A Relatively Powerful Mage

Emelia had steeled her resolve, as this place had a wrongness to it that she couldn’t describe. The strange lizard creature had an evil presence to it, oozing malicious intent. Yet, that had been nothing compared to the dagger and strange crystal, which gave off emotions that she had never felt before. This was especially strange given that she had never felt an emotion from an inanimate object before. Though it was perverse, the dagger gave off an emotion closest to a strong desire. By far, the worst was the crystal, which gave off an intense feeling of agony, though it felt as if it came from hundreds of sources.

The strange emotions flooded her, stunning her to inaction as the fight broke out. She could feel the agony that Imri felt as the malicious blade slashed him, followed by emotions emanating from the dagger, satisfaction followed by more desire. She felt the lizard creature's joy whenever it landed a blow. It emanated a confidence that it would win. This was followed up with a sense of surprise when Imri managed to tackle it, followed by a brief moment of fear as they struggled on the ground. Its fear slowly subsided as it became apparent that Imri was faltering.

Finally, Emelia snapped out of her stupor as she felt Imri’s determination and will to keep going even as his body could no longer keep up. Emelia could feel his terror, he did not want to die, despite what he had said.

Emelia closed the few meters between them as quickly as she could, drawing her knife as she did. The lizard creature was focused on breaking free of Imri, which it had almost done. She brought her knife down, stabbing it into the back of the distracted creature. The dagger punched through the creature’s scaly flesh, buried to the hilt.

It hissed as it gave off an emotion of agony followed by confusion. It had completely forgotten about Emelia. It gave off a feeling of anger when it realized what had happened. Emelia didn’t care; she was just as angry. She pulled her knife and stabbed down again before the creature could recover. Blood began seeping from its wounds, intermingled with the blood of its victim.

“Just die already,” Emelia screamed as she repeatedly stabbed the creature. The creature's anger soon became terror as its vitality seeped away. Still, Emelia kept stabbing and stabbing, so many times she lost count. She stabbed it a few times after it no longer gave off any emotion.

New Achievement Gained Rank Primary Stats / Rank Description

Group Hunter 3 .05% Slay a creature above your level with a group of 4 or less.

Emelia Fields has reached Level 2 in Empathic Healer (1F)

Emelia Fields has reached Level 2 in Human (1F)

Primary Stats Gained New Value

+1 Charisma 122

Secondary Stats Gained

+2 Mana Efficiency 148

Emelia didn’t even care about the level and title. She dropped the dagger, sobbing uncontrollably. Her emotions were out of control, bouncing between fear, anger, shame, and sadness. She vomited out the little bit of food she had managed to keep down since the integration. She wanted to curl into a ball and sleep until this nightmare ended, and she was back in her bed. She managed to compose herself enough to focus on her companion. He lay unmoving on the ground, only minor gashes on his arm visible, besides his previous injury. None looked serious, yet she could still feel his agony. Something about it was wrong; it reminded her of her feeling when looking at the crystal.

She collapsed on the ground next to him. “Don’t you dare die,” She commanded him. She reached out to him, not physically, but through her empathic connection. She could feel his suffering, and she would take on some of that burden.

Skill Learned Tier/Rank Description

Shared Burden 1F Through your empathic connection, you can take on the burdens of others. You may transfer injuries to yourself, effectively healing the other at the expense of your own HP. A small amount of MP is required to maintain the spell.

Emelia felt his injuries, felt the indescribable agony that emanated from the shallow cuts. So intense was the feeling that she almost lost concentration on the spell. Despite this, she knew it was only a small fraction of the pain he had experienced. She continued taking on his injuries until the pain became too overwhelming, and she passed out.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been out, but when she came to, Imri was watching over her, concern plainly written on his face.

“You're alive!” She yelled in relief, embracing him in a hug. The moment after she did, she remembered him being uncomfortable with physical contact. At the same time she couldn’t control her empathic connection, she understood all the emotions he felt from that embrace.

First came his relief; he had been just as worried for her as she had been for him. Second came a feeling of contentment and the need to touch and be touched by others. Next came lust, a desire for her, as he felt her body press against his. It was surprisingly fierce, far stronger of an emotion than his body language or actions suggested. This was immediately followed up by an equally intense feeling of shame, shame for having had the previous emotion. This was mixed with a feeling of fear, fear that she would discover he had these feelings. A fear that she would be repulsed by him, that she would humiliate and embarrass him for daring to have these feelings. This was followed by a slightly less strong version of shame, embarrassment. He was embarrassed for having these feelings, knowing that he shouldn’t be turned on by a platonic embrace. Then he felt confused, questioning whether she liked him in that way. This was followed by disgust, not towards her, but to himself. He hated himself for being so cowardly, never telling anyone how he felt. No one could ever love him; he was too awkward, too cowardly, too stupid, and too ugly.

Emelia felt this entire cascade of emotions, which was clearer than anything she had ever felt. She wondered if her skill had anything to do with it. She had been empathic before the system, always able to feel what others felt. People had always assumed she was just good at reading body language, but it had always been more than that. Even then, she knew that the feelings Imri had just experienced were not subtle. If she had those same emotions from a single hug, she definitely would have stopped at desire and told the other person to take their clothes off.

Emelia noticed none of the turbulent emotions that she knew existed inside Imri showed in his body language. Instead, Imri awkwardly hugged her, lightly touching her back, too nervous to hold her tightly. Emelia squeezed her arms around him tighter, refusing to let go. This sent another wave of cascading emotions through Imri, almost exactly the same as the first. She almost got mad when he started thinking she was repulsed by him. He certainly couldn’t think rationally regarding his emotions for someone so smart.

“Sorry, I forgot you didn’t like being touched,” Emelia said as she pulled away from the embrace.

“It’s alright,” Imri replied, not bothering to elaborate.

Emelia debated telling him how much she was picking up with her empathic connection. She wouldn’t say everything she had felt, just let him know she could read emotions. But would he hate her for it? Emelia thought back to how she felt when he used Identify on her. It had felt like an invasion of privacy, and he had just learned her name, class, and level. What she had done was a thousand times worse. If someone could read her emotions, how would she feel?

“Are you alright?” Imri asked.

“Sorry, I’m still adjusting to a new skill,” she said.

“The one you used to heal me?”

“Yeah, that one,” Emelia lied.

“Are you sure you're ok? Those soul wounds are no joke, and it looks like you took some of mine yourself,” Imri said.

“Soul wounds?” Emelia asked. Imri had been near death from soul wounds, and she had used her skill to heal them by taking them herself.

“That dagger,” He said, motioning to the black serrated dagger that the lizard creature had used. It lay untouched on the floor, still giving off a hunger for souls.

“And that crystal?” She asked, though she already knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

“The crystal is just a way to store energy. It’s essentially a giant battery,” Imri said.

“Batteries don’t shoot purple beams, and how is this battery-powered?” Emelia asked, though deep down, she already knew the answer.

“It’s powered by souls. The dagger and crystal are linked, kind of like a wireless charger. The beam comes from runes inscribed throughout this room. I’m not entirely sure what it's doing, but I think I’m close to understanding it,” Imri explained. Emelia hadn’t noticed it, but sections of the wall around the crystal were covered in a glowing, strange script.

“And if we had died from that dagger?” She asked.

“Our souls would be ripped apart and fed into the crystal,” Imri said matter of factly.

“You were this close to becoming energy for a soul battery,” Emelia said, holding two fingers a centimeter apart. “And that doesn’t bother you?” She asked. Yet, you're terrified of hugging me, and thinking it would be too inappropriate was the unspoken part that really got to Emelia. Imri just gave her his typical shrug.

“I always assumed death was final; in this case, I would have been right,” He explained. Emelia just shook her head. Something was seriously wrong with him.

“Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps,” She suggested.

“I think it’s safe. We were both unconscious, and we were still fine. How does that skill work, by the way? It looks like you healed me but took some of the damage, thanks for that by the way.”

Of course, he wants to know how a skill works instead of getting away from the creepy soul battery, Emelia thought. “It's exactly like that. I can form a link and heal an injury, but it goes onto me instead.”

“It’s too bad you don’t have a way to convert mana to health yet. Mana recovers more than twice as fast as HP, so any halfway decent healing spell like that will be OP. Not that your spell isn’t great; it saved my life. And it allows double the hp regen by splitting damage among two people. It is a spell, right? Not some OP passive skill? Does it work both ways?” Imri said far faster than Emelia could follow.

“I think taking the damage only works for me, not vice versa. What does OP mean? Double HP regen?” She asked.

“Really, you have never heard OP before? It stands for overpowered, usually used in reverence or vein at some ability the devs didn’t properly understand before they released or updated their game. The double regen was in reference to our current situation. It takes seven days for someone at 0 HP to return to full HP. Though technically, it's an approaching limit; as HP approaches infinity and HP approaches 0, HP recovery time approaches 7 days. It isn’t possible to have 0 HP and still be alive, though there could be a skill that allows that. But if you split the damage between 2 people, the most you would need is half that time. Though if you are actively using that skill, it's close to a double hp buff, assuming I’m the only one taking damage,” Imri rambled on.

“Can we leave now?” Emelia asked when he was done nerding out.

“Let me at least finish studying the runes; I’m close to understanding them. Oh, and one more thing,” He said, digging a small marble-sized gemstone from his pouch. “This is a monster core; you can absorb it to gain XP.”

“Where did that come from?” She asked. Imri pointed to the lizard creature, and that’s when Emelia noticed the creature's chest cavity had been carved out. “I’ll pass,” She said, starting to feel queasy.

“Are you sure? You would probably gain a level from it,” Imri said with genuine confusion. How could he be ok with absorbing the core of that lizard creature?

“I’m good,” she reaffirmed.

“Are you sure? If you don’t want to use it, you could hold onto it. At some point, I think monster cores will be a sort of currency, or at least they might be pegged to a more conventional form of currency.”

“You keep it; you can owe me one. Now I’m going to wait outside, yell if you need anything,” Emelia said, turning to leave before he could respond. As soon as she was outside, she started laughing. She didn’t know why she thought using the phrase pegged was so funny, but she was just childish like that.