With a little help from Jensen, Velik found Aria in a coffeehouse on the south end of the city. She was reclining in a chair big enough to hold two of her, a steaming mug on an end table next to her and a book held in her hands. Other patrons were scattered around the room, either solitary or in small groups making quiet chatter.

A hostess tried to intercept Velik when he stepped through the door, no doubt to steer him back out into the street. He was wearing the same clothes he always did, all of it heavily enchanted to be self-cleaning and self-repairing, but none of it the soft and delicate outfits everyone inside the coffeehouse was wearing.

Velik was far too fast to be caught by a slip of a girl who wasn’t even level 3. To her, it must have seemed like he’d vanished, and she fumbled to a halt in the middle of the floor when she lost track of him. Three of the patrons were a high enough level that they noticed Velik’s entrance, but other than a casual glance in his direction to assure themselves there was no trouble, they ignored him.

“Would you like to borrow a suit of clothing suitable for the establishment?” Aria asked, not looking up from her book. “They won’t let you stay here as you are.”

“My clothes are fine,” Velik said. “I need to borrow your expertise.”

“I’m sure you do,” she told him. “But I’m busy. Perhaps later.”

“It’s important. I need to know everything there is to know about essence and the system.”

That got her attention. Aria’s eyes snapped up to Velik’s and she jolted to her feet. “Not here,” she hissed, barely even breathing out the words. “Don’t mention that again in public. Meet me at Jensen’s estate in an hour.”

One of the patrons was staring intently at the back of Velik’s head now, making no effort to disguise his interest. The man was strong enough to maybe be a gold-ranked hunter, though Velik had him pegged as a mage or scholar class instead. He was too soft, too lacking in raw physical stats, to be a professional monster hunter. In other words, he wasn’t a threat.

Who is? Even right now, with the raw stat boost I just got when I made [Awakened Blood], I kind of don’t think there’s another human in the country that can challenge me.

It was arrogant to think that, but on the other hand, Velik had fought against a platinum-ranked guild hunter and come out on top. He was probably twice as strong now as he’d been back then, too. Unless he encountered someone past level 80, he wasn’t going to worry about being ambushed.

“Excuse me, sir!” the hostess said, having finally caught up to Velik.

“One hour,” Velik told Aria. “Be there.”

He blurred through the air, leaving the coffeehouse before the hostess could actually reach him. The poor girl just blinked in surprise, looked around again, and let out an irritated huff that Velik heard from a block away.

* * *

“Where did you hear about system essence?” Aria asked.

“Not important. Is it true that we all have it, and that the system takes it from our kills, leaving us with only scraps while it hoards it all to itself?”

They were sitting in a sunroom overlooking the yard behind Jensen’s place. Aria had a cup of tea in front of her and a selection of pastries sent up from the kitchen she was idly picking through. Velik ignored the cup that had been placed in front of him.

“In a sense,” Aria admitted. “Essence definitely exists, but we’re not exactly sure what it is. There isn’t a single class or skill that interacts with it. Only mages who develop extraordinarily fine mana control can even detect it, and it’s more in the absence of mana where it should be. It’s like looking at a sheet made of mana and noting the space between the threads. That’s essence.”

Velik wasn’t sure that was right. It certainly didn’t sound like what Morgus—assuming that was who’d gotten into his head—had described, but Velik was more trying to confirm that he hadn’t just dreamed it all up. Essence being an actual thing meant that the conversation had been real. If Sildra actually showed up to confirm her god had dropped by Velik’s mind for a chat, he’d know it really was a god in his head.

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Velik didn’t think of himself as a particularly paranoid person, but even if it really was Morgus reaching out to him, he was inclined to dissect every little piece of the conversation. There was no telling what motivated a god, and no guarantee that his plans included Velik outliving his usefulness. If nothing else, Morgus had failed to mention what would happen to Velik once he tried to return to system-controlled territory.

“Velik, I really do need to know who you talked to,” Aria said. “Essence is an extremely esoteric topic, and while I won’t pretend to know everybody in your life, I’m struggling to picture you speaking to anyone who’d know about it. If this was something you read in an old book you picked up in one of your expeditions, I need to see it. You can’t trust everything it says to be truthful, or to give you a complete picture. Trying to manipulate essence is a good way to get yourself killed.”

“What happens to essence outside of the boundary?” he asked, ignoring her attempts to pry information out of him.

“No, I’m not doing this. If you want information from me, this is a two-way street. I’m not helping you snuff yourself out in a crazy attempt to snatch more power out of the system without earning it.”

I suppose Morgus didn’t actually say to keep the conversation a secret, and he did tell me to work on getting [Mana Sense] and [Mana Control] before I left. I guess that’s the starting point for some sort of essence manipulation skill. Maybe.

On the other hand, seems like a god would maybe just expect anything he says to be kept private. Uh, I guess, Morgus, if you’re watching, let me know if it’s okay to tell Aria about the dream.

Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of the god’s opinion one way or another. Velik wasn’t even sure what he was expecting, but the only movement outside was a gentle breeze setting a few small trees swaying back and forth.

I guess that means no objections from him.

“So, I had a dream last night,” Velik said.

“Oh, no.”

“Now, I don’t know much about mental domination, but this earcuff is supposed to protect me from that, specifically, so I don’t think it was a mind control thing or anything like that.” Velik tapped the piece of jewelry curved around his left ear lobe. Normally, it was hidden under his hair, and he wasn’t sure Aria had ever seen it. “That all having been said, someone definitely got into my dreams and told me some stuff about the system, essence, the boundary, and what’s on the other side of the sand sea.”

“This is bad,” Aria muttered. “First the divine beasts, now some rogue [Mind Mage].”

“Well, that’s the thing. He said he was Morgus—”

“The god?!”

“—and that he was sending Sildra here to serve as proof that it was really him. So if she shows up, we’ll know it really was him.”

Aria slumped back into her chair. “Why is it so stressful being associated with you?” she finally asked after a few moments of silence.

“You were the one who demanded to know,” Velik reminded her. “And now that you do, I need to learn about essence and how to control it.”

“You can’t control essence. The system doesn’t allow you to. Wait, you’re not…”

“Yep. The guy ran back to the other side of the desert. There’s no system there, nothing stopping you from wielding raw essence or whatever. If I’m going to kill him, I need to know how to do it, too. Morgus had some recommendations on what I should focus on while I’m still here.”

Velik found himself relaying the conversation, though Aria frequently interrupted him to ask more questions. He almost thought he heard Morgus snickering quietly in the back of his mind, but that was probably just his imagination. When he got to the end, he asked, “So, can you help me figure out what he said I should learn?”

“I think we should wait for Sildra to confirm it was really a god who spoke to you,” she said. “But I suppose in the meantime, it couldn’t hurt to do some focused work on creating [Mana Sense]. Normally, it takes a novice mage months to piece this together, but I suppose having triple-digit mystic and mental will make it a bit easier for you. So unfair.”

“I’ll take whatever unfair advantages I can get,” Velik told her bluntly. “I’m trying to kill a divine beast.”

“That’s true,” Aria said. “And that should be impossible, but if it’s true… If he broke some sort of divine bargain…”

“What even are monstrous gods?” Velik asked, suddenly remembering Morgus mentioning them. That part of the conversation had gotten glossed over, but if he understood things correctly, he’d be under their power once he left the system lands.

“I think that he was referring to what’s commonly considered the evil half of the pantheon. They’re not worshipped here, for obvious reasons. I’m not really a religious scholar, so I don’t know much about them, just that they don’t have any power here. Their worshippers are intelligent monsters, I guess. I can try to find out more if you think it’ll be helpful, but your time would probably be better spent on other things.”

Velik couldn’t argue with that. The tea and pastries got pushed to the side, and they started working on the various mana sensing skills. He already had two, and he had an empty slot if needed, so there was plenty of ground to cover.

And not nearly enough time to get to it, Velik thought to himself as he listened to Aria lecture.