Alex felt like a gogurt tube and the Djinn was squeezing all of his insides out, but it forgot to cut the top off first. It began to claw at his face viciously. Alex channeled more energy into his hand. It got so hot that Alex felt like he would char his hand clean off if he wasn’t careful. He shot lasers out of his eyes and into the Djinn’s. It didn’t even phase out this time and the sand was fused where its eyes had been previously. The Djinn thrashed around wildly, tearing at Alex wherever it could.

Alex channeled as much energy as he dared into the shard, but it didn’t seem as though anything was happening. Two tendrils shot into his back and he knew that they weren’t alone anymore. Alex couldn’t force any more energy into his hand and instead began to pull the shard out. It was much harder than it had been for him to force his hand out, but little by little the shard began to move.

Alex could barely focus as the sandy tendrils in his back forced their way further into his body. If he didn’t get that shard out fast, it would all be over. He channeled a radiating blast hoping to not only disrupt the assailant from behind, but also the one in front.

A concussive wave of heated energy blasted out. Alex was elated to feel the wriggling tendrils cease their burrowing, but was even more elated to feel the shard break free from the sandy form. The moment it did, all of the sand used in the Sandstorm Djinn’s body fell to the ground in a pile. He looked down at the shard in his hand with a smile in his face. He wouldn’t be able to do anything with it now, but he hoped to find a use for it after this fight. For now, Alex stuck the shard to his chest forming the Eonsteel around it almost like a gem in a ring. It made his armor look much more regal even though the shard was jagged and rough. Like he was a tribal king.

He turned to face the other Djinn before they could recover. They had recovered much quicker than he had anticipated and both were already right on top of him. Alex tried to blast himself backwards out of reach, but a quick reaction from one of them anchored him in place, a tendril of sand wrapped around his ankle. Two powerful strikes landed simultaneously, knocking Alex to the ground.

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He channeled energy into his ankle to heat the sand. Once it turned to glass, Alex broke free of its grasp sending shards in every direction, none of which did any harm to the Djinn. Alex had a few new cuts to add to his collection. He launched himself back, gliding along the dunes until reached the peak of a relatively short dune about one hundred feet from the Djinn.

Alex was starting to see a problem with the current exchange—he was expending energy faster than he was absorbing it.

He knew that his strength was increased commensurate with the damage he took. Each hit he received gave him more fuel for the counterattack to follow. He was taking a significant amount of damage, but since the Djinn were largely incorporeal, he had to use way more of his energy. Plus, he was converting it from kinetic energy to thermal energy most of the time. He lost 50% of his energy that way, which led to even more wasted energy. He needed to find a way to increase his output without decreasing his reserves too much.

I wish that I could just use my energy more efficiently. That would solve a lot of my problems.

He suddenly got a notification from the Forge.

Energy Conversion (Uncommon)- Stored energy can be converted into different forms. Conversion can be directed within your own body and can change forms at the cost of your own potential energy stores. Therefore, energy efficiency is lost in the conversion process. Current conversion efficacy-50%

Upgraded to—

Energy Conversion (Rare)- Stored energy can be converted into different forms. Conversion can be directed within your own body and can change forms at the cost of your own potential energy stores. Therefore, energy efficiency is lost in the conversion process. Current conversion efficacy-80%

What the heck just happened? I don’t understand why I would just gain a skill rarity upgrade and a sudden spike in my conversion efficiency.

A sudden cracking sound and a pop on his chest made everything clear.

Djinn are basically genies. And I guess I did say that I wished I was more efficient. That’s a good upgrade, but I probably could’ve used that on something better. I am definitely going to collect these other two, but I’ll need to save those wishes for something real good. They can’t be all powerful since it only gave me a 30% increase instead of a full 50% to get me to 100%, but it still has to be significant.

The shard began to disintegrate, dust falling from the spot on his chest where it had been housed. Alex was grateful for the upgrade, but still felt like it was a missed opportunity. At least the sudden power up should help with his immediate problems.

Alex saw the two Djinn forming what looked like another Sand Drake out of…sand.

Man I’m really getting tired of all this sand. It’s literally everywhere. All of the creatures have sand in their name. I feel like the word sand is constantly on my mind in one way or another. Yet another reason to get off this planet, Alex thought as he started back towards the two Djinn.

He charged up two death rays for as long as he could before firing them at the creature’s chests. One missed wide, but was still enough to break its concentration. The other struck true, knocking the Djinn back several feet. The semi formed drake fell to the ground in a massive heap.

Alex still didn’t want to rely solely on his thermal energy, and instead molded his Eonsteel into a weapon that should help against the specific physiology of the Sandstorm Djinn—a paddle. Not like a ping pong paddle, but more like the paddle people used to use to beat their kids with. The ones with a wide, long face with holes in it so you could really get some speed. It would allow him to hit a wider area, hopefully hitting the creatures before they shifted their sands around to avoid the strike. He wasn’t sure how much damage they would take if he hit them on their bodies. They seemed to mostly care for their shards, but at the same time, why would they avoid his hits if they wouldn’t do any damage to begin with?

Plus, Alex thought it was kind of funny to beat down on somebody with some paddles. He got a sudden memory of his grandpa using one of those on him when he had used a swear word around him. He subconsciously rubbed his butt, the pain almost coming back from all those years ago.

Alex’s theory was proved correct as he started wildly swinging the paddles around. Each hit made contact with the Djinn and they appeared to be slowing down. Each hit was still probably not as effective as a direct hit to the shards, but each sliver of damage he could deal without dipping into his energy reserves was well worth it.

Slowly but surely, Alex started to gain the upper hand. The Djinn were doing all they could, but while on the back foot, they coordinated much more poorly. Alex had realized that they worked much better together than they did alone. This gave him even more resolve to work alone when he returned to Earth. They had formed a sort of hunting party, but had grown much too reliant on each other. There was no doubt that they were immensely powerful together, stronger than almost everything else on the entire planet, but alone they were relatively easy to handle.

Alex battered them around for nearly thirty minutes before he had control of his second shard. When the final Djinn saw that it was alone and outmatched, it attempted to flee. Alex wasn’t going to let a free wish get away so easily and made short work of the lone creature.

Alex had two shards attached to his chest now, and with the death of the final Djinn, two things happened simultaneously—the storm dispersed and Alex fell flat on his face totally exhausted.