Eo entered the facility. It seemed like barely anything had changed, which was surprising. Almost every building around this area was completely smashed in half, all due to wandering monsters. Several months had gone by, and still barely any damage? It was a pleasant surprise.
Eo sat back down and started studying the notes the scientists had left behind. He hardly had any time to figure out what to do with this treasure trove of knowledge before he got sucked into a deep underground lair because of a… toy car.
The annoying thing was that Eo was still going to have to report back to the arena or the metal band would electrocute him to death. Eo was going to study these notes more diligently this time.
After obtaining fifty wins, his next goal was to get two hundred. Then he can buy his freedom from Mr. Zetterbard. After that, he could enter into the Monster Pit. Hopefully he could fight a Phase VI Inaril, and maybe, just maybe, he could get the Inaril Gem. Then he'd continue the scientists' research and would be able to artificially expand his own essence pool.
Anyways, he had to prepare for the continuation of the scientists' research. Meaning, he still needed to understand the very nature of essence.
Eo decided the first step to doing this was to figure out what every tool did. After digging around for a scientific instrument tool sheet, he started cataloguing everything. He'd need to understand how to use the stuff around him.
After several hours passed, his metallic wristband vibrated a warning. This meant he had to get ready in an hour. Eo grumbled. He had completely finished figuring out the purposes of all the instruments, and was getting right into the stage of studying all the researchers' notes.
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As Eo walked back, he started sorting everything he had found out in his head. Yes, he was stealing other people's intellectual property. However, he didn't want to meaninglessly repeat basic experiments that were probably done fifty times before. He wanted to be on the very cusp of essenciology, or the study of essence.
Eo felt like a little scientist. He was finally going to put all of his fifth-grade scientific procedures to its fullest use!
Anyways, Eo had found out that essence had radically different properties when mixed with various fluids and other substances. Being able to mix essence in itself was already a massive accomplishment, as essence would naturally evaporate when taken out of a rune battery of some sort. And of course, it was impossible to properly observe essence if it was stored in any form.
Eo did notice something strange as well. Every single substance used to experiment with the essence were all dangerous black market substances. And by dangerous, they were the internationally banned kind of dangerous. They only had very trace amounts, but the chemicals themselves were terrifying, known to be extremely toxic or combustible.
After sorting out the experiments in chronological order, Eo had started to review them before he had needed to go to the underground arena. The very first ones were from decades ago, trying to figure out what the very nature of essence was. Basically, it was what Eo wanted to know.
Luckily for Eo, they had spent thirty years trying to find any substances that would react with essence in a uniquely special way before listing them all down. This, of course, spared Eo the pains of having to look through them himself. Eo was starting to feel more special, as if he didn't need to do any of the heavy lifting that fate had decided to spare him.
According to the research, essence was a substance "manifested within someone" that very slowly "excreted out of someone's pores". The usual way to allow essence to flow out of the body was to test for places of high essence concentration and create special tattoos that allowed the essence to flow out of it more freely. Eo's tattoos that he had gotten at the academy were at his hands, and that's also where almost all of his metal came out of as well.
Essence was also extremely sensitive to a person's emotions. If a person felt more emotionally intense in a certain situation, their synthesizations of their elements would be much more intense respectively. However, they would also tire more quickly.
People also had a pool of essence separate from their own stamina. Usually they went down together, and regenerated together, but the scientists were able to isolate certain incidents of unusuality. The essence pools were very strongly correlated to the person's essence rating, rated with an essence meter.
The scientists had also managed to isolate tangiform from the rest of bodily essence, something Eo had used to call "thought-gel". He had also called the bodily essence itself "essence-gel" before finding out it was actually discovered already. While the essence that got consumed to create matter or energy was based on emotions, the tangiform was based off of the user's thoughts. As in, it could literally move around based solely on the user's will. It could only interact with things that were of the user's own essence though, like a synthesized fire or piece of metal.
This was the ultimate trump card Eo didn't use in the arena. Most people had no idea what tangiform was, and Eo's mastery of it allowed him to use his dagger-chains in extremely dextrous and unusual ways. However, Eo had read his prized tangiform as if it were no other special fact within the researcher's notes.
Eo was about to lament on the fact that angst made you literally more powerful when he heard his name get called up.
It was his turn in the arena.
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Honestly, it was nothing special. It was just him against yet another opponent. However, this was the first time in a long time that he was able to fight someone after taking a walk outside.
Eo had also moved up a tier. He was now fighting opponents who already had the privilege of going outside.
Eo stretched while walking out of the shade of the arena opening. After this win and 149 more, he'd be able to finally pursue his Inaril Gem. Then he could finally put the essence-charged scrap of metal to use.
Eo squinted in the bright (artificial) daylight of the underground arena. He synthesized a dagger when he looked up and finally realized who his opponent was. Eo's blinked, stunned.
It was Reya.