Kara let her back rest against the sofa, drying out her hair with a towel. It did little, considering that all her clothes were also drenched.

Shaking her head, she gave up on the ordeal and turned her Energy into Thermal Energy. She weaved it around herself like a comfortable blanket, letting the water slowly vaporize. Taking off and putting on a different set of clothes would cost her much more Energy, anyway.

She finally released the pressure on her mind. Her body became limp against the cushions, no longer supported by the complex support of Kinetic Energy she constantly had to channel for the simplest movements. Puppeteer was not a simple skill to maintain. 

It was a good period for a break, but her mind refused to rest. She had so many problems, so many things to sort out, that relaxing her restless thoughts proved to be impossible.

Two issues, really.

General

Stats & Parameters

Level

189

Strength

30

Species

Half-Lordran

Agility

30

Class

Sky And Earth Weaver

Endurance

30

Profession

Siren Of Death

Constitution

30

Age

29

Soul

208

HP

0/0

Present Brawn

37.5

STM

0/0

Present Speed

37.5

Overall STM

0/0

Present Armor

37.5

Life Force

1/0

Present Spirit

208

Energy

1680/2080 (20.8/Minute)

Power Rating

320.5

Skills

Dual Source (Racial skill)

Curiosity (Racial skill)

7th Rank Internal Life Force (Epic)

5th Rank External Life Force (Rare)

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Flow (Rare)

Time Metaphorize Dodge (Epic)

Sky And Earth (Legendary)

10th Rank Kinetic Energy (Legendary)

4th Rank Thermal Energy (Rare)

8th Rank Gravitational Energy (Epic)

3rd Rank Electromagnetic Energy (Uncommon)

Grasping Eye (Epic)

Multi-Caster (Epic)

Flesh Mender (Unique)

Puppeteer (Unique)

The first was that her HP, including both STM bars, were 0/0, and the other was that her Life Force was 0/0.

Simple. She just had to fix that.

Starting with her Life Force: it was an important thing to have. Normally, hitting 0 in either HP or Life Force would be death.

HP was less important, as it was mainly concerned with the body, and not the Soul--that’s why the rare Resurrection type skills worked. It shocks open the body, letting the original Soul return to it, if not too much time passed.

Her body was a corpse. It did not move, did not eat, did not have any nerves to feel with, and the only convenience was that she no longer had to shit. It did house her Soul though, and for that she needed it to maintain its form-- blood and muscle, especially its skeletal system, otherwise converting and aiming Energy would be nigh impossible.

Life Force was her main concern, and where all her problems originated from: Shinkro's attack obliterated half of her Soul-- the Life Source. It both regenerated and stored Life Force.

Life Force was what held all the pieces together. It was Life itself. It was like an eggshell that protected all the important bits inside it. Without Life Source things could not exist. No memories, no will, no personality. 

There was only a single workaround, and that was to find a way to have a constant supply of Life Force to replace what the Life Source did.

That was what Kara had done. Her class allowed her to convert Energy into Life Force at a 50% ratio, and for the past 4 years, she has yet to turn off the skill.

The days after the battle, the way her mind nearly tore itself attempting to maintain the skill permanently. Months of restless sleep. A few seconds at a time. Making Life Force was not enough--she also had to shape it around the rest of her Soul, and that was something the system did not assist her in doing. 

When her Life Source was damaged, a large portion of her memories also vanished, alongside a few important skills.

She didn’t know what was taken, but she knew a part of her died that day. The confusion, the difficulty, it all stuck to her like phantom pains.

Now, she moved, fought, healed, and lived through her Energy Source, but the implications were unforgivable. Moving and performing the simplest maneuvers with an Energy source was atrociously difficult and taxing on her Soul.

Where most people used two skill to throw a fireball, a top tier attack, it required four when it came to Kara. Five if she used her class skills. Six if she used all of the current ones.

The first was converting Energy into Life Force to stay alive, something that always required to be active--that was done through the First Movement, Equilibrium. The second was controlling her body through Kinetic Energy, in order to aim, move, or channel Energy in different ways--Puppeteer. The third was Fleshmaster, a Life Force skill that made sure her corpse wouldn't break into pieces every time she moved. 

It's been 10 years. Maybe five, she couldn't tell. The number always changed according to her poor memory of that incident, but enough time passed that her body had become extremely fragile. 

The Fourth was converting Energy into Thermal Energy, and the fifth was sending the flames forward while keeping them condensed with Kinetic Energy, the thing that normal mages did. 

Each subsequent skill after the first exponentially increased the cost of Energy and split her attention, increasing the risk of a mischannel.

Her class skills did not increase the cost of her Energy skills, but they did make it more difficult, at some points forcing her to simultaneously perform 6 if she used Deviation, and 7 if she used Amplification. 

In addition, the major factor behind her class, the very purpose of it--dual wielding Life Force and Energy skills simultaneously-- was a near impossibility. Because she no longer had Life Source, she also could not store any Life Force. Her body simply wouldn’t hold it, meaning that the Internal branch was useless, and the External branch was too uneconomical to use. 

Because of that, using Thermal Energy was also unfavorable, considering that it also required Kinetic Energy to aim. 

That was the problem.

Solution?

There wasn’t any, as far as Kara was aware. Because of her limitations, she had amassed a great understanding of how Energy worked, was accustomed to the miscast penalties because of the countless times she had failed, and was pressed to masterfully solve each battle in the most efficient possible.

In terms of battle tactics, Kara was peerless. What she couldn’t do in power she made it up with knowledge and proficiency. As far as she was aware, no other thing in this world that can multi-cast as well as her--she even earned the skill by the system, giving her even a larger advantage in terms of reducing the penalties.  

That was it, though, and it was not enough to hold a candle to people similar to her level. She had near death situations with people only at the 100 level, and where they are able to grow, Kara couldn’t. Her stats did not matter. Her Parameters, other than Spirit, did not matter. Her ultimate class buff which opened other movements, Fifth Moment, True Equilibrium, could not be activated.

There was a limit to what she could do with broken tools.

The Game also couldn't help. There was no type of skill or reward that could restore a Soul. Why would there be? Kara was supposed to be dead. Even the most coveted Respawn Tokens couldn’t fix her Soul.

But even if there was a way, Kara had no way to gain points. For her to receive rewards, Kara had to fight and enter Missions that were around her level.

No matter how good she was, beating anything high leveled with barely a quarter of her power was suicidal.

And even then, if that wasn’t enough to ruin her day, the Shop was closed. Not a single button worked.

It was almost as if the System thought she was dead, which, to be fair, was very true. She was, after, all just a lump of Energy.

She rubbed her eyebrows out of habit, exhaustion and hopelessness giving her a chance to sleep.

The only option to move forward was her Siren of Death profession. It did not cost her Life Force or Energy, and was not difficult to cast. It felt like it was a natural part of her Soul, similar to how one would move a finger.

How she missed that, to feel and move her arms and legs and neck.

Skills could be learned, but the process was slow and arduous--it had taken 25 years to get to this stage, and that was before her Soul was broken.  

For professions, however, that process was different. Learning things naturally was the only way to advance someone profession, and as far as she knew, there were little penalties on using it on low levels--they were generally support skills anyway, such as blacksmithing or enchanting. 

It was her only hope. 

There is always a way.

She had said it out of mockery at first, but the more she uttered that phrase the more she began to believe in it.