"I want you out of here by dawn tomorrow." Alan growled at the pale young man in front of him.
Alex had found Alan in his office and was immediately hit by the aura of a 6th Ring. He coughed up some blood but didn't complain.
He knew he had gotten on Alan's bad side now so he took it like a champ.
"Got it." Alex cleared his throat and stood up straight again.
Alan's narrowed gaze bore through his soul like he was trying to kill him. It made Alex's heart race in fear and he only hoped he hadn't found out about his risky situations with his wife and daughter.
While he wasn't terrified of the man himself anymore, he was scared of getting caught for the risky things he had been doing.
Otherwise goodbye life, it was fun while it lasted.
"I put up with you this long because I wanted to make sure you were ready," Alan gave an excuse to hide he just forgot, "But you've been getting too involved with the women who work here as I have been told and I don't want it affecting my business.
"It's bad enough I had to kick out such a smart woman like Marie, I don't need you infecting my other candidates for the manager position."
Alex nodded. After being stared at for a while longer by the angry Alan, the old man sighed and leaned back in his chair. His aura retracted, allowing Alex to breathe better and relax.
Alan was pissed with the young man before him, but he reminded him too much of his late friends and couldn't stay mad at him for too long. He just wanted to make sure he realized the gravity of his actions and would reflect and learn from them.
"As long as you know your actions have consequences, let's move on and take a walk." Alan said and started getting up.
Alex followed him at a safe distance while the old man continued talking.
"I got a few things for you that should help you on your journey." Alan said as he threw a ring behind him toward Alex.
The latter caught it and looked at the greenish-blue ring with strange engravings he still wasn't able to read after his many trips to the library.
"I got an old friend to make that for you," Alan said without looking back or stopping, "It's a custom-made ring that allows someone like you without essence, to use essence-related things."
Alex widened his eyes. There was actually such a thing?! Wouldn't this be super expensive?
"Don't worry about paying me back. I decided out of my own goodwill to help you out with this so don't lose it. You won't get another one."
Alex nodded and put it on another one of his fingers.
"The ring allows you to transfer essence into items so you can use E-stones like anyone else. It has a limited capacity though so make sure you recharge it. I'm sure your little slave girlfriend can help you with that."
Alan sarcastically said girlfriend since to him, Grace was just a slave. Apparently, it was hard for people to believe that he really was in love with a slave and not just lusting after her body. Maybe he was, but to Alex, it felt deeper than that and not just deeper inside her.
"Thank you Alan." Alex said sincerely.
"Yeah yeah, that's only a basic item so you can live your daily life more comfortably, I haven't even gotten to the weapons yet."
'Weapons?' Alex was sure Alan wouldn't trust him with his stuff again after literally snapping away all the weapons he took.
They went down to the 4th basement floor and went to Emma's door.
*Knock* *knock* "Pumpkin? You in there?" Alan learned from the times he would barge in and even his wife gave him a piece of her mind.
"One-second dad!" Emma called out and rummaged in her room before opening the door.
She was glaring at her father a bit so he covered his eyes again seeing she was wrapped in a blanket.
"Sorry pumpkin, we need to get to the training room." Alan said and quickly went to the "secret door" and glared at Alex to follow.
Just as he was passing the half-dressed Emma, she held his arm and stopped him real quick and whispered to him.
"When you have time come to my room~"
She blew on his ear and he shivered in fright. How could he not get her hint? She even opened her blanket a bit to show that although she was technically half-dressed, it was in a very sexy way as he caught a glimpse of her white laced lingerie that barely hid her modest chest!
Alex's throat went dry and quickly nodded before getting out of her grasp and catching up to Alan. This redhead was going to be the death of him! He was lucky Alan was too busy trying to stay on his daughter's good side to not hear their whispers or look back to see what they were doing.
Alex's heart was still beating fast as they made their way into the training room and went to the door to his man cave. Alex had asked about it one time but Alan just explained casually that a man needed his own space sometimes.
Alex didn't ask anything about it after that but now they were headed straight for it. When Alan opened the door with an old key, the door squeaked open and let Alex see the mess that was in the room.
He caught sight of all the old beer bottles scattered around the tiny kitchen and lounge area, some were broken while others were stuffed with other trash. It looked like the room really was falling apart as the wood looked a bit old and rotting yet it just barely held onto the slightly rusted hinges.
What stood out to him the most though was the full sets of damaged armor sitting in front of the back wall.
'Is that Tony and Jaeger's stuff?' Alex thought as he looked at the old man who just stared at the armors for a while.
He had heard the story from Sharla at one point and his loving wife pointed out how much he cared for Alex because of what happened to him in the past. Alex was a bit skeptical about the old man actually caring for him, but he definitely seemed to care about his late friends.
His usually stoic and nonchalant gaze was gone and replaced by a softened gaze with a mix of happy and sad emotions. Alan blinked a few times to get out of his thoughts and waved a hand so Alex followed him.
As they got close to the armors, glowing lines of essence lit up the back wall scaring the shit out of Alex. It made a loud noise and was a huge flash of light so he thought he was gonna get attacked or something.
Alan continued to walk right into the armor sets as they quickly parted with the walls just barely missing him. The armor sets got moved along with the walls that parted like a hidden passageway to reveal a much more futuristic-looking room.
'This guy loves his hidden passages.' Alex thought and slowly followed Alan into the strange room.
He could feel the air was dense from the amount of essence congregated in one place. Every wall and structure in the room had E-stones embedded into it, but these E-stones all gave off a myriad of colors.
He learned a bit from his extra time here that there were different ranks of E-stones similar to Rings and they followed the colors of the rainbow. Starting from red up to purple, they grew bigger, stronger, and denser in the essence they contained.
The reason most of the E-stones he had didn't look red was because they had already been modified for use and had been given a specific element to produce a specialized kind of essence.
Take the showers he used all the time, for example, those stones were bluish but still glowed a dull green the characteristic color of the essence when used. No matter what color the stone was, the essence that went into it will look like a pale green. That was the natural color of neutral essence after all.
If a stone took on a different element like fire, it would produce a red essence or blue for water. So if those shower e-stones could produce their own essence instead of taking it, then it would give off a blue light instead.
However that was going into the realm of alchemy and Imagineering, the "engineering" of Nova, and hardly anybody in this town knew about it. Alan was just a fighter through and through while Sharla was a healer.
Neither of them had learned of anything related to tools and only focused on magic or fighting. Marie was also similar but with all the changes she had been making to the city, there would surely be an influx of magic tool makers and more magic tools available for people to use in the future.
He moved on from all the stones that weighted him down a bit and looked at what was on the shelves. All three walls were covered from top to bottom in different items he couldn't recognize. There were also a few half shelves in the middle of the room to make rows to go through but the one thing all these items had in common was their aura.
Items having an aura? Alex was unsure what that meant. From what he had seen, only living things had auras. For a weapon to have an aura... he didn't want to think of the implications.
Almost like Alan could read his face, which he could because Alex was gawking at everything, he spoke again.
"This is my treasure room. All the weapons, armor, tools, accessories, and more that I took from the hundreds of dungeons I conquered or the hundreds of thousands of enemies I slew, are all here. All the important ones at least."
Alan looked at the young man who had bright eyes and a smile. He had the same feelings whenever he got an item like this. Having such a treasure to call your own made you stronger and more respectable than your competitors.
"Let me ask you something Alex," He became more serious so Alex did as well, "How much do you know about auras?"
Alex pondered for a bit before responding, "I know every living being has them and that it represents the strength of their body... right?"
Alan made an "ehh" face but still nodded in the end.
"More or less. The aura determines the physical strength or amount of essence in your body but also represents your Ring. The more you get used to auras, the easier it is to determine someone's strength and help you make a better judgment on who you are up against.
"However it's a bit more complicated than just that."
Alan paused for dramatic effect and Alex just rolled his eyes. The former ignored it and continued.
"I want to ask you now how much you know about the soul."
Alex made a weird face and shook his head.
"Probably nothing but just speculations."
"Try me." Alan encouraged him to answer anyway.
Alex sighed and thought for a bit before answering.
"I'd probably say that it's different than an aura... maybe related to essence? I'm not entirely sure but the way you phrased your questions made me think that aura and the soul are different."
"You're on the right track," Alan nodded his head in approval, "However you are wrong about the two being different. They are in fact, the same."
Alex furrowed his brows but before he could come up with his own thoughts, the old man answered for him.
"The aura you feel off of living things is in fact, their soul, just less pure. A living being's aura originates from their soul and is filtered by their fleshy vessel so that it can be projected onto this world.
"The Realm of Souls is a strange and unknown place that few can even hope to reach and survive... I've had my own thoughts on your origins since you are such an anomaly and forgive me for prying, but I have a gut feeling it relates to that Otherworldy Soul title you have..."
Alex's body shook as he discretely rubbed his storage ring in case he needed to defend himself. What was Alan going to do with this knowledge?
"Stop getting all antsy, I'm not killing you, Alan snorted and focused on the weapons around him, "I don't care who you are or where you came from. As long as you aren't out to harm what I love, I won't do the same to you.
"This world is a dangerous place and sometimes you have to make allies with people you don't fully trust."
Alan looked to Alex and the two stared at each other a while before he looked back at the weapons.
"Anyways, back to souls, I believe your Otherworldly Soul title makes your soul extremely pure, which in turn makes your aura the same. You may only be a 2nd Ring but the aura you give off is closer to a 4th Ring now.
"Souls also work in tandem with the Gods' Panel so that is why you have such high stats at your level. So now you know that souls, the body, and our Panels all work together to give us life and strength, right?"
Alex nodded as Alan chuckled and took a sword off a shelf. It looked like any other sword he might see but it had that weird aura to it. Alan then channeled his essence into the weapon and continued speaking.
"I don't know if you noticed, but weapons also have stats. You are able to see a much less detailed Panel when you look at an item hard enough and nobody thinks much about it."
Alex nodded. It was something that freaked him out a long time ago when he was bored and stared at something for a long time. He thought it was cool but forgot about it after that. It was nice to see stats for an item but that was it. It wasn't helpful in any other way.
"However the existence of a Panel means that something is living right? Then how is it possible for a non-living thing to have stats? That was a question that baffled researchers for millennia, and even today the whole process still isn't understood but when weapons with auras began popping up, they made a breakthrough.
"Weapons that contain a large amount of essence and high stats or skills are more detailed than their normal weapon cousins. These are generally referred to as magic weapons but there is also a step above that as well..."
Alan trailed off as the sword in his hands began to glow slightly and floated out of his hands. A strange humming bounced off the walls of the room and Alex narrowed his eyes as the sword's aura flared up!
He watched the weapon float higher before it slowly started to move around almost like someone was wielding it. Alex looked at Alan and could feel the man not use any essence to move the weapon and his eyes widened.
"I'll ask you one more question Alex," Alan said with a rare smile.
"Do you know what an Ego is?"