I watched as he placed his hand on the sphere, with the crystal put in the correct spot. It vanished immediately but to my surprise, Druoag retracted his hand and then turned his face towards me.

- What should I choose? - he asked me. - There are so many options.

- I have no idea what you have out there, but if I were you, I would start with some fighting class, to strengthen what you already possess, which is raw power. Then monitor time and how many crystals you are able to gather, and pivot towards something that might help you protect your mind from The High Queen, maybe? I'm not sure. The little upgrades are relatively cheap compared to what you can buy with what you earn, so I guess you could spend a small number of points experimenting with stuff. Looking for something useful, and then pursuing it.

,m He was observing me and nodding from time to time, as I spoke. Clearly analyzing the thoughts I presented to him.

- What about pure statistics? - he asked. - Are they useful?

- For you? I doubt you will get that much of a difference because your body is already incredibly strong, but you might try experimenting with that too. Although, if I were you, I would explore more options, looking for something that might make a difference in the fight with The High Queen. Something that might catch her off guard, or something that might help to protect yourself from what she can do.

- Those are all good ideas - he agreed, and not wasting any more time placed his hand once again on the device.

He closed his eyes and remained frozen for a while. I knew that I shouldn't be wasting my time just watching him, but I couldn't help myself. I was simply too curious about which path he was going to choose for himself.

It took him a reasonable amount of time, and he finally opened his eyes and took a few steps toward me.

- I'm ready - he informed me.

By that point, I already had a little idea in my mind, and immediately decided to go for it.

- I have a spot with four ghosts. I think I can take them on by myself, but with your help, it would be way easier, although it might be a difficult fight as your first one, with the new abilities. Not to mention the fact that you've never faced them before, which means you don't know really how they fight, so you might get caught off-guard easily.

- I can do it - he assured me. - I really want to test myself now.

I nodded, noticing the spark in his eyes. After all, he was a true warrior. His very soul was probably burning to experience facing the unknown, mysterious opponents.

- Good, then let's go.

- I'm ready - he said, smashing his fist into his open palm, which made a sound comparable to a gunshot.

- Ok - I said, and shadow walked to touch him.

As soon as I did that, I took both of us straight to where I left my anchor - on one of the massive platforms with a whole part of the megacity on it.

It was still a day out there. Druoag was caught off guard by the sudden change of location but got a hold of himself very quickly. Just like the four ghosts roaming the vicinity of the place where we landed.

It took maybe five seconds before they attacked us all at once, sending their heavy weaponry straight at us. There was no time to talk, because of how intense the action got from the get-go.

I shadow walked again, to get the hell out of that spot, closer to one of our opponents, while Druoag conventionally avoided the attack. At that point, I lost the visual on him, because I had my hands full with the ghosts that I was changing at.

It was an entity in a deeply green robe, with a dark breastplate on. He had a hood over his head, but from under it, I was able to spot a mask covering his face. It was quite intricate, but the light and shadow game, covering it, made me unable to actually tell what it was looking like.

He extended his hand towards me, and a sea of fire poured out of it, melting everything around. I covered myself in a barrier and put spots of pure void essence under my feet, continuing the charge, despite the whole area melting in extreme heat. Then I used 'Shadow fusion'.

The ghost also had to go back, because he was destroying the ground under his feet, but I was faster than him. I grabbed his hand with my left, and with the right one, I smashed it, breaking the bone. It was basically all what his limb was, so I threw it right to the burning, white, hole behind me, and not losing my flow, rammed the creature with my shoulder, then finally decided to turn the brakes on.

While he slammed into the ground, bounced off spinning, and crashed into the architecture further, I slid on the concrete under my feet, slowing down from the initial charge.

I then used some fancy footwork to avoid a massive, wide, but broken-at-the-tip, sword, that came from behind like a racing train. It smashed straight into the same massive skyscraper, round and thick, that the ghost just hit, and vanished into.

I knew that retribution was coming soon, but I didn't expect it to come as fast as it did and on top of that, from a different direction.historical

A burst of fire enveloped me, but I escaped using shadow walk as far as I could, just when a tornado of raging flames created a pillar too bright to look, at the very spot I just evacuated from.

It was a gift from another ghost, wearing a red robe and a golden crown on his head, that was drifting in the air above us.

The fight seemed to split evenly with both me and Druoag having to face two enemies at the same time. A little too much I would like for him to have as his first encounter with those guys, but there wasn't much I could do about that anyway.

I kept shadow walking, to avoid more devastating fire magic, that went chasing me, causing explosions wherever I happened to land, and decimating the platform. I did that mainly to have a look at how my friend was doing.

Despite my anxiety, he seemed to be doing fine, although definitely was on the defense.