Before Adam did anything, he picked up all three quintessence, minimizing the prompts that appeared, and moved behind the altar. He sat on the opposite side of the altar from the entrance. There was no need to make himself an easy target. Next, he opened up his personal information to check his gains during that prolonged combat. He skipped all the congratulations messages and checked his skill levels
Athletics had increased to Legendary, as had Dodge and Unarmed Combat. He had also achieved a rank of Medium for every weapon he’d wielded. Why did he get Legendary in Unarmed, Dodge, and Athletics but no higher than Medium in the weapons? Adam dived into the logs, cross-checked and rechecked, and finally thought he had a handle on it.
It looked like the more he successfully utilized a skill, the higher its rank went. He’d only picked up and used weapons in that first thirty minutes and it looked like successful uses increased the skill rank from Low to Medium at right around 19 successful uses. After reviewing his unarmed combat messages he realized that it had increased to a High skill rank at 101 successful attacks. He hadn’t used any of the weapon types more than 30 times so that made sense. Elite Rank had come at 1,001 times and Epic rank at 10,001 successful attacks. Mythic had been a whopping 50,001 times and he’d reached Legendary skill in Unarmed Combat at 100,001. Looking at the time stamps revealed that he’d reached Legendary Rank in just under two hours. Athletics and Dodge had taken almost twice as long. It looked like that was more due to some attacks or movements not counting toward his progress in those skills.
During the prolonged combat, he’d also figured out that he could make up to 21 attacks in a single second but it would take quite a bit for him to recover his full stamina after that. It looked like his stamina regeneration was Legendary and would fully recover daily but that stepped down to Elite during each combat round which was one second. To be able to maintain his attack rate he could only make 12 attacks per second. That wasn’t too shabby at all. If he went all out for a second and then only made six attacks per second after that for about a minute before his stamina was fully recharged.
This system of progress resembled some system in RPGs he’d played but it wasn’t quite right. He’d also need more data to figure out exactly what each rank meant quantitatively but he was sure that numbers were involved now. Next, he checked his Cultivation Rank and he was still Class M. Obviously there was a little more to Cultivation rank than just activating quintessence.
Which brought him full circle to the three quintessence he had. He had no idea what to shoot for with the Death Quintessence, or if he should even use it. If he wasn’t mistaken he was limited in the number he could activate. The Earth and Dark quintessence though could be useful. He needed a dimensional storage container and one of the characters in a series he’d read had used Earth base powers to call forth a storage chest from the earth. He could try for something like that if his idea with the Dark Quintessence didn’t work out. A chest in the realm of shadow that he could reach into and out of through shadow seemed like something a Dark based power should be able to do so he was going to try to get that first using the Dark quintessence. Besides he wanted to see if he could get a mapping ability from the Earth Quintessence.
Adam put the other two quintessence on the floor and held the Dark Quintessence before him as he opened the prompt that appeared.
Congratulations! You have discovered Dark Quintessence (General)! This quintessence creates an ability based on darkness. Anything from seeing in the Dark to Shadow walking is possible.
Open Darkness-based ability detected, this quintessence can be absorbed and automatically increased the Darkness-based ability by one Rank
As a being of Chaos, you may directly absorb and activate any Quintessence you touch. Would you like to “Create a New Ability” or “Increase an Ability” you already have?
Adam focused his mind on some form of interdimensional storage and chose “Create a New Ability”
Congratulations you have activated the ability “Shadow Vault.” This ability creates a vault accessible by you in the Dimension of Shadow. Items can be placed into the vault and withdrawn from any shadow. This ability is synergistic with Treasure Renderer. Items created may be automatically placed within the vault. Note: a new tab has appeared in your Personal Information labeled Shadow Vault which will list everything within the vault. Living creatures may not enter or exit the vault. The number of items this ability can hold increases with each rank. Low Rank can hold 10 cubic feet. Placing items into or drawing them out of the Shadow Vault costs Low Mana.
That was two times he’d influenced the outcome, could there be a third? Adam picked up the Earth Quintessence.
Congratulations! You have discovered Earth Quintessence (General)! This quintessence creates an ability based on earthen concepts. This Quintessence is perfect for creating defense abilities, though that is not all that is possible.
As a being of Chaos, you may directly absorb and activate any Quintessence you touch. Would you like to absorb the Earth Quintessence (General), Yes or No?”
Adam focused his mind on a mapping ability as he chose “Yes.”
Congratulations you have activated the ability “Personal Map.” This ability creates a map in your interface that allows you to keep track of your position in relation to other locations you have been. This ability is synergistic with perfect memory. This map does not have a range limit. Mana cost: None.
Three out of three, it looked like his affinity with chaos was paying off. That was definitely not going to be good for the locals. Now what to do about the Death Quintessence? He could just let it give him a random ability but that seemed chancy. If he had a luck skill running into that vampire didn’t seem very lucky, then again, he had killed over 100,000 creatures in 12 hours. He had to have generated some bad karma just doing that. Plus it wasn’t like the Vampire could have actually killed him.
There were so many abilities he could think of. Draining souls to empower himself. Death and Decay type attacks. Preventing his death, though, wasn’t needed, he had that already. How about something simple? It looked like he was going to be utilizing hand-to-hand attacks and he’d seen firsthand how hard it was to kill something with regeneration. How about something that locked down regeneration and healing? Nothing fancy but something that prevented those he was fighting from healing so he could take them down faster? That could be quite useful. Now did he want it to be a spell or delivered as part of his melee attacks? Touch-based attack for sure.
Adam picked up the Death Quintessence
Congratulations! You have discovered Death Quintessence (General)! This quintessence creates an ability based on deathly concepts. Want your enemy to fall apart in front of you? Want to raise an army of the dead, this is the quintessence for you.
As a being of Chaos, you may directly absorb and activate any Quintessence you touch. Would you like to absorb the Death Quintessence (General), Yes or No?”
Adam focused on the idea of what he wanted this ability to do and chose “Yes”
Congratulations you have activated the ability “No Escape.” No escape has a mana cost equal to the Endurance of the target and requires a physical touch to deliver. Once activated this ability prevents all healing and regeneration from any source. Death has come knocking and those afflicted will not escape.
Note: This ability is terrifying against the Undead. Any creature that is considered undead is instantly destroyed if mana equal to their endurance is spent. This ability may only be utilized once per second per rank.
Okay, it looked like his luck was coming into play a bit. That last part of the ability was a bit of an overkill for what he’d been shooting for, then again, it made sense that Death would not want caricatures of death wandering around. There probably weren’t that many cultivators running around that could spend Legendary mana. It looked like Adam was done here. He needed to get moving and get back to the surface. He stored the short sword in his shadow chest, still sucked to be nude though. Good thing his adaptable ability was keeping him comfortable.
Adam stood and walked across the chamber to the entrance. As he looked out of the entrance he realized that while the chamber was well built the entrance opened into a natural tunnel that had not been worked by any creatures as far as he could tell. Also, there was a slight slant to the floor that led up.
With no other options, Adam followed the natural tunnel. A half-hour later Adam checked his personal map. As he’d suspected the tunnel had also been turning to the left slightly and he had been steadily making his way up toward the surface as he circled the chamber he’d woken up in. He wasn’t moving fast as he was checking the ceiling and looking for traps, both physical and magical.
Another two hours found him coming out of a crease in the ground that came out into a forest glade. It was night time so impossible for him to tell what direction was east or west as he didn’t know the constellations. His clock said about 36 hours had passed since his time on the battlefield but he already knew that the number of hours in a day here was slightly off. Nothing to do but wait for daylight.
Adam found a larger tree and climbed up to one of the branches to get himself off the ground just in case there were predators in the area. He’d already been shown that he wasn’t the top apex predator in the area.
He sat with his back against the trunk and leaned his head back to meditate. He also had a lot to think about. The magic here worked a lot like one series he’d come across. Crystalized energy being utilized to activate powers, normally random, but following some sort of template the soul drove. If that were true what kind of abilities would his soul unlock? Did that also mean there were magical manifestations here as chaotic energies manifested? He hadn’t seen anything to that effect yet but was it possible?
One thing he knew, the sun had been behind him when the army had been attacking so he needed to head toward the Sun to find the edge of the forest and then look for the Lord Protector. Might be a good time to figure out what his running speed was here as well. He was sure he’d been moving faster than the speed of sound even if he hadn’t been creating sonic booms. It was a magical reality after all, some of the rules that were hard and fast in the SYSTEM Matrix might not be here. More likely, magic was mitigating his passage somehow.
As he moved his mind towards his mind space, he left a sliver of his attention to keep track of his surroundings. As he drew back into himself something new drew his attention. Normally his shift into his Mindspace had felt like he was falling back into his mind and stayed level, or horizontal. Now he felt a pull down toward his chest. Intrigued, he allowed his perception to follow the pull and found a mass of swirling energy around a new core with himself he’d never seen before. As he watched the mass of milky white energy undulated and morphed. Five stars seemed to rotate around the core. Adam instinctively knew these represented the quintessence he’d absorbed. Adam could tell that they had not been incorporated into the core, they were merely orbiting it. Did he need to somehow incorporate the stars into the core? As that thought crossed his mind a prompt appeared.
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You have started the process of refining your cultivation by incorporating the quintessence you have activated into your Soul Core. At this point you may release the quintessence and the ability gained is simply lost. Or you can incorporate the quintessence into your Soul Core to work toward improving your Cultivation Rank. NOTE: Once incorporated it is very difficult to undo. Note: Ability Quintessence Chameleon allows you to disregard the previous NOTE.
Would you like to incorporate one, some, or all quintessence into your Soul Core?
Adam thought “Incorporate All” and watched as the energy of the soul core allowed five tendrils of energy to reach out and draw each of the stars into itself. Adam watched as the stars created stains on the Soul Core which quickly faded until the milky white undulating sphere was the same. Once the core was homogeneous again Adam received more prompts.
Congratulations you have incorporated Focused Quintessence Treasure Renderer into your Soul Core at 100% Efficiency. Cultivation Rank increased to Rank G. Total Quintessence incorporated 1 of 8. Luck Attribute increased by one rank, Maximum Legendary.
Congratulations you have incorporated General Quintessence True Sight into your Soul Core at 100% Efficiency. Cultivation Rank increased to Rank F. Total Quintessence Incorporated 2 of 9. Mana Attribute increased by one rank, Maximum Legendary.
Congratulations you have incorporated General Quintessence Shadow Vault into your Soul Core at 100% Efficiency. Cultivation Rank increased to Rank E. Total Quintessence Incorporated 3 of 10. Mana Attribute increased by one rank, Maximum Legendary.
Congratulations you have incorporated General Quintessence Personal Map into your Soul Core at 100% Efficiency. Minimum Requirement to reach Rank D (3 Medium, 2 High, 1 Elite, 1 Epic, 1 Mythic, or…Quintessence Ability Personal Map Rank Increased to Legendary due to synergy with ability Perfect Memory. The minimum requirement for Cultivator Rank D, C, B, and A has been met. Cultivation Rank increased to Rank A. Total Quintessence 4 of 14. Endurance Attribute increased by one rank, Maximum Legendary.
Congratulations you have incorporated General Quintessence No Escape into your Soul Core at 100% Efficiency. Minimum Requirement to reach Rank S (3 Mythic or 2 Legendary Quintessence) NOT met, Cultivator Rank A. Total Quintessence Incorporated 5 of 14. Wisdom Attribute increased by one rank, Maximum Legendary.
Perfect memory was his gift that kept on giving. That had automatically upgraded his mapping ability to Legendary. It looked like he wouldn’t be getting any more freebies though. Of course with his looting power that could create quintessence, he wouldn’t need to wait for them to randomly drop and if they could be utilized to increase the rank of his quintessence abilities all he needed to do was find six more dark, earth, or death quintessence, or seven of a different one and he’d have another legendary ability.
One thing, it looked like he only had a total of 14 quintessence slots. He’d received 7 from his legendary attribute and it looked like he gained one each time his cultivation rank increased. Did he gain anything else for leveling? He checked his prompts
Congratulations you have improved your Cultivation Rank from M to G. With each increase in cultivation rank two things happen. First, an additional Quintessence location is unlocked in your soul allowing you to add another quintessence. Second, you may raise one attribute by one rank. Quintessence Locations count as an attribute and may be upgraded as well. You have (1) unassigned attribute increase.
Adam quickly went through his messages until he reached the last one that concerned his increase to Cultivator rank A.
Congratulations you have improved your Cultivation Rank from E to A. With each increase in cultivation rank two things happen. First, an additional Quintessence location is unlocked in your soul allowing you to add another quintessence. Second, you may raise one attribute by one category. Quintessence Locations count as an attribute and may be upgraded as well. You have (7) unassigned attribute increases to distribute.
All of his attributes were Legendary so Adam assigned all attribute bonuses to Quintessence Locations and was very satisfied to see the following message.
Quintessence Locations raised from 14 to 21. You have utilized 5 of 21 quintessence locations.
Adam reviewed what he’d learned so far. It looked like Cultivators had to work really hard. Although the type of Quintessence they incorporated into themselves also improved their attributes. If Adam hadn’t already had Legendary attributes he would have increased his Luck by one rank, his Mana by two ranks, his wisdom by one rank, and his Stamina by one rank. In addition, as his Cultivation rank increased he would receive another attribute increase which he could use to round out his attributes. He didn’t need to though. For him, he could only put those extra attribute points into Quintessence locations. All other attributes were already ranked at Legendary.
He had to admit, it was a pretty elegant system and allowed individuals to improve themselves. The only problem was that they had to find a way to unlock the abilities in their soul and if quintessence was the key, it must be a pretty expensive key. That was going to make him rich here, where ever here was. Some mythological world with everything out of fantasy. Adam wondered if there was an Earth out there somewhere.
Adam withdrew from his Soul Core and moved back into his body coming awake with the morning sun. turning toward the diffuse light that was shining through the trees Adam dropped to the ground and began running in the direction of the sun. Before he sped up he checked his personal map to see if it measured distance. Sure enough, it did. He created a waypoint at his current location and ran as fast as he could then came to a stop. He measured the distance, did some quick math, and figured out that he’d been traveling at approximately 1,100 miles per hour. There definitely should have been a sonic boom.
Adam started running again and a short time later exploded out of the forest into the planes he’d seen the war happen on. The Corpses had been either moved or buried and new grass was already growing. If Adam was a betting man a cultivator had done something to repair the land and bury the corpses. He realized he was slightly north of the hill the Lord Protector had stepped onto through the portal. He adjusted his course and slowed down as he headed south. Within fifteen minutes he came to a familiar hill that had two elves stationed on it. As he slowed then made his way up the hill one of the elves reached down and picked up another robe which he held out to Adam.
“The Lord Protector figured you might need another one,” The elf holding out the robe said in elvish.
“Thank you,” Adam said as he accepted the robe, “What now?” Adam asked as he put on the robe.
“Now we head back to Tree Haven,” The other guard said as he pulled out a green crystal and did something that Adam felt but couldn’t see. Immediately a portal opened into the Tree they had left when coming here. They both ushered Adam through first then followed. As Adam exited the portal he was met differently this time. The elves that noticed him stopped what they were doing, held their hand to heart, and bowed before returning to their tasks. Adam was about to ask what was going on when the Lord Protector walked out of a side room.
“I knew you’d be back,” the Lord Protector said happily.
“I’m glad to be back, what is happening?” Adam asked.
“Well, you did save countless elves before you fell,” The Lord Protector said.
“Please convey my appreciation for the courtesy, but I would have done the same thing to help even if I hadn’t met you before following you there. Goblins, Gnolls, and the like aren’t racial enemies, but I just don’t get along with them, whatever Universe I end up being in.” Adam said.
“Fair enough, if you’d come with me I had my men collect the treasure from the battlefield. You did ask if you could loot the corpses. To make things easy I am willing to give you 100 gold and the first pick of the quintessence that was found. Before you decide please understand that only 5% of all monsters or non-cultivators generate a quintessence. Cultivators, or monsters that have quintessence abilities almost always do, though normally not as many as they have absorbed,” the Lord Protector said.
“I know from my combat log that I killed over 100,000 creatures. If quintessence drops 25% of the time that means that your army recovered over 5,000,” Adam said.
“We’d stopped counting after we reached 1,000 and instead sorted by type. Also, someone would have been removed by the enemy or our soldiers. After our losses yesterday we felt it better not to push the issue.”
Adam nodded before he asked, “So, how many may I claim?”
“As I said you get the first pick. As you may, or may not know, Cultivators are limited in the number of…” The Lord Protectors’ voice started to say as his eyes hardened, “Class A Cultivator? You were gone a day, how did you get to Class A cultivator so quickly? The rituals and mental preparation required to absorb one quintessence, wait did you use the quintessence you picked up in the middle of the battle?”
Adam shrugged his shoulders sheepishly, “Yeah.”
“You don’t need rituals to absorb quintessence do you?” The Lord Protector asked.
“Nope, in fact after I died something tried to kill me after I woke up. I found four quintessence and incorporated all four of them as well,” Adam said.
“Still, that doesn’t explain how you achieved Rank A. You’d need three of those to epic, two to Mythic, or one to Legendary rank to qualify for rank A”
“True, one of my abilities synergized with one of my racial abilities and immediately ranked the quintessence up to Legendary,” Adam said.
“Can I ask which ability?” The Lord Protector asked hesitantly.
“If I understand by your demeanor asking about one’s abilities is either personal or taboo. As you have been generous and hospitable to me, so I will be with you. It was a mapping ability I received from a General Earth Quintessence,” Adam said.
“What racial ability would synergize with a mapping ability.”
“One focused on memory,” Adam said
“Yes, that would do it. Lucky,” The Lord Protector said,
“Extremely,” Adam agreed, “About these quintessence?” Adam asked.
“There are a lot of general ones and a few focused though no specific. We’ve created a list,” The Lord Protector said as he picked up a piece of parchment from the table and handed it to Adam.
The list was written in elvish which Adam looked over quickly;
Light 3
(Illusion) 1
(Evocation) 1
Air 5
(Alteration) 1
(Conjuration) 1
Life 25
(Alteration) 1
(Summoning) 1
(Enchantment) 1
Water 103
(Conjuration) 5
(Summoning) 4
(Enchantment) 3
(Divination) 2
(Illusion) 1
(Evocation) 3
Dark 210
(Abjuration) 3
(Alteration) 5
(Conjuration) 3
(Enchantment) 3
(Evocation) 5
Earth 401
(Alteration) 43
(Conjuration) 5
(Summoning) 6
(Enchantment) 3
(Evocation) 2
Death 333
(Conjuration) 4
(Summoning) 5
(Enchantment) 4
(Necromancy) 10
Fire 4
(Conjuration) 3
(Summoning) 4
(Enchantment) 3
Infernal 1
Adam looked at the list, looked at the Lord Protector, and Looked back at the list before he asked, “I take it to mean that each of these quintessence has a primary element, and then within those elements, you found specifically focused quintessence, as an example under fire (conjuring) you have 3. That means there are 3 fire-attuned conjuring quintessence?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it means,” The Lord Protector said.
“Next question,” Adam started to say and then continued, “Let’s say I use a fire conjuring quintessence, can the basic fire quintessence be used to upgrade the rank of the ability I unlock?”
“Yes, They can also be used to upgrade specific ability quintessence but it’s usually more expensive. Some abilities allow cultivators to convert one quintessence into another, the conversion cost is high, I’m told. For instance, I don’t think you could convert any of the Fire Quintessence but there is enough Earth Quintessence that if we had such a cultivator we could create whatever you think you needed,” The Lord Protector said.
Adam thought about a few things for a moment before he said, “There has to be more to Cultivation rank than I’m seeing. With what you just showed me I will be able to open abilities and infuse them to Legendary Rank. I only need to do that for 3 more abilities to be considered a class X Cultivator. That doesn’t make sense, it almost seems too easy. What am I missing?”
The Lord Protector looked thoughtful for a moment before he answered, “First your experience is skewed. No one starts with attributes as high as yours. Quintessence is one path to improvement and there are other methods to increase attributes naturally up to High, which most do before taking on a quintessence because it’s harder to raise attributes as you progress upward. Second, the combination of abilities and possible counters to those abilities is practically infinite. Do you know, that in my lifetime, over 300 years, no one has seen an infernal quintessence, I asked around. The sages think that one dropped because you killed a demon out there on the battlefield, probably one that was possessing another creature. My point, in a war like this the armies would fight and the quintessence would drop and normally the battlefield would absorb that energy over the next day, cursing the land. Because the other army withdrew we were able to get out there and recover as many as we could as quickly as possible,” The Lord Protector said.
Hoping to change the subject Adam asked, “Okay, you said I could have the first pick, how many would be an acceptable amount, in other words, how many do you need?” Adam asked.
“We want nothing to do with the Infernal Quintessence, in fact, we would appreciate it if you find a way to destroy it. Out of everything else if you took no more than 7 from each category that has 7 that would be appreciated except Dark, Earth, and Death. There are so many that taking more of them should be fine,” The Lord Protector said.
Something the Lord Protector said resonated with Adam. That resonance formed a plan and with that plan in mind, Adam said, “I will take one each of Light, Air Life, Fire, and the infernal. 30 of the Dark and Death and 50 of the Earth.”
“Are you sure,” you might want more than one ability of the Life or even a couple of the focused ones,” The Lord Protector said.
“I have an idea I want to try. Also, I picked up an ability that will make it possible for me to find quintessence a lot easier than other people. I’m sure the Army we just saw will be returning and you will need all the quintessence you can get your hands on to deal with that threat,” Adam said.
“We will have to sell or trade half just to get the materials to be able to utilize the rest but you are right we will need as many as we can keep. Please know that this day you have made friends for life among the Kaljaharsi,” The Lord Protector said as he pushed a ring across the table to Adam. “Any Kaljaharsi that sees you wearing this ring will immediately know that you are our Ally. Of course, it goes without saying that our enemies that see the ring…”
“Will be my enemies as well,” Adam finished. “I understand and thank you for this generous gift and show of trust.”
The Lord Protector pulled out multiple sacks and put the Quintessence crystals Adam wanted on the table along with 100 gold which Adam added to his Shadow Vault. When they were done The Lord Protector escorted him out of the building and down the road to another tree where he led him inside and into a side room there. “I’m sorry that I cannot stay and chat longer, I must see to the war effort and prepare for our next engagements. Please enjoy our hospitality. In the morning a map of the area will be provided to you, as well as any provisions you might need and then you can be on your way. There is a human city, not six days’ travel from here. If you are as new to this world as you say, you might want to go spend some time among them, Now I must take my leave,” The Lord Protector said as he turned and left the building Adam was staying in for the night.
Adam looked around the room he was in, went over to the bed, laid down, and let his head hit the pillow. He hadn’t stopped moving, in how long? He never did answer himself, No sooner had he asked than he found himself in deep and restful sleep.