Lukas woke up to a sudden sense of panic. He didn't know what was wrong, but something was screaming at him that there was a problem. He felt awkward and strange. A sense of difference was in his body and there was an absence in his mind. He didn't know what was happening and had no idea what to do. In awkwardness he thought to the voice in his head. "Hello are you there?", but only silence answered him back.
He began to wonder if he had imagined everything. Had the last beating driven him insane? Was he brain damaged now as well. He was in his room and he had gone to sleep as the being he had seemed to inherit was going to attempt something to reach the Essence of the world. Then he remembered what was going on. quickly Lukas looked inside his body and he saw it! There where his soul was, a small circle now floated over it. It was incredibly small, but he could feel it. He also felt another circle in a different area and he now could feel Essence.
Granted the amount he felt was very small. Almost to little to be used, but he could touch it. It felt ephemeral and intangible. Almost like one would imagine a cloud would feel to the touch. Tears leaked from his eyes. He went to thank the being again, but once again he got silence.
Fear spread throughout his mind and body. Where was the strange being that had taken up a residence in his head. Where was his helper? Where was the one who had healed him? Did something happen to him? Lukas wasn't the smartest person. He tried to think about all that had happened during the time he had the visitor.
He wracked his brain to try to figure it out. What had he said? He vaguely recalled something about power. About needing to consume the Essence. That was it! He had said he was going to able to touch and consume the Essence. It was then that Lukas remembered that he himself shouldn't be able to touch the Essence. It was going to be by the visitor in his head as he didn't think he could fix whatever was wrong with Lukas, but obviously he had fixed him. He could touch the Essence himself albeit so slightly.
IT was a joy to feel Essence again. Lukas concentrated and a small bit of Essence was emitted and then he felt the dirt leave his body. Like everyone else he could use Essence to clean himself again. He no longer had to bathe in cold water. He was the only person in the entire world, other than babies, that had to take a bath daily to keep from smelling bad. A quick look and he wanted to change his clothes too, but that would take more Essence than he had. He wondered at the absence of the mysterious voice though. He was grateful, but he just considered it a miracle that happened and he got ready for school.
In a separate soul space a system was floating alone and cut off. Realizing he had exhausted all of his power and now he couldn't communicate with his host. He hadn't realized that he needed energy just to talk to Lukas, nor that he had needed the energy merely to exist. He was barely existing now. He had only the bare minimum energy to keep hanging on.
"I thought you would last more than a day at least." A voice said.
The system knew who that voice belonged to. It was the entity that made him a system in the first place.
"I'm not dead yet." The system stated.
"You might as well be. You have no power. You used it all in a day. What kind of wish fulfillment did you do to use all your power in a day. I didn't feel a fluctuation in the world power, so you had to use personal power. Why didn't you just use the world power to grant the wish." The voice wanted to know.
"I didn't have access to the world power." I replied "My host was cut off from the world power and couldn't absorb it at all. I used my power to repair His Essence Portal and let him manipulate the Essence again. "
"Oh that is interesting. Sacrificing yourself for a host is a novel technique to compete in the game though. I don't believe that will be a winning strategy. If another player finds you they can easily kill your host now and you will have lost the game." The entity said.
"I didn't use all my power. I still have just enough to exist if I do nothing. Now I should start to receive some power from the repair. I designed the repair in such a way that every time the host uses his power I will leech a tiny bit of it. I figured this way I wouldn't have to wait for him to feed me to get stronger." I explained.
"Oh very clever. You found a way to receive power without the host telling you to do something, but if the host dies, then you still die, and I can't imagine with the limited power of a beginning system you had the ability to give him much in the way of power. Looks like your gamble won't pay off and I'll claim your soul before long." I was told by the entity as he left my soul space.
Then I felt it the smallest trickle of power coming to me. It had worked, Lukas had used Essence. I felt a slight increase in power. It wasn't enough for me to see or communicate with Lukas, but it was enough for me to check with my soul sense the connection between me and his Essence flow. I delighted to see a continuous flow of Essence into his soul. He was storing it at a slow pace. Slower than anyone else alive, but it was there, and he had used it. Now every time he used Essence for anything I would get a little bit of it. I shut off our connection and waited for the power to build up.