Blood essence

The most obvious gain was, of course, the corpse of the Steelback Bear but after the fight, he had heard the notification that he had gained something from the fight. It was just that he hadn't had the time to check them out yet.

He opened up the first notification which had sounded during the fight.

<< Congratulations you have unlocked blood essence. >>

<< Blood Essence is the essence of living beings with blood. After their death, you are now able to condense it into crystal form which can then be used with the right skills.

Unlock conditions:

Get familiar with the use of blood by killing and getting killed by a vampire type being.

Get bathed with the blood of a being strong enough to have condensed blood essence.

Remark:

Are you sure you are still human?

>>

Once again the remark wasn't all that friendly and he couldn't help but wonder if he did something to the system since he hadn't heard of anyone else who got such remarks.

After reading the unlock conditions he was sure that there weren't many others who could fulfill them since he hadn't found any mention of a skill like his 'Resurrection' skill in the Alliance library and without it he was sure that the first condition would be hard to fulfill.

What he didn't quite understand was the second condition as it implied that the dungeon creatures didn't have any blood essence which he found weird. After all the description of Blood Essence had mentioned that living beings with blood have it and since the dungeon creatures he had slain had blood they too should have it.

A daring thought came to him. Could it be that the creatures in the dungeon weren't really alive but jut constructs by the system?

Deciding that he would be unable to find an answer to this question he chose to continue on with checking out his spoils.

Next up was the information for two skills he had gained. These skills were ways of using blood essence.

<< Congratulation you have unlocked the skill 'Blood is Power' >>

<< Skill: Blood is Power, Rank S, Level 1

Mana cost: 200

Channeling time: 5h

Recharge time: 24h

Use up one blood essence crystal to permanently gain some of its stats in form of shadow stats.

You will get 0.01 stat per blood crystal stat.

>>

This skill looked really useful since it could help him to permanently increase his strength by slaying enemies and since it scaled with the stats of the blood crystals he was sure that it would scale well with the strength of his foes. The question was only how much stats these crystals had because getting only 1 percent of its stats wouldn't be much if the amount was low.

The second on the other hand was a temporary increase in strength which he was sure could be very useful in a dire situation.

<< Skill: Burning Blood, Rank S, Level 1

Mana cost: 20

Recharge time: 2h

Use up one blood essence crystal to temporarily increase your power by burning the blood essence in it.

The effect depends on the type of crystal you use.

>>

This skill too depended on the crystal he used which was logical since it would use up the blood essence inside the crystal.

<< Congratulations you have gained your first Blood Essence Crystal: Blood Essence Crystal of the Steelback Bear (F).

You can check out your available Blood Essence Crystals in the new tab of your character screen.

>>

Thankfully this notification told him that he had a Blood Essence Crystal and where he could check it out. He hurriedly followed the directions and found a list with only one entry which was the mentioned crystal.

It was a small Stealback Bear icon in red with the name beside it. When he concentrated his will on it more information popped up.

<

Strength +10, Agility +5, Endurance +10

>>

So a bear like the one he had just slain only gave him a Blood Essence Crystal with 25 stat points and 10 at most for one category which would mean that he would get 0.25 shadow stats altogether, which wasn't much. But even though the amount was low and the cast time, as well as the recharge time, was high it would still be very useful since it was repetitive and unlike the 'Shadow Stats' skill didn't require him to increase his base stats.

As such he was very happy with his earnings.

He was tempted to instantly try it out but decided that it would be better to do it at a save place since he would be defenseless while channeling the skill.

Since he had finished going through the notifications it was time to take care of the carcass of the Steelback Bear, so he stood up and took his sharp crystal dagger.

He had never before tried to skin and dissect a bear but they had had lessons about it at school and also practiced on some small animals. Besides that, he had read up on it a bit more while traveling so he was confident that he would be able to somehow manage.

Sadly reality was cruel as he miserably failed to skin the bear and the hide he finally got was full of holes and worth nothing because of it.

" Damn. If I had known it would be so hard I would have checked out if there were any lessons on skinning a bear."

"It was only the first time. I'm sure the next time it will be much better.", he then comforted himself not really believing what he just said.

Taking a deep breath he then went onto dissecting the bear which of course also went awry but at least the paws seemed fine and he got another joint out of it, which he planned to barbecue since it didn't seem presentable.

After storing his spoils in his inventory he cleaned up the place by burying the left overs. Then he continued on deeper into the forest.