Back in the real world! Woo! I survived the clowns. And I would never do that dungeon again so help me. But then I remembered the things John told us about dungeons that didn’t get cleared frequently. I pictured killer clowns and clown car mimics and doppelgangers running around out in the town. I prayed that other groups would have an easier time with the thing than I did.

  I pulled out my phone only to discover that it was completely dead. It had still had something like seventy percent power when we entered. It hadn’t been long enough for the battery to die on its own. Fucking dungeons!

  “Phone is dead,” I complained.

  Everyone else pulled out their phones to check and sure enough all of theirs were too. “I hope they turn back on and the dungeon didn’t just brick my shit,” Mara said.

  “At least Mara pinged the van on the map before we left,” Ashley said.

  Mara’s eyes went a little unfocused for a minute, “Yep! Still there.”

  “And the route back should be pretty easy to follow considering all the shit John had to chop through,” Ashley added.

  I nodded my head. Things could be worse, and we had been prepared. So with only mild grumbling I fell into line with Ashley and followed the others back through the forest. It wasn’t a long trip, though this time there were no sightings of deer. Before too long we made it back to the van and all piled in.

  Oliver drove us home and Mara called in our successful dungeon clearing. I sat in the back seat with Ashley. John sat in the middle seats behind Oliver. From the looks Oliver was shooting him through the rear view mirror I had a feeling John was being a menace to him in some way.

  Now that we had a few minutes, I pulled the cube of dark essence out of my pack.

  [User, this is a cube of [Dark] essence. Dark essence represents the absence of light, though sometimes seen as inherently evil in some cultures, it is merely the flip side of the coin for light.]

  [This would be your [third] essence you’ve bound. With the [Bone] essence and [Spirit] essence this would lead to the [Death] confluence. Many cultures find this path to be unnatural and have banned its use.]

  [Would you like to absorb this [Dark] essence? Warning, you may only absorb up to three essences. Once chosen, an essence cannot be replaced.]

  I barely had to think, I’d been headed down this path since the first messages about bone essence. I may have been reluctant to go down the path of absorbing these essences and taking care of people by fighting monsters, but I had been ready to head down the path of necromancy since I knew it was an option.

  I confirmed with the system, and then sat back as I felt it meld with my body. There was a sharp pain in my mind. Worse than any of the other times. I don’t know how Mara had done hers without flinching. I felt my whole body tense up as I absorbed the dark essence.

  Then my mind was flooded with the raw concept of darkness. Not just as a physical phenomenon, but on an intellectual and moral level as well. I realized that it was more than simply the absence of light. There was something in the darkness as well. Something ancient and visceral. And it saw me too.

  As soon as those thoughts and ideas finished cascading through my brain, new ones began in their stead. I suddenly understood the concept of death. The different interpretations of it. The way different cultures treated it. The truth about what happened when we die. The beauty and the despair of the various afterlives. I felt several of those afterlives, or rather the entities in charge of them, take notice of me. One of them reached out and gently removed the knowledge from my mind as I began to come to.

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  “Fuck,” I gasped in a breath. Ashley leaned into me, one arm already wrapped around my shoulders.

  [Congratulations user. You have taken your first steps on the path to true power and become a [Bronze] tier, Rank [One] Essence Practitioner. There are three ranks of power. Each rank contains multiple tiers to unlock. First Rank is focused on growing the power of the body. Second Rank is focused on the strengthening of the soul. Third Rank is focused on bringing the two into harmony as a single entity.]

  [[Dark] essence has unlocked the skill [Shadow Chains].]

  [[Shadow Chains] allows you to use darkness to bind a target. They are weak in bright areas and against [Light] magic.]

  [[Death] confluence has unlocked the ability to [Summon Undead].]

  [[Summon Undead] allows you to summon undead from the environment. The intellect of each summons is inversely proportional to the number of summons in use.]

  [[Death] confluence has altered [Bone Spear]. [Bone Spear] is now [Undead Spear].]

  [[Undead Spear] grants user’s spear the ability to be used as a medium for creating very basic undead skeletons. All intellect from such creations are basic.]

  [Death] confluence has altered [Spirit Condensing]. [Spirit Condensing] is now [Spirit Strength].]

  [Spirit Strength] grants the user the ability to detect spirits and spirit energy around them based on their spirit’s current condensing.]

  [[Death] confluence has altered [Shadow Chains]. [Shadow Chains] are now [Abyssal Chains].]

  [[Abyssal Chains] reduce the weakness against bright areas and smothers physical and magical abilities.]

  Fuck. That was a lot to take in. I felt a flood of new information about my abilities enter my mind. It wasn’t painful as much as like a buzzing you can’t locate or having my brain covered in ants marching across it. It wasn’t unpleasant necessarily, but deeply unsettling to experience.

  My role in the party was about to change drastically. I would no longer be an off-tank, keeping monsters off of Ashley. Or, I wouldn’t be limited to only that role. I had a lot more utility before even adding in having a small horde of undead minions. Or at least a handful depending on the intellect gap the skill talked about.

  I wanted to try my new abilities as soon as possible. If only I wasn’t so tired from running through that damn dungeon. It seemed we had only been gone a few hours according to the radio message we’d received back. So, at least there wasn’t weird time fuckery going on.

  I blinked away the notifications and took in Ashley’s worried expression less than a foot from my face. I could feel her warm breath on my lips as I licked them.

  “Uh…hi,” my voice barely above a whisper.

  “Hey. You ok?” She asked.

  I nodded my head slowly. “Yeah, just a lot of notifications. I absorbed my third essence.”

  Her eyes lit up, “Congratulations!” Then in a move that seemed to surprise both of us, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine.

  She jerked back from me, her eyes wide before I could properly register what she’d done. Her gaze darted all across my face, trying to read my reaction. I was stunned. I had only begun to admit that I might like her. And I knew that Mara insisted that Ashley liked me, but hearing that from your best friend and then being kissed by a pretty girl were two very different levels of understanding something.

  Her expression began to fall as my brain tried to reboot itself with this new information. I threw caution to the wind. “Fuck it,” I whispered. Then I reached out and wrapped my fingers in her hair, stopping her from moving away. I lunged forward, pressing my lips hard and desperately to hers.

  Ashley froze for a bare second and then quickly kissed me back. Our mouths battled for dominance. Nipping and biting lips. Soothing tongues. Clicking teeth. It was all passion and no finesse.

  She pressed into me, sliding her own hand up to cup my cheek. I followed her as she leaned me down across the back seats. I registered the seat belt around me unclicking to give us more room in some distant part of my mind.

  Her other hand slid down from my shoulder to my hip. She squeezed it firmly before sliding her hand back up my side, sliding it under my shirt and onto bare skin. Goosebumps trailed her touch. Her fingers were warm and soft on my curves.

  One of us whimpered. It was hard to tell who, but we both instantly froze. Ashley pulled herself away from me, eyes once again wide in fear. I followed her as she sat up. With apprehension, I turned my head to the front of the van. John and Mara were both turned in their seats with giant cheesy grins on their faces. Mara gave us a big thumbs up.

  I let out a loud sigh and flicked them both off before falling back onto the seat. There were a few wolf whistles from the front. Ashley struggled to finish sitting up, her face beet red. I nudged her with my knee. Her gaze flickered over to me, and I stuck out my tongue at her. She rolled her eyes, but at least now she was smiling a little. I’d take that as a win.

  I returned my eyes to the front of the van and nonchalantly rebuckled my seat belt. Without missing a beat, Ashley leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder. My head just naturally without any input from me leaned against hers. Damn she smelled good.