Chapter 54: Level Up [1]

The level-up notification hovered in front of Mikael, its text glowing with soft grey light.

He stared at it for a long moment, feeling the changes ripple through his body in a slow wave.

The surge of essence had already settled, leaving behind a quiet hum of power pulsing just beneath his skin.

He felt noticeably stronger than before.

His limbs moved with less effort, and the constant ache of exhaustion that had been dragging at him for the past two days had faded into something manageable.

The toll of everything that had happened in the last two days and the side effects of the Phasewalker’s Earrings were still there....

But it felt somewhat more manageable than before.

He had just gained two full levels.

It was more than he had expected from a single quest, but considering the difficulty of what he’d faced, it seemed fair.

The system scaled rewards based on danger, and fighting a Peak Tier 3 aberration while protecting a princess was about as dangerous as it got for someone at his rank.

If he hadn’t created the " Siste " spell by combining his Melodic Supremacy with his Spellcasting Talent, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to save Alice at all.

That spell had been the only thing that saved Alice’s life.

He dismissed the notification with a single thought as the glowing text dissolved into motes of grey light before vanishing entirely.

He had deliberately chosen not to accept the quest rewards back at the royal palace.

It would have been too risky.

After the aberration incident in the garden, the palace was on high alert, with guards patrolling every corridor and high-ranking awakeners stationed at every entrance, their senses stretched wide for any sign of danger.

Accepting the experience points in that environment would have been reckless.

If his essence had surged and his body had absorbed two levels’ worth of power in a single moment, there was a real chance someone would have noticed the sudden essence spike.

The guards might even have come to investigate.

And in the worst-case scenario, Headmaster Nicholas himself might have appeared, curious about the sudden fluctuation.

Mikael had no idea how he would explain his rapid growth to a Tier 9 Monarch without revealing far more than he was willing to share.

That was also why he had told Liren to stay hidden inside his core for the entire duration of their stay at the palace.

A Red Spirit’s presence was not something that could be easily concealed from someone like Nicholas Hughes.

The old man had centuries of experience and senses sharp enough to pick up on even the faintest traces of foreign essence.

If he discovered the spirit bound to Mikael’s soul, the questions would never end.

So Mikael had waited.

Kept his head down and pretended to be nothing more than a tired patient recovering from his injuries.

But now that he was back in Thornhaven City with no high-ranking awakeners nearby and no watchful eyes observing him, he finally accepted the quest rewards.

Ranking up was supposed to be a slow, grueling process.

Awakeners had to accumulate essence, drop by drop, within their cores over months or sometimes even years.

They didn’t simply jump levels.

It didn’t work that way.....

An immediate spike like this would raise questions he wasn’t prepared to answer.

But eventually, it would become impossible to hide.

Once he was accepted into Astralspire Academy, Headmaster Nicholas would notice his sudden growth.

The old man might have retired from his Headmaster’s position, but that didn’t mean he would stop watching over the Academy.

Mikael was already exhausted from everything that had happened, and the last thing he wanted was to deal with all the questioning while he was still recovering.

For now, he just wanted to get through the entrance exam of Astralspire Academy.

He took a slow breath and called up his status window.

"Status."

A grey translucent screen materialized in front of him, and the familiar text arranged itself into neat rows.

— ◈ [ Status ] ◈ —

Name: Mikael Morwell / Zen Ashcroft

Rank: Tier 1 (High)

Level: 16 → 18

Exp: [0%—[39%]────────100%]

Class: Shepherd

Affinity: None

Abilities: None / ???

Talent: Spellcasting (Divine Grade), Melodic Supremacy (Elite)

Curse: Soul Drought

Strength: 1.1 → 1.4

Endurance: 0.8 → 1.5

Agility: 1.3 → 1.6

Essence: 0.86 → 1.15

Willpower: 5.7

— ◈ [ Status ] ◈ —

He stared at the numbers for a long moment as he let the information sink in.

He could see his growth.

His strength had increased, his endurance had nearly doubled, and his agility had crept upward.

His essence pool had grown from a pitiful 0.86 to a slightly less pitiful 1.15.

And his rank had shifted from Tier 1 (Mid) to Tier 1 (High), which was progress, even if it didn’t feel like much.

But when he compared his stats to what he knew about the other students at Astralspire Academy, the reality was almost sobering.

He was still too weak.

Even with two levels he had just gained, his stats were barely at the level of someone around level 15 or 16.

The average first-year at the Academy was levels around 17 to 19, with stats to match.

The important NPCs and other playable characters were all around Low Tier 2-- around level 20 to 21.

Elara, for example, was at least at level 21, which was Rank Low Tier 2.

She could probably defeat him in a fight without even breaking a sweat.

’Well, it wouldn’t even be a fight.’

He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

In Eclipsed Realms, leveling up didn’t automatically make you stronger in every way.

The Power System was more nuanced than that.

Increasing your level removes the cap on your physical stats, allowing you to train them higher through physical conditioning and practice.

A level 18 character could only train their physical stats-- strength, endurance, and agility up to a maximum of 1.8.

To go beyond that, they needed to level up and raise the cap.

Of course, there was a small boost to stats with each level... a natural strengthening of the body.

But for the most part, if awakeners wanted to get stronger, they had to put in the work.

They had to train.

They had to push their bodies to their limits and beyond to increase their physical stats.

Mikael hadn’t had time to do any of that.

His strength, agility, and endurance were all still well below their current caps.

As for his essence stat, that was a completely different problem entirely.

For most people, essence grew naturally as they leveled up.

A level eighteenth character should have an essence pool of around 1.7 to 1.85.

It was linked to the rank, to the core’s capacity, to the body’s ability to contain and channel the essence.

But Mikael’s curse—Soul Drought—made everything harder.

His core didn’t hold the essence the way it should have.

Essence constantly slipped through his channels like a cracked vessel, and no amount of leveling could fix that.

He had to manually fill his core with essence each time, a slow, painful process that required hours of meditation and focus.

And even then, he would only be able to store a fraction of what a normal awakener of his level could manage.

It was a constant uphill battle, and sometimes he wondered if it was even worth fighting.

But it was not like he had any choice left.

He had to keep going forward and keep pushing through if he didn’t want to die.

He sighed deeply and was about to close his status when something at the bottom of the screen caught his eye.

There was a section that hadn’t been there before.

— ◈ [ Contracted Spirits ] ◈ —

Wraith of Withered Blue Rose, Liren

...

— ◈ [ Contracted Spirits ] ◈ —

He stared at it and was momentarily taken aback.

He’d been so caught up in everything that he hadn’t had a single moment to check on Liren’s status properly.

He’d known vaguely about Liren’s abilities through their connections, but he had never examined her status properly.

Without wasting more time, Mikael focused on Liren’s name, mentally willing the status screen to expand.

The grey window flickered, and a new screen materialized in front of him.

— ◈ [ Spirit Status ] ◈ —

Name: Liren

Rank: Tier 6 (Low) → Tier 3 (Low)

Species: Wraith

Affinity: Witherbloom (Hybrid)

Abilities: Mirror Manipulation, Multi-Resistance

Curse: The Bleeding Heart

Favourablity: 100% (Maximum)

— ◈ [ Spirit Status ] ◈ —

****