Chapter

When the Stamina was a quarter of the way around the whorl it shifted from a squiggly line to appearing as a straight line of green energy which followed the natural counter-clockwise motion of Teff. By the time it reached a spot directly across from where Mikel perceived his body to be, the shred had shifted its texture. Up to this point, the energy had seemed somehow smooth to him - but as it rounded the bend and began to move towards him he felt it grow fuzzy and lumpy as if it were covered with dozens of tiny crenulations.

By the time it came full circle, the color had shifted to a deep blue with white highlights shot throughout. Without knowing what he was doing, he mentally pulled at the end of the strange energy and brought it before him.

This energy could only be one thing.

“Essentia,” Mikel whispered as the thread, several magnitudes smaller than the volume of the Stamina he’d fed into Teff, shivered in response.

Where Stamina had emitted the feeling of strength and purpose - Essentia radiated intelligence, wisdom, and compassion. He wasn’t sure how those ideas had been quantified into feelings, but he “felt” them all the same.

“What do I do now?” He asked out loud, maintaining the image of the blue-shimmery thread in his mind.

“Now, take the monitor in your hand and hold it up to your eyes. At the same time, open your eyes and guide the Essentia you’ve harnessed into the monitor. Think of The Callisto Jewel as you do so.”

Instantly the bloody image of the Callisto Jewel shot into Mikel’s mind, overcoming the calm darkness with the whorling Teff locked in the center.

The shred of Essentia he’d worked so hard for began to navigate toward the image of The

Jewel and it was all he could do to keep it from being sucked in, as each of the Gates had done if left unchecked.

He opened his eyes and focused on pushing The Essentia towards the monitor in his hands, at once pulling it away from the image of The Jewel.

A moment later he was rewarded as the black slate lit up like a lantern and displayed the greeting,

Hello Mikel Raithson. This is your monitor. What do you wish to know?

Stolen novel; please report.

“The Jewel,” he muttered in a surprisingly craggy voice. Whatever he’d been doing had made his throat dry and chapped - as if he’d been outside The Market in the fires and heat of his world this entire time.

Instantly the words shifted to an image of the Jewel and then to a list of dozens of actions appeared, which began to scroll away as the words raced to an inevitable bottom.

Mikel’s eyes grew wide as the list continued scrolling down faster than he could track, until a moment later, it clipped to a halt and settled on a single entry within the face of the black slate. It pulsed a bright white, while all the others above appeared grayed out.

As soon as Mikel had read over the title it shifted and began writing on the face of the monitor. It read -

Incarnadine Metafora

Effect: Move your body from current location to location 20-50 yds. distant you can perceive with some ocular capacity.

“You become Blood - As the Goddess travels so shall you. On a tide of crimson wrath, ride into eternity.”

Essentia Cost - 50

Stamina Cost - 0

Health Cost - 0

Cooldown - 10 minutes

“What am I looking at right now?” Mikel asked, gesturing to the monitor, “What does this all mean?”

“The monitor allows you to see and learn about different Skills you may discover during your travels. What you read through were all of the available Skills associated with The Callisto Jewel - all of which you may learn.”

Mikel’s brows shot up as the memory of the hundreds of entries that had rolled past in a flash.

“But… There are so many. I couldn’t even tell you how many. You’re saying I could learn how to use all of those?”

Thoughts of Helsket’s and his dad’s legendary battles coursed through his mind. Could he be as good as them?

A chill passed over his body and he shivered in time with The Callisto Jewel. It disturbed him he hadn't noticed it begin vibrating. That was happening more and more often.

“Why can I only see this one? The rest look like they're not active.”

“You only have access to a single unlocked Skill. You’ll have to learn it before others unlock. Within the list, you’ll find a winding Skill Tree that you can use to learn and make use of Skills and Automatic Abilities upon mastery.”

“Do… all items have these ability trees?”

He quickly yanked his sword out and held it against the slate - he was alarmed to find it blank again as the hilt settled onto the face of the monitor.

He tapped the hilt against it in the hopes of prompting it to action - but nothing happened.

“Did… I break it?”

He thought of the black ball in a cube Telgil had probably sacrificed to test his Essentia abilities.

“No. It’s out of Essentia. The monitor runs on Essentia you feed into it. It ran out, so now you get a blank screen. If you feed more Essentia into the slate, you’ll get longer use times and a wider variety of actions. When you held your sword to it, the monitor tried to shift activities and shut down as a result. All you have to do is feed it more Essentia and it will wake back up.”

Mikel sheathed his sword and mentally tracked the entire program Librarian had guided him through to make some Essentia.

“I have to do that whole… Guiding thing, every time I want to use the monitor or do… any Essentia-related activity?”

“That is correct - although the ease with which you change Stamina into Essentia will increase over time. After a few thousand tries you might even have it attuned to your body. If you're lucky it might be one of your first learned Skills. If you're unlucky it might be one of your last.”