3: The Voice and The Essence

'Why does this happen to me every time I am near to achieve something? Is all this pain worth it? Can I do it? '

Flashback

(A young boy's laughter could be heard in the background.)

"Mom, Dad! "

Flashback over

Kei opens his eyes slowly. He was sitting with the support of the wall.

He grabs his head 'Agh'. 'What the hell happened after it left? '

Kei got up while checking his surroundings. He was still in the dungeon at the place where he was knocked out and from there he could still see all the corpses.

Kei noticed Zen's body with a hole in his chest. Then he fell to the ground while crying his eyes out 'Why Zen? Why did you leave me too? First Mom and Dad then you too? How could you all leave me like this ?'

Then Kei noticed a portal appearing in front of him. Kei was now not even shocked because already a lot of unbelievable things happened in that dungeon.

'I can't defeat the Mother of Dreadweaver alone. I have to wait till somebody notices that the dungeon isn't cleared and comes in .'

Kei cautiously walks through the portal and he notices that he is in a cave which has neither an entry nor an exit. A massive gate was in front of him. It had drawings in graved in it.

(The portal closes in the background)

It showed a figure standing above something and it looked like it was extracting something. The next showed the figure with glowing eyes. The next showed the figure meditating.

Kei then jumped out of the way as he noticed the venom spit approaching him. The venom hit the ground and it melted some part of it.

It was a Dreadweaver, it must have come in just like Kei. But then a voice said something 'Extract and Absorb the Essence and Come in and achieve the BOOK OF SHADOWS .'

Kei couldn't understand what the voice wanted to say. 'Extract and Absorb the..... Essence? and What is this book of shadows?"

Kei dodged the attack from Dreadweaver and stabbed it in the head. "Tch" Kei was still not used to having only an arm. Even though he still had his dominant hand intact, it just didn't feel right

(Cough)(Cough)"Blaraghhhhh"

Kei vomits blood 'Dammit, It had to start now '

Then Kei saw something glowing coming out of the corpse of the Dreadweaver but he thought it was just his imagination.

The sword of Kei gets enveloped in Mana and he slashes at another Dreadweaver which came out of nowhere. Again he saw something glowing coming out, he touched it and he felt something within it but it dispersed.

This continued on for a couple more times and after all that he only managed to notice one thing. The thing was that it might be the Essence that the voice was talking about and using his Mana would let the Essence stay for more seconds until dispersed but it didn't change anything.

'Absorb the Essence ... How could I absorb the Essence if I don't even know what that is. I just have some drawings to decipher it from. I don't know for how long I would be stuck here so I must complete this fast. I might have the chance to escape from this hell hole '

He didn't know what he was learning or what would be the consequences of it.

Kei couldn't understand what he had to do to absorb the Essence. At that moment he killed the Dreadweaver near the drawings and the essence floated around the drawing and it showed a writing was written on the wall.

'Move it the way like the way your mana moves '

This was a big hint for Kei. Kei sat down in Lotus position and started to feel the way his mana moves.

'Heartbeat increases, Heartbeat increases '

Kei takes a deep breath in and then he coughs. 'I guess this won't be as easy as thought .'

A few hours later

Kei learned a lot of things about his body in these few hours. The first thing was, that his mana moves from his brain down to his legs. Mana is mostly constrained in the heart and to channel his Mana throughout the body, he had to attach his Mana to the red blood cells of his body, as red blood cells go through the entire body. He could enhance his senses if he channels his Mana through a specific part of the brain. Mana could also give him a short burst of strength if he channel his Mana through muscles.

As Mana is spread throughout the world because of the calamity which bought both the world together it can be used to create energy for the body just like oxygen. Humans gain energy by breaking down the glucose of the food we eat through oxygen and this wastes some energy but Mana is a better alternative as it doesn't waste that energy and the extra energy would stack up. So Kei decreased his oxygen supply and replaced it with Mana. Because of this, he gained an additional ability.

The thing is that at first, he could only manifest his Mana outside through a source of medium like a sword which was made from materials of the Elysian world but now he could do it without the help of it.

Kei opened his eyes which had mana radiating off of it. Then he got up from the ground and stretched. He didn't know for long he was sitting but it felt like a whole week and he was very hungry so he moved towards the Dreadweaver while chewing on an energy bar he carried.

'Let's test the breathing style I've just created.' He disappeared for the Dreadweaver as he channelled his mana in his legs. He appeared at the back of Dreadweaver and smashed its head in.

'THIS, IS, AWESOME !'