Just as he'd expected, the gauntlets on Ignatius's hands withered.
The gems lost their colorful gleams and turned to pitiful glass before crumbling to the floor as sand, and the bronze metal immediately tarnished and lost its magical gleam. Once the animation finished, the powerful weapons had been replaced with very ordinary gauntlets in Ignatius's equipment slot.
Just then, an elderly woman dressed in priestly robes appeared from behind a stone pillar. "The danger has passed?" she asked in an authoritative voice that cut through the silence of the temple. She looked to be almost a hundred years old, with papery skin and milky eyes. Her white hair was tied into a very thick braid with strips of wide red cloth, and she leaned on a bronze-tipped wooden staff to support her weight as she walked.
Ignatius bent down and picked up the Heavenly Executioner's rainbow-bladed knife, then added it to his inventory and turned toward the priestess. He was in a good mood after his plan had succeeded, and he decided to play along a bit more than he had been. "Yes, Eternal Priestess. I killed the assassins, but couldn't save the poor Grand Master."
"No," she said with a disappointed sigh. "I suppose that is not what the gods intended for our city. The Grand Master was a good man in his youth, but he became gluttonous as the years passed. He was once a mighty warrior, did you know that? He wielded his thin thread of Immortal blood with honor and incredible skill. Yet… he lacked discipline, and so when the day of his death came, all he could do was flee."
"He intended to give his life for his people," said Ignatius. "He was going to wield Sarexia's Gauntlets even if they killed him."
The Eternal Priestess nodded slowly. "Then he died with honor, as a memory of the glorious warrior he once was. But… now he is gone. And now you remain."
"Yep," said Ignatius, flexing his hands. "And I've got all this Immortal blood running through my veins."
"Indeed," she said. "It seems that perhaps 'you' are destined to take the Grand Master's place. One day, you may even rise as Emperor of Thijya, our great nation which has crumbled without the guidance of an Immortal Emperor for so very long... Yet, good Monk, you have much growing to do. Much power to seize."
Ignatius had forgotten how long-winded this monologue was. He decided to speed it up. "So, how do I get that power? I wouldn't possibly be able to use this temple to gain it, would I?" He spoke in an exaggerated tone of voice, wishing the NPC could pick up on his sarcasm, but she just continued as seriously as she had before.
"Yes. The Eternal Shrine links the Immortals to the source of their power. All living creatures turn to Essence when they perish, and we use this Essence to buy and sell among our people. Yet we do so in memory of an ancient truth: the Immortals drank the essence of their foes and their fallen allies alike to grow their own power.
"To consume Essence was once known as the Path of the Immortal, a framework for rising to rival even the gods. And it was this which led Brightlord Temporix to betray his comrades, this which leads the Court of Heaven to decree that the Immortals must never rise again—"
"Neat," Ignatius interrupted. He immediately stepped forward and put his hand on the remaining slab of iron in the middle of the temple, a slab which had just now become interactable.
The Eternal Priestess immediately stopped talking and a game prompt appeared in front of Ignatius.
GAME: The power of the Immortals has awakened within you. However, Sarexia's Gauntlets have lost all their ancient potency in order to unlock your true self. Seek out the lost knowledge of the Brightlords, and perhaps you can restore Sarexia's Gauntlets to the power which they just now displayed. To begin your journey, level up using Essence at an Eternal Shrine.
As Ignatius touched the iron slab, another prompt appeared.
GAME: Current level: 1. Essence required to reach Level 2: 100. Current Essence: 720.
He'd gained 100 Essence from each Heavenly Executioner's death, as well as 10 Essence from each of the dead city guards. Due to another strategy Ignatius was about to exploit, he really wished he could keep all his Essence rather than leveling up, but he couldn't finish the mission without doing do at least once.
So he channeled 100 Essence into the iron slab.
Whenever a creature in Path of the Immortal died, their body and all their belongings turned to glowing white smoke which swirled around the player who the kill "belonged" to, then absorbed into their skin.
In story missions, all kills simply belonged to the single player in the mission. In dungeons, kills were evenly divided between all players. In the main game, there were a few more rules, but generally, players who participated in a kill received a share of the Essence.
When a player died, their corpse remained at the site of their death, gaining the appearance of a glass statue swirling with rainbow light inside it. If the dead player made it back to their corpse within ten minutes—sometimes an easy task, and sometimes not—they could reclaim their lost Essence.
Otherwise, any other player could shatter the corpse's glassy skin and steal all the lost Essence.
Just as in that case, when Ignatius channeled his Essence into the iron slab, it gained the colors of an impossible rainbow, proving that, just like the Grand Master, he had Immortal Blood within him.
GAME: You reached Level 2. Your Power Rating increased from 10 to 20. As you level up, you will take less damage and deal more damage in higher-level areas.
This wasn't much of a power increase, but it was better than nothing. Increasing his stats would be the best way for Ignatius to rise quickly in power, and item drops were often enchanted with stat boosts.
Like the [✯Executioner's Knife] that he'd looted earlier, which gave +5 DEX.
Though most of a dead creature's belongings became Essence smoke, there was one exception: when that creature dropped an item as loot. In this case, their item stayed behind.
The leader of the Heavenly Executioners had dropped his [✯Executioner's Knife] upon death, which was a fantastic bonus. Ignatius would fight more of these enemies throughout the later game, but their weapons had only a 5% drop rate, and he hadn't expected to find one here. It was very lucky to get one in the very first encounter.
So it was with a contented grin that Ignatius turned to the priestess after he leveled up. "Thank you! Enjoy… being an NPC who won't remember this conversation, I suppose. I'm going to go make some money to kickstart my new life."
She bowed deeply and respectfully. "Go, Immortal. Prove to the gods that your kind brings hope to the world, not destruction. Rise and defeat Brightlord Temporix, so that your ancestors may be avenged, and that the world might be saved."
"Sure thing," Ignatius muttered, and left the temple to look for wherever Siegmund had respawned.