Nathan ended up spending several hours trying to think of solutions to his little problem, despite Greg's reassurance. Although he felt he could trust the large fish—Finny's confidence counted for a lot to Nathan—the vagueness of the plan really wasn't reassuring.

  In retrospect I probably should've asked the guy for more detail.

  On the other hand, it didn't sound like he had very many ideas either. Based off the tone of voice, it'd really sounded more like he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince Nathan.

  So now Nathan was back in his office, the bust of his head taunting him as always, a bowl full of strange ethereal water staring back at him.

  Nathan was starting to note that alot of his life was now about strange ethereal water of varying types. In fact, it had been that way for a while, which was mildly concerning.

  He shook his head and cast aside the thoughts, this really wasn't the time. He was here for a specific goal.

  Harnessing the strange energy from this water and… what, applying it to himself? That seemed to be what Thalassa had implied.

  He looked at the water, then at his hands, then back at the water.

  Not helpful, Thalassa, not in the slightest.

  But then again, she normally wasn't, so what exactly had he been expecting?

  He pressed his fingertips against the water. It was cool to the touch, but there was nothing strange about it other than the glow. He stuck his finger all the way in and watched the watter flutter in response.

  Instead of touching it, he switched over to his odd water manipulation abilities. He stretched out toward it and felt it almost reach back, in a sense. It rewarded his efforts and moved into the air with the slightest impulse of thought.

  Not feeling anything strange. For all intents and purposes, it moves around like normal water.

  He played with it for a few minutes, making patterns in the air like a child with crayons. Once he got bored of this, he let the water drop back into the bowl with a splash.

  Nathan sighed. Whatever energy or property that seemed to surround the strange water was impossible for him to access. At least, that's what it felt like at the current moment.

  If only there was some way to increase his senses, to—

  He slapped his palm into his forehead. He pulled his palm away and shot a mental command into the air.

  Stats:

  Strength: 30 (+112) = 142

  Dexterity: 50 (+33) = 83

  Constitution: 50 (+40) = 90

  Magic: 3 (+15) = 18

  Luck: 22 (+76) = 98

  Soul: 122 (+40) = 162

  Available Stats: 88

  He nearly dumped all his points into the Soul stat before he stopped. That might… not have been the best move. What if he needed the points later?

  Then again, that usually didn't end up happening…

  I'll do the bare minimum, work my way up.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  That seemed like the right middle ground. He added 40 points to Soul.

  Soul: 162 (+40) = 202

  Nathan let out a breath and he nearly jolted.

  Each time there was a major increase in his power like this he could feel the difference pretty fast, but it was especially noticable with the Soul stat. There was a vibrancy to the world that suddenly came to life whenever he made a big jump. Colors seemed brighter, and sounds a little bit warmer.

  He remained still in his chair. His heartrate settled down and grinded back to a normal pace.

  He looked back into the ethereal golden water.

  Nothing.

  It was still just as ilusive as ever.

  He clicked his tongue, it hadn't been enough.

  Ten more points, then.

  Soul: 172 (+40) = 222

  The world lit up again. It was that same disorienting sensation, but dialed up to fifteen. He gripped his head and shut his eyes. With any luck, the pain would disappear fast.

  After it reduced to manageable levels, he looked over at the water.

  Same as before.

  He looked back over at his stat window.

  Ten more. Then he'd stop.

  Soul: 182 (+40) = 232

  Colors. Way too many colors. Were reds always this distracting?

  Something inside his stomach seemed to be burning. He ignored the pain and looked over at the golden water.

  Come on! Anything?!

  Stubbornly, the strange water refused him.

  Aren't I supposed to have some kind of bullshit connection to the sea? I'm more ocean than person at this point, right? Wouldn't that come in handy during a situation like this?!

  The golden water didn't care about fairness, of course, and Nathan knew this.

  Twenty eight points left.

  He stared at the remaining number. It was an enormous risk to dump his remaining points into soul, but…

  Screw it.

  Soul: 210 (+40) = 250

  His insides burned. A flashbang went off inside his ear, ringing, a low whine. Pain, pain, pain, pain.

  He gritted his teeth and looked into the bowl of water.

  His eyes widened.

  The water was shimmering. Pale white flecks floated just on the surface.

  Is this just my imagination? The final hallucinations of an idiot who pushed too hard for the five-hundreth time?

  Hallucination or not, it was the best he had.

  He reached out mentally to the water and gathered it toward him.

  Now, how was he supposed to get the flecks to enter his body?

  A wave of pain crashed into his spine and he resisted the urge to groan. Was he supposed to manipulate the flecks? Reach out? Ingest it—

  Wait.

  Could it really be that simple?

  It was then that Nathan realized he could've done that without burning 88 points on his Soul stat.

  On the other hand, he's seeing things that he definitely didn't see before. Which either means he'd finally gone schizophrenic or there was a definite effect with his recent upgrades.

  He took the bowl and brought it to his lips.

  The strange water went down his throat and hit his stomach. A strange warmth travelled from the pit of his gut out to the tips of his fingers.

  Oh sweet, at least it wasn't burning, searing, unbelievable pain. That's nice.

  His eyelids shuddered against his will. He could feel the flecks working into his system.

  He jolted. They were settling in place, blocking the flow of energy. He wouldn't have noticed had he not put his points into Soul.

  He nudged his energy and crushed the flecks, absorbing them into his body. He did this sytematically, one at a time, with each and every fleck. This, despite the fact that he felt like he was about to fall asleep.

  Just as he was about to lose consciousness, he finished destroying the final fleck. His head hit the desk of his table.

  He really needed to get a desk pillow or something.

  Waves. Water.

  His eyes snapped open and he looked over to the right. Somehow, he could sense her presence immediately. Probably all those extra soul points.

  Thalassa was on her normal beach chair, a pair of sunglasses on her eyes and a suntan screen in hand.

  "That was reckless," she said. "Ingesting all that Golden Realm essence would've killed anyone else. But for you, it's nothing more than a mild warmth."

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Really? Tanning? This place isn't even real, and even if it was, you don't really have a physical body."

  "It's the principle of the matter."

  "What's the principle, exactly?"

  "Everyone knows that beach girls need to have a tanning session regularly to get that 'all-natural' look."

  Nathan stepped over toward her and put his hands in his pockets. "I'm, like, ninety percent sure that you could achieve that without a suntan screen." He scoffed. "How do I always get drawn into these arguments with you?"

  "You love me. Or hate me. Something like that, anyway."

  Nathan shrugged and looked up at the clear blue sky.

  "So, is there enough of that stuff inside of me to let us talk like normal human beings?"

  Thalassa looked over at him and let the sunglasses drop down. Her blue eyes sparkled with a dangerous glint.

  "Yes, they do."

  "She won't be able to hear?"

  "She won't."

  There was no lightning crack. No temperature drop. Nathan felt something inside his chest unwind.

  "Huh," he said. "I really didn't think that would work."

  "You should have more faith in yourself. And me. Especially me, actually, since I did all the hard stuff."

  Nathan was about to fire off a quip when he decided that they should probably stay on task for once in their lives.

  "So I can take a guess about what you want to tell me."

  Thalassa's face lifted into a thin smirk.

  "Yes, well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?" she said. "It's time for us to get down to the nitty-gritty of how exactly we're going to kill an eldritch horror."

  "Is this a bad time to mention she talked to me in a dream earlier?"

  "Wait, what?"