Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

ACT I ­­– Ryun

Crystals

Ryun sat in the living room, meditating. He was pulling in Essence from around himself and filling his core. It was a slow process, but every bit helped. He was still behind the others in terms of stats, and even the girls had more than him by now, at least in their main attributes, considering Ryun had all of his attributes raised equally. While his {Empower} technique allowed him to go beyond his stats for a few moments, he didn’t have a large supply of Qi. It was why he was cycling, putting Essence into his core, straining it and expanding it. Once he hit forty thousand, his core would reach the limit of how much it could stretch, and he would be able to advance to the next stage by consuming all that Essence. He hadn’t put any of his “free” Essence, the Essence that he had earned from killing monsters, into his core. He didn’t know if he would need to buy something from the shop, so he kept it saved. The Essence inside of his core he couldn’t use, as it counted as being spent, which was why he had only been filling up his core with cycling. As he finished with another session, he glanced at his screen, looking at his Cultivation.

Cultivation

The Path of the Final End ®

Stage

Early Mortal (287/40,000)

Base technique

Branch technique

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Fruit technique

/

In three days since the Framework had arrived he had only managed to gather 287 Essence from cycling. It was basically free Essence, requiring only his time, true, but it wouldn’t help him advance any sooner. He had nearly five thousand Essence from what they gathered from the monsters and what he had left from the title reward. What he wanted to do was go out and hunt monsters, but Zach was hesitating. Ryun could tell that he couldn’t accept this world and the necessity of hunting monsters for Essence. He could understand that, somewhat. For Ryun, the coming of the Framework had set him free. It allowed him to have a chance to escape the suffocating life that had he had been dreading. For Zach and Linda, it meant their lives were over, as both had had bright futures ahead of them. Both had spoken often about what they were going to do after college—they had been anxious to start their lives.

He had been thinking about getting better gear from the shop for the trip into the valley. They had had a conversation about it, but hadn’t decided on anything other than “preparing” for the trip. Ryun knew that they needed resources. They could buy water from the shop for a small amount of Essence, but they had no food other than the monkey meat they got yesterday, and the others weren’t really liking it. It tasted fine to Ryun, a bit willowy and charred from the way they cooked it in the fireplace, but still eatable. They weren’t really any good at skinning and cutting the corpses—they had probably ruined half of the meat—they’d had no choice.

But they couldn’t stay here for long. Ryun knew that they had to start doing something or they would meet a monster that was too high a level for them and die.

He sighed, banishing the thoughts. He didn’t want to get suffocated with useless concerns. Things were as they were, and Zach and Linda would have to accept that. He turned his mind back to the cycling and his core. He was spending every moment he had experimenting with {Empower} and his Qi. Now, looking at his core he could feel it straining slightly from the Essence inside of it, getting just a bit larger. He knew that if he dumped all the Essence he had he would probably be able to use more Qi, but for now that seemed imprudent.

As he studied his core, he got a strange feeling. Acting on instinct, he tried grabbing the Essence inside his core; something felt a bit off to him, and he tried to figure out what the feeling was. Acting on a hunch, he tried pulling the Essence out of his core. A moment later he felt it move out of his core through his Qi channels and into his hand. He felt a heat and looked at his palm as faint white light leaked through his skin, forming into a shape just above his palm. His eyes widened as the light solidified and became a crystal that dropped to his palm.

He brought it to his face and studied it.

Essence Crystal — 287 (Owner Ryun Nacht)

He glanced at his stats and saw that his Cultivation now showed zero Essence. He got excited, thinking that perhaps he could put all his Essence into his core, expanding it and then retrieving it later. Looking at the crystal, he tried to do something with it, and retrieve the Essence. But nothing seemed to work. He couldn’t pull the Essence into himself. After a few minutes of trying he stopped attempting it, and sighed. It seemed like he had just wasted all the Essence he had cycled in, but then he looked at his Core, and saw that it was just a tiny bit larger than it had been before he started cycling. He frowned, thinking. The core had expanded with Essence, but when he’d pulled it out, it had contracted—but not to its original size. Instead, it was slightly larger.

Realization hit him. If what he was thinking was right, it would mean that he could enhance his core even more beyond simply advancing. He wondered how large the increase would be if he filled it to the top then drained it. He looked at the crystal, then, and frowned. It seemed like he couldn’t use the crystal again; he wondered if that meant that he would basically be throwing Essence away, or if there was some use for the crystals. In any case, he would need more Essence if he was to increase his base.

He stood up, the crystal still in his hand, and went to find Zach. He and the girls were in the kitchen working on the meat, not seeming to have much more success than he’d had yesterday.

“Hey, Zach,” Ryun said. The awkwardness between them was still there, but he didn’t dwell on it much. It was not the first time that they’d had a difference of opinion. “I was thinking about doing some scouting. There must be some kind of stream or creek around here seeing as there is a massive waterfall nearby, and we could use a source of water other than spending Essence.”

He didn’t mention that he wanted to see if he could find some monsters to hunt.

“Ryun…” Zach started, but Melody interrupted.

“Can I come with?” she asked. “I want to stretch my legs.”

Zach and Linda looked at her, then exchanged looks between themselves. Ryun was surprised that she had asked. He hadn’t really spoken with her much since the Framework arrived, but he had been impressed with her actions so far. She was handling this new reality much better than Linda.

“Sure,” Ryun said.

“Great, let me get my staff and we can go.”

She walked off in the direction of the bedroom, and Ryun stood there in the doorway watching Zach studying him. He remembered the crystal in his hand and decided to fill the silence.

“Hey, Zach, can you use this?” Ryun said as he threw the crystal at him.

Zach grabbed it out of the air and looked at it frowning. “Where did you find this?”

“I made it. It’s a Cultivation thing—can you use it?”

“Yeah, it’s asking me if I want to consume the crystal,” Zach said.

Ryun grimaced. It looked like he couldn’t use his own cycled Essence. He wondered why that was, but shook his head. Cultivating allowed him to farm Essence without any dangers, so it had to have some kind of drawback. If his thinking was right, it would mean that he could advance faster if he didn’t drain his core to expand it, but then he would miss the opportunity to enhance his own ability.

“Use it,” Ryun told him.

The crystal flashed in his arm and then disappeared, seeping into his palm.

“It added to my Essence. I have enough to level to ten,” Zach said, a bit of excitement entering his tone.

Ryun smiled at him, glad that things between them weren’t irreparably broken. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Zach said. “Does this mean that you can supply us with Essence like this?”

Ryun grimaced. “In a way. I lose the Essence that I use to create the crystal, so it would take me longer to advance, but in theory, yes. I’m going to have to test it out a bit more.”

Melody came back with her staff. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Ryun said. “We won’t be long!”

“Be careful,” Zach said.

“Don’t worry.” Ryun turned around and followed Melody out of the cabin.

They set off toward the southwest, in the direction of where they’d seen the waterfall in the distance.

“You know,” Ryun started once they got a bit away from the cabin, “I was surprised when you asked to come with me.”

“Oh, why is that?” she asked with a small smile on her face.

Ryun looked at her and shook his head. “Don’t know, really. I didn’t think that you would be up for this putting your life at risk thing, walking through the forest filled with monsters.”

Melody’s brown eyes twinkled, and she pulled a strand of her black hair behind her ear as she leaned in. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“I am a pretty big gamer,” she whispered.

“What? You never said before!” Ryun exclaimed. While the four of them had been friends, they generally spent more time talking about their classes and at times about some movies.

“Well, you know how it is. You tell guys that you play games and they get all these stupid ideas in their heads…better to keep quiet,” she said mischievously.

Ryun snorted. “Right.”

“So, what’s the plan? We really going just scout around?”

“Well I had planned on hunting some monsters. Only if we come across them, of course.”

“Of course,” she nodded.

“You’re not scared?”

“I am, a bit at least. But I think that we need to adapt to this new reality. Linda and Zach are still living in the past. We can’t do that—we need to get stronger.”

“Exactly!” Ryun said, feeling somewhat validated in his own beliefs.

She smiled and they lapsed into a silence, turning their attentions to the forest as they moved further away from the cabin. They walked for about an hour, then made a short break, talking about what games they both used to play and which were their favorite before continuing on their way. Ryun found that he was enjoying spending time with her. She was easy to like—she always had been—but he felt like he was only now seeing the real her. Their little group had always been centered more on Zach and Linda and their “will they, won’t they” dynamic. Melody and Ryun had been on the sidelines. Now, it felt like they were making a real connection.

Eventually, Ryun stopped. “Can you hear that?” In the distance, he could hear a low rumbling.

“Yeah, might be a stream or something.”

They headed in the direction of the sound until they could finally see it. They huddled behind a rock and looked over. There was a large boulder with a crack in it from which a spring flowed, the water falling down into a pond and then flowing away as a small creek. The reason they stopped, however, was that the spring was not unoccupied. Three monsters, the aniwye that they had faced before, were at the edge and were drinking the water—except that they were larger than the ones that they had faced before.

Mature Aniwye (LVL 7)

Ryun grimaced, but he thought that they could take them, especially since Melody had reached level six after the fight with the monkeys, and Ryun could match them with his {Empower}. He was just about to suggest an ambush when Melody nudged him and pointed down the creek. The aniwye raised their heads and scattered as another monster walked up to the creek, each step making a stomping sound. Ryun read the name above it and his eyes widened.

Great Boar (LVL 22)

The boar was massive, the size of a horse. Its hide was black and looked thick, its tusks long and curved. Muscles moved beneath its hide as it walked and then knelt to drink.

“Well, fuck,” Ryun whispered. Melody only nodded.