CHAPTER 2

Minnie

Minnie was still trying to wrap her head around everything that had happened in the previous corridor. If she was honest with herself, she was equally as terrified of William as she was enamored with him.

As much as she felt safe and protected by his side, his casual capacity for pain and violence scared her.

Sure that demon thing was spying on them, but did he have to kill it in such a brutal manner? Did it have to be so easy for him to take a life?

She hugged herself as they moved down the end of the passage towards this sensitive that William talked about.

She was very interested in this energy called essence. Despite her cute, airhead look, she was quite a nerd and loved playing medieval fantasy RPGs. Also as a third year medical student before her abduction, she was also curious about how this energy interacted with the human body to affect the changes it clearly had on William's.

She did not miss how Suu's dagger failed to cut his skin. As a scientist, her curiosity was piqued by what to her was a new way to revolutionize medical science in its entirety.

She sighed as she thought of her online gaming account, she really missed her level ninety-nine goblin berserker avatar and her robust gaming account, with all the best gear money can buy.

While she pondered how wonderful it would be if after knowing her affinity, she became a berserker just like her online avatar. Minnie smiled at the thought.

They finally reached what she assumed looked like their destination. It looked like a goth nightmare, with the entrance carved into the shape of a skeletal open maw. Figures wearing black or red cowled robes moved about sedately, their faces hidden in the pitch blackness of their hoods.

The place gave her creeps and forgetting her previous musings, she sidled closer to William.

Her big, strong dark knight.

She looked back towards the entrance, at the massive maw that acted as an entrance and shuddered, these guys were really going overboard with the whole dark & evil decor.

A small robed figure walked towards them and Minnie tightened her grip on William's arm in response.

When the person or thing, because demons were actually a thing around here stopped in front of them, it raised the cowl and Minnie was stunned to see an extremely beautiful girl beneath those horrid robes. Her mind spun with thought of perfect Adonis hiding overblown hotness underneath those ugly robes.

Minnie gave herself a mental shake, trying to bring her mind back to the present, and not lost in the randy sex gutter it was currently mired in.

"Greetings to you and your entourage William.” The robed woman said in a low breathy voice.

The first thought that entered Minnie's mind was, Whore, get your dark knight, this one is taken. But she restrained herself and her face flushed as she thought about what would have happened if she had said that out loud.

It's not like William owed any of them anything, in fact anyone else in his position would have kept their head down and hoped for some kind of rescue.

Because that was what she did, waited for rescue even when there was overwhelming evidence that they might not be in the same world or even the same universe.

Regardless, he came. Sure he got his ass handed to him, but he gave them a fighting chance no matter how slim and already had a plan to get them out of here.

But more than that, so far he had been kind, caring and patient with all of them, even Suu.

Maybe she wasn't like in love or something, but feeling the hard slabs of his muscles underneath her fingers, heat pooled in her stomach.

William turned his dark gaze at her, one of his eyebrows raised in a silent question.

Shit, she must have squeezed his muscles a bit too hard. Her face heated in embarrassment and she refused to meet his gaze.

"I need to get my shit together, I'm not some starstruck teen in middle school." Minnie thought silently to herself, trying to get a handle on her feelings.

Turning his gaze from, William turned to the robed girl. "Hi Aelia, it's been a while. These are my friends Melody, Minnie and Suu," he pointed to each of us accordingly.

"I don't know if you heard what happened between me and the High Mistress, but me and the girls have been selected to represent her interests in some kind of tournament and I would like an idea of their affinities before we begin training."

The young girl nodded sagely at William's words as she led them into a large building that looked like a massive cathedral. She led them through a few twisting passages before stopping at a closed door which she opened with a key secured to a rope around her neck.

With Aelia in the lead, they all stepped into a room. The chair in the center of the room looked like torture chamber out of a horror movie set. Minnie pressed closer to William looking around with wide eyes. She glanced at Melody and Suu who looked tense and ready for any attack. Only William remained nonplussed, unbothered by the tension in the room.

“Relax, Aelia is a friend, we’re safe with her."

Minnie was already calming down at his words when her gaze landed on a glass container filled with black murky water that was on a stool behind the torture chair. Her eyes bulged in terror and she screamed when she saw something with tentacles slither inside the water.

Hearing her scream, the thing slithered closer and pressed it’s extremely horrid body on the wall of the container.

It had more in common with a starfish, except it had strange quivering postules on its body. Its center was covered in a concetric row of ting, but extreely sharp looking teeth, and in the center of its undulating maw as it struggled to eat through the glass was a large bulbous eye that pulsed frantically.

Minnie nearly lost her recently qcuired lunch just watching the abomination. She prayed fervently that it could not escape the confines of its glasslike prison..

For a while nobody moved, Minnie because she was scared out of her mind and Melody and Suu because they were tense in anticipation of an attack from the quivering horror, and maybe also a little scared.

But William just watched the strange creature without blinking, and the monster turned towards his direction.

The thing swam towards the edge of the tub facing William and purred.

"I think she likes you," Aelia said to William, breaking the spell we were all under.

“Ever since your cleansing, I’ve not been able to use her for another procedure. She refuses to drain essence from any other, and spends all her time staring at the door, as if she’s waiting for something,” then she turned to William, “or someone.”

William freed himself from Minnie’s grasp and stepped closer to the water tank. He stared at the monster clinging to the glass for a bit, but then simply shrugged, "Yeah, after our last encounter, I think we came to some kind of understanding"

"I don’t know what you did to her, but if this continues, she’ll he useless as a cleansing tool. Her kind are extremely rare, finding a replacement for her would be very difficult."

William turned to the weird alien starfish, even as the thing continued to stare at him with its mouth eye.

After a few moments he turned back to Aelia and abruptly changed the subject, "We need to know their affinities." Maybe he was finally wiereded like the rest of them by that thing. He pointed to where she, Melody and Suu stood, their eyes still trained on the monster "before they can begin any kind of training, the sooner the better please."

Aelia nodded and stepped to where we stood. She took Melody's hand and stared into her eyes.

Melody stared back in challenge, clearly uncomfortable with not being in the know.

After a couple of seconds, Aelia said, " Light, Fire, and Forge affinities."

She then turned to Minnie who looked about nervously, she felt like Harry Potter with the sorting hat on.

Aelia to her hand and stared into her eyes, the girl had the most luminous blue eyes she had ever seen, why was she hiding all that beneath an ugly cowl?

"Dark, Earth, Water and Fell affinities."

Minnie still didn't understand what affinities were but based on many years of gaming and anime fan-fic, she assumed it had something to do with the type of ability she had access to on this magical world.

Aelia then took Suu's hand and stared deep into her eyes. This time she spent a full minute longer than she did with either her or Melody.

"Hmm, this is another odd one," she turned to with a small smile on her face and William, big doofus that he was returned the smile with a flirty one of his own. Another inside joke, just how many did these two share?

Finally she looked at Suu and then clearly trying to contain her excitement she said "Light, Dark, Air and Fell essence."

The last part she squeaked, unable to contain her excitement, "I've heard about rare cultivator's with both fundamental essence types, but I've yet to meet one."

William looked puzzled by her reaction, "why are you so excited about Suu wielding both fundamental affinities, are there any special abilities tied to being a dual fundamental cultivator?

"As far as I know, not really," Aelia replied to his question, "But to understand why I became excited about her dual fundamental affinity, you'll need an idea of what light and dark essence do for an essence users cultivation."

William looked like an eager school boy listening to his favorite smoking hot math teacher speak.

As she watched the two magic nerds geek out on Suu's affinities she turned her gaze to the subject of their conversation to gauge her reaction.

Suu was clearly not pleased to be analysed and dissected like she wasn't in the room. As usual Suu looked at William with a murderous glint in her eyes. What is it about William that pisses her off? Or is it just men in general?

"There are arguments amongst scholars in my books regarding the nature of fundamental essence. This is because despite their acknowledgemnt as an essence type, they have only been a few cases where they have been directly bent by a cultivator into a technique or spell. Some of the arguing scholars, believe it is a misnomer to refer to light and dark essence channels as affinities, but rather see them only as cultivation alignments. This is because, as far as has been observed, almost everyone has at least one fundamental essence type and it is almost never heard of that a single essence user wields channels for both.."

She looked pointedly at William when she made this statement, whose only response was a grin.

Rolling her eyes at him, she continued "nobody knows what fundamental essences actually does, since it is extremely difficult to manipulate because they're extremely difficult to cultivate and their pure essence sources are hard to find."

"It is the only affinity most people don't bother to cultivate, because, unlike the primary and secondary essence types that need to be balanced to prevent corruption from flooding the center, fundamental essences have almost no effect on a cultivator's core, at least at the lower ranks."

"And even stranger, is how some very few who are interested in advancing the alignment choose to do so."

"For those with interest in advancing the light affinity oath, good deeds and positive choices are recommended, transparency, honesty and virtue in most things, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

"For dark aligned cultivators who seek to advance the alignment, working in obscurity and doing all sorts of dark deeds have been known to affect this alignment, the darker and more hidden the deed, the higher the chance of advancing a dark alignment."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

William nodded his head in thought, "I think I get it, since the locals don't really understand the physical aspects of light and darkness, some have chosen to cultivate the abstract aspects of this essence types. Come to think of it, does this type of cultivation also apply to the other essence types?"

But Aelia was looking at William like he'd grown a second head, "what do you mean by the physical aspects of light and darkness, everyone knows that light and darkness cannot be truly interacted with, only felt and expressed."

"And yes cultivating abstract aspects of an essence type is possible, although most don't bother with that route when there is a sufficient supply of primary essence types around and there are dungeons with secondary affinities to advance those aspects of cultivation."

"But pure light or dark dungeons where light or dark essence can be directly cultivated from the environment are extremely rare and very dangerous and nobody has been able to fully document how or why this is so. A party of five may enter and only one might return, sometimes with no memory of what was witnessed or the survivor becomes so full of fear that they never go adventuring ever again. The symptoms of those that visit pure fundamental dungeons tend to vary in their extremes."

But all Minnie heard during all their nerd talk was dungeons and adventuring parties. Were the dungeons on this world similar to the ones in video games, spawning mobs and dropping loot? Minnie had to admit that the idea of entering one both scared and intrigued her.

She imagined William as the party tank, then remembering his display on their way here and during the fight with the head demon, she had to concede that despite his physique, he was probably going to be the party's caster.

Maybe Suu would be interested in the position of party tank. With her attitude, she'd draw so much aggro, and without using a taunt skill.

Aelia's words brought her back to the conversation as she was forced to reluctantly pull her mind from her musings.

"The reason most people value light or dark alignments is because they are used as an indicator of character. Those with dark affinities tend to be looked upon warily as they are considered to have a strong potential for evil. Most light based religions; which is almost every religion, tend to shun cultivators who openly flaunt their dark affinities."

"The same also applied to dark themed religions and their followers who look down on light based religions."

"But that's the reason the common people value fundamental alignments. The reason they are valued by Cultivators, is that at higher ranks, they determine the direction cultivators would take in their advancement. Fundamental affinities affect what type of compound essence cultivators gain access to as they get stronger."

"For example, if you have two cultivator's with earth, water and air essence, but each with an opposing fundamental affinity, and both interested in consolidating their essence types to become plant cultivators."

"The plant cultivator with the light affinity might gain the ability to rapidly accelerate the growth of plants, increase their size and their durability and fill them with energy."

"But the cultivator with the dark affinity, might take a different direction and be able to alter the plants physical structure entirely, create new plants or remove energy from the plant to empower another plant or themselves."

“Two cultivator's with the same compound cultivation path diverge due to the opposing nature of their fundamental affinities.”

"This also applies to cultivator's with secondary affinities, as fundamental affinities even alter compound essence types with secondary affinities."

"This is a secret not shared with the common people, who believe that light or dark essence is meant only for alignment purposes."

"Yes, I’ve received information from another source that knowledge on Zomyr is heavily restricted and policed." William nodded at her in confirmation.

"Who have you been talking to? Have you been making other friends without me, is it another woman?" Aelia said in mock consternation.

William's gaze drifted to us, which forced Aelia to look our way, in the spirit of the mood, she decided to act offended at the silly banter and so did Melody.

Nobody thought that Suu's perpetually angry look was an act.

But William just laughed at the scene, a big smile on his face, it took a while for him to calm down and by that point tears were streaming down his cheeks.

"I needed that, I really needed that. I haven't really laughed since I got here, it feels really good. Thank you Aelia."

Aelia was stunned by the simple act of appreciation and her golden skin reddened a bit at his words.

Skank, how does she keep her skin that shade under all this rock and with no access to sunlight?

Maybe it's the same juju she's been using to ensnare William.

But from the wistful look on her face and the way she was twirling her hair like an excited school girl, Minnie didn't think William was the one who was enamored between them.

Clearing her throat, Aelia continued, "Anyway, your friend is an anomaly, there are very few with an affinity for dark and light and they are usually sought after by nobles and royal houses as judges, adjuicants or diplomats, due to their supposed neutral nature."

Some dark aligned kingdoms like the order of the undying would not receive a light aligned ambassador and vice versa for some light aligned kingdoms.

"But Suu can go almost anywhere, within reason of course. And there are the possibilities and paths her cultivation can take. It would be of interest to any kingdom."

Then she turned to Suu, who stared stubbornly back at the robed girl, "if you ever get out of here, you'll need to avoid any sensitives or find magic tools or trinkets that hide your aura or else you may find yourself kidnapped by unscrupulous forces for your unique affinities."

"Finding cultivation sources for both your essence types will be all but impossible and even harder will be finding a teacher to guide you on the dual fundamental cultivation path. While very few people have been known to directly cultivate a dark or light path; and all the cultivators that do guard their secrets jealousy, even at the higher ranks,

Then she turned to William with her hands on her hips. " Your friends have powerful affinities, while your talent for cultivation is extremely sub-par with a single affinity for earth. How you are able to cause so much damage against the High Mistresses guards is a mystery to me."

"Do you know the High Mistress has sent several of her subordinates to confirm your essence-type? She has sent several people to confirm the same information, as if she is expecting the fact that you only have a single affinity for earth to change"

If Minnie was interpreting Aelia's words, while the rest of them had good cultivation talent, William only had a limited talent, having no fundamental and secondary essence affinities.

So how was he so powerful, if his "talent" was so mediocre?

William's response was to snort in derision, "and she's going to keep looking because she's not going to find anything, but thank you for telling me."

Aelia smiled at William, her face reddened as she tried unsuccessfully not to stare at his extremely fit body.

"You've grown so much since we last spoke, I hope you can make time to tell me what you've been up to and to answer all my questions."

So shameless, even with the three of them there, she still has the confidence to openly hit on William.

Well she wasn't having it.

Minnie folded her arms as she stared jealousy at Aelia, "so now that we know what our affinities are, whatever that means, so what do we do next.

"Next, you'll learn how to meditate in order to absorb and refine essence. The main obstacle will be finding an essence source with sufficient amounts of your essence types."

As William was speaking, Aelia shook her head," that will not be the only problem, you will also need to find various essence sources with the same amount and density of essence or they will be forced to limit their cultivation to the volume in their weakest essence source."

William turned to Aelia, surprise on his face, "I didn't know that was a thing."

"That's because limiting your essence absorption is a problem you'll never have. With your single affinity, your main focus would be blocking out other essence types during cultivation or refining them out of your center as corruption."

"The best solution is to find an essence source with equal volume of the required essence type, which is almost impossible to find outside a really powerful dungeon."

There was that word again, dungeons.

Were dungeons actually a thing around here? What kind of treasures could be found in one and where was the nearest one located?

The excitement on her face must have been obvious because William smiled sadly at her and said, "yes dungeons are a thing around here, but you have to remember this is not a video game, there are no respawns, and magic or whatever you want to call is away harder than just reading a magical tome. If we are to survive, we need to take this place seriously. Any other mindset might lead to disaster."

Feeling chagrined, Minnie lowered her head and nodded. Why was she always the one who ends up putting her foot in her mouth?

Even as an awkward teen with braces and pigtails, she always had a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Maybe she should be more like Melody and Suu and act with more maturity.

Trying to shake herself out of her funk, she turned to William, "all this excitement, plus the walking we did has made me tired and hungry, let's go back to our room and maybe get more food. William simply smiled back at her, and nodded in assent.

*************

William stared at Minnie in wonder as he watched her finish several heaps of food he’d strong armed the guards to bring them. “After eating that giant pile of food, you’re still so tiny. Where does it all go?" William said as he stared up and down at her tiny 5 ft 2 inches frame.

"None of your business, didn't anyone teach you not to comment on a woman's weight and or figure." Minnie raised her head imperiously, her previous depressing thoughts forgotten.

William laughed and grabbed Minnie into an almost vicelike hug.

"Minnie, you are a treasure, don't ever change."

Minnie's whole body flush in appreciation and embarrassment. Then she began to squirm a bit as she got hot and bothered by his proximity.

They had said their goodbyes to Aelia promising to return. They returned back to their tiny room, each of them thinking about all they’d learn regarding essence.

"So how do we start cultivating, what do we need to do to begin refining essence?” Minnie finally turned to William in question.

Melody who had been quiet this whole time suddenly spoke up,"you said we have to meditate to absorb essence, do you mean like yoga, or some eastern esoteric method we'll have to spend years just understanding, much less making use of"

She then turned her gaze towards William, "what method did you use to get so strong that even the locals are wary of you?"

Minnie was also wondering the same thing, a list of possibilities filled her overactive mind as she pondered them.

Maybe it had something to do with physical attributes, which William hunk that he was, had an excess of.

Or he might have found an ancient artifact that gave him a massive power up (just because William claims this is not a video game, doesn't make it entirely true)

William might be the long lost prince of some royal bloodline and is actually destined to save magic in this world

Maybe he met an ancient master that passed on all his knowledge and power before dying.

Minnie's mind cycled from simple possibilities to seemingly outrageous ones.

William looked around the room, obviously searching for more spies.

Her stomach felt queasy as she remembered what happened to the last spy.

Satisfied with his search he directed them to gather around him before he spoke, "let's just say I have special advantages where essence is concerned that are tied directly to my person , and I think there is a way to use my advantages to accelerate your growth."

"In the spirit of this, I will tell you some of what I've learned about the way this world works since I've been here"

"As you already know, this world is called Zomyr and the prevalent energy here is called essence. From what I've been able to discern, the planet, at least the continent we are on, is technologically primitive and there is a heavy reliance on essence."

Melody still had that suspicious look that said, how did you get all this info as a slave, but William just ignored her look and continued.

"Cultivation is the art of absorbing aligned essence into your center, refining it and using the refined essence to enhance your body and project effects. I've rated essence based on density, as I've observed that the denser the essence type, the more pronounced it's effects on the body and the environment. This means that the more essence you absorb and refine, the more powerful you'll become."

"I don't know if any of you have any experience meditating, if so, cultivation will come easy to you. This is because for some reason unknown to me, essence responds to your thoughts, but more importantly to your inner strength which for lack of a better term I will call will. These past three days I've been out of commission have given me a lot of time to think about essence and its various properties based on what I know."

"I observed a while back that refined essence of a certain quality can be used to enhance and alter the body in various ways, amplifying all natural attributes and abilities. Think of refined essence as a type of stem cell that can be directed by your body to enhance any aspect of your being. I believe that the act of refining essence strips it of much of its identity and the body then takes this attributeless essence and gives it direction in enhancing mind, body and cultivation."

"I also learnt something that may not be common knowledge to the locals...."

Suu interrupted William mid-speech, “What are stem cells, and how can they be used to alter the body?”

William did ot react in anger, simply raising an eyebrow at her in response to her intrusion. Suu returned his look stubbornly refusing to be embarrassed by her outburst. After a few moments of tense stalemate, William simply sighed, “I keep forgetting that some of us are from different Earths, some with divergent technological paths. Stem cells are cells in the body that can replicate into various other types of cells and can do so indefinitely.”

After explaining stem cells to Suu and how it shared some similarities with essence, he continued his rundown on what he knew of essence.

"All the essence gathered during cultivation is usually gathered and refined at one spot in the body, and according to the locals, this place is in the stomach, below most of the vital organs, around the navel area."

"While I believe that it might be safer to place your center in a non vital area, it is possible to place your center in more sensitive areas with a little knowledge and precision."

"It may even be possible to have more than more center, but I'll need more data to come to any conclusions on that front"

Data! Conclusions! He sounded like he was doing a dissertation on essence.

Minnie wasn't big on stereotypes, especially as she has been on the pointed end of some nasty ones being for latin american.

But William looked more like a linebacker or bodyguard than an intellectual. She stared hungrily at him while he spoke, unaware he was being measured like a piece of juicy steak in a market. Sexy, smart and hunky, the complete package.

"For instance, I placed my center in my head, and while doing so nearly killed me, the effect on my cultivation is magnitudes higher than what would have been possible if I placed it anywhere else in my body."

"Essence is more responsive to my commands and I don't have to focus so much to pull it in, my mind is clearer and sharper than my cultivation level should allow and all my attributes are greatly amplified"

From the look on Melody's and Suu's faces, they were about to ask how he placed his center in his head, regardless of the danger, but anticating the request, he said before they could speak.

"The placement of my center in my head is a unique occurrence, one that was only possible under certain factors and conditions and not one I'm confident replicating without more data"

"I think the locals put their core in their stomach because it is the safest vital area they can do so without too many complications."

Then he took Minnie's hand and she felt something coursing through her, like someone plugged her hand into an electric socket, but aside from the tingling, there was no physical damage.

"Before you begin your cultivation. I have some ideas that I've wanted to try out since I first learnt of essence. And now I have three willing vict….. ummm volunteers to test out my ideas."

Minnie tried not to gulp at the crazed look in William’s eyes. He looked like an evil predator or a mad scientist, take your pick. Right now her beautiful dark knight had taken a back burner to Dr frankenstein.