"However, there are some things that do not seem to make sense. If I can enter with my real body and acquire these benefits, why do people then enter the world of Essence through VR? Is that not wasting our resources?" Damon asked with a raised eyebrow.

Selie seemed pleased by this question. "A VR player, upon killing a monster within the AR world of Essence, still accumulates Worldly Essence onto their character, even though it does not reflect on the real body."

"Different from real body players who can exit and enter the AR world at will, the VR players are forever trapped within the confines of the various AR and VR worlds."

"Nevertheless, the Worldly Essence is used to increase their VR character's power much in the same way it does for a real body player by simulating it."

"A few decades ago, a member of the Goblin species discovered something completely amazing, which has greatly elevated the status of VR players."

"After he had accumulated a certain amount of Worldly Essence, he had come up with a special and destructive method to transfer all his Worldly Essence to a player with a real body. Although this had led to the loss of his VR character, new ones can simply be created from scratch."

Damon was speechless. The lore about Goblins on Earth was frighteningly accurate to the real deal, those fellows really had a way to sniff out money by ALL means!

He didn't even need Selie to elaborate how this had changed the game completely.

Real players too scared to die must have flocked to these VR guys to 'buy their accounts', getting them to transfer over their power. That way, they didn't have to start out as powerless Level 1 noobs who had to risk their life by encountering monsters above their paygrade.

After all, judging from what Selie said, the stats shown were averaged based on your species' standard.

A Dragon at Level 1 who entered the game would surely have an easy time rising in levels by making use of his innate strength, but a Human at Level 1 might just end up getting ripped to shreds.

There should be a whole market and industry based on this, VR players who would make good money by farming accounts and selling them while real body players used that power to spelunk in the Chaos Realm to make the Universe Will happy, powering themselves up even further.

"Does the Universe Will have any objections to this?" Damon asked with interest.

"Not at all. In fact, it had been so excited by the discovery that it had rewarded that Goblin with a special body modification. Now, although he continues to play as a VR player, the power of his character gets carried outside. It is currently the reigning Goblin Emperor of its species."

Damon nodded. He had expected the fellow who had discovered such a useful thing to be heavily rewarded. He had literally boosted the Universe Wills success rate by an exponential amount. That benefit alone seemed like a pittance in comparison.

However, given what he had discovered about the Universe Will, it should be akin to a newborn, hence its scope of ability might still be limited.

Damon was temporarily satisfied with the answers he had gotten. Now came the most important question that had plagued his - and probably every other humans' - mind.

"What are Abilities, and how do they come about? How do we use them?"

Selie paused as if sorting out the information in her database, Damon's face became heavy as he knew he was in for a long explanation.

"Every Ability is a special power belonging to each and every individual within the universe. It is something encoded into your very existence on the most fundamental level of all, the spiritual."

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"In other words, it has nothing to do with your body, but your soul. It doesn't matter if you have the best bloodline or the strongest physique, your ability will vary."

"Nevertheless, the data confirms that the better your bloodline and the stronger your species is, the stronger the soul usually is."

Selie hesitated. "Since this is a special tutorial, I'm allowed to share this piece of info with you. The hierarchy of spcies in the IUAS is decided not by the might of the species itself, but by the quality of their Abilities."

"For example, the Vampire species are ranked 24th on the list of most powerful species. Any species in the top 50 is regarded as a VIP and is given special treatments, like this very tutorial that your respective Overseer, Ambrose Bloodwarren, has hosted for you."

"Awakening an ability is not free or automatic. It is a service paid for by the IUAS, as is their obligation from the deal they have brokered out with the Universe Will. The purpose of it is to ensure that not only the most qualified awaken Abilities so that they can maintain order in the Universe."

"It is expensive and prohibitively so. Not more than 20% of any species have awakened who have abilities due to how tough it is to make a profit in the AR world unless your species is one that excels in great martial power."

"The reason why 100 are chosen and awakened for free is for there to be a sample of a species Ability, and their souls. By making it absolutely random and diverse as possible, the sampling is relatively stable."

"The other reason, is to placate the Universe Will which did not like the idea of limiting Abilities to a select few, rather wanting everyone to have one and be thrown into the Chaos Realm. You can consider yourself lucky, as every other member of your species is going to have to pay for their awakening directly."

"An Ability can be used both in the world of Essence and in the real world. It would be useless to awaken it if you couldn't use it universally, especially in the Chaos Realm. To use your Ability, you simply need to think it."

Damon raised his eyebrows really high. "That's it?"

Selie nodded calmly. "That's it."

Damon, then asked: "So, can I use it here?"

Selie smiled gently. "That is the whole point of the Special Tutorial."

Damon nodded and thought of his three abilities. Probability Manipulation, Devour and Avatar. Just as he was wondering which one to try, Selie helped him out.

"If you want to see more information on the status and power of your abilities, you can prompt the Character menu for information." Selie informed gently.

Damon nodded and did so, starting with Probability Manipulation. Voila, a tooltip like screen appeared giving some details of the ability.

[Probability Manipulation - Reality Warp Type]

[Grade: EX || Stage: F]

[Effect: The owner of this ability has the power to influence the flow of reality itself by increasing or decreasing the objective probability for any action, but not for inactions. Currently, the rate of increment/decrement is limited to 5% per action.]

Damon furrowed his eyebrows, opting to ask rather than make any conclusions of his own just yet.

"I see the Grade and Stage of my Ability, but what is the difference between the two and how do I raise them?"

"Abilities are ranked by their quality and current output of power. Grade denotes the quality of an Ability according to our estimation and Stage denotes the current level of your ability and what it can actually do." Selie explained.

"So if I have an A-Grade ability, does that mean I'll only be able to raise its Stage to A?" Damon asked after inferring from her answer.

"In part, yes. As far as we know, very few have managed to raise their Stage above their Grade, and most of it involves unique encounters within the Chaos Realm."

Selie then smiled. "There are even a few who managed to raise the Grade of their ability through other special encounters. The Chaos Realm is not just beneficial to the Universe Will, but for spelunkers as well. You will discover more as you integrate with the IUAS, the AR world of Essence and the Chaos Realm itself."

Damon was silent for a long while. "How do you raise an Ability by a Stage?"

"Every 10 levels are a threshold. Even though the Character panel does not directly show such numbers, you will automatically raise your Abilities to the E-Stage upon reaching Level 11, or when you allocate or acquire stat points 11 times."

Damon nodded. Simple enough.

Then, he checked the tooltips for his other two abilities to understand what they could do.

[Avatar - Body Manipulation Type]

[Grade: EX || Stage: F]

[Effect: The owner of this ability has the power to split themselves into a perfect copy which is fully connected to the main body, acting like an extension. All Avatars are in perfect sync and can display 100% of the main body's power and Abilities at all times.

At the F-Stage, only 1 Avatar can be sustained at any one time.]

[Devour - Energy Manipulation Type]

[Grade: EX || Stage: F]

[Effect: The owner of this ability has the power to drain the energy of any living or non-living thing through direct touch. The devoured energy requires time to 'digest' and be converted into a usable form, which is Worldly Essence. The speed of conversion is dependent of the units of energy absorbed.]