Killing made it easier to unlock and level up skills, but some skills couldn't be used offensively. These had unlocked the hard way, through repetition.

Some people believed getting in a meditative state helped. Some races had an entire culture around it, like the celons and select elven groups.

I had never found hard evidence supporting the theory, but in some resets, I felt like it was true. Since I had to focus to unlock the next skills anyway, I got to a corner of my territory, climbed the tallest tree I could see, sat with my legs crossed, closed my eyes, and started breathing deeply.

In my option, the celons were the ones who better explained what essence was. All other races and even humans ended up with mystical theories and profound words. The celons, despite their almost fetish for meditating, kept it simple: essence was power.

It was a power that pervaded everything and everyone. A power those with an essence seed — whatever it was, wherever it came from — could reach for.

That I could reach for.

In the beginning, I had researched what it was, where it came from and why it worked. I believed essence held the secret to humankind’s freedom. Hundreds of years later, I had nothing to show for it and I stopped caring. I had limited time and other things to investigate.

Nowadays, I just pushed essence where it was needed, in the form it was supposed to work, and let it do its thing.

The first step to find the Chosen was unlocking a couple spiritual skill sets. Not because being sets gave me any advantages, but because I required all the skills they combined.

I started by focusing on my breath, pushing the essence from the air in my lungs, into the seed in my heart. The seed automatically pushed the essence into my spiritual pathways like usual. It would then fill my body and disappear.

Currently, my seed couldn’t hold essence for long. Slowly taking it took too long, making essence useless in a fight, except for a hit or two in the beginning if I came prepared. This would change in the future, but it would take a while still.

I had to keep pushing essence into my seed faster than it emptied for almost an entire hour to have enough for my purposes.

That's when I pushed it all into my hand. And from my hand, into the world.

Natural, raw essence was formless and invisible. When it got into my seed, it changed into my personal essence, making it easier for me to manipulate. When I pushed it out of my body, it looked like heated air and felt like the soft caress of water.

Unfortunately, when I opened my eyes, but saw no skill unlock window. So, I willed the essence back into my open mouth, then into my lungs, and lastly, into my seed.

It was impossible to get essence back after it was used. That's not what I was doing though. I never "used" the essence, never let it go from my will.  I kept holding it with my will all the way through.

It was as if I grabbed a stone to throw but never actually threw it. I was holding it all along.

Thing is, to unlock the first skill I wanted, I didn't need to throw the essence. All I had to do was make the essence run from my lungs into my seed, then into my body, then push it outside. I repeated the process until I got the system window.

 

Skill unlocked: Essence Emission
Level: 1 / 10
Type: Spiritual
Attribute: Control
Effects:
» +1.8% (0.1 + 1.7) easier to push essence out of your body

 

With that out of the way, I started working with the essence outside my body. Compressing it into a dot and expanding it into a watermelon-sized ball repeatedly. In a few minutes, I unlocked the [Essence Compression] and [Essence Expansion] skills.

Next came [Essence Diffusion]. Most people, me included, didn't get why it wasn't part of the [Expansion] skill. But I was also a person who had stopped searching for answers. This was just how the Tower worked, and I didn't care.

One difference between [Expansion] and [Diffusion], a very annoying one, was the way to unlock it. I could just keep holding essence to unlock [Expansion]. But to unlock [Diffusion], I had to spray it all around me and let go of it.

Then, I had to accumulate enough essence to be able to push it outside my body and spray it around again.

It took me two. Fucking. Hours.

But at last I got what I wanted.

 

Skill set discovered: Essence Shaping
Combines [3] skills:
» Essence Compression
» Essence Expansion
» Essence Diffusion

 

Skill unlocked: Novice Essence Shaping
Level: 1 / 10
Type: Spiritual
Attribute: Control
Effects:
» +1.8% (0.1 + 1.7) easier to shape essence at your will

 

Good. That was the first set.

Because all skills it combined used the same attribute, control, the set's attribute didn’t change into “any.”

Now, the next set.

 

Skill set discovered: Essence Mastery
Combines [4] skills:
» Essence Sensitivity
» Essence Infusion
» Essence Emission
» Essence Shaping (3)

 

Skill unlocked: Essence Mastery
Level: 1 / 10
Type: Spiritual
Attribute: Control
Effects:
» +1.8% (0.1 + 1.7) easier to manipulate essence

 

TP received
» +30 TP — Unlocked a skill (x6)
Total TP: 104

 

[Essence Mastery] was skill set that combined another skill set into it, which we called a nested skill set. These were rare, although most people would unlock this one in a couple years.

Altogether, the skills I unlocked only made less that two percent easier to manipulate essence. Although not much, I had learned though a very painful trial-and-error process that it was exactly what I needed for the second step.

Which was getting myself a spiritual tattoo.

Essence had two properties, passive sense and physical property alteration.

Passive sense was nothing more than the ability to receive data from the world. Just like a camera could "see" light or a microphone could "listen" to sound, essence could also passively sense anything physical or spiritual.

As for physical property alteration, it was the power to change any physical property things had.

When I infused essence into my vocal cords to make me shout louder, I was actually increasing the intensity of the sound they produced.

When I used it on my arm, I was actually increasing its elasticity just in case. At the time, I hadn't used my [Awakener] power in this run yet and really needed to make the pebble break the sound barrier for extra effect.

I could use essence to increase or decrease all physical properties of anything I imbued it with. Making myself lighter to jump higher or even fly; making my body magnetic to move towards or away from metal; even turning lead into gold. There were many possibilities.

I didn't even need to be specific about it either. Making myself lighter, for instance, physically meant ignoring gravity or decreasing my body density. Essence always did the most cost-effective thing. Although I could focus on what exactly should happen if it were important.

There were only five limitations to physical property alteration.

First, essence expenditure.

Some things were too expensive to do, especially things that couldn't be achieved with my bare hands or some time. Making myself shout louder? I could theoretically train for that. A more elastic arm? Same. Going against gravity? Be prepared to use a lot of essence.

Second, no permanent effect.

Anything that was changed only remained that way while there was essence in it. Did you turn lead into gold? Sorry, you're only rich for as long as you can push essence into it. This was the reason why no one in the Tower accepted money that had personal essence in it.

Third, no alteration overlapping.

If someone's essence was changing something, no one else could change it until it was over. This might sound obvious, but essence could go through anything, including other people's essence. It made for complex battles sometimes.

This rule meant group essence manipulation required a lot of finesse and coordination for people to affect distinct parts of an object and change it in precise ways.

Fourth, imagery.

To work with essence, you needed to have a clear image of what you wanted. It required focus and imagination, which were a problem many times, especially in the middle of a battle.

People had started drawing images to help focus and discovered an essence property called "remembrance."

If you drew the image on the object you wanted to change and ran essence through the image while focusing on the changes you wanted, it became a rune. From then on, any other time personal essence touched the rune, it would default to doing that same thing as the first time, no focus required. It didn't even have to be the same person who first activated it, anyone would do.

Thus, enchanted items were born.

And fifth, no changing attributes or anything related to it.

No getting stronger, faster, better at controlling essence, or more beautiful. Scholars theorized it was because attributes were already some sort of invisible runes embedded in our souls that the Tower was maintaining with its own essence.

I called bullshit. For me, the Tower just didn't want us growing stronger without following its stupid rules.

The spiritual tattoo I was about to make was a rune drawn on my skin. But unlike runes in objects, which could be removed, runes on the skin permanently linked to the spiritual pathway closest to it. No one knew why. Again, I believed the Tower just didn't want us to abuse this power.

Because there was just so much skin on the body, each tattoo had to be carefully considered. After it was in place, it was set for good.

There was a good side to it though. Essence could go through anything, but there was an invisible barrier between body and environment. To go through it, I had to accumulate a minimum amount of essence, which took time. But after the tattoo was in place, it could be activated internally, which required less essence.

I would just run essence through the pathway connected to it and then into the rune.

There was a way to make a tattoo always active too, but I was a long way from it.

I took my stone knife and put it above my left hand's middle finger. Then, I started puncturing my finger to draw a circle.

Runes could be anything that helped with the focus and the imagination. I chose to make a circle because it reminded me of divine halos and the tattoo was being made to help me find Chosen. I chose the middle finger because it was my way to give the bird to the gods.

When the circle was done, I once again accumulated essence for almost an hour, pushed out of my body, then it into the circle. The first time a tattoo was activated, it couldn't take advantage of the spiritual pathways. It was like any other rune on an object.

I focused on the circle and on what I wanted the essence to do. A simple thing, really, that used both passive sense and physical property alteration:

When [Fate Energy] that didn't belong to me touched the path of skin inside the circle, it would become sensitive to air. The more [Fate Energy], the more sensitive.

[Fate Energy] was what the gods used to make their magic, a way to ignore the Tower rules to a point. It was an apt name. When they gave classes to people before the Tenth Floor, they changed those people's fate. The stronger the class, the more [Fate] it required.

Now, that discovery was something I prided myself on. It had been found out by humankind, not taught to us by the other races. Maybe some of them knew about it, but they sure as hell had kept their mouths shut.

Common people had no [Fate] around them at all, so it would be easy to find Chosen that way. If they had already used their [Wish], they would be shining like beacons. If they hadn't, they would be low burning lamps. Either way, I'd feel it.

I was an exception to the rule. I had a lot of [Fate Energy] swimming inside me and being released around me. It came from the many times I had traveled to the past, which required the gods to use their power on me. This was also what allowed me to pretend to be a Chosen.

After a couple minutes focusing hard, I felt my skin burning and the spiritual pathway inside my finger elongated outwards, until it connected to the tattoo. The blood in the area immediately coagulated and blackened. It looked just like a real tattoo of a circle with black pigment.

I couldn't feel anything because there was no Chosen around, but the spiritual pathway connecting to the rune was proof that the tattoo had been successfully created.

And it was just in time to hear bells ringing in the skies of the Tower, announcing the coming of a new day. People would hate it at first, then get used to it.

More importantly, it was midnight and the predators had spawned for the first time. I stretched. I hoped there were some leopards in my territory. They tasted terrific.

But I wouldn't focus on them for now, not until I caught the Chosen.

I stood up, used 90 of my 104 TP to increase my attributes level to 18, then jumped on a nearby tree.

The hunt was on.