The tips of the mirror shards jutting out of Glint’s body darkened. They jerked and twisted like worms were running beneath his flesh. The jagged glass that had been Glint’s claws sharpened and lengthened, turning to honed, crescent-shaped blades.

His eyes brightened, the yellow within them intensifying as his jaw shifted to accommodate for the extra mirrored teeth pushing out from within his mouth. His arms and legs lengthened, his back hunched.

Three grating screeches rang within his body, muted by layers of gaunt flesh, as blades of glass, curved like the fins of a shark, sliced free his back. His flesh sealed around them as the new permanent additions found their home on his increasingly intimidating body.

All the noise finally faded away and left Glint standing before Alex expectantly.

Glint - Shardwalker (Novice 2)

“Well, look at you.” A smile split Alex’s mouth. Glint was looking positively terrifying — and this wasn’t even a proper change yet. Monster Medley had strongly implied he’d actually be able to make concrete changes to Glint, not just make him stronger. He didn’t know what something like Glint would evolve into, but he was eager to find out. Alex just had to make sure he lived long enough to do so. “Caught up with me already? I hope you aren’t abandoning the whole mind-body bit that Meiderly just told us about. I don’t suppose you understand me more now?”

Glint stared at him mutely.

A second passed before Alex let out a sigh and shook his head. “Okay, fair enough. I can’t say I’m surprised. We’ll just have to see how you hold up in a fight. You can head back.”

Glint rippled, then transformed into a streamer of smoke that flew back into the card in Alex’s left hand. He released the card and it vanished, disappearing from his mind as if it had never been there.

I wonder if the key to fully evolving Glint would be getting better soul flames to feed him. I’ll have to try again when I’ve got something more worthwhile to feed him.

Alex cast his gaze around his soul once more. Aside from the faint basin in its center, there was nothing. A small frown flickered across his face as his eyes caught on something that he’d missed before.

Carved into the top of the basin were designs, so faint that he could barely make them out. Alex approached it and ran his fingers over them in an attempt to see if he could make them out.

From what he could tell, it was just three circles. A large one, with two slightly smaller ones just below it. Further studies revealed nothing.

I don’t want to just start randomly reaching for things, but I’d imagine they represent something in my soul. Doesn’t take a huge stretch to guess that might be my Soul Manifestation and the two Auxiliary Skills I’ve got. Not sure what that means yet, but I imagine I’ll find out as I get stronger.

Meiderly put a lot of emphasis on making my Mind Palace stronger. It sounded like the System might not have let on about its importance to everyone else. I should keep that knowledge to myself for now until I learn a little more about what the System told everyone else.

Alex let himself slip out of his meditation. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in it and didn’t want to waste any more time than he had to. Sensation trickled back as his attention returned to the real world.

Claire sat beside him, her eyes fluttering in attempt to keep herself awake. Her face was pale and she started slightly as Alex moved.

“Oh, huh. You did it,” Claire said in a strained tone. “I forgot how long the first level takes. Did everything turn out okay?”

“Pretty well, yeah. How long has it been?” Alex asked.

“Five hours, maybe?” Claire’s shoulder twitched in what might have been meant to be a shrug. “Kind of lost count. Not that long.”

She did her best to keep the exhaustion from showing in her voice and tone, but her best wasn’t nearly enough. Her words had started to slur and it looked like a light breeze would be enough to knock her over.

“Do you want to try eating? I’ve got no idea if it’ll work, but it’ll be a lot easier than having to sling you over my shoulder and carry you out of here,” Alex said.

The smallest corner of her mouth quirked up for an instant. “You mean you wouldn’t just ditch me back here?”

Of course not. Imagine the challenge reward I’d get if I lugged an unconscious person out of the Mirrorlands. Then again, we’d probably both just end up dead.

Claire shifted to lean against the wall and dragged herself over to Alex, who scooted closer to save what little remained of her energy.

“How does this work?” Alex asked. “And if you can drink my blood, make sure you leave enough for me to operate normally. I’m not letting you turn me into a shriveled husk.”

“Noted,” Claire said wearily. She took his arm and turned it over, bringing his wrist up to her lips. An involuntary shiver ran down Alex’s spine as her mouth opened to reveal the rest of her fangs.

There was something deeply ingrained into his mind that screamed in protest against letting anything with long fangs get anywhere near him. Before he could get any second thoughts, Claire bit down on his wrist.

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It felt like getting two shots at once, and not small ones. Alex suppressed a pained hiss. He hadn’t consumed all that much vampire media before the apocalypse, but the things he had seen had all implied getting bitten would feel good or pleasurable.

That most certainly wasn’t the case. Claire’s wet lips pressed against his skin and she swallowed greedily as his blood ran into her mouth.

If I ever get blood drawn again, I’m giving whoever does it a written apology about all the complaints I used to give my mom about getting bloodwork done. That was a thousand times better than this.

Just as Alex was preparing to pull his hand back out of fear that Claire had no plans of stopping, her fangs slipped out of his arm. She pressed her hand over the wound as she lifted her head and ran her tongue along her lips, swallowing once more before letting out a relieved sigh.

“Bleeding hell,” Claire said through a poorly repressed groan. “That was incredible. Thank you.”

Alex glanced down at his hand. He could still feel the two puncture wounds throbbing. They weren’t really all that big, but they were still there.

“That’s not going to close or something, is it?”

“I mean… it will eventually?” Claire offered, giving him a weak grin. “I can’t heal you if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Everything I read about vampires said that was supposed to feel good,” Alex grumbled. “And usually you’ve got some kind of magical stuff in your fangs that makes the wound seal up after.”

Claire scrunched her nose. “I’m going to forgive that because you probably just saved my life, but I’m serious about not being a vampire. I’m a Dhampir. Very different. And you were getting bit. What did you expect? Sunshine and rainbows?”

“Point taken,” Alex said. Claire released his hand and pulled her bandages out, wrapping the bite for him.

“I wonder…” Claire muttered as she worked. “You’re human, right?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Your blood has a lot of energy. It didn’t taste great — no offense — but it was actually pretty good. More than what I’ve ever felt in a human. I wonder if it’s because you aren’t from my world? Maybe you don’t count as human.” Claire finished wrapping his arm. “And if it helps, you won’t get infected. My saliva is poisonous. Nothing that’ll affect a human, but it kills any germs that try to live in my mouth.”

“Lovely,” Alex said. He pushed himself to his feet and a small wave of dizziness passed over him. It passed quickly and he shook his head. “Bleh. Never liked the feeling of losing blood.”

“Sorry,” Claire said sheepishly. “I won’t need to feed again for a few days. You must have really had a lot of energy left over after you ranked up. Everything went well, right?”

Alex’s brow furrowed. Unless he’d somehow missed it, reaching Novice 2 had drained every single scrap of energy that he had. There was no blue mist or water left anywhere in his soul.

“Yeah. It went well. I got my second Auxiliary Skill. Just one more and I can start upgrading them.”

“I’m looking forward to that bit myself,” Claire muttered. “I just don’t have enough energy to make it yet. Oh — I don’t think I ever told you what I could actually do. Should probably do that properly before we run into our next spook. It’s not all that useful down here, but my Soul Manifestation is Siphon. It lets me drain power from a monster and strengthen myself in the process.”

“What about your Auxiliaries?”

“Two of them are self-buffs. The first lets me take on minor traits from monsters I drain while the second just lets me evolve my own body temporarily when I drink enough blood,” Claire replied. “The third one is a blood manipulation skill. It doesn’t do much now, and it doesn’t work when the blood is still inside someone’s body. I already tried.”

Alex nodded. “And you’ve seen just about everything I can do myself.”

“Didn’t you just get a new skill?”

In response, Alex pulled Glint’s card from his deck. Sensing his mental call, Glint’s claws carved through the air and he stepped into the cave. The mirrors on his back rippling slightly as he shook himself off and waited for a command.

“Bleed me. He got even creepier,” Claire said. “You took something that makes him stronger?”

“A skill that lets me combine him with the energy that dead monsters leave behind,” Alex said with a nod. There was no reason not to share information — the more they knew about what the other could do, the more they’d be able to rely on each other in a fight. “Anything else? You don’t know about Titles or the like, do you?”

“Unfortunately not. I don’t have any. Do you?”

That’s interesting. She didn’t get the Anomaly Title, then. So the only people who get it are the ones that actually get a class inside the Mirrorlands.

Given what I could see of Claire, the only thing she can see about me is my name and that I’m a human. That means she has no way to tell if I’ve got titles or not.

He wasn’t keen on straight out lying, but he wasn’t so sure he wanted to give any information that wasn’t related to fighting out either. Not yet. He hadn’t known Claire for that long. The best way to handle it was to give some of the truth, but not all. “I got one for being stupid enough to fall into the Mirrorlands less than a day into the apocalypse. It isn’t really doing anything, though.”

Claire let out a snort. “At least you got something out of it. Well, we’ve got some more time to find a way out of here now.”

“Not really,” Alex said with a shake of his head. “You might be good, but I’m not. There’s no water here that you saw, right?”

“None. Nothing that looks potable, at least.”

“Then I’ve got two more days and a bit, max. Humans don’t live for longer than that without being able to drink water, and blood isn’t going to do it for me.”

“Oh, shit. That slipped right past my mind,” Claire said, her eyes widening slightly. “Is there anything else you can drink? I don’t know human physiology very well.”

I don’t care how bad things get. I am not about to pull a Bear Grylls.

“Lots of things, but nothing I suspect you’ve got on or in you — or at least nothing that I’m willing to try drinking,” Alex said dryly. “As long as we make it out, it doesn’t matter. If you think about it, I’m actually lucky.”

“Seriously? How?”

“When we make it out of here, my reward is going to be better than yours because the challenge was harder.”

Claire stared at him. Then she shook her head. “Yeah. You’re off your rocker… but you won’t see me complaining. I’m in good shape again thanks to you, so if we’ve only got two days, we don’t have time to waste standing around.”

“Agreed.” Alex directed his gaze out of the house they’d sheltered in and out over to the mountain beyond the forest of face-barked trees. The storm of crackling purple energy churned on at its peak, uncaring.

That’s a fair bit to get through in just two days. Some challenge, huh?

A grin pulled across Alex’s lips. He’d be damned if he died of something as lame as dehydration in the midst of an apocalypse. The System wasn’t going to get rid of him that easily.

“Let’s get to it. We have a mountain to climb.”