Alwin's consciousness went back into his Core. Everything had been reset, leaving him staring at a calm lake of mana that seemed to stretch for eternity. Of course, this may or may not be an exaggeration. Who's to say?

Time to create some Fire Essence, then right after that he'd go through a tribulation and he'd get to evolve into a new and better Alwin. One that better not be slime-based. Being a slime was overrated.

To create Fire Essence, one just had to ignite some regular Spirit Essence. Seems simple enough. And to create Spirit Essence, Alwin just had to filter out the impurities that resided within his mana.

Out from wherever his mental tools were stored, a remote control, two buckets, a filter funnel, paper, a campfire, and his handy mental hands appeared floating over his mana pool—or mana lake if you cared about the earlier paragraph. Now came the "fun" part of creating some Essence.

Modify the paper using the remote control to turn it into a perfect piece of filter paper. Insert the paper into the funnel. Collect a bucket's worth of mana, then pour it into the funnel. Remember to have another bucket underneath the funnel to collect your refined mana or Essence. Now came everyone's favorite part of this whole process—the waiting game. Wait an undisclosed amount of time because there weren't any clocks inside of the core as you feel yourself growing older with every passing second, with every single drop of pure mana that managed to escape the confines of the funnel. Then presto! You now have a bucket of Essence.

You're welcome that Alwin left out the part where he fell into an existential crisis as he contemplated his whole life up till this point in time. Wondering whether he was doing the right thing and whether what he was doing in his life actually had any purpose or if this was all a waste of time and energy, and nothing he did in this world really mattered. That's what happens when you have nothing to do while waiting for a bucket of Essence to fill up.

Now that he finally had something to do other than wallow in existential dread, Alwin used the remote control to investigate the properties of the Spirit Essence.

Essence

Spirit: 100%

That was to be expected. But, Alwin had to do it just to be sure. Using the remote, Alwin manipulated the properties of the Essence, making it a hundred percent flammable. Now, that was easy, with zero waiting time—the perfect kind of time.

Place the bucket over the burning campfire, then wait.

Still waiting.

Still more waiting.

Even more waiting.

The flames licked the bottom of the bucket and danced along its edges as it worked to heat up the stubborn Essence. Only the occasional sizzle broke the silence. This was boring. Time to change things up.

If one campfire wouldn't do it, then what about two? A perfect plan by a perfect man—Alwin was technically a boy, but rhymes trump logic. A second campfire materialized within this core and floated over right next to the original. It scooched over, nudging the original campfire aside allowing the bucket to be loved by more tendrils of flame.

Waiting.

Still waiting.

Still more waiting.

Even more waiting.

This was boring. And repetitive. Time to change things up again—except for the repetitive part.

If two campfires weren't enough, then what about four? But what if four campfires weren't enough? Alwin had a sneaking suspicion that was going to be the case. If four campfires weren't enough then what about eight? You know what? Screw eight. Double it again and make it sixteen campfires. Scratch that thought. Quadruple it to get thirty-two campfires! After giving it zero seconds of thought, it's better to play it safe. Octuple it to get sixty-four burning campfires! That would surely be enough to light that bloody Essence on fire.

The remaining sixty-two campfires spawned into existence within his Core. The sheer amount of flame and heat generated was beginning to cause the interior of his Core to distort like a mirage in the desert. On a separate note, Alwin was starting to get light-headed. Damn, those tiny lungs of his! Alwin was working overtime breathing in and out, fueling the campfires with oxygen as they burned away any doubts that this wasn't going to work.

There was one itty bitty problem that Alwin had failed to consider during his whole planning session. You see, Alwin had a tiny bucket. It was a normal-sized bucket, but compared to the circle of campfires surrounding it, the bucket was tiny. At most only four campfires could actually heat up that bucket of Essence. The rest were just heating up the air around it, wasting precious time and resources—oxygen.

The fix was simple. Just get a bigger bucket. Alwin summoned into his Core, the largest bucket he could muster. The bucket popped into existence and floated right in front of Alwin. It was just slightly bigger than the original bucket. Nowhere near the size that he desired. Good thing Alwin had another fix.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The remote control could fix this! Probably. Hopefully. Please Cor, let it work. If not, Alwin here would have to think of yet another solution to a never-ending stream of problems. Why couldn't anything work the first time? Stupid bucket!

With the remote pointed at the bucket, Alwin hoped for the best. He scrolled through the list of options that had appeared, praying that there was something that could help salvage the situation. Finally, his eyes settled on a promising choice.

Want a bigger bucket? Try Big Bucket Modification! All your bucket related dreams will come true! From upgrading existing buckets to increasing the size of your current bucket by n times, this modification has got you covered. Note: Limited by mana capacity and competency—mostly competency.

There was a flipping ad?! For a second Alwin hesitated. Ads were the bane of his existence. Not that he had ever seen one before in his short couple months of life, but it was the principle of the matter. With little choice, Alwin clicked on the ad. Please Cor, don't let this be a scam.

The mana within his Core began to drain. On the remote, a progress bar had replaced the advertisement. All Alwin could do was watch the little green bar fill up as the mana level continued to drop. Great, another round of waiting. Maybe Alwin should invest in a TV inside of his Core or something.

The progress bar had been filled in and the mana within his Core had been cut by half. Replacing the bar was another option, 'Big Bucket Modification!' Logic dictates that the mana within his Core was used to upgrade his remote control. Hopefully, that was going to be a one-time payment. Imagine if it was a subscription service. The thought of it made Alwin shudder—not his real body, but his consciousness.

The mental hands selected the newly created option. A hologram of the bucket appeared right over the original bucket. This was one fancy modification. With the help of the arrow buttons on the remote, Alwin began to adjust the size of the bucket. Every button press caused the hologram of the bucket to grow larger. There was even an option to scale either width or height rather than both. Alwin didn't need the bucket to be any taller, just wider.

The hologram of the bucket expanded, growing wider and fatter until it was big enough to cover all of the campfires. With that, Alwin selected, 'Confirm'. The hologram disappeared and the original bucket began to shake. Then in one single instance, the bucket expanded until it reached the size that Alwin had inputted. At the same time, a large amount of mana was drained from his Core.

Darn it! This was the worst kind of service. Pay once to get a license then keep paying with every use. Alwin had to make a mental note to not use the Big Bucket Modification too often, lest he waste all of his mana just making buckets grow. He needed that precious mana to create Blasts not bigger buckets! Now, back to the Fire Essence.

With sixty-four campfires, surely that would be enough to heat up the Spirit Essence to the point of combustion. Right? Normally, this would be the part where Alwin would say that there was nothing to do but wait, but there was something to do. That something was called bellows! You know those weird accordion-looking thingies, well Alwin knew them too if not he wouldn't be suggesting it.

A bunch of bellows and additional mental hands came into existence within his Core. Using the rest of his mental concentration, Alwin directed them to surround the mass of campfires. Tendrils of flame continued to lap away at the giant bucket, heating up its contents, but that heat wasn't enough.

With a command, the mental hands started to press down on the bellows, directing gusts of oxygen-rich air into the heart of the flame. A roar of hot air and sparks burst forth from the center of the ring of campfires as the blaze grew brighter and hotter. The flame engulfed the ginormous bucket, shrouding it in a thick fog of fire.

The fires were eating away at his oxygen reserves. Alwin had to take his breathing into overdrive. Deep breaths—the one where he used his mouth instead of his nose—accompanied every single pump of the bellows. Oxygen flooded into his Core, fanning the inferno even further. This was it! This had got to be it! Never mind the fact that he probably looked like an idiot the way he was taking large wheezing deep breaths every second. This was way more important!

Something had changed. The fires blazed fiercer than ever, with the ones at the center towering over the rest, a flaming skyscraper among a city of tiny flame huts. That could only mean one thing! Alwin had done it! Probably. He still had to check but he had probably done it.

Alwin dismissed the campfires, bellows, and extra hands, leaving only the red hot bucket. Even with the campfire gone there were still flames. Within the pot was another raging fire as if someone had set the sea ablaze. That pretty much confirmed it! Fire Essence!

Now all he had to do was throw it out of his Core so that he could coat it and stuff—Alwin wasn't a good student. Here came another problem. The bucket was huge and his mental hands were small. Good thing he had the Big Bucket Modification. If it could make things big then it could make things small. Alwin was just saying all of the extra stuff to build tension.

Using the remote control, the big bucket became a small bucket. It was actually back to normal bucket size, but compared to earlier it was a small bucket. Now to build tension again, there was another problem. The bucket was too hot for the mental hands. One touch and they would yelp in pain—they didn't have mouths so they used sign language to say ouch. Their shouts were really delayed.

Good thing there was a convenient solution to his not-so-big problem. Gloves! Or oven mitts. A triple layer of them to protect each mental hand and they were good to go. Just ignore the fact that the bucket had flames spewing out of it and that the normally silver metal was glowing red.

Alwin and mental hand floated up toward the top of his Core with that bucket of glorious Fire Essence. It was like the sun was rising within his Core. It was a new dawn for Alwin! Now enough with the literary devices, time to become stronger.

When they were at the highest point of his Core, Alwin instructed the mental hands to throw the bucket of Fire Essence. A great torrent of flaming liquid shot out of the bucket and disappeared as it went beyond the boundary of his Core. There was a burning sensation in his chest. If Alwin wasn't doing this whole Fire Essence thing right now, he would have thought it was heartburn, but he was so he knew that there wasn't any problem.

Fire Essence absorbed.

And there you have it folks! Alwin had successfully absorbed Fire Essence. Now to do this until he either reached the Essence cap or he dropped dead from boredom.