Essence of theTicket to the Other Side

By imbibing this essence (based on The Boy of Death), you gain the following:

• You have an endless stack of red-and-black tickets. When ripped, you may call upon the spirit of a deceased person for one hour. During this time you have full access to any skills, knowledge, and powers of that person at their peak in their life. Even if the person was not superhuman, you can still express any personal prowess even if it should not be possible for your body (e.g. a thin boy hitting world lifting records).

• You can specify a particular person, or just vaguely defined parameters (e.g. "I need someone who can beat the enemy in front of me").

• If you rip a ticket and then decide not to call on anyone, it will repair itself without anything happening. You can actually use this to track people, leaving one half on someone and just indefinitely delay using it. Then when you officially cancel it, the half you still have on you will fly out straight to the other one.

• This is not free though, with each ticket costing one year off the end of your lifespan.

• The benefits dissipate after the hour is up. You may still be able to call upon some remaining embers any time afterwards, but it will only ever be a pale shadow of the real thing. In great times of need you might be able to get more out of them. Repeatedly accessing skills might also train you, building up those skills as your own.

• In canon, the main character could only ever call on each spirit once. Since you are probably not as self-destructive as him and plan to live a while, for this Essence you are allowed to call on any single spirit up to once per year.