"A new way to gain essence? I thought the only way was to kill humans?" asked Alwin.

"Nope. Killing humans is the fastest way, the other way is refining the latent mana floating about, kind of like what the cultivators do," said Lapis.

Uchronia frowned. “And adventurers get stronger by killing monsters. So we’re somewhere between adventurers and cultivators, huh?”

"Exactamundo! No wonder you're Milvee's star pupil."

"But, why teach us a worse way? That sounds like a waste of time.” Uchronia’s tail flicked in irritation.

"It's not a worse way, it's a different way. Sure, killing humans means you get to evolve faster, but what if you had a bigger control over what you want to evolve into?"

"Go on."

"Well, evolution is influenced by what skills you learn, the environment you stay in, and the type of essence you absorb. Sure, killing humans makes you evolve faster, but it’s like a roll of the dice. You never know what kind of essence you’re gonna get. One day you want to be all water-themed, but boom, you end up absorbing lightning essence. Suddenly, you're a storm cloud on legs.”

Uchronia leaned in, intrigued despite herself. “Okay, you have my attention. Keep talking.”

“I’ve been working on a method to refine essence—filter out the junk and keep what you want. I call it Refinement. The system calls it Refinement too..’”

"Why us? Why teach this supposedly amazing skill to us?" asked Uchronia.

"Truth be told, it's still in the experimental stages. The skill works, it's just the theory needs proof before it becomes fact, so what I'm saying is, if you do accept my proposition you'll be helping to prove the concept. Also, Tier 1 monsters who have never evolved are kind of the perfect subjects and it just so happens you and your classmates are the most talented Tier 1 monsters right now."

"You're using us as guinea pigs!" shouted Uchronia.

"Technically yes, that's why it's your choice."

"No! A million no's! No more using us for your own gains! Back me up on this, Alwin!"

A way to better influence the type of evolution he'd gain. Sure, it was unproven, but the prospect was more than enough for Alwin. A stronger evolution would mean a stronger Alwin, and being stronger means he'd be able to get rid of Gary Stew without being a burden to anyone. After he helped to prove that Lapis' theory of evolution was correct, she'd probably be so grateful that she'd impart all sorts of skills to Alwin. All he had to do was learn that 'Refinement' skill, and evolve and he'd be in her good graces. The plan was foolproof.

"Sorry, Uchronia. I want to go along with the cafe owner's plan."

"Why! Haven't you had enough of being treated like some sort of experiment, now you're going to dive back into another one without a care!"

"I've never felt like I was in some sort of experiment and this doesn't really feel like an experiment either, so I think you really need some sort of therapy to work out your feelings," said Alwin.

"I... Fine! Lapis if I find out you did anything to hurt Alwin. I swear that your days are numbered!"

"Honestly, I assumed they were already numbered when you started talking about 'doing something about it so that there won't be any more child soldiers'. Just relax, this Dark Slime is in good company. I swear on it."

Uchronia clicked her tongue. "Good! Now let us go. I don't have anything else to talk to you about. Come on Alwin, let's go back to the dorms."

"Or... Alwin stays here and we starting his training right now. The faster you learn how to refine essence, the faster you get to evolve."

"But—"

"I'm kind of on board with that plan," said Alwin.

"But, Alwin. Can you really trust her? We've just met her."

"Technically this is the second time we've met her, so I guess I can trust her? What's the worst that can happen, anyway."

"You might die."

"He won't die," interjected Lapis.

"See, look. No problem." Alwin smiled.

"I don't trust you, and I barely trust Alwin's judgment. That's why I'm going to pay a visit every single day and if anything happens to Alwin, I swear you will regret the day you invited us to this cafe."

"Sure. Just make sure you're strong enough to back up those words. I'm not the MOM for nothing."

The weird invisible bindings that were holding Alwin and Uchronia in place disappeared. Uchronia hopped off the chair, stomping on the ground with all of the force that she could muster. She shot Lapis a glare and when she turned to look at Alwin, a sigh escaped her lips as she made her way to the exit.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I’ll send you info about your therapy session!” Lapis called after her, her voice sing-song.

Now it was just Alwin, Lapis, and a lone drone hovering in the corner.

"Great, let's get to work," said Lapis. The painting of a fruit basket that hung on the wall began to ascend toward the ceiling, revealing a hidden passageway behind it. "Follow me."

Alwin hopped off his chair, careful not to knock it down lest he incurred the wrath of his new Grand teacher. He followed closely behind Lapis, as they traversed down the steps, lights lit up in front of them with every step that he hopped down. Alwin was giddy with excitement. A secret room! This was so cool. This was the best teacher ever and he promised he'd pay attention to whatever she was going to teach him. Behind him, the drone trailed close behind, Alwin's half-eaten cake perched atop its pointed head. How thoughtful of it, and perhaps by extension, Lapis.

At the bottom of the staircase, Alwin stepped into a cavernous room. Every wall was lined with bookshelves, each crammed with tomes and scrolls. Desks were scattered around, buried under piles of books, papers spilling over the edges. And at the center of the room was a whiteboard covered in weird diagrams and drawings that Alwin couldn't make out.

"Welcome to my laboratory! But this isn't where you're going to be training. Check this out."

Lapis guided her Spirit Hands towards the bookshelves and tilted back a thick red book. With a soft click, the bookshelf began to shift, recessing into the wall. Alwin watched in amazement as the entire unit slid open—it was a second hidden room!

"This is where you'll be training."

Alwin followed Lapis into the hidden room. It was a room devoid of anything, just pure empty white space that seemed to stretch out to infinity—almost like the area Alwin would get transported to whenever he opened up a book in the library.

"I know that look, I bet you're thinking 'Wow, this room looks like the ones where I have to battle against a skill book's avatar' and you're half right. This room is like an anchor for that concept, except this place is in a physical realm while the other is in the astral realm. And no, I will not go into the details and yes, it was a collaboration effort between me and the MOK or the Minister of Knowledge. So, shall we get started, dear student."

"Yes!" Alwin shouted, his excitement bubbling over. Forget the mumbo jumbo Lapis mentioned—his focus was on training. He needed to get stronger, to defeat Gary Stew. And right now, Lapis had the knowledge he craved. The knowledge that would help him surpass his limits and become the best version that he could be.

"Great, but before we do that I'm going to have to give you a quick lecture."

Boo! Lessons suck, but he made a promise with himself that he'd pay attention. He was going to absorb the knowledge that Lapis was dispensing then right after that he was going to absorb the essence that was supposedly all around him.

"I know that look, but I have to do it. I'll try to keep it brief, I don't exactly enjoy info-dumping things," she said, bringing over the whiteboard that was in the other room with her Spirit Hands. On the board, she wrote 'Essence Refining 101' in big bold letters.

"Essence is essentially a fancy term for refined mana. Why, whoever invented the terms couldn't standardize it, I don't know, so now we have to suffer for it. Whenever someone uses a skill, they produce essence. This happens because, each time you mold mana to use a skill, you're unintentionally refining a teensy weensy bit of it. And every time you eject your molded spell out of your core, a small amount of that refined mana gets left behind, layering atop your core. That's how you gradually build up your essence. Now, when you kill a human, you're actually absorbing the essence they've already developed. After going through a tribulation, that accumulated refined mana becomes part of the new infrastructure of your core, causing it to expand."

"So you're saying that I can get essence from monsters too?" asked Alwin.

"Yup, but I wouldn't recommend it."

"Why? Is it toxic for another monster to absorb monster essence?"

"Nope. It's just that when people find out you're going to get hunted and killed and I wouldn't want that to happen to my pupil. Also, it makes me look bad. People will go 'Why didn't you exercise your judgment before teaching this monster? Because of you, we lost many good people or something like that."

"Okay, I don't want to die."

"Great, now let me teach you how to refine essence. First I need to know, how you craft spells. Are you an incanter, do you schemas, or do you will your mana, etcetera, etcetera."

Alwin knew what an incanter was, that was Uchronia with her incantations. But what about him? What did he do? Did it even have a name? He made Spirit Hands and Feet by sculpting his clay-like mana and created Spirit Blasts with paper mache. Now that he thought about it, no wonder he lost to Gary Stew—his methods sounded like arts and crafts rather than spellcraft. Alwin began to relay to Lapis his 'unique approach' for constructing his Spirit Blasts: the tearing, the pasting, and the oh-so-dreaded drying that was thankfully fixed by using an oven. He detailed every painstaking step, hoping to make sense of his unconventional methods.

"Yeah, that's called using schemas. No idea why you went on that whole song and dance when you could've just used one word. Unless Milvee didn't teach you the difference. Looks like I've got another reason to 'educate' him."

Sorry, Milvus. You really should've done more to make sure that Alwin was paying attention in class. This was totally not Alwin throwing the blame onto someone else instead of taking responsibility for it. Nope, it wasn't. And if anyone called him out on it, he had a solid defense that no one would ever be able to destroy—he was just an itty bitty baby with zero understanding of the ramifications of his actions.

"Since you don't know what a schema is, the simplest way I can put is like this. Fire is hot, and since you know it's hot when you conjure a fire in your mindscape, you automatically know it's going to be hot. So if you put a pot of mana over the flame, the mana starts boiling. That's basically how you use schemas."

"So, how do I use paper mache or sculpting to refine mana?"

"That's the neat part, you don't."

"You know how we pull in mana from our surroundings? Well, of course, you do, I'm only saying that to play into the info-dumping tropes. Anyway, what you and most people don't know is that it's dirty and full of all sorts of impurities. Remove those impurities, plaster it all over your core, and boom Evolution counter goes up."

"That doesn't sound that hard, why doesn't everyone do that?" asked Alwin, hopping up and down, performing backflips and front flips. "So what do I need to do."

"Hold your horses, kiddo. People don't do it because, A, it's slower than just hunting humans and, B, it involves mastering a new skill. And when I say new, I mean new new. The type that was literally just invented by none other than yours truly," said Lapis. "If I could bow, I would, but flexibility isn't my body's strong suit, crystal being and whatnot."

"So, you're saying I'm the second ever person to learn this skill?" asked Alwin, his eyes lighting up.

"Yup!"

"It must be some super duper strong skill," said Alwin.

"Yeah, sure. If that makes you more enthusiastic about learning it, then it is a super awesome skill and you're the first person who's going to inherit it. You ready?"

"Of course!"