Game Of Eternals: Sinner

Chapter 16: Aetherium

"You are lucky, kid, that I'm a good traveler, otherwise you would have been dead before you knew it after you showed that to me," Davis said as he motioned for him to pass the sphere.

Neo did so but his words still shook him as he didn't understand why such a thing that was found in almost every monster would bring a great disaster to him.

Davis, meanwhile, was scrutinizing the sphere in his hand. Examining its color, and said, "It is full of essence. A miracle if you ask me." He mumbled to himself as he questioned and then answered himself.

After examining the sphere, he asked, "Where did you find this?"

"Do I need to answer that?" Neo asked, hesitating to tell him about it. He didn't know what those spheres were. He started thinking about getting rid of the ones he had at home.

"Oh, being cautious, are we? Anyway, that's a good thing to do. Catch." Davis said as he tossed the sphere toward Neo, who caught it and hesitated for a while before throwing it back toward Davis who caught it back in surprise but knew that Neo did that because he told him how dangerous it was to keep it on him.

"Damn, I feel bad for telling you something like that if you are going to discard a treasure like that. Anyway, I will take it and open the shop area that will be required to exchange this." Davis put it on the grass and said, "So the question that you asked."

"These are called Essence Spheres."

"Essence Spheres?" Neo asked with his eyes narrowed, as he hadn't heard about such a thing before.

"Yes, Essence sphere. This is common knowledge in the middle level of the Tower. But again, from the looks of it, you just stepped into the tower, so you don't know about it. Anyway, we are going off-topic, and I might charge you if you hear something you didn't pay for."

Neo nodded and sat down and waited for Davis to continue not clarifying that they were not in the Tower.

"So, the essence spheres could be considered as rare magical wish boxes that hold the residual essence or life force of the monsters. Each sphere would contain a unique set of attributes based on the monster it was from, such as increased strength or agility, resistance to specific types of damage, or many other things. As for this one." Davis took the sphere in his hand and the sphere melted as a red ball of light came out of it, and he threw it toward Neo, who wasn't able to dodge it in time.

『 You absorbed the Aetherium of goblin shaman and gained +2 intelligence 』

Neo, who jumped back when the red ball, or as the Tower called it Aetherium, entered his body, was now shocked as he suddenly received sudden attributes. He hurriedly opened his status panel to check if it was true or not. He found that was the case, and his intelligence attribute increased by 2.

Neo looked at Davis, who was looking at him, amused as he saw Neo's expression that turned from wariness to shock, than to silly one.

"For thinking about giving me that, I will give you this skill. It is a pretty common skill and can be found in every shop at the middle level."

A notification popped up before Neo.

『 The Traveler is trading the skill: Aether Manipulation.

Accept Reject.』

Looking at the name, Neo accepted it and a new skill appeared in his skills panel, along with Inspect and Whirlwind.

[Skill: Aether Manipulation.

Description: Aether Manipulation is a skill that allows the user to harness the power of Aetherium energy within essence spheres. With this skill, the user can unlock the full potential of essence spheres by manipulating the energy inside it.]

He saw the skill description and then slightly bowed as he said, "Thank you."

Davis waved his hand and said, "It's a pretty common skill. Not even worth putting up for sale."

"Okay, we again got off-topic. These essence spheres are what you'll be using when you are a high rank evolver, as experience required for levelling up is like filling a valley that is as deep as the abyss. And every attribute is worth more than a single city in the most developed kingdom."

He chuckled and said, "You can even get yourself a dragon princess, for the price of the one that you just absorbed."

Neo was stunned as he didn't know that the thing he had was this precious.

"Man, you are getting me off-topic again and again. So, there are different essence spheres. Red means permanent attribute, orange is equipment, yellow is a weapon, green is currency and the last three are something that are long lost. You'll have to find about them yourself as we can't talk about them."

"Oh, one more thing, the more potent they are, the higher the rank of the thing in them will be. The ones that you find in the monsters are dud as their essence gets absorbed by the evolvers to level up, cut open a monster, and you'll find a white sphere in them. But there is an exception to that, like in a tower when a monster reaches its life end naturally and couldn't evolve, then the sphere in them will be full of essence, like the ones in your hand, and no, you can't rear them and make them die a natural death. You cannot cheat the Tower. It knows anything and everything."

" Okay, I think you are satisfied with my service now, but let me give you advice. Don't bring those things up in front of anyone ever again. The next guy you find might not be a saint like me,"

Davis raised his nose up, asking to be praised, but he didn't get any as Neo was lost in thoughts.

He found some holes in what Davis was talking about, like the Essence spheres he got in his home had a white-bluish color to them.

"You talked about the temporary essence sphere. What should their color be?"

"Oh, those! They are white with a little tint of blue in them." Davis answered, not caring that Neo asked an extra question.

Neo nodded as he knew what those were now. But something was still not clicking right with him as he got these from killing monsters and Davis told him that killing a monster means that the essence would be absorbed by the evolvers. He absorbed the experience, but then why was this essence sphere still filled with Aetherium.

He wanted to ask Davis about it, but something was telling him not to do that. He trusted his guts and didn't ask.