The water feels smooth against my skin. It drenches my clothes and my hair, of course, but it feels soft. Almost silky. I open my eyes underwater, and the brightness is almost blinding.

  Moonlight spirals and twists in on itself. Ribbons of effervescent brightness twirl and spin and weave through one another. The radiance is bright enough to sear my eyes… and still, I don’t look away. It’s almost like mana, almost like the structures of skills, and I want to take it apart…

  But I don’t. Because I look down and realize I am not falling. I am standing. On the surface of the lake, just submerged. My feet touch the top, but I cannot go above ground. I hold my breath, making sure to be patient, and see Sylves next to me.

  Grinning like an idiot as she swims through the water. My skin begins to tingle, and the light brightens some more, until the ribbons grow so wide it’s like a single plain of white moonlight.

  Whispers of moonlight ripple through the water.

  This is magic, alright. I can feel wispy tendrils of knowledge, no, of essence murmuring at me. Grasping at the edges of my mind, of my being, and it feels… strange. Like an open invitation. I slowly, tentatively accept.

  Sylves, on the other hand, did so instantly. Already, the moonlight is pouring into her. I catch bits of it, too, but mine is different. I don’t wanna steal from here, so I pick at the outskirts of it.

  [Level Up! 12 > 13]

  The world accepts my wish, my will supplanting that of the essence. The water bends and accepts that I am supreme, that I am deserving, and I take my piece. Essence floods into me, now, but not the same as what Sylves claimed. She claimed magic, and power, and all that is fae like.

  What remains for me? Moonlight and sorcery. I feel it, at my fingertips. It’s not free, not an instant advancement, but I can feel the whispers of something, someone out there. That there is a purpose to this, to the light. That there are bits of it I can understand more.

  I take that essence, sneakily. Stealthily. Like a thief. Sylves is probably going to gain a class from this. Me? I don’t even plan on getting a job. I can feel the system push me in that direction, but I push back. There will be no automatically assigning me a job. None of that.

  When I get it, I’ll take my choice. The knowledge about ribbons of light fills my mind until I’m full, and then some. My eyes bleed a little, tainting the water, but I still steal more, making sure to memorize it all. Maybe I’ll need to create a knowledge storing bank or something, someday.

  The essence pours into Sylves and she laughs, bubbles of air escaping her mouth and drifting to the surface. My nose starts bleeding. Then my mouth. And then, when the pressure against my ears becomes unbearable, when my head is pounding - it stops.

  It stops, all at once.

  Sylves passes out, and instantly, I grab her, pushing her head above water.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The pond is just a pond again, and I walk along its shallow, muddy bottom, making sure my friend is solidly breathing. Then, I step out of the water, carrying her. For once, I wish I had a little more power. I snicker quietly at the thought, then place her down, breathing peacefully. The water didn’t hurt her, somehow.

  My mana brushes against her.

  [Fairy lv. 10]

  She’s not fully human. I take note of that, placing it aside, and then try the same thing on Opal. No response. None from Thatch or Inu. That’s fine, though. I try again, changing the way I test their auras. Slowly, bit by bit, poke by poke, I learn. While they sleep, I try out just what makes that screen pop up.

  And, eventually, when I poke in just the right way, when I try to feel their mana, there is that notification. I smile.

  [Echo Knight, lv. 12]

  That’s Opal.

  [Unshaken, lv. 11]

  Inu.

  [Channeler, lv. 13]

  And Thatch.

  With that done, I lean against the side of a building that pops into the clearing. It’s funny, the way the soft grass jaggedly transitions into concrete and steel, but I don’t mind. I sort through the knowledge in my mind, and it feels… easy.

  Essence is made to be absorbed, after all. I just took in a lot of it. So did Sylves, and she fell unconscious, probably still processing the details of her new class. I could have picked up a job. But no.

  This was her treasure. She needed my help in it, because she’s an idiot who would have gotten her brain fried and drowned, but I don’t want it. The affinity is cool. I enjoy the intuition it gives me. It feels like the moonlight is familiar, like I could wrap it around myself in a cloak if I wanted to, but at the same time?

  It’s not earned.

  Now, that doesn’t mean a lot. People deserve a lot of things without decidedly working for them. Everyone deserves to eat. Everyone deserves shelter and recreation and to live a decent life.

  But I don’t care about that.

  The world is full of magic. I want it. I want the parts that belong to me. I want to choose. Not just stumble across a pond and have it decide for me.

  No. This moonlight isn’t good enough. Plain and simple. The job would be strong, I’m sure of that, but it would have been picked for me, and that’s unacceptable. I will rise to the top of the system. I will strike down the Eyes. And I will do it by my own power.

  Essence? I’ll take it. I’ll memorize it, learn its secrets, and take it apart until all its constituent pieces are mine. I won’t just take it and accept what it wants.

  Sylves is the same. Her class is fairy. Not “moonlight fae” or “translucent dancer”. Fairy. She did the same thing, twisting the essence to suit her. I’m doing that, too, just in my own way. I smile a tiny bit at that. Is this what it means to be human? Ah, Sylves is a fairy, now. Perhaps it should be ‘is this what it means to be a person?’

  So, the essence gets to sit in my mind. Grant me knowledge, and intuition and slowly be digested and picked apart. Because my rise won’t be from a lucky windfall, it’ll be because of me. Because I want to, and no one else gets to take even a shred of credit away from that.

  Not my circumstances, not my birth, not the people who “raised” me. My friends? Maybe they deserve part of the credit, because I choose to be around them, and that’s fine. But no one, nothing that is random or lucky is part of my rise.

  I build a box around the essence. A wall of mana that contains it from influencing my actions. And then, I send a tendril of [Deconstruction] into that box. I pick it apart, I unravel the patterns. And then I do it again. And again. And again.

  Over and over, until there’s nothing left for me to learn.

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