Lee slept like a baby. His accumulated exhaustion from travel took effect. He didn't wake up until D shook his consciousness violently. Lee hesitantly raised his head and rubbed his eyes. Upon realising where he was, he quickly turned to look at An Fenfang. She was sleeping peacefully and doesn't seem to have woken up yet. Lee tip-toed out of the room and breathed out. He exited the doctor's house and raised his head to see that the atmosphere was unusually dark. The twin stars hid among the dark clouds that span miles in length and breadth over the village. Lee guessed that these could extend to the grasslands.
Paulo was walking aimlessly inside the village with his hand at the back. He saw Lee and came near him with visible confusion. He reached near him and repeatedly glanced at the sky and him. He couldn't guess as to why Lee is concerned with the dark clouds floating in the sky. Paulo patted him on his shoulder and he woke up from his trance. He saw Paulo staring at him with puzzlement. Lee had to do something about awkwardness in the air.
"Hello Paulo. How are you! You look energetic as usual." (Lee)
"I can see that you slept well. Miss Fenfang would be happy to know that you kept her company." (Paulo)
Lee felt something fishy with his sentence. But what he couldn't sense was a tinge of naughtiness on his face. He quickly glanced to the sky before asking Paulo.
"What is with the sky today?! It's unusual." (Lee)
"It's usual at this time of the year. Severe thunderstorms and lightning will rampage through the sky at night. No one is allowed to go out, because those can instantly kill an average human in a second. Many are reported to lose their lives in this phenomenon. Massive rain clouds will appear a day after that. This rain is the main source of irrigation for agriculture."
Paulo had a faint smile as he said this. Lee didn't ask any further and quickly went out of the village, and into the forest. After making sure that he's far enough, Lee climbed a tall tree and summoned D.
'D, a brief report please.'
[250 Essence was obtained upon completing the quest. 302 Essence was obtained by salvaging the Swamp serpent. Other miscellaneous activities accumulated 290 Essence. We have a total of 863 Essence to spend. 2 poison sacs and 4 Blue Barnacle fruits are in the Inventory.]
'The thunderstorm and lightning Paulo spoke about, is it possible to acquire immunity against lightning if I endure it?!'
[If you can, that is the true question. Your chance of surviving a single hit is zero as you don't have Mana or Qi. Any ornaments that can protect you will cost a lot.]
'Seems like a no-go for now...ok, status!'
==========
Name: Lee
Age: 20
Title: Grim-reaper
Fame: 635
Essence: 863
----------
Health: 190
Strength: 190
Vitality: 190
Agility: 190
Defense: 190
Endurance: 190
Sense: 190
Intelligence: 60
Resolve: 60
Immunity:-
Greater Poison Immunity (1/1000000)
Affinity:-
Lesser Poison Affinity (0/100)
----------
Qi: 0
Mana: 0
==========
'What's the merit in having 'Affinity'?!'
[Affinity adds the respective elemental trait to your attacks. Since you have poison affinity which is in a lesser stage, your attacks will have a faint poison trait. Its effectiveness is below 30%. So don't dream too much. The Mid grade will increase the effectiveness to about 60% and will give a strong trait advantage. You can create and manipulate the element actively when you reach the greater stage where attack will have 90% of effectiveness. As you guessed, absolute stage will give 100% effectiveness unless the opponent is at Immortal class or Lord-level mastery.
The progress of affinity is in the unit of hits. You hit something with the poison trait, progress goes up by 1.]
'How did the 'Newbie' title disappear?!'
[When you saved your 'crush' from death, the title disappeared.]
'She is not my crush'
[Don't you want to protect her in future?!]
'....That's because of my guilt. It does not have to do with her beauty.'
[So you agree she's a beauty?!]
'All women are…..beautiful'
[Ok, leave it. When that title was removed, a skill was gifted to you. The Will of Dimension told me that it'll help you to grow strong and fierce without any mastery or cultivation. Even though your being is familiar with the energy here, you may encounter difficulties when you handle Mana or Qi.]
'What kind of difficulties?!'
[Even if me, the one and only Dimension Sovereign and Will of Dimension, the intangible consciousness of this plane can help you, your disadvantage lies in not having been born here. That's why I have added an external storage for each energies in the system; that is, me.
So you'll have to open the gift left for you in the Inventory.]
Lee was at a complete loss. His dreams of mastering Mana and other professions while cultivating Qi simultaneously was shattered to smithereens. He voiced his command to open the gift hesitantly.
{
Gift opened!
Due to your increased difficulty in both cultivating and mastery, the two supreme consciousness had...…
}
'Skip the intro, get to the content'
[.......]
{
'Essence Generator' acquired!
Description: You have been absorbing the Essence manually and selling it to the Shop later. Your diligence is greatly applauded. This skill will help in extracting Essence much efficiently. This skill needs an input. Any organic matter or energy forms can be used as input. The input will be processed and converted to Essence instantly. The Essence output will have a 10% boost upon doing so.]
"BLOODY HELL....YOU MESSING WITH ME?! D, DON'T JOKE AT TIMES LIKE THIS!!!!!"
Lee screamed out and many beasts including Cold Wild Wolves fled the area. D responded in a serious voice.
[The system, i.e, me, is not messing with you. The idea of this skill arose yesterday night when you were sleeping peacefully. Essence is something only you can use in this whole plane, and you can spend it to cultivate and master Mana. Thus you are indirectly cultivating Qi and mastering Mana.]
Lee calmed down and regulated his uneven breath. He took a few moments to silence the thunderstorm in him.
'So, it is actually a skill. Thank you, Will.'
The ability of Lee to switch from rage to sage in seconds was his major advantage. D really liked his attitude. What really intrigued D was one of his memories about his idol and how perfectly he followed the teachings of Bruce Lee. As D was in his thoughts, Lee had understood the core of his situation. No matter how expensive and sophisticated the prosthetic is, it cannot rival the efficiency of a human limb.
'D, explain input and output of the skill.'
[Essence Generator or 'EsGen' is a skill where you can input organic matter or energy forms or anything that deem useful into it. This skill converts the input to Essence within a fraction of a second. You have been doing the Essence extraction by two steps till now. EsGen will thoroughly go through the molecular structure of the material or energy and efficiently convert to Essence points. Thus there will be a slight increase in output.
The thunderstorm Paulo spoke about will give you an immense amount of Essence as its pure energy.]
'I can test EsGen with organic matters, right?!'
[Try it.]
Lee descended and activated the skill. He then touched the tree he just came down from. It disappeared as if it went inside the Spatial ring.
=====
23 Essence obtained
=====
If someone was to see Lee right now, they would wonder as to why this guy is gawking at the deep woods. Lee suddenly came back to reality and smiled as he found out that he's standing on an Essence field now.
About 2 hours later, Lee slowly walked to the village gate. His stomach was growling like a starving bear. All the hunger and thirst accumulated these days came down breaking the wall. Slowly but steadily, he walked towards where Darwin was staying.
*growl*
A voice resonated in the air as Darwin became alert. He turned around to see Lee coming in the room with hands pressed to his stomach.
"Darwin, you got any food to spare?!" (Lee)
Darwin was stunned on seeing Lee's condition. But he smiled and chuckled before passing a long loaf of bread to him. Lee grabbed the bread immediately and started eating.
*nomnomnomnom....*
Lee was completely immersed in his activity. Freya was about to ask Darwin something, but he shushed her and pointed at the starving Lee silently. They stood there watching him for a second before Freya pulled Darwin out of the house.
"The villagers guess that the thunderstorm will probably tear apart the carriages outside the houses. Many have been moved to shelters. Only our's remain. I think we should get to the city and come back later." (Freya)
Darwin began to ponder on what she said. He was silent and his hand was rubbing his chin. Lee came out hearing the whispers of two. His mouth was stuffed with bread. He 'nomnom'ed as he came out.
"Wit id d du….babd?!" (Lee)
Lee raised his question with great concern, but came out like a comedian's act. His sound was muffled and they hardly heard it.
A hand patted Darwin as his thoughts fell apart.
"I'll be at the doctor's house!"
Lee's fleeting figure amused them both. They didn't dwell on the problem too long and walked towards Paulo.