Chương 3: The Affinity Crystal

He whirled around just as the ugliest creature Evan had ever seen appeared behind the next corner. It was the size of a small dog, but it looked more like a rat. No, rats were way cuter than this thing. It had tiny red eyes and large, pointy teeth in a mouth that looked way too big for its head. The body was covered in black, hairless, leathery skin, and its back was covered in spikes. Like a hedgehog, just more menacing. Evan instinctively took a step backward, but the creature had already spotted him.

It ran toward him with surprising speed and launched itself at him like a linebacker going for the tackle. The spiky back rammed into Evan's stomach, making him cry out in pain. The monster hedgehog-rat dropped to the floor with a squeak and sank its teeth into Evan's leg, while he was still doubled over in pain. With a shout, he kicked it away. The creature sailed through the air like a spikey cannonball and smashed against the wall.

Evan staggered backward, feeling warm blood seep through his shirt and pant leg, but the monster had already rolled back onto its stumpy, clawed legs, and it looked more determined than ever to hurt him. Desperate to avoid another intimate encounter with the creature's five-inch-long spikes, Evan sprinted toward the nearest escape he could spot. The stone door. To his surprise, he did not crash right into a solid wall, cracking his skull open.

Like an automatic sliding door in a supermarket, the stone moved aside, allowing him to stumble through the doorway. The monster hedgehog was hot on his heels. It was trying to jump at Evan's legs again, but just at that moment, the stone door slid closed again. With a nauseating crack and squelch, the door squished the little monster into a bloody mush. Evan retreated deeper into the room and took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart.

The hedgehog's maimed corpse was still stuck between the doorway and the door, but it was definitely dead. A message appeared. [You have killed 1 Spineback - Warning: You cannot collect experience points until you bind your soul to an affinity crystal]"Are you telling me this was all for nothing?" Evan complained. He had bled through his T-shirt and sweatshirt, and his leg was hurting almost as bad as his stomach. He looked around the room for a place where he could sit down.

It was dark, but he could make out the general shape of things from the light falling through the crack in the door, held open by the dead monster hedgehog. One wall had something that looked like stone shelves, with several metal boxes still stacked on them. On the other side of the room, a bench large enough to fit at least four people was carved right into the wall. He sank down on it, stretching out his bleeding leg and pulling up the pant leg to inspect the damage.

The creature—the Spineback—had torn a plum-sized chunk of flesh out of his leg. A pretty deep wound that would need sutures. Evan shook his head. It was probably very unlikely that he would find an emergency room anytime soon. Sweat was dripping down his back. He didn't know if he was hot from the fight, the pain, or the warm temperatures outside, but he took off his bloodied sweater. It had holes in it where the monster had rammed its spikes through.

Luckily, after a quick peek under his equally bloody T-shirt, he determined the spikes had caused only superficial wounds. It hurt like hell, but he probably wouldn't die from sepsis. With the adrenaline fading from his system, he took the time to inspect the room he'd fled to. The metal boxes on the stone shelves, carved into the wall just like the bench he was sitting on, looked interesting. The material was just as smooth and shiny as the necklace Mrs. Gregory had gifted him just a few hours ago. The necklace!

He reached for it but quickly realized it was gone. To his surprise, he felt a surprising amount of sadness over the loss, considering he was planning to hand it over to his supervisor tomorrow, anyway. What had happened to it? How did this whole waking-up-in-a-weird-video-game-world thing work exactly? His backpack and his necklace were gone, but his clothes were thankfully still on his body. Well, if he wanted to find out more about all of this, he would need to continue his exploration.

And he would start with those boxes. With a grunt of pain, he heaved himself back up, carefully tested his injured leg, and hobbled over to the shelves. Walking hurt, but it was nothing he couldn't bear. He took one of the metal boxes from the shelf. Now that he was holding it in his hands, he realized it too was decorated with beautiful rune-like carvings, but just like the door's, they looked very faded, like they'd been carved hundreds of years ago.

He turned the box, about the size of a schoolbook, in his hands. Suddenly, the top slid open, just like the door had. The mechanism looked surprisingly futuristic compared to the ancient-looking ruins he'd woken up in. To Evan's disappointment, the box was completely empty. He put it back on the shelf to try another one. That one had different runes ingrained in it, but was just as empty as the first one. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

When he pulled the third box from the shelf, he heard something rattle inside it. Excited, he activated the opening mechanism. Inside the box was some kind of round stone, a little bigger than a dollar coin, with a blue metallic sheen to it. He picked it up and was immediately hit with a new notification window. [Gem of the Shield (uncommon) - Warning: you can't activate skill stones until you bind your soul to an affinity crystal] [Do you want to add Gem of the Shield to your inventory?] Evan confirmed the question mentally, and the gem immediately disappeared from his hand. He opened his inventory menu, and sure enough, there it was, right next to that affinity crystal he'd received right when he'd woken up. Evan eyed the crystal. The system had told him he could collect no experience points and use no skill stones until he'd bound his soul to this crystal.

Binding his soul to anything sounded unappealing, but at the same time, if he wanted to succeed—or just survive—in this strange new world, he would probably need to do it sooner or later, so why not get it over with? After all, this was most likely just a hallucination anyway. He was probably not dying, or he would've kicked the bucket already, but maybe the paramedics had given him drugs? He remembered from nursing school that ketamine could provoke pretty vivid hallucinations.

That was why some people use it as a party drug. Either way, it was probably worth the risk. The crystal was colorful, like someone had trapped a rainbow inside, but had a gold border, and when he inspected it, the tooltip told him it was [Rarity: mythical]. That sounded pretty promising to him. With one last deep breath to steady his nerves, he activated the crystal. [Do you want to bind your soul to the Celestial Affinity Crystal? Y/N? Warning: This action cannot be undone.] Evan swallowed.

He was about to bind his soul to some crystal, and he could not undo it if he didn't like the effect. He could only hope and pray that the result, whatever it might be, would be positive. His heart was racing again as he mentally confirmed the question. The crystal disappeared from his inventory slot, and for a moment, nothing happened. Evan was already starting to wonder if he'd done it correctly when he felt it. It started as a tingle in his chest that quickly spread to his entire body.

The sensation got stronger, going from a soft tingle to a bone-shaking vibration. Warmth flooded his body, then heat. It was the strangest sensation he'd ever experienced. The heat radiating from inside his body felt so hot it could've melted his skin. He should've been screaming in pain, but somehow it didn't feel painful. Not at all. It felt… powerful. He lifted his hand in front of his eyes and saw a soft golden glow emitting from his body. Slowly, the sensations started to fade.

First the vibration, then the heat, and finally, the glowing light dimmed. The entire process had taken maybe thirty seconds, but it had left Evan feeling breathless and dizzy.

"Woah!" was the only thing he managed to get out before he was bombarded with status updates. [Your soul is now bound to the Celestial Affinity] [You have received the gift Celestial Champion - You are capable of generating mana within your soul. Current rate: 1 mana point per second. Regeneration rate will increase with rank.] [You have received the skill Teleport] [You reached Rank 1] [Your maximum health has increased to 31] [Your mana pool has increased to 44] [You can allocate 3 attribute points] Evan looked down at himself. Now that the glow was gone, he looked completely ordinary again, just as he had before. And yet, the interface told him he had significantly more health than before. And he had mana now.

44 points of mana, whatever that meant, and some kind of gift that allowed him to regenerate a point of mana per second on top of that. Did mana points mean he could do magic now? Excited, he pulled up his skills menu and found [Teleport] in the previously empty list. The tooltip said: [Teleport - Tied to your Speed attribute Instantly teleport to any location you can see. Current range: 2 meters. Mana Cost: 20 Cooldown: 15 seconds Increase your Speed attribute to improve this ability.] Evan closed the menu and glanced around the room. It was at least four by four meters large, so more than big enough to test the full range of this teleport ability. Now he only needed to figure out how it worked. Because he couldn't think of anything better, he focused his eyes on a spot in the corner of the room and said, "Teleport!" The next moment, he found himself face-to-face with the wall. The sudden change of location nearly made him stumble.

He braced himself against the wall, turned around, and looked at the spot where he'd stood just a split second ago.

"Holy hell, it worked!" He waited out the cooldown and tried it a few more times. Each time, it worked. Then he tried it without yelling "Teleport!" and quickly figured out that just thinking about doing it worked perfectly fine. Giddy, he attempted another teleport. He focused his eyes, thought about teleporting, and… nothing happened. One glance at the HUD told him why. His mana bar was almost completely empty. Of course.

The cooldown was 15 seconds, which meant he regenerated 15 mana points every time he waited for his [Teleport] to become available again, but using the skill cost him 20 mana points, so his mana pool went down 5 points every time he used [Teleport]. Interesting. He would have to keep that in mind, so he would always have the skill available when he needed it. And if there were more of those hedgehog monsters around, he would need it often.

Since he had to wait for his mana to recover anyway, he opened his menu again and pulled up his attributes. The screen told him he could add 3 points to his attributes, just as the notification earlier had promised. After thinking for a moment, he decided to put two points into Strength, since that was his weakest attribute, taking it from a 4 to a 6. Did the attribute affect his physical body? He looked down at himself, but noticed no difference. His arms didn't look more muscular.

He moved around a bit, jumped up a few times, and tried shadow boxing. Did he feel stronger? A little maybe. He wasn't sure. Maybe those two points just didn't make enough of a difference to be noticeable. One thing did change, though. His maximum health had gone from 31 points to 37 points. Evan couldn't figure out the math behind it, but strength apparently factored into his health stat.

That made him wonder if his mana was really related to his Spirit attribute, so he put the remaining point there, going from 7 to 8. He glanced at the HUD and found that his maximum mana had gone from 44 to 51. He wondered if his mana recovery would also improve, but after watching the bar refill for a while, he came to the conclusion that it was still going at the same rate. That made sense, since the explanation had said he needed to rank up to improve that.

When he switched back to the main screen, he noticed more changes. There was now some kind of progress bar right below his name, saying Rank 1 on the left end and Rank 2 on the right end. 0% progress, which meant the experience points from killing the hedgehog were really lost. Below the progress bar it said [Affinity: Celestial] and [Rank: 1], as he'd expected, but next to his Affinity it said [1 unused skill slot].

That must mean he could use a skill gem now, but only a single one, so he'd better put some thought into the decision. Currently, he only had the one Stone of the Shield, but maybe he could find more in those boxes? Before he continued his exploration, he needed to check the room thoroughly, making sure he wasn't missing any valuable loot.

"Listen to yourself, Evan," he said, shaking his head as he pulled the next stack of metal boxes from the shelf.

"You're starting to sound like a true video game player."