Elvis and Caelithia sat side by side on the long couch, staring silently at the open bag of monster cores placed on the short stool in front of them.
Inside the bag were fist-sized, spherical, crystal-like cores of various colors.
"Girl, come on. Start eating," Elvis urged as she continued staring at the monster cores as though they were something foreign to her.
"Stop treating me like a pet. And I don’t eat them," Caelithia corrected with a sidelong glare.
"Oh... excuse my ignorance. I just assumed since we ate the black nexite shard." Elvis shrugged. "So, do what you usually do with monster cores."
"I can’t."
"Why?"
"These monster cores are like... lumps of tar."
"What!" Elvis sprang to his feet, staring at Caelithia in shock. He raised the bag of monster cores to her face. "Girl, these are gold. And guess what? You’re a gold digger. Do you know the inspirational trait of a gold digger?
"A gold digger doesn’t mind how ugly their partner is or is going to be; all they see is their gold under an ugly shell. So these... are your gold. Come on. Absorb them all. We need you to be overpowered."
Elvis dropped the bag back down and pushed the stool closer to her.
Caelithia took a deep breath and picked up a monster core.
Elvis watched with bated breath as she held it with her eyes shut, which he assumed meant she was in a state of complete focus. But after thirty seconds, nothing happened.
Caelithia’s eyes snapped open. "It isn’t working."
"Why?"
"I don’t know. It’s supposed to kick-start with just a thought."
"Give me a second." Elvis pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly did some research on Spirit Beasts.
Caelithia did the same, with an even greater seriousness bordering on solemnity.
A few minutes later, Elvis put his phone away.
"Girl, I think we got the level wrong. You need monster cores of at least the same rank or higher," Elvis said.
"Yes. But from the write-ups, at least, I should be able to absorb monster cores of lower levels, even if it doesn’t add up in my system," Caelithia said, her brows knitted in a frown.
"I know. But you aren’t the same as others; they use beasts as their template, while you’re human. We’ll do it like this: I’ll give you thirty thousand terris credits to go repair our armors, while I’ll resell these monster cores and buy some Level 4 and Level 5 cores. It should work," Elvis explained calmly.
Caelithia nodded.
So, they went to carry out their assigned tasks. Elvis met up with Natasha again, entering another round of bargaining before selling each monster cores at a loss for 1,600 terris credits.
He was left with 53,000 terris credits.
Natasha had advised him to purchase healing potions if he was going outside Vinegard City.
The lowest grade potions were Common Rank, Grade IV—the peak Grade of Common Ranks.
Thus, he spent 42,000 terris credits on six healing potions, leaving him with only 11,000 terris credits.
When Elvis returned home, nobody was around.
He grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer, settled onto the couch, and turned on the news to pass the time while waiting for Caelithia.
There were many things going on, including the clearing of some ephemeral dungeons, which sounded scary, a fortress being attacked, and other completed projects.
Feeling bored, he turned off the television and opened his system.
"Yeah. Let’s deal with the shadow essence now."
He focused on [Poison Artificer], and the skill description opened.
[Skill: Poison Artificer]
[Rank: Acolyte]
[Mastery: Basic]
[Description: Grants the host a mental world where poisons can be created, transmuted, and manipulated. From essence, all poisons are born.]
[Artificed Poisons ]
1. Shadow Mist (1 Shadow Essence)
Elvis concentrated on the ’1 shadow essence’, and reality literally shattered before his eyes like a mirror punched through to reveal what lay beyond.
The moment Elvis entered the mental world, his perception of reality warped.
An endless expanse of darkness stretched in every direction, shrouded in swirling wisps of dark-green mist.
Countless emerald particles drifted through the void like distant stars, while faint, luminous, dark-green ripples spread across the boundless space.
Elvis stood motionless in the void, his body resembling a lifeless figurine sculpted from dark matter. Both arms extended outward, his palms open, with neither hand touching anything.
There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above him, and no discernible horizon to distinguish one direction from another.
And yet, he felt enormous. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
It was an inexplicable sensation, as though his existence encompassed the entire world, towering above everything within it. He had no reference point to measure his size, but the overwhelming impression remained.
He was vast, immeasurably so, as though the boundless void itself existed within the reach of his consciousness.
Then, his attention was drawn to his right palm.
A huge sphere hovered above his outstretched palm, woven from countless luminous, flickering gray threads that twisted, overlapped, and tangled into an intricate, seemingly chaotic mass.
At the sphere’s center pulsed a brilliant gray core.
Each pulse sent faint ripples of gray through the tangled threads, illuminating the surrounding dark-green expanse with a desolate, murky glow.
Elvis stared at it, fascinated.
He instinctively understood that the sphere was composed of shadow essence, the raw foundation from which his shadow-related poisons could be created and manipulated.
Yet, what captivated him most was not the sphere itself, but the countless possibilities he sensed within it.
It was as though an unfathomable number of shadow-based poison abilities lay dormant within those tangled threads, waiting for him to extract them.
His left palm remained empty.
When he tried to move, he couldn’t, as though he were frozen in place, with only his consciousness free to move.
Elvis focused his consciousness on the sphere. A single thread immediately responded to his mental command, separating itself from the tangled mass and slowly extending toward his open palm.
The moment it detached, a flood of information surged into his mind.
Countless possibilities flashed through his consciousness, each revealing a different way to manipulate shadow essence into something poisonous.
Some possibilities involved concealing one’s presence within a mass of darkness, while others revolved around spreading toxic mists, corrupting the senses, or inflicting debilitating effects.
There were some that made him doubt if it was related to poison.
It felt like a library of skills on his palm.
The sheer volume of information was staggering. His mind was suffocating under the overwhelming influx, slowly giving out and shutting down as more information flooded in.
And this was only a single thread.
He quickly severed his consciousness from the thread of shadow essence and it slithered back to the sphere.
Elvis remained motionless, his expressionless figure suspended within the boundless darkness as the flickering tangled mass of gray sphere continued to pulse above his right palm.
For the first time since awakening his Poison Artificer skill, he began to comprehend the terrifying meaning behind its description.
From essence, all poisons are born.