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A grassy field snapped into existence beneath his feet. His knees jerked and Alex took a step forward to balance himself. His ears popped and he finished drawing in the breath that had started a moment before the System had shunted him out of the Nexus Point like an unwanted rodent.

He was back outside Towntown. The bodies of all the monsters and survivors who had died on the battlefield around the town had vanished as if they\'d never been there, leaving nothing but trampled grass.

Night had fallen in true — the massive stars seemed to have lost some of their luster and had let the surroundings plunge into relative darkness, illuminated only by the normal glow of the moon.

"Alex!" Claire exclaimed from behind him. "What was that about? What happened?"

He turned to face her, his mind still buzzing with all the new information he\'d learned and power he\'d gotten. He prepared to fill her in on what had happened when a buzz filled his ears.

Alex paused and glanced around. The sound was distant. He couldn\'t quite tell if it was coming from inside his own head or somewhere else. Confusion creased his face and a question formed on his lips.

He didn\'t get a chance to let it free. The System\'s golden letters flashed through the air before him in an instant.

Reward received.

Alex doubled over in a surprised wheeze as energy drove into his gut like the punch from a professional boxer with a vendetta. He dropped to his knees, eyes shooting wide open, as a freezing cold hand clenched around his brain.

It felt like an ocean of freezing water was being funneled directly into his skull. His entire body stiffened of its own volition. He fell forward, landing face-first in the grass, and gasped for air, unable to even form words as the power ravaged him.

Hands grabbed his shoulders and spun him over. Claire\'s mouth moved as she yelled something and shook him, but he couldn\'t hear it. He could barely even feel her. His entire body throbbed. His head pounded, his throat constricted. Alex could only manage to form a single thought.

So this is was what the Overseer meant when it warned about Energy Overload.

He gritted his teeth, trying to remember what it had said to do. Something about preparing his Mind Palace. Alex had no idea what that meant or how to do it, but he did his damned best to try.

He drove his squirming thoughts inward. There was no way he could actually sink into meditation when his entire body felt like it was getting transformed into a large ice-cube, but he focused on imagining a wall forming around his mind and slowing the flow of energy, focusing it into his basin instead of letting it run amok through his entire being.

Agonizing seconds dragged by. Alex had no idea if his efforts were successful or if he\'d simply just waited the System out, because the pain slowly started to recede. The pounding in his skull slowed and his fists unclenched, leaving pinpricks of pain in his palm where his nails had dug into the flesh. His jaw sockets throbbed with pain from how hard they\'d been clenched. Tiny stars danced in the air above him.

"Alex!" Claire said, shaking him like a doll. "Do you need blood?"

"I\'m fine!" Alex managed. "Stop shaking me!"

Claire jerked to a halt. "Sorry. Blood?"

"I don\'t think it would do much for me," Alex said, blinking as his vision cleared back up. "You\'re the Dhampir here."

"I figured you might have lost too much in the fight," Claire said, letting out a relieved breath. "I didn\'t mean you should eat it. I thought we could put some extra back into your body."

"That doesn\'t work. Humans have different kinds of blood," Alex said with a small laugh. Claire pulled him back to his feet and he gave her an appreciative nod. "Thanks, though."

"No problem. And that makes sense, actually. I never thought about that, but you all do taste different."

"Have you eaten from a lot of humans?" Alex tilted his head to the side.

"Yes. But more importantly, why did you just seize up? And why did you just vanish? What in the bleeding hells is happening?"

Alex blew out a breath and a smile crawled across his face. "Rewards from the System. A lot of them. It\'ll take a while to fill you in on everything, and I still don\'t know all the rewards yet. I have to meditate as soon as I can… but it\'s good. Really good. Give me a second."

He reached down, grabbing a Spatial Mirror from the box at his side and examining its surface to see if the System\'s rewards had included the souls of the monsters he\'d killed during the challenge.

Spatial Mirror

Stored Energy:

High-Mid Grade Novice (Floraking) - 1

Low Grade Initiate (Riftwarped Crawler) - 1

Low-Mid Grade Initiate (Riftwarped Granite Soldier)

High Grade Novice (Corpse Burrower) - 1

Low Grade Novice (Corpse Poker) - 1

Mid-Grade Novice (Boneraptor) - 1

Reward Soul (Conglomerate) - 1

Bonded Creature: Shardwalker (Novice 7)

Alex\'s head tilted to the side.

That\'s interesting. I can\'t wait to see what happens when I feed that to one of my monsters. But something is off. What\'s going on here?

The system had obviously condensed the soul rewards he\'d gotten from the Trial into a single one… but there was an outlier. For some reason, he had the soul flame of a Boneraptor. A frown crossed his lips as he thought. Now that he thought about it, Alex could even remember when it had happened.

After killing one of the Boneraptors, there had been a strange sensation a moment before he\'d seen something fly into his Spatial Mirror of its own volition. That must have been the monster\'s soul flame.

But why? How come I was able to get that soul flame but none of the others?

He had absolutely no idea, but he didn\'t want to just stand around in the open thinking forever. Alex lowered the mirror and returned his attention to Claire. "Did the System tell you what you got?"

"Not yet. I need to go meditate." Claire shook her head, then glanced back in the direction of Towntown. "But I\'ve been holding off on heading back. It\'s only been a few minutes and I was hoping you\'d return sooner rather than later. Figured I should make sure nobody strolls up and waits to stab you in the back."

"It\'s appreciated," Alex said. "Was someone looking like they were planning on doing just that?"

Claire gave him a half-shrug. "I don\'t know. They haven\'t gotten close yet. It\'s only been a few minutes, but I think that idiot Isaiah\'s group came back to town when they realized that the fight was over and it was safe again."

Alex followed her gaze. A group of survivors had gathered at the edge of town. It was split roughly down the middle, and even though he wasn\'t quite in earshot, the tension was clear. Several people had their hands on their weapons and seemed to be a moment away from drawing them fully.

"Figures," Alex said through a snort. Right now, the only thing he wanted to do was sit down and meditate to process the rest of the rewards he\'d gotten. With the amount of energy he\'d just gotten — well, he wasn\'t even sure how much he could accomplish. There was already enough for multiple advancements to his abilities, not to mention the extra power the System had just injected into him.

"We going to bother getting involved?" Claire asked.

Alex scratched at the side of his head as he studied the survivors. It seemed that he and Claire had been forgotten in the wake of the growing argument. People had started yelling over each other as the tension rose.

He rather liked Ben.

Moreover, he did not think much of Isaiah. Throwing a hissy fit and then coming back to the town they\'d abandoned rubbed Alex the wrong way.

That all said, Alex wasn\'t so sure he wanted to get himself completely wrapped up in a bunch of politics. He wasn\'t even sure if he could. Alex wasn\'t exactly a master negotiator. His last interaction with Isaiah had been punching the man in the face. That was a remarkably effective way for ending an argument. It was slightly less effective for actually making a point. Slightly — but he supposed slightly was better than nothing.

Alex started forward.

Claire put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He glanced at her in surprise.

"What?" Alex asked. "I was going to go help Ben."

"How?" Claire asked. "By beating the shit out of Isaiah?"

"Probably, yeah," Alex admitted. "Glint and Spark are still alive. I\'m pretty sure Ben is Ben-10 on the leaderboard, and Mary is also on his side. She seems capable enough. I\'m pretty sure we can deal with a bunch of low-Novice pricks if they try to kill us."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Alex, there\'s more than one way to deal with something like this. Not every single situation results in having to kill or fight something, and there\'s more than one way to fight."

"Not arguing that. But I don\'t exactly know what else to do, and it\'s best to be prepared for the worst."

"Then let me handle this one," Claire said, a small, dangerous grin pulling across her lips. "I think it might be more up my alley than yours."

"Sure. What are you thinking?"

"The more you try to prepare for something like this, the worse it\'ll go. Just back me up. You\'ll figure it out as we go." Claire strode toward the group confidently.

Alex moved to keep pace with her.

"Can\'t you at least give me a hint? What am I supposed to be preparing for? A fight?"

"You wanted to see a bit of how Court was played, didn\'t you?" Claire asked, keeping her gaze on the survivors as their argument grew louder still. "I\'m going to give you a small demonstration."